why dosent fry look like that now?

[Reply #40 on:]

he got a face lift in the year 3000

[Reply #41 on:]

he got a face lift in the year 3000

...but Lars didn't?

[Reply #42 on:]

Lars didn't want to give the game away, so he kept his appearance different.

[Reply #43 on:]

Why does Leela still look so hot? The world may never know.

I laughed.

Cubert and Dwight still being twelve has bothered me too. I feel like this is a problem, y'know? I can understand the animators not visibly aging Fry, Leela and Amy because Fry is ugly in that OP up there, but the kids need to grow up, dammit. Haha.

[Reply #44 on:]

SPOILER ALERT - Ghost in the Machines

Show spoiler

Did anyone notice Fry's face right before the parade day scene? He had an extra line under his eye, which made me think of this thread and that, perhaps, the writers/animators were starting to age him. But then cut to him on top of Bender's shoulders licking the ice cream cone and he's back to normal. At first I thought maybe he'd been up all night and was tired..? What are your thoughts?

[Reply #45 on:]

I'd have to go back and watch the episode, but did his eyes look like this:

[Reply #46 on:]

More like the second one. He has just the one line under his eye, but then if you look at him in the next scene on the sidewalk, it's gone. It stood out to me the first time I saw it, then when I watched the episode again I really noticed it. I was wondering if perhaps I had missed a plot point that they had been up all night or something, but then if that were the case why wouldn't it show in the next scene?

[Reply #47 on:]

Well the line in the second picture is actually the bottom of his eye, just as the top line under his eye in the first picture is. That is, if his eyelids were in a squinty pose like they are in those pictures. If his eyes were fully open, then it's a age or tired line. A screen grab from the episode would be helpful.

[Reply #48 on:]

He's just panicky and scared about the big sausage. And the big balloon. I don't think there's any more of it.

[Reply #49 on:]

Yeah, what Aki said.

Also, I found this recent DXC interview, where he answers a couple of questions about the characters' ages, pretty interesting (or, at the very least, relevant to the current discussion).

Let me ask you a Futurama universe question that's bugged me in the past. How do you see Futurama's timeline working? I know cartoons, especially the Simpsons, they always have the floating timeline to keep the characters younger. Futurama does something unique. They sort of address it, they keep it grounded that started in the year 3000, and it's now 3011. So is Fry technically 36 but just looks 25?

David X. Cohen: This is a question which we do debate here periodically, and the practical solution is we now attempt to never refer to how old the characters are, and just act like they're the same age they've always been. So the approach we take is the year is changing, so we always keep it exactly 1,000 years ahead, so each episode we write the plan is happening 1,000 years from now. So we're now writing the year 3012 for next summer's episodes.

So that's clearly set in there; we're even going to say the 3012 presidential election as a perfect example of that. But at the same time we will not refer to Fry's age increasing. We're in some kind of a surrealism of the show that they're apparently not getting older but the year is advancing, and if you ask me to explain it more than that, my tongue will literally turn into a square knot, so I will leave it at that.

I've always figured, you know, the professor lives to be 170 or so, so people just live longer.  36 is the new 26, so it's not really a problem.

David X. Cohen: Right, well Slurm has certain preservatives in it that give your skin a youthful, plastic-y glow.

[Reply #50 on:]

That interview, and its implication, were discussed on the Infosphere conference table here, for anyone interested.

[Reply #51 on:]

Stem cells.

[Reply #52 on:]

Nice find, Gorky! I can accept that. Aging is weird-looking in animation anyways. Also, Slurm. Always.

[Reply #53 on:]

I know the series establishes the character's ages (somehow), but I really don't take them seriously, since the characters only age chronologically, but not in any other respect.   I always thought Fry was between the ages of 19 to 24.  I don't know why they even bother with the characters have canon ages and not just a floating timeline like the Simpsons do.   I mean Fry is already approaching his late thirties... which I already am having trouble grasping.   Would you really buy Fry as a forty year old, which he will be in a few years?  (Seriously Fry will be the same age as Homer in a few years, he seems to be the same age as Marge now)

Like I can see Leela being late twenties/early thirties, but Fry feels like a 24 year old physically and mentally, same like Amy feels like she should be in her early twenties.   The only time she looks her age is when she wears lipstick. 

[Reply #54 on:]

Having a moving timeline rocks, in my opinion. It allows for a steadier continuity progression (relationships, professional development, et cetera) without creating a lot of questions. I wouldn't want it any other way.

[Reply #55 on:]

Messy haired Fry!  Omnomnomnomnom.

[Reply #56 on:]

The best excuse I can come up with is that visual age reduction creams work really well in the year 3000.

I was going to say something like that. Nanotech pills or something.
Would also account for Farnsworth still being alive in his 160s; so I don't have any problem with the principle cast remaining youthful. It's the year 3000 - we MUST have life-extension technologies by then.

However I do agree with what some person said above; Dwight and Cubert need to age, since the show is going in more or less real-time.

[Reply #57 on:]

Having a moving timeline rocks, in my opinion. It allows for a steadier continuity progression (relationships, professional development, et cetera) without creating a lot of question. I wouldn't want it any other way.

True, but the Simpsons has a similar concept: the timeline is floating in that the characters are always the same ages they are, but there permanent changes like Lisa becoming a vegetarian, Maud Flanders dying (as well as Bleeding Gums Murphy and Mona Simpson), and even story arcs like the Skinner/Edna Krabappel relationship.   The characters having birthdates and actually having ages is weird, considering Fry is almost 40 now, but characters like Dwight, Cubert and Sally are still children.     

[Reply #58 on:]

The Simpsons do have some arcs and some changing stuff, but it's not the same. Having a moving timeline is better, and doesn't bring it back to the status quo just as much.

[Reply #59 on:]

Maybe so, but since the character's ages is hardly ever referred to, i dunno why they bother.  Fry is going to be forty in a bit more then two years, a fact I really am having trouble wrapping my head around.  Unless there's something like free radicle and maturity gobbling nanomachines in the drinking water that slow down the human aging process, I can't really buy it.

[Reply #60 on:]

Fry is going to be forty in a bit more then two years

Four.

Unless there's something like free radicle and maturity gobbling nanomachines in the drinking water that slow down the human aging process, I can't really buy it.

There are plenty of reasons why humans might age more slowly in a thousand years. It would be improbable that they did not.

[Reply #61 on:]

At the end of Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles, they commented that they were now a few years younger... that's enough explanation for me, fry simply became a 20-year old again towards the end of season 4.

[Reply #62 on:]

Exactly. People seem to forget about that. But it doesn't explain why Cubert, Dwight, and the Orphans haven't aged.

[Reply #63 on:]

Fry is going to be forty in a bit more then two years

Four.d not.

He's thirty seven, according to the Infosphere. (Oh wait, its been edited back to 36)

So yeah I am guessing the aging process is much slower in the future.  It probably stunts emotional and mental growth as well as physical growth, but the future is as crummy as it is awesome.

As for the nanomachines I think we would have seen some in Parasites Lost.  Or soemthing.   Or hey, retcons.

[Reply #64 on:]

I just think when he went back he had a harder life and it had shown.

[Reply #65 on:]

Fry is going to be forty in a bit more then two years

Four.d not.

He's thirty seven, according to the Infosphere. (Oh wait, its been edited back to 36)

So yeah I am guessing the aging process is much slower in the future.  It probably stunts emotional and mental growth as well as physical growth, but the future is as crummy as it is awesome.

As for the nanomachines I think we would have seen some in Parasites Lost.  Or soemthing.   Or hey, retcons.

Don't edit other users' quotes. If you have comments on the quote, put it after the quote ends.

[Reply #66 on:]

Fry is going to be forty in a bit more then two years

Four.d not.

He's thirty seven, according to the Infosphere. (Oh wait, its been edited back to 36)

So yeah I am guessing the aging process is much slower in the future.  It probably stunts emotional and mental growth as well as physical growth, but the future is as crummy as it is awesome.

As for the nanomachines I think we would have seen some in Parasites Lost.  Or soemthing.   Or hey, retcons.

Don't edit other users' quotes. If you have comments on the quote, put it after the quote ends.

I wasn't trying to edit your post, I just find the quote button a bit confusing sometimes.