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Basil
Delivery Boy
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ITWGY premiere's tonight (August 30, 2009)! You all better watch it. It is by far the best of the Futurama movies (Hell, one of the best episodes) and, in my "humble" opinion, the only one truly worth a damn (little to no excuses to be made for it).
When did 'Benders Game' screen in the U.S?
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Svip
Administrator
DOOP Secretary
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ITWGY premiere's tonight (August 30, 2009)! You all better watch it. It is by far the best of the Futurama movies (Hell, one of the best episodes) and, in my "humble" opinion, the only one truly worth a damn (little to no excuses to be made for it).
When did 'Benders Game' screen in the U.S?
26 April, I think.
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Jive Professor
Poppler
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I have to say, I have a more lopsided view of the movies than most here do.
BBS - Had me in stitches every time I watched it. Some of the early bits were a little forced, but I thought it was gold.
TBWABB - It is my least favorite movie, but still watchable. I felt it was some of their most heavy-handed religious/philosophical commentary, and had little of the nuance episodes like Godfellas had.
BG - I actually loved this one, it is tied for first with BBS. The buildup was slow, but God all the shtick with Zoidberg and the Tunneling Terror, the Morks... really some of Futurama's dumbest jokes, but some of my favorites.
ITWGY - I liked it, and I laughed, and this had a great plot - but I rarely found myself laughing. I dunno, maybe I need to watch it a few more times (more excuses to watch Futurama? Excellent). Could have been that it was the "last" bit of Futurama and I was comparing it to The Devil's Hands, which was a tour de force for ending a great show (but thankfully, it did not end).
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Jive Professor
Poppler
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Family Guy run on jokes are the worst. My wife and I love that show as well, but man when those run on jokes come up she becomes visibly angry. It's like nails on a chalkboard.
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FistfulOAwesome
Starship Captain
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« Reply #308 on: 09-05-2009 20:12 »
« Last Edit on: 09-05-2009 20:13 »
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Ehh...
Listen kid, I like you. You've signed on to this board fully intent on discussing this great show with other fans. Your not the common "two misspelled sentences and I'm out or trolling" new members that normally appear. I like your stuff. But here's one piece of advise. Careful what you say near me. Because I end up doing stuff like this...
BBS is kind-of a disappointment. The story is schizophrenic (Keeler warned, Cohen should have listened), never truly feeling whole. Their is a general sense of a plot (the Scammers), but it's forgotten far too easily for smaller concerns.
It never even really feels like a conflict is taking place. Sure, the Scammers are sending Bender back in time to steal important objects, but the Paradox Correcting of the Machine-Language Time Code insures that this is never a concern. Oh, it could have been, but Nibblers message is never given any weight (especially in that Episode That Shall Not Be Named Nor Canonized, where the rift turned out to be no problem, and is solved in under a minute in the ending). The Time Code can be used again and again with no actual risk being shown.
They could have either had no Paradox-Correcting, and had a sort-of a Back To The Future plot where the PE Crew is somehow immune to the ripple effect, allowing us to see alternate versions of NNYC as the PE Crew tried to stop the Scammers (God Damn it, I miss Sliders!). Alternatively, they could keep the Paradox-Correcting but have used Nibbler's warning to it's fullest extent. Every use could have destroyed a part-of the universe or screwed it up (imagine the very rules of physics being bent. Awesome!)
Instead, nothing. No real conflict, and the Time-Travel isn't even used that well. Bender's stealing is exclusive to chapter 2 (and as I said, has no effect), most people disliked the Fry2/Leelu story (not me, I like it, but I have to mention what most thought), the retcon's are liked by near no one, and personally, Lars was beyond lame.
Did the Scammers even need the Time-Code anyway? They successfully scammed the Professor, and their abilities seemed good enough to scam anyone else. Sure, maybe you could say that the money they got from the artifacts would have gotten them into high-society, where they would be able to scam the richest/most powerful people on Earth, but I still think they could have done it of their own abilities (if they were part of a TV episode, the writers would probably agree).
Also on the Scammers, why was only Nudar used? I could understand if BBS was a TV episode, but it's a full 88-minute movie. Their is no excuse to have focused on Nudar so much and left the other two out (I don't even remember their names because they were so underused).
How annoying is it that nobody bats an eye to Bender's stealing antics?
Man, the first few minutes of the movie were painful (My post is as schizophrenic as the movie is, apparently). The writers couldn't have beaten Futurama's situation over our heads more than they did. It was so forced. I was genuinely surprised everytime Torgo's showed up. That would have been a great joke by itself if it wasn't for those first few minutes.
They were sort-of like the first few minutes of The Crystal Skull (or, as I normally call it, "THERE WERE ONLY THREE INDY MOVIES!"), where Lucas and Spielberg decided that everyone forgot who Indiana Jones is, so they better toss his hat on the ground and spend 15 seconds on it, have the Ark of the Covenant released, and proceed to beat us over the head with references to the series (particularly Raiders of the Lost Ark).
It also lacks the pleasure of a Sandwich and Potato Chips meal. The Sandwich being clever jokes that get better as they go on, the chips being the quick jokes that you add in between to keep the meal (movie) going at a brisk pace. I like a big Sandwich as much as anyone (even if missing mustard), but it surely feels empty without some chips to fill the void of sandwich bites (plus it turns to mush as you chew it, so replacement crunch is necessary (this metaphor is falling apart and also probably didn't work to begin with)).
What I mean is that BBS has the requisite clever jokes that make this series so funny, but it lacks the more low-brow jokes to keep it going. A balance was had in the series that made most episodes brisk, but fun affairs. That's sort of missing in BBS, which suffers by feeling slow way too often.
Whoops! I went off again! Point is, at the end, BBS feels more like a good fan-script turned into an OK episode. Genuinely good Fan Fiction is nice to fill in voids in series or let us see characters in situations that aren't possible, but we wouldn't actually want to see these scripts and situations in the series. In this case, it was sort-of dull.
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FistfulOAwesome
Starship Captain
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« Reply #310 on: 09-05-2009 23:01 »
« Last Edit on: 09-05-2009 23:02 »
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I really want to like BBS. The good bits of the episode really are high-quality Futurama. The nude planet is a fun section, the running joke about the gummi parasites is pretty funny, I actually like the Fry2/Leelu story, Hermes is given a chance to shine he rarely had in the series, and the entire fourth chapter is fantastic (Gold Death Stars, Trilogy Rap, Fry giving up Leela mirroring Fry2 giving up Leelu). It's just that the bits I mentioned really are a drag to it.
The episode is too first draft. I really wished Cohen had listened to Keeler's advice to hold off on the episode until they had a clearer picture of what they wanted to do, but what's done is done. In the end, it's still decent, if underwhelming (C+).
As for the TV cuts, It doesn't have anything to do with Score, really. None of the movies work as episodes, because the writers didn't really write them that way. They tried to make them work as TV episodes, but it doesn't work out since they're all still part of their larger respective plots. I understand that 20th wanted the movies cut as TV episodes to pad the series for syndication, but it would have never worked out.
P.S. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Billy West still surprises me with the depth of his Voice Talent. He can effortlessly switch Fry from Goofball to Mature within the same sentence (my favorite being in ITWGY (his declaration of love to Leela is both hilarious and touching).
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goodnewseveryone
Crustacean
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Weird, I thought Bender's Game would be the most popular. I guess that's just because it's the one my friends and I like the most.
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bamboomboom
Poppler
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into the wild green yonder because it seemed more epic than the other three
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DaltonCarl
Crustacean
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Benders Game, big fan of the DnD thrown into it, and just love the mix of alot of great movies.
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