Thoughts on [4ACV12] - The Sting

[Reply #200 on:]

I was bored today cause the only thing I really had planned was to meet my buds at a movie, so I watched it on my tape.  Is it just me, or does anyone else love how Leela says 'It got thru'?  I love Katey's voice right there!

[Reply #201 on:]

I noticed that line actually sounded less like Leela and more like Katey. Leela's voice seems slightly higher then Katey's normal voice and for whatever reason she dropped down to deliver that line. It really works though so whether it was intentional or not, I'm real glad she did it.

[Reply #202 on:]

 

Originally posted by Futurama_Hil:
Is it just me, or does anyone else love how Leela says 'It got thru'?  I love Katey's voice right there!

 

Originally posted by Anarchist:
Just want to add, this has been stuck in my head for some reason: I loved the inflection in Leela's voice when she said "It got through" at the end. Something about it got to me, somehow. I'm still trying to figure it out.

 

Originally posted by Venus:
i noticed it too. One of Katey's better moments. what can i say? The girl is good.

 

Originally posted by Action Jacktion:
You know, there is an Emmy category for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance.  They ought to submit this episode for consideration.  And not just for that; Leela speaks with a big range of emotions in this episode, from serious to funny to desperate to sad to crazy.

 

Originally posted by Chanukah Zombie:
Dude, I thought I was the only one to pick up on that change in tone.  It was subtle but it was there.  Who says voice acting is easy?  I don't know how to interpret it either but something tells me it means, "you finally did it -- I'm yours forever now."  I know this seemingly contradicts the plot of the series finale, but my gut tells me "maybe."

It's just you.

[Reply #203 on:]

  Hey dude, it's a long thread, you forget and I skimmed it.  Still, that doesn't mean it isn't a good line! 

[Reply #204 on:]

 

Originally posted by Gocad:
 I wonder if that old "acquaintance" of yours could be persuaded to pay the Berman we hate most a little visit.

If I could, people would still think of Picards ship (and nothing else) whenever they heard the name "Enterprise".

But no, he's just a plain and simple taylor, with some insightful lines from time to time.

[Reply #205 on:]

Something I noticed, for more old-school PEELers:

Remember those sketches Sarge gave us of what the characters could have looked like given other animators?  Was it just me, or did Amy, Bender, etc, in the Bee Happy segment, just before they exploded, look a lot like said sketches?

[Reply #206 on:]

I can barely remember them, Nix, but if I recall correctly they were a different type of deformation.  The characters swelled in The Sting after being stung (stinged?).  The pics Sarge gave us looked more like a fat Amy, and a melting Bender.  I can see where you make the connection between them, I can say for sure if you are correct or not.  It has been too long, I can't remember what extactly the pictures looked like, other than them being very deformed.  Weren't Fry and Leela also parts of his sketches?

[Reply #207 on:]

   

Originally posted by Teral:
But no, he's just a plain and simple taylor, with some insightful lines from time to time

Either Garak changed his first name, or you meant "tailor."

   

Originally posted by CyberKnight:
Both "Demon" and "Threshold" would feature on my list of episodes I would not show to someone if I wanted to make them a Voyager fan.

*gasp* Why would anyone want to do that?     

[Reply #208 on:]

I recognised a lot of Sarges sketches in this episode, but the bloated PE'ers wasn't one of the moments.

One I do remember though, was a sketch of Leela holding something that looked like a beachball in her arms. Sarge was a bit reluctant to tell what she were holding, I guess to avoid giving plotspecific information. It was the baby queen Leela were holding in her arms.

[Reply #209 on:]

i liked this episode im glad i taped it. it kept me guessing until the ending

[Reply #210 on:]

I've just watched this episode and oh my god, one of the best episodes ever!!!!!!!
The whole story got me so damn confused and kept me guessing right the way through and I still didn't expect it to end like that. Although, I gotta admit, in the process of downloading, I kept watching the beginning parts and actually picked up on the fact that Fry technically didn't get stung 

The storyline was amazing. It had a bit of everything in it. The humour, the romance, the twists and turns the ups and downs the touching moments, just everything! I cant say enough good things about this episode.

Awesome awesome awesome! 

[Reply #211 on:]

Nix, Peeps,

I just got it.  I finally figured it out.  For real.  You'll agree with me when you hear it...
This is the meaning of Katey Sagal's funky voice-acting that had everyone wondering:

It's a direct reference to the last thing Leela heard Fry say before she slipped into a coma! 

Fry (to Bee): You want her, you're gonna have to go through me!

Leela (to Fry): It got through, Fry.  It got through.

Had he not tried to play the hero, Leela might have kicked the bee's ass without injury to either of them.  The irony here is that his failed attempt to save her life is actually what threatened to kill her.  If he wouldn't have thrown his body in front of hers, the stinger would have passed through her, "merely" rupturing her spleen, which is non-fatal in the year 3000. 

[Reply #212 on:]

CZ, I have to disagree with you on that one. First of all, the bee would have killed Leela on the post if Fry hadn't alerted her, and second, she froze up. Did you see her? She just stood there and cringed. She easily could (and should) have pushed Fry and herself out of the way, and she had plenty of time to do this. Looks to me like Fry actually DID save her life there.

[Reply #213 on:]

Hmmm... just viewed the scene again...  the bee made two lunges at her...

He definitely did save her behind (literally) from the first swoop by shouting out a warning.  As for the second swoop, it looks like you're right on that one too.  You might also be right for yet another reason -- that bee was Leela's kryptonite.  I'm pretty sure she said in Icecatraz that she "could never hurt an animal."  I guess that meant she would have just let the bee sting her without fighting back. 

On the other hand, however, once it stung her it would no longer be(e) a danger, because the stinger would detach, and since it was approximately twice as long as her body was deep, she would have missed the poison and been a lot safer for it.  Presumably, it had no other mode of attack.  Plus, Fry would still be active if only she got jabbed. 

At any rate, what do you think about my theory regarding her line at the end? 

[Reply #214 on:]

That - I don't know, but I somehow doubt it. I just don't see why Leela would bring that up at a moment like that.

[Reply #215 on:]

i agree with anarchist. Fry did save her. If he hadn't jumped in front of her and she did get impaled by the stinger it would have damaged a lot more then her spleen. You have to look at their physiology. a man's waist is wider then a  womans. Which means all of Leela's organs are in a more compact space then Fry's. So more would have been damaged if she had been hit. Not only that, but she was leaning against the wall so the stinger never would have exited her back so she would have been seriously impaled as well as poisoned. And i don't think she didn't attack because it was an animal. i think she was just scared. And who could blame her? The thing was the size of a large dog with a stinger several feet long and was coming right at her. I freeze up when normal sized bees come at me, let alone one with a stinger longer then my arm.
  and as for what she said at the end, i think she was just expressing how much his support had meant to her. She was just happy that he was alive and she was out of her nightmare. i doubt she was even thinking about the actual stinging itself.

[Reply #216 on:]

I dunno.  Several things occur to me regarding this:

A woman's internal organs are packed together somewhat more tightly than a man's -- but not really because her waist is narrower -- she simply has more of them than a man does.  On the other hand, Leela is not human and her physiology already differs in one visible way. 

If Leela's back is against the wall, it makes no difference what's in front of her.  The wall would still stop the stinger at the same point of insertion.  But I don't think it was the wall that broke the stinger off the bee's body.  It looked more like the stinger went in more-or-less parallel to the wall.  She fell backward when she was hit and she didn't touch the wall, so I don't think she could have been leaning against it. 

Leela is very courageous.  I can't imagine fear would have stopped her when the whole mission basically took place because of her (foolish) lack of fear. 

As for the parallel dialogue, there's such a thing as "too much for coincidence."  At a minimum, it was a weak joke, but it was too much for coincidence that the two lines were virtually identical. 

Lastly, she did say, "it got through" twice, the second time with her funky inflection.  So, it is possible that each one had its own meaning. 

[Reply #217 on:]

 

Originally posted by Chanukah Zombie:
Leela is very courageous.  I can't imagine fear would have stopped her when the whole mission basically took place because of her (foolish) lack of fear. 

As for the parallel dialogue, there's such a thing as "too much for coincidence."  At a minimum, it was a weak joke, but it was too much for coincidence that the two lines were virtually identical. 

Lastly, she did say, "it got through" twice, the second time with her funky inflection.  So, it is possible that each one had its own meaning. 

Leela's frozen up before. In The Honking when Bender cornered her up against the fence she froze till almost the last minute. She did the same thing with the brain spawn when they cornered her in the alley. Maybe she just has a thing about being backed into a corner.

I'm still not really getting your point about the parallel dialogue. What exactly is the joke? Some weird pun about impalement? I'm just not seeing it.

edit: i think "it got through" was a direct answer to what Fry said imediately before.

"i thought maybe if you heard a familer voice it might help keep your mind together but who knows if it got through"

"It got through Fry, it got through"

i think your reading to much into it. She was just confirming that him talking to her got through to her. Your sure the way she words it alludes to the actual stinging itself, but i can think of no other way she could have worded it.

[Reply #218 on:]

Touché.  "Brave" isn't fearless and even heroines get scared.  You might even be onto something with the "backed into a corner" thing.  Maybe it has something to do with her growing up an orphan; I don't know. 

The joke would be a double-entendre and, yes, its dual meaning would be his voice penetrating her coma and the stinger puncturing them both.  That means it was a response to two things at once, a cleverness not beyond the writers of Futurama.  I did say that as a joke, it would be weak or, if you prefer, subtle. 

Insofar as "no other way she could have worded it" is concerned, this sort of observation is applicable to real-life conversations.  In a scripted fictional dialogue, however, there are always an infinite number of ways to word things, since each character's lines can be tailored until exactly the right effect is achieved, and this is, in fact, what happens when scripts are revised in the editing process before presenting them to the actors for reading. 

As for me reading "too much" into things, that's what everyone always says.  If you look at many of my posts since the day I joined PEEL, you'll notice that it's all I ever do.  That's my thing.  I'm into etiological analyses of this cartoon show.  A lot of the other people here don't like it when I do that -- and that's their prerogative.  Undeniably, I have gotten a few things wrong but, on the other hand, I've also spotted a few things that others have missed.  So, I always appreciate it when someone disagrees with me on such-and-such an hypothesis of mine, and gives their reasons, but I hate it when they imply I should stop doing what I do.  Maybe I'll just start up a thread dedicated to this sort of thing, though I think I'd be pretty lonely over there.   

[Reply #219 on:]

i never said reading to much into things was BAD. i do it too.

anyway, yes scripts can be rewritten over and over to get the dialogue right, but considering it does still need to flow like actual conversation there is still limits. How else could she have worded it in order to avoid any double meanings? i can't think of anyway she could have while still directly answering what Fry said to her directly before.

[Reply #220 on:]

I guess what I was really trying to say then was that Fry needn't have asked his question like that in the first place, that if the writers had found anything problematic or ambiguous about it, they would surely have changed it before it went to production. 

Incidentally, I can cite several examples of dialogue where the writers ridicule the fact that, as writers, they often have to compose artificial-sounding exchanges in order to make the story work and to make it comprehensible to the average viewer.  I'll give you one such example, although there are many more:

In "The Farnsworth Parabox," the two Zoibergs disappear into a pile of parallel universes and the remaining members of the two crews suddenly must find them in order to save their own lives.  Amy-A shouts out, "Blugh!  Which one did they go into?" and Farnsworth-A snaps back, "Ooh!  Let's all ask each other -- that'll solve this problem!"  It was necessary for the writers to have at least one character say that unintelligent line, just to make it clear to the audience what the next challenge will be.  It was possible for an astute viewer to figure that out on his or her own, without the declaration, but the writers weren't about to rely on that and take the chance of losing a large segment of the audience.  So, they stated the obvious.  But they knew this would insult the intelligence of brighter viewers, so they covered all their bases with the Professor's quip.  It was sort of like saying, "Sorry, guys.  We know you don't need this stuff but we want everyone along for the ride, so bear with us."  This is what film critics mean when they say things like, "it works on so many levels!" (a concept that was once parodied in a Simpsons episode).   

I actually studied a little bit of film-making, and this is just the sort of thing you're taught to do in film school -- offer the viewer opportunities to follow the plot even at the expense of credulity.  If you go through the series with a fine-tooth comb, you'll find many instances of this sort of thing.  It's one of the features (or: "drawbacks" ) of television in general, which is that an effort must be made to present the storylines in a way that is accessible and palatable to the masses, including and especially the intellectual LCD (Lowest Common Denominator).  This means the writers do not have an entirely free hand to do as they wish with dialogue.  They must constantly revise it so that it periodically explains itself to the perplexed viewer, and this often compromises their artistic integrity.  This could also explain, in part, why the show was cancelled.  Apparently, they didn't do that part of their jobs well enough.  That and Fox are bastards. 

So, in other words, I'm saying that the dialogue is unfortunately sometimes constructed along unnatural lines, for purposes of clarity, and this a source of consternation for the writers, who poke fun at it out of annoyance even as they are forced to acknowledge its necessity. 

[Reply #221 on:]

ok true i guess, but i still don't see why they would want to have any kind of double meaning or weak joke during what was supposed to be a sweet romantic scene. I really don't think it was intended as such. Besides you say the two lines are virtually identical when the only real similarity is that they both use the word 'through' which i don't think is a big enough tie to link those two lines together.

[Reply #222 on:]

I enjoy cooking as a hobby.  I have learned that sometimes the best flavors are produced by marriages of sweet and bitter, salty and sour, et cetera.  It is no contradiction to mix comedy with drama in the theater.  I believe the critics call that a "dramedy." 

"1[/u] You[']re] [gonna hafta] 2[/u] go 3[/u] through 4[/u] me!" = "1[/u] It 2[/u] got 3[/u] through, 4[/u] Fry." 

I count four matches there -- which accounts for every word in Leela's sentence.   

Look at it this way:

"It got through, Fry." = "It got through Fry."

The comma is the only real difference -- and commas cannot be seen in spoken sentences -- so there is no way to know with certainty whether they exist.

As for romance, I say my interpretation of the episode makes it more romantic than ever!  According to one part of the interpretation, which I haven't shared until now, Leela basically pulled out of her coma for the sole reason that she couldn't bear to inflict the guilt of having killed her on Fry.  It would hurt him too much and for the rest of his life.  I think that's beautiful.  She survived for him.  Here too I play epistemology games.  For example, when her friends are taunting her, here is what I see was her real torment: 

"You killed Fry!" = "You killed, Fry!" 

Her love for him was what saved her.  In light of this I suppose you could say once again that he did end up saving her after all -- and not necessarily because she heard his voice.  He was saying exactly the things she knew he would be feeling.  She didn't need to hear them to know that they were being said. 

Even if we say that Fry could not have been responsible for Leela's death, the point here mainly is that he would have blamed[/i] himself for Leela's death -- in the same way that she blamed herself for Fry's death in her comatose dream -- even though she wasn't responsible for it.  I guess that's what love does to you.  You feel repsonsible for your love's life -- and isn't that exactly what Fry evinced right before the bee attacked her?  "I don't want anything to happen to you." 

[Reply #223 on:]

oh eeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww i get the pun now.
But i still think it's completely coincidental. if it WAS meant as a joke it was an incredibly gross lame one that no one got, thankfully, cause it completely ruins the mood of the scene. Usuually when they mix comedy with their drama it DOESN'T act as a mood killer. Like Bender raining down waste on Leela and her parents in LH or Leela and Fry commenting on each others BO in TS

[Reply #224 on:]

I thought editing my last post would push it to the head of the list again but it seems I was wrong.  Well, to make this one worthwhile beyond serving as a signpost, I'll add some more stuff about symbolism.  Here's another one: 

Leela swallowing that third spoonful of space honey represented her succumbing to the bee's poison and dying. 

("...but three spoonfuls, and you'll go into a sleep so deep, you'll never wake up!  Never!" ) 

Plus, look at what I added above.  I'm going to bed now.  G'night. 

[Reply #225 on:]

i think everyone got that the third spoonful would have resulted in her death, no ones gonna argue with you there, in fact i think someone mentioned that earlier. And no one will argue that she felt guilty, that was kinda the whole point if the ep.


 

Originally posted by Chanukah Zombie:
she couldn't bear to inflict the guilt of having killed her on Fry.

i don't understand what your saying here. Fry didn't kill her, he tried to save her. he'd feel guilty thinking he didn't do enough to save her (which i cover in my fanfic, shameless plug) but he didn't do anything that hurt her.


 It would hurt him too much and for the rest of his life.  I think that's beautiful.  She survived for him.  Here too I play epistemology games.  For example, when her friends are taunting her, here is what I see was her real torment: 

"You killed Fry!" = "You killed, Fry!" 

again, not following. Weird wording. 'You killed, fry?' what? Is that supposed to mean that if she died it would 'kill fry'?

[Reply #226 on:]

Worm King to Fry: "He's bluffing!  No creature would willingly make an idiot out of itself."

Fry to Worm King: "Obviously, you've never been in love!"

- "Parasites Lost"

Love makes a person think and act irrationally.  If your lover dies before you do, and you really loved them deeply, you're likely to blame yourself for their death, even though that's a foolish attitude.   

I meant to say that she put herself in Fry's place in her dream.  Everything she imagined happening to her was more-or-less what was really happening to him, sans the phantasmagoria.  Therefore, she was Fry and Fry was her and the wording of their friends' accusations should be read like the following examples:

"You rule Venus!" = "You are the ruler of Venus!"

"You rule, Venus!" = "Venus, you rule!" 

It was the ultimate in empathy.  In effect, she became him.  I am saying two novel things: the illusory PE crew was accusing Fry of murder and she was vicariously Fry.  Sound insane?  It is.  She was insane for the duration. 

[Reply #227 on:]

in order for Leela to be concerned with Fry's reaction to her death, first she would have to know that she was still in danger. She didn't. she thought what was happening to her was real. She didn't know she was in a coma that's why she seemed surprised to see him alive when she awoke and why she was surprised when she was told she was in a coma.

and yeah i agree that love does make you think irrationally but i really don't see him thinking of himself as a killer. He did try to save her. So instead of seeing himself as her murderer he instead would see himself as inadequate. He would think he let her down when she needed him the most.

It would be more
"How could i have let this happen?" and less "Oh god, what have i done"

[Reply #228 on:]

Also, Leela would have likely blamed herself for anything that happened to Fry because it was her idea to take the baby queen with her.

[Reply #229 on:]

Venus and CZ - wow. That was quite the intellectual bitchfight (or 'debate', if you prefer). Here's my take on things:
CZ, I saw what you meant with your take on the "It got through" comment right away - I just don't see WHY she would bring that up. Yes, it could be a subtle joke, but first of all it's a MAJOR mood-killer, and second, I seriously doub that Leela had that on her mind at the time. Your technical insight is damn near infallible, but the reasoning behind it is lacking. For Leela to say "it got through" with the beesting in mind would be to accuse and berate Fry. It would be like saying, "You shouldn't have tried to play hero, you idiot. You failed to protect me, you nearly got yourself killed, and you could have actually done MORE damage to me by doing what you did than you would by just getting out of the way like you should have. You said 'You want her? You're gonna have to go through me!'. Well, IT GOT THROUGH, Fry. It got through." Is that what you meant? The technical aspect of that holds up - she COULD have meant that - but I seriously doubt that she did. She's not that heartless.

[Reply #230 on:]

 

Originally posted by Anarchist:
Venus and CZ - wow. That was quite the intellectual bitchfight

hurray! my first bitchfight!

[Reply #231 on:]

Yes, I like the sound of "bitchfight" so much better than "debate."  I never did get to bed last night and now I'm exhausted.  I'll try to pick this up again Saturday night.  Yeah, right.  I'll be back online in another five minutes more likely. 

[Reply #232 on:]

 

Originally posted by Anarchist:
she COULD have meant that - but I seriously doubt that she did. She's not that heartless.

exactly. you also have to take into account not just the words themselves but her inflection and tone. Adding comas in random places can change the meaning of every conversation anyone has ever had, that's why we rely on voice inflection and tone to relay the actual meaning. If Leela was trying to berate Fry she wouldn't have used that soft reasuring tone.

[Reply #233 on:]

 

Originally posted by Chanukah Zombie:
On the other hand, however, once it stung her it would no longer be(e) a danger, because the stinger would detach, and since it was approximately twice as long as her body was deep, she would have missed the poison and been a lot safer for it.  Presumably, it had no other mode of attack.  Plus, Fry would still be active if only she got jabbed. 

If this is true then it means that these bees are the most useless creatures in the universe. They die after attacking someone, and the person that they attack doesn't die.

[Reply #234 on:]

A bee's stinger almost always breaks off after one use. As for the person surviving - Fry got lucky. VERY lucky. You try driving a huge spike through you abdomen and see if you survive. (Granted, their medical technology is much better, but he was lucky to survive long enough to get to the hospital.)

[Reply #235 on:]

I just realized that Bender is the *true* hero, here. Leela was in a coma, and Fry was in no condition to fly back to earth--Bender must have saved them. And yet he doesn't get any touching emotional moments in the episode. Poor guy.

[Reply #236 on:]

I think one of the most important things to understand about Bender is that just about everything he does, he does to receive attention.  This is especially true of his crimes.  He's not really an evil robot, despite the fact that he'd like everyone to believe that.  It's just that he long ago decided the best way to capture and hold everyone's attention is through crime.  It would be embarassing to him if they realized he only did it to get attention, so he prefers it if they continue thinking of him as a career criminal.  He doesn't want any credit for saving for their lives.  He just wants them to stick around because A) he loves them and B) they cannot pay any attention to him if they're dead. 

The real wonder is not so much that Fry survived the bee's sting -- but that Leela survived it.  The writers devoted a fair amount of dialogue to describing how fierce the poison is, using rather strong language.  Again, if I am right when I say it was Leela's love for Fry that enabled her to pull through, then it certainly speaks volumes about the depth of that love.  Also, it gives us a good idea of how tough a person Leela is in general, and how much of a survivor she is.  Ironically, this sting brought them together both figuratively and literally. 

As I recall, this entire discussion began over a sudden curious inflection in Leela's tone of voice.  I am attempting to figure out the meaning, if any, behind that inflection.  I never meant to suggest that she was "berating" Fry and I don't think I ever used that word.  I might even have been misleadingly imprecise by calling it a "joke."  There's a more accurate term for the literary device employed there but it escapes me for the nonce.  Maybe it's "bathos"?  I'm sure she was supremely grateful for any effort he made on her behalf. 

"The Sting" is different from all other episodes of Futurama in that it's the most esoteric.  This is because it takes place mostly in Leela's mind as a dream.  Hence, it is filled with symbolic meaning beyond what we'll find in the rest of the show.  The fact that she was comatose meant that her conscious mind shut down for two weeks.  When that happens, all other layers of the psyche slowly begin to converge and overlap, encroaching on each other's territory.  Therefore, the barriers between preconscious, subconscious, unconscious, metaconscious, et al, begin to break down and allow thoughts to seep into each other.  This is an unnatural state of being and will eventually result in madness, which we saw happening in the course of the show.  In light of all this, I am inclined to treat it differently from other episodes and interpret its messages somewhat more profoundly.  As I indicated earlier, I have an encompassing theory to explain what went on and I suppose the best way for me to convey that is to present it as an organized whole.  So far I've just been spewing out dislocated ideas haphazardly and I shouldn't be surprised if they're difficult to follow when out of context.   I think there's a lot we can learn from this one story and I think the writers were easily clever enough to do this on purpose. 

[Reply #237 on:]

its just been on in the uk and i have to say its was one of the best episodes i have ever seen. it had humor, it had romance, action, general freakiness and a musical number.

it feels like an episode of the twilight zone the way the episode is written.

i liked the funeral scene and how it brought back a load of characters (him good snoo-snoo). bender exploding looked cool as well.

there were a lot of laugh out load moments, about 5 or 6 big ones (the new simpsons before that only had about 2) especialy fry puting on his jetpac backwards and bender "your screwier than my aunt, and shes a screw!".

all in all a brillient episode (wasnt the previous crew killed by space wasps?)

[Reply #238 on:]

This episode was excellent. It's original, trippy, dramatic, romantic, funny, and exciting! The bee hive sequence and chase presented the best CGI used in Futurama to date, I'm amazed the animation qualtiy is so high, it really does make everything else on TV look naff! Futurama is becoming very sophisticated, not only does it continue to spoof sci-fi and pop-culture, it's now developing a truely unique science fiction style all of its own!
Not only was the story and drama great, The Sting is also very very funny. The split second when you saw the radiator (watch The Lesser of Two Evils)next to the rest of Frys ex lovers made me nearly laugh my guts out! (not literally)
I can't praise this episode enough, top notch stuff!
And yes the former crew were killed by space WASPS. But if the writers had stuck with that plot point, The Sting would have seen the crew collecting space paper, and that just wouldn't work for the story.

[Reply #239 on:]

^That looks familiar...