New Futurama Speculations 2.0 - (Hopefully) Making Dreams Come True

[Reply #200 on:]

Oh, I wasn't saying that the rebirth didn't refer to the characters (as well as the series, I suppose); I think that pretty much all of us are expecting that the characters' bodies (and possibly lives, if they are in fact "dead") will be remade in some way or another. One of the concerns (as at least FistfulOAwesome and I were seeing it earlier in the threads) is whether or not the crew being "reborn" in whatever way it turns out to be will make things different in some way, not necessarily changing the dynamic of the show since we'd expect things to be back to normal by the end, but just having some sort of longer-lasting implications for the characters in the future. Like Fistful was saying, it seems a bit too bold for the characters to have been brought back in such a disturbing way when there could have been a number of less jarring ways for the crew to get back to Earth after ITWGY.

I've had a few more thoughts about this stuff in the past couple days, and maybe this might revive this thread for a while.

I'd like to think that whatever the writers came up with is sort-of a one-time thing. I mean, if the solution to the crew's problem is too easy (like cloning would be), it gets rid of danger in the future. Sure, we know that there is no chance that the characters would ever actually be killed off (in any episode, not specifically this one), since then there wouldn't be a show. However, in our state of suspended disbelief, we always worry for the characters when they get in trouble. But if the writers didn't come up with a tough enough, possibly one-time solution to the characters deaths then what's to keep us worried in the future?

Also, I wonder what they're going to do about the crew's transport? I kind-of hope that the crew won't just be talking heads, and their being attached to their skeletons seems to limit their potential movement. If they were heads-in-jars they could easily have them moved around, but as heads-on-skeletons it seems like it'll be hard to justify them as anything other than static. I mean, it would take a lot of dramatic weight off if the dead crew is simply hoisted on the living crew's shoulders (i.e. treated as ragdolls). They can't just toss away their skeletons/heads with whatever they (the writers) came up with because that kinda shows a lack of respect for the characters (and more importantly fans' attachments to them). I really hope for some version of respect.

That also makes me think if the episode will be only set on Earth. Will the crew's corpses simply be lying in the background on Earth, or will they travel around on the P.E. Ship (assuming The Professor already rebuilt it) and be relegated to the cargo hold (if the solution is off-world)? Would Fry or The Professor even abandon their corpses?

More also, there are so many conflicting thoughts I have about how the Rebirth will be handled (of course, I'm not a writer, so I trust that they'll have far more of an imagination than I do). I have no idea how the writers are going to handle it. I thought about maybe they make it so somehow the crew regenerates their flesh, but then that takes away from the whole rebirth thing. Also, DXC mentioned that the actual rebirth will be kind-of disgusting and literal, and that would respectively might not be disgusting and it wouldn't be literal. I read some good suggestions about somehow implanting the crew into their parents and they would literally be born again, but then what to do about their heads and skeletons? I really don't want them to be callously tossed away, lest the crew becomes disposable (we could always make more).

It's so mildly frustrating to think about this episode. 8 months and 4 days seems so close/far away to find out. I'm still crossing my fingers for a great one.

Also, it would be a good idea if when they woke up, Leela didn't remember Fry. That would be a really good storyline.

Their memories being blanked out doesn't sound like such a bad idea.   So when all the 'dead' characters get re-birthed, they won't remember anything?   Sounds like a good storyline. 

How? I don't know what there is to gain from the crew having amnesia. It seems like we should just move on (by which I mean stop resetting).

[Reply #201 on:]

I thought about that. Fry didn't remember and he survived. So why should they remember? Perhaps that's the story for the episode. As long as they bring back their memories at the end, I agree. That would be a good storyline.

[Reply #202 on:]

I thought about that. Fry didn't remember and he survived. So why should they remember? Perhaps that's the story for the episode. As long as they bring back their memories at the end, I agree. That would be a good storyline.

Agreed. It would be quite nice having the first episode be about Fry trying to make Leela (and the rest?) remember what had happened, especially when it comes to Leela... and then a nice tender moment between Fry and Leela in the end, and we're set for a new beginning

[Reply #203 on:]

We've said before that Fry trying (or not trying) to make Leela remember her feelings for him would be an interesting point indeed, but I'm just not sure about total amnesia for the whole crew. It seems unnecessary...but it would be a rather cheap gimmick for introducing a new audience to the characters ("Okay, your name is Hermes Conrad, you're a Jamaican bureaucrat, you have a wife and son," etc.).

[Reply #204 on:]

BOOSH! That's exactly what I was trying to convey. I'm not so much against Leela having to remember her feelings for Fry, but I am against a total amnesia of the crew. It's really not necessary, since all it does is waste time that could be used on more interesting plot points rather than trying to come up with a second origin story for the P.E. Crew and new viewers (which honestly, there won't be that much. The show will have running on Comedy Central for a 2 and a half years by the S6 premier. Anybody who wants to watch it will already have some familiarity).

Not only that, but I've made it known that I want it to take some effort on Fry/The Professor/Bender?'s part to revive the rest of the crew, and an amnesia of the entire crew might not be given any real development if it was only sagged to one act. Sure, they could give that two acts, but I think the much more interesting rebirth idea deserves the development over the fairly unoriginal amnesia. If the crew forgets about how they died (or that they even did) rather than complete amnesia, fine. I'm sure Fry/The Professor/Bender? could gloss over it (tell them they were unconscious) or try to convince them they aren't mere copies or freaks of some sort (that's a pretty Hard Science-Fictiony thing to do (actually, I prefer this idea over amnesia)), and it would allow some F/L stuff, since that's kind-of going to be a focus of the episode (I'm not saying Fry isn't distraught about all their deaths, but it's obvious Leela's death will be the one he feels the most). Still, I'd rather that the rebirth is the focus over some silly amnesia storyline that's been done to to death on other series' and would take the focus away from the not done-to-death rebirth story.

[Reply #205 on:]

Here's the thought.......

What if Leela, Bender, Scruffy, Kiff, Amy, Hermes, and LaBarbra are supposed to come back to life the same way Fry did in Bender's Big Score? 

[Reply #206 on:]

*Cocks head to side, says confusingly*What?

Fry didn't come back to life in BBS. Hell, unless you count Lars, he didn't even die. The closest he came to coming back to life was when they had his funeral and he showed up, but that doesn't count since he didn't die but instead refroze himself (even if accidentally). There isn't a single part of that that would be considered him actually coming back to life, and even if there was, how does that relate to the skeletal remains of the crew in Rebirth and their planned resurrection?

Dude, buy higher-quality stuff. Whatever you're using now is messing with your brain, the bad way.

[Reply #207 on:]

Always watch what you say or Fistful will get you!

[Reply #208 on:]

Huh. I guess the reason why I'm not focused on speculation about the direction of the Fry/Leela relationship in the upcoming seasons is because the writers managed to captivate me (and millions of others) throughout the original run and the two movies that even address it. I trust that whatever the writers come up with will continue to entertain, whether Fry and Leela eventually become an item or not.

I do, however, have a few burning questions that would make good plots for more comedic episodes, for example:

Who is richer/more ruthless, Mom or the Wongs?
Will anyone ever replace Richard Nixon as President of Earth?
Since the company that Mom now owns created Robot Santa, why isn't she being held accounable?
Whatever happened to Leela/Kif/Amy's tadpole children (especially the one with the one eye)?

Those're just a few ideas that I could see becoming episodes.

[Reply #209 on:]

Well the tadpoles stay in the swamp for twenty years so you won't be hearing from them anytime soon.

[Reply #210 on:]

Huh. I guess the reason why I'm not focused on speculation about the direction of the Fry/Leela relationship in the upcoming seasons is because the writers managed to captivate me (and millions of others) throughout the original run and the two movies that even address it. I trust that whatever the writers come up with will continue to entertain, whether Fry and Leela eventually become an item or not.

I do, however, have a few burning questions that would make good plots for more comedic episodes, for example:

Who is richer/more ruthless, Mom or the Wongs?
Will anyone ever replace Richard Nixon as President of Earth?
Since the company that Mom now owns created Robot Santa, why isn't she being held accounable?
Whatever happened to Leela/Kif/Amy's tadpole children (especially the one with the one eye)?

Those're just a few ideas that I could see becoming episodes.

Yeah, what's their excuse for Nixon being president nine years in a row? Did he buy another new body and re-elect?

[Reply #211 on:]

Perhaps a presidential term in the 31st century is longer than in the 21st...

[Reply #212 on:]

I can't imagine a world where Nixon isn't president.
Obama's head in a jar wouldn't be as funny.

[Reply #213 on:]

I still like SO's old idea. Zombie Obama.

"CHAAAAANGE!"

[Reply #214 on:]

I'm so sick of heads in jars. They need to find a new way of having celebrity guest appearances. Mind uploading is a good sci-fi concept, and the 'internet' cyberspace was underused in the series, so there could be celebrity personalities stored online.

[Reply #215 on:]

yeah... they... they already did that.

[Reply #216 on:]

Once. Sort of.

[Reply #217 on:]

I really don't understand how this head in a jar thing works. I know the show takes place in the future AND it's a cartoon..but how do they get a head from a celebrity that was once dead? Like Richard Nixon for example

[Reply #218 on:]

show takes place in the future AND it's a cartoon

[Reply #219 on:]

Cloning, I would imagine.
At some point these people have been cloned.

[Reply #220 on:]

Or brought back from the dead.

[Reply #221 on:]

I can see the Jonas Brothers showing up in jars. They are just on the cusp of being has-beens and their personal philosophy makes them ripe for parody.

[Reply #222 on:]

I'm so sick of heads in jars. They need to find a new way of having celebrity guest appearances. Mind uploading is a good sci-fi concept, and the 'internet' cyberspace was underused in the series, so there could be celebrity personalities stored online.

I agree completely.

I really don't understand how this head in a jar thing works. I know the show takes place in the future AND it's a cartoon..but how do they get a head from a celebrity that was once dead? Like Richard Nixon for example

It's another bit of silliness to the head-in-jar concept that does bother me. Like I've said before, I wish that there were only a very small number of heads and that it could have been explained that Nixon didn't actually die but was secretly given this head technology. As others and myself have also said, when there are so many celebrities being preserved in such a manner, it raises too many ethical questions about why only these celebrities can live on for so many years and why they have to only be heads when clearly they could be given robot bodies or, as the first of the new episodes will show, they could be cloned or otherwise "rebirthed" in some way.

[Reply #223 on:]

Or brought back from the dead.

If it was possible to bring organisms back from the dead in the Futurama universe, then they would've done it by now (excluding the rare occasion when Kif was resurrected in "The Beast with a Billion Backs", even though that did require the assistance of another universe).

[Reply #224 on:]

It's in the future, pretty much anything could happen.

[Reply #225 on:]

If it was possible to bring organisms back from the dead in the Futurama universe, then they would've done it by now

They have. Many heads in jars are people who have been dead for centuries now.

Plus, I'm sure that some of the procedures done on Fry might as well rate as raising from the dead. Not the least of which being decapitation and recapitation.

Added to this, while it's not canon, the Futurama videogame had a machine the Professor invented that raised the characters from the dead by creating an exact duplicate (at one point, after Fry is killed, the player can walk over as Fry and inspect his own mangled corpse).

[Reply #226 on:]

Yeah, but they're clones.

Just cloning them isn't a good enough excuse (For characters you actually care about)

Example: In The Sting when Fry regenerated on the couch, he's just a clone and they could never really go with that explanation of Fry coming back to life because it isn't Fry, just a copy of Fry, the real Fry is still dead.

Whereas in The Beast With A Billion Backs Kif was brought back to life.

Also I guess that is another point to assume the decapitated crew's heads are not dead, or will be revived, just cloning new bodies for them would be sufficient.

[Reply #227 on:]

Example: In The Sting when Fry regenerated on the couch, he's just a clone and they could never really go with that explanation of Fry coming back to life because it isn't Fry, just a copy of Fry, the real Fry is still dead.

Is there anyone on this board who actually wants to discuss whether that is philosophically true or not?

P.S. I've made it obvious that I agree with you about cloning the crew being lazy and having a wealth of story problems (i.e. no reason to care in future episodes if the characters are in mortal danger if cloning is okay). I just want to point out that in the future this (cloning? Still the same person, or living insult?) will end up being a major form of debate and a pretty big step in deciding what man considers its self and mortality (this paragraph alone tells me that I'm certainly not intelligent or mature enough to discuss this (although if anybody wants I'd certainly try)).

[Reply #228 on:]

Cloning them is not ok, end of story.

[Reply #229 on:]

Just to make it difficult, I can see the Professor needing the DNA of the crew's parents to bring them back (why? Hell, I'm not a professor... 'I need the original protein sequencing structures to recreate the DNA matrix' - hey, not bad...  ), but it would add up to be a difficult quest for Fry to bring his friends back.

However it ends up being done, DXC has said 'literal rebirth' so I'm anticipating something relatively... messy.

[Reply #230 on:]

Cloning them is not ok, end of story.

Isn't it (it isn't by my opinion as well, but I'm playing devil's advocate here)? You point out that the crew's bodies being cloned would be okay, but what makes the head and brain impervious to your okay-to-clone logic? Your original arm or kidney or whatever is just as much a part of your self as your head or brain. I guess you might mean that your head and memories (stand in for brain from now on) are the part of you that unique and thus given more importance (you might not be able to tell your arm from a line-up, but you could certainly tell your own face). Even then, we all know memories are just a specific set of electric signals or whatever (smart, huh?) stored in your brain, i.e. perfectly capable of being replicated (cloned).

In other words, if you still consider Fry with his cloned hands 100% Fry, then what would make you consider the rest of the crew if they are cloned completely (if it ends up being not as simple as grafting their heads onto cloned bodies) as not the crew? When Fry lost his hands, they cloned his originals (they even suggested cloning his nose when he lost that (though Fry suggested within the same episode that "it wouldn't be the same", just to play devil's devil's advocate)), and they still consider him Fry, and his hands his hands. So if somebody got shot through the head, they replace the head (or the body outright). What's actually the difference? Either way a part of them died, and that part was cloned and they were still considered "the original" in terms of how you think of the person (they act the same, have the same memories, so they are still the same person).

Do you watch The Venture Bros.? They made a rather good point about it.

Show spoiler

In the S1 finale, the titular Venture Bros. are killed in a shooting accident. When S2 opens, it is revealed that the Venture Bros. we knew were in fact clones, and not the first. The Venture Bros. are, as their father (Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture) put it, death-prone and thus he keeps a couple extra clone bodies around along with recording their memories every night when they go to bed (by a scanning device installed in their pod-like beds). Every time they've died he's cloned them (the ones we knew were something near the 13th set, the other deaths were detailed in a montage). The Venture's next-door neighbor, a necromancer by the name of Dr. Orpheus who had felt guilty about the boys' deaths and had been trying to revive them, chastises Dr. Venture and calls his cloning blasphemy. Dr. Venture retaliates by reminding him that he (Orpheus) was going to use dark magic to revive the boys' and there is little moral difference by the ways they had independently sought to do so (magic vs. technology). He then reminds Orpheus that the clones are still The Venture Bros. They have the same memories, the same quirks, the same bodies (99.9 genetically), the same everything (ignoring belly buttons and scars). They are The Venture Bros.

I'm just saying there are so many moral, logical, and most importantly, personal factors when discussing cloning and whether the clones are considered "the real thing" or not (the best way to explain it would be whether they have the same soul, or even a soul period (if you don't believe in souls in any way than this is much easier to talk about)) that it's something of a nightmare to discuss, but not something that should be dismissed as you did.

[Reply #231 on:]

I feel that the more important areas of concern would be the memories and, where applicable, the soul. Having the characters' memories (and souls) preserved and placed into new cloned bodies would, as I see it, make them essentially the same people, just with a different physical form (that happens to be based on their original body). It might be weird, but it'd be them. Simply giving the crew's heads, which are still original and presumably contain their memories within their brains, new bodies would be disappointing since it would just be a larger-scale version of the types of bodily repairs we've seen on the show (and again, I'm nervous to see these heads be almost immediately "alive" and talking again too soon within the episode). I guess that part of the confusion involves whether the heads will be kept or not (if it'd be somehow easier to just completely reanimate the characters entirely like coldy mentioned with the game).

[Reply #232 on:]

Fist, you're not understanding me at all.

How can I explain this... lets see.

Alright if you died, and they made a clone of you, you are still dead and will remain so.

[Reply #233 on:]

And, FF1, if this helps your point too...

Cubert is the Professor's clone. Cubert is not the Professor.

[Reply #234 on:]

He's his own person, I know, but will eventually grow up to look exactly like the professor, minus the nose of course, and a smidgen of toe.

[Reply #235 on:]

I guess that part of the confusion involves whether the heads will be kept or not.

Dude, I mentioned this in my post at the top of this page. On the one hand I kind-of support the idea of the crew brought back in entirely new bodies (whatever that may be). The problem with that is what to do of the original heads. Do they have a proper burial and do The Professor and Fry (and Bender?) keep whatever the rebirthing process is a secret from the crew (lie to them and tell them they were unconcious) or do they tell them and deal with the crew having their identity called into question (as well as having to look at their own dead heads and skeletal remains (which would be physiologically scarring))? Tough call.

Fist, you're not understanding me at all.

How can I explain this... lets see.

Alright if you died, and they made a clone of you, you are still dead and will remain so.

I actually agree with you that cloning (the kind that people think of when you say cloning) isn't the right thing to do and brings the crews' identities into question. It certainly isn't the way I imagine that the writers should go about their story (though I am hopeful that whatever they do do it, even if it involves cloning, is satisfying). Remember, I said in my previous post that I was playing devil's advocate (essentially arguing against my own stance) for the sake of conversation and analyzing another way of thinking. I don't really believe what I said in that post.

However, since you brought it up, and without pesky stuff like souls and feelings in the way, yeah, that clone would be me as long as he had mostly the same genetics (a clone can only be about 99.9 percent the same due to mutations and copy error) and all the same memories. After all, logically (coldly) what am I other than a specific set of DNA coding and electrical signals in my brain that are my memory. If he walks like me, and talks like me, he is me (unless he's a skrull or The Thing).

And, FF1, if this helps your point too...

Cubert is the Professor's clone. Cubert is not the Professor.

Freak got this already (right above this post). Cubert is genetically the same as The Professor, but his memories are completely different, making him a different person. In the same way I'd consider the Fry who became Lars a the same Fry until he met "the original", at which point he started having different memories and thus became a different person.

Remember guys, I was only playing around with the other side's thoughts in my above post. I don't want cloning to be the solution to the crews' deaths' because of how lazy it is, how it nullifies the reasons for killing them, how it calls into question their identities, how it nullifies danger in the future, and a myriad of other issues. Whatever comes up must be important and likely one-time, so as to matter and preserve the characters and the show.

[Reply #236 on:]

Example: In The Sting when Fry regenerated on the couch, he's just a clone and they could never really go with that explanation of Fry coming back to life because it isn't Fry, just a copy of Fry, the real Fry is still dead.

Is there anyone on this board who actually wants to discuss whether that is philosophically true or not?

Yes, just... give me a month or two! I've been sick with all sorts of flus for the past three or so weeks!

[Reply #237 on:]

Alright, but we better do it in personal messages so as not to clog the thread with non-Futurama stuff.

[Reply #238 on:]

Yeah, but they're clones.

So what? So am I. Do I not pass your little humanity test? I have duplicate memories from the original Coldangel, so there is continuity.

[Reply #239 on:]

I guess that part of the confusion involves whether the heads will be kept or not.

Dude, I mentioned this in my post at the top of this page. On the one hand I kind-of support the idea of the crew brought back in entirely new bodies (whatever that may be). The problem with that is what to do of the original heads. Do they have a proper burial and do The Professor and Fry (and Bender?) keep whatever the rebirthing process is a secret from the crew (lie to them and tell them they were unconcious) or do they tell them and deal with the crew having their identity called into question (as well as having to look at their own dead heads and skeletal remains (which would be physiologically scarring))? Tough call.

I know you mentioned this at the top of the page, that's why I mentioned it here (I suppose I should have made that more clear...sorry). I agree that it would be rather interesting, albeit disturbing, to have the crew be entirely remade separate from the heads, but you raise good questions about what would then be done with the original heads afterwards (because yes, there’s no way those would just be ignored). However, I have the feeling that the original heads are going to be kept in some fashion and eventually become part of the new rebirthed crew somehow. I could be wrong, but it almost seems too bizarre even for Futurama for there to be “copies” of the crew accepted from that point onward as the real crew (even if, as coldy mentioned, that is essentially what happened in the game). Whatever happens though, I still hope for the best.