Ship Trek: Deep Thread Nine

[Reply #760 on:]

While we're discussing the movies right now, I'd like to bring up the fact that I was totally disgusted with the dialogue with they dropped in "subtle" hints to previous episodes.

"Bender's Big Score"- Obvious Mention to "Roswell that Ends Well"
"The Beast with a Billion Backs"- Obvious Mention to "Bender Should Not Be on TV"

EDIT: Ah snap! Top of the 20th page. You know what that means...

[Reply #761 on:]

While we're discussing the movies right now, I'd like to bring up the fact that I was totally disgusted with the dialogue with they dropped in "subtle" hints to previous episodes.

"Bender's Big Score"- Obvious Mention to "Roswell that Ends Well"
"The Beast with a Billion Backs"- Obvious Mention to "Bender Should Not Be on TV"

EDIT: Ah snap! Top of the 20th page. You know what that means...

We get to choose our new skills and spend some more stat points?

Or the last page -> new name?

I didn't mind the reference in BWABB, bender as Calculons stalker was pretty funny.

[Reply #762 on:]

While reading all these posts about how others feel about the movies makes me feel validated (since when BBS came out I was practically the only one screaming that the DVD was horrible), I feel no joy or smugness.  I just feel major disappointment.  Everytime a new DVD comes out, we get interviews with DXC or Groening telling the reviewers how great the latest efforts are and how much they owe the fans.  These interviews ring hollow to me; I feel like the Biblical character who thought he was marrying his true love after working for her father for seven years, then finding out he married the hideously ugly daughter that nobody wanted.  Supposenly Futurama had scripts written for at least another season when production was halted.  Why didn't they used those scripts, tweeked a little to fit the new format, instead of rewriting Futurama history, changing Leela and Fry from two lovable-yet-flawed humans into two of the most unlikable characters to ever be reserrected?

I watched X-mas Story two nights ago - the two were already close friends who were caught up in their own loneliness yet managed to show true compassion for each other and wouldn't deleberately hurt the other for anything.  The Leela who left the safety of the PE building to save Fry, who just moments earlier she was angry with was the Leela we loved, not the cold, iced-queen who spent the entire movie of BBS deliberately rubbing her relationship with Lars in Fry's face, knowing how much Fry cares for her and wants to be that "special someone" in her life.

The BWABBs gave us emo Fry - the guy who wanted to kill himself after a sour relationship.  Not the happy-go-lucky Fry who bounces back and most guys can relate to in dealing with relationships gone wrong.

Fry and Leela morphed into two petty people who act more like a brother and sister who try to undercut the other in seeing who can hurt the other the most.

And somehow DXC, Groening and the writers somehow think that's what the fans are going to spend their hard-earned money for?  Maybe in their universe but not in mine.

[Reply #763 on:]

And somehow DXC, Groening and the writers somehow think that's what the fans are going to spend their hard-earned money for?

  Well, we all did go out and buy the dvds.  I mean, in all honesty, even flawed futurama is better than anything else on tv.

[Reply #764 on:]

And somehow DXC, Groening and the writers somehow think that's what the fans are going to spend their hard-earned money for?

  Well, we all did go out and buy the dvds.  I mean, in all honesty, even flawed futurama is better than anything else on tv.

Yes, we bought the DVDs in hope that the stories would improve over time.

As for better than anything else...

Batman, The Dark Knight, Battlestar Galactica, Smallville immediately spring to mind as being superior.  I don't consider the movie DVDs of Futurama to be at any way related to the TV series, so they are in a different postion than being a TV series in my eyes.

And I bought the last two DVDs for my wife.  I was so disgusted by BBS that I immediately turned anti-shipper.  I refuse to accept the pale immitation of Futurama that has been inflicted on us as being worthy of my time in repeated viewing.

I'd rather the series stay dead at ITWGY if all the writers can come up with is, "Fry chases Leela, Leela rebuffs Fry, Fry and Leela spend one short moment being close, Bender steals something."

Advance the damned plot and come up with some new ideas instead of re-hashing Fry in the 20th century, Leela's crushing loneliness and Transvestbot on the street corner.

Now excuse me, I'll be reading some of Coldangels fics.  At least the amateur writers know how to advance the plot.

[Reply #765 on:]

I thin it depends on your point of vi- wait, did you say smallville? You think Smallville is better? Good grief!

Anyway I think it depends on how you're looking at things. The "uit's btter than everything else" argument was used by Simpsons fans for years, even when it was obvious that the simpsons was crap. Still, Futurama is better than most TV out there. Even now it's intelligent and witty, but it's rather like watching a close family member sliding into senility. When it comes to the relationships, it seems like the writers have forgotten how people work.

There are no relationships any more. There's just a bunch of characters on the screen together, and that seems to be the problem. They're not friends or co-workers or lovers or enemies. There's no chemistry left between them.

[Reply #766 on:]

There's just a bunch of characters on the screen together,

  Yep, exactly.  Its almost like they've intentionally dumbed down the comedy and removed the depth of the characters and their relationships in order to attract the family guy type fans.   

[Reply #767 on:]

Well, when you get your own show you can do what you want. I had some of the same reactions to the show but back when it was new on TV. I thought some episodes were great and some were kinda suckie. Perhaps now that they are 4 episodes in 1 movie the great and the suckie have been spread around.

Never understood the whole Leela + Fry shippie, soap opera thing as a point of maximum importance to the series, my life, and the universe as a whole. What do you folks want? To see them in a warm, wholesome relationship of platonic mutual respect?
"Living together"? Married? Or just once see Fry get lucky with Leela? (There's a poll in there somewhere). I think the show has gone back to the first 2 seasons where they where mostly indifferent, only occationally curious towards each other. I think what the writers are avoiding is just making a 31st Century Simpsons show.

Overall enjoyment of the movies? Not to encourage a lot of infighting within the halls of the vast Groening Empire but there's been one writer/producer from the TV series that has remained absent from the Futurama movies. If you check the credits of some of the funniest Futurama episodes you'll see soon see who it is. He's been working on the Simpsons the last year or more but hasn't ventured back into Futurama. Perhaps because he likes short episodes and not long movies, contracts/budgets, or the Simpsons may be the steadier gig.

[Reply #768 on:]

What do you folks want? To see them in a warm, wholesome relationship of platonic mutual respect?

  I think thats what most of the shippers want, yes.  Personally, I wish they'd hit the reset button one last time and put the characters back to the friendship they had during the first and second season.  The shippy stuff is nice in small amounts, but only in small amounts imo.  In order to keep the "Fry cfhases Leela, Leela chases some jerk, Fry remains lonely" dynamic of the show going in season 4 and in the movies they had to change the characters personalities.  That's what I dont like about the new Futurama. 

I disagree that the show has gone back to the "indifferent" fornat of season two.  Leela definitely has, but Fry hasn't.  Fry went from being whiny and obsessed with Leela in BBS to the polar opposite a month later in BWABB, to completely indifferent in BG, and I'm willing to bet he'll be whiny and obsessive again in ITWGY.  Since he's the main character, that gets annoying to watch.  But I do agree that the shippy thing isn'y as important as the humor; that's the real reason to watch the show.  But this is the thread for whining about shippy things, so that's what we do here.  The thread for whining about humor-related things is elsewhere.

[Reply #769 on:]

But this is the thread for whining about shippy things, so that's what we do here.  The thread for whining about humor-related things is elsewhere.

Word.