Movie parodies that could've been....

[on:]

In the TV Show and the comics, Futurama has done some fun movie parodies.  My favorite was the 'Bullitt' parody in BITW.  There's one movie that should've been parodied that would've been great!

And that movie is Smokey and the Bandit!  Think about it.  Fry, Bender, and Leela have to delivery alcohol to a bar planet where humans and aliens go.  Fry could be the The Bandit, Bender could be like Jerry Reed's character, Leela could've been like Sally Field.  Plus, Zapp and Kiff would've been like Sheriff Buford T. Pusser and his bumbling son.  That would've been a great episode!

[Reply #1 on:]

Futurama seems to stay away from full episode parodies. They're far too original to just lift an entire plot from one movie and make it into an entire episode.

But, CW McCall's "Convoy" was in "Parasites Lost."

[Reply #2 on:]

 

Originally posted by Beej:
Futurama seems to stay away from full episode parodies. They're far too original to just lift an entire plot from one movie and make it into an entire episode.

...

Realy? What about "A flight to remeber"? It was pretty close to Titanic in Bender's story line.

[Reply #3 on:]

Not to mention Love Boat for everybody else.
(iZac...heh heh)

No episode goes entirely based on one movie/show or another.  Well, except Where No Fan Has Gone Before, but that parodied an entire series segment of pop culture, which had already been established as a major influence on the show.

About the closest I can think of to a full-on plot parody is the last act of Love and Rocket (2001:ASO,) and even then the connection isn't all that close, and only for a third of the episode.  (Oh, and the "Daisy Bell" montage.  That was smegging hilarious.)

[Reply #4 on:]

Only Bender's part of AFTR was really parallel to Titanic, (besides the whole ship... crashing thing) and even then there was enough of a twist that it wasn't entirely lifted from the movie. The other characters didn't "take on" any prominent roles from the movie. A good chunk of the episode was the Leela/Fry/Amy tension, which had nothing to do with Titanic. 

[Reply #5 on:]

If Leela hadn't been hit by the What If machine in AOI 2, and we saw the actual answer to her question, my guess is that it would have had many similarities to The Omega Man, especially given who directed said film.

[Reply #6 on:]

I would have killed to have seen a Star Wars parody like they did with StarTrek in "WNFHGB".

[Reply #7 on:]

 

If Leela hadn't been hit by the What If machine in AOI 2, and we saw the actual answer to her question, my guess is that it would have had many similarities to The Omega Man, especially given who directed said film.

Or maybe it would have been a shortened version of "Leela's Homeworld."

Are we meant to believe that the rest of the crew DID see the actual what-if scenario intended for Leela?  Presumably not, but I don't really understand why not.

[Reply #8 on:]

 

Original Poster: Unknown
If Leela hadn't been hit by the What If machine in AOI 2, and we saw the actual answer to her question, my guess is that it would have had many similarities to The Omega Man, especially given who directed said film.

*I think we did see the actual answer. Leela asked the question, and the Professor pulled the lever, which hit her on the head. And thus, we saw the answer. But you could say it was her dream, since I don't think the last shot before Leela's answer focused on the 'What-If?' machine. (But I'm not sure.)*

[Reply #9 on:]

I always figured that the What If machine did play the real answer to what would happen if she found her true home, just everyone was too distracted trying to get her to regain consciousness to see it.

[Reply #10 on:]

xmen paody, the terminator parody are comic parodies from futurama

[Reply #11 on:]

For being a sci-fi program with a strong, butt-kicking female lead, I'm surprised that Alien wasn't referenced more, if at all.  Not like killing off PE crew members would fit the series, but there are plenty of cliches that could have been used.

[Reply #12 on:]

But they did reference Roswell...

[Reply #13 on:]

Well with Aliens there was an audio commentary dedicated to that, fittingly the one for Love and Rocket because of Weaver. And with Smokey Parasites lost actually used to have more CB radio themed humor...

I was actually thinking X-Men too since for a futuristic series everything is mostly from the 80s,but it doesn't fit in with what's been established with the mutants who are generally freakish though sans powers... Indiana Jones on the other hand! It's entirely plausable that the crew would end up on a planet of death traps. In the video game that's essentially what the sun ended up being... And Star Wars would be cool but i think it would be even more impossibel to get Harrison Ford and they can't really just get a replacement and zap him.

...and it's possibly since the series was cancelled but I can't believe how they didn't get in any jabs at Firefly/Serenity since it was another sci-fi oriented show on FOX with a lovable crew for hire... hm, and also an assasination attempt on Nixon ala The Manchurian Canidate or Zoolander would have been fairly interesting.

[Reply #14 on:]

 

Originally posted by evan:
For being a sci-fi program with a strong, butt-kicking female lead, I'm surprised that Alien wasn't referenced more, if at all. Not like killing off PE crew members would fit the series, but there are plenty of cliches that could have been used.

There was the can thing in 'Love and Rocket', but that was about it.
 

Originally posted by MorboMcFly:
And Star Wars would be cool but i think it would be even more impossibel to get Harrison Ford and they can't really just get a replacement and zap him.

There's been several Star Wars references in Futurama before, examples:
 - Fry's lightsabre training scene in 'War is the H-Word'
 - The battle over the Hubble Telescope and the approach to it is a direct parody of the Battle of Yavin
 - The briefing scene in 'When Aliens Attack!'
 - "Oh, the Jedi's are going to feel this one!"
 - When Bender is knocked out by the orca in 'The Bird-bot of Ice-catraz', he makes beeping/whistling noises similar to R2-D2.

[Reply #15 on:]

 

Originally posted by MorboMcFly:
...and it's possibly since the series was cancelled but I can't believe how they didn't get in any jabs at Firefly/Serenity since it was another sci-fi oriented show on FOX with a lovable crew for hire...

Um, Firefly didn't premiere until after Futurama was cancelled.  It would have been odd if they had parodied a show that no one had seen yet.

[Reply #16 on:]

 

And Star Wars would be cool but i think it would be even more impossibel to get Harrison Ford and they can't really just get a replacement and zap him.

This looks like a job for Welshy!

[Reply #17 on:]

 

Originally posted by M0le:
   

Originally posted by evan:
For being a sci-fi program with a strong, butt-kicking female lead, I'm surprised that Alien wasn't referenced more, if at all. Not like killing off PE crew members would fit the series, but there are plenty of cliches that could have been used.

There was the can thing in 'Love and Rocket', but that was about it.
 

The "can" thing was a reference to 2001. 2001 is probably referenced more times than any other movie, with the exception of Star Trek.

[Reply #18 on:]

Well, they did do a great Apocalypse Now parody in one of the comic books...

[Reply #19 on:]

 

Originally posted by mint:
But they did reference Roswell...

Not the show or any movies...just the town itself.

[Reply #20 on:]

I would've liked a Dr. Strangelove parody. The only reference I've been able to find was the ending music to A Big Piece Of Garbage.

...not that I have any idea how they could made one work, but still.

[Reply #21 on:]

I dont care as long as there are futurama characters and sex!
Welcome to nurdworld Billionairebot

[Reply #22 on:]

i think a cool parody could have been for fry with "the right stuff" I think they could have found a way to work it in real good

[Reply #23 on:]

 

Originally posted by David A:
 Um, Firefly didn't premiere until after Futurama was cancelled.  It would have been odd if they had parodied a show that no one had seen yet.

Really? Hm, I have a really weird sense of time... It might be since they had just kept airing them at the same time (with the backlog of eppys) but I thought the idea of Firefly was promoted long enough before the primere that the Futurama crew would have heard about how they were probably going to be cancelled, and there were plans for another series about an interplantary crew...

And as for Star Wars there was also Adoy and the Dagobah-like planet from the video game, but that still hardly seems like enough compared to the full episode given to Star Trek.

[Reply #24 on:]

 

Originally posted by BillionaireBot:
I would've liked a Dr. Strangelove parody. The only reference I've been able to find was the ending music to A Big Piece Of Garbage.

...not that I have any idea how they could made one work, but still.

Zapp goes a little funny in the head and does a silly thing...he orders his ships to attack someone's planet (Omicron Persei 8, neutrals?)etc.

[Reply #25 on:]

^ sounds good to me.  I loved that movie, so that would be great.

P. S. Have you ever seen a parody going on, knew it was a parody, but didn't get it?  that's what happened with me in I dated a robot, with bender in the chair and everything.  little help?

[Reply #26 on:]

 

Originally posted by kiffan:

P. S. Have you ever seen a parody going on, knew it was a parody, but didn't get it?  that's what happened with me in I dated a robot, with bender in the chair and everything.  little help?

All in the Family reference.  Bender = Archie Bunker

[Reply #27 on:]

I seriously think that even though Futurama is a parody of sci-fi shows and movies, it doesn't mean that they can't parodize other media as well.  Still, it kind of makes the show more like The Simpsons in a way.  It would be useful, since the sci-fi pool is getting drained dry.  I would suggest something like Final Fantasy or a full Matrix parody.  I think "A Tale of Two Santas" was a lot like The Nightmare Before Christmas, so I probably won't suggest that.

[Reply #28 on:]

 

Originally posted by athena1999:
I seriously think that even though Futurama is a parody of sci-fi shows and movies, it doesn't mean that they can't parodize other media as well.  Still, it kind of makes the show more like The Simpsons in a way.  It would be useful, since the sci-fi pool is getting drained dry.  I would suggest something like Final Fantasy or a full Matrix parody.  I think "A Tale of Two Santas" was a lot like The Nightmare Before Christmas, so I probably won't suggest that.

edit: hm, so my message was deleted... I think that a Matrix type type tihng would nearly always end with a fake out and they did too many of those in the latter episodes (or at least since they were one after the other).
And Final Fantasy would be cool though a bit obscure. I think they could [have] poke[d] fun at the movie that bombed though as a good environmental episode, since I can imagine that they discover the planet has a soul but Farnsworth doesn't care...

[Reply #29 on:]

I don't think this was mentioned. But while browsing through imdb.com/Futurama/Triva, I found this:

The show's creators said that after the show was cancelled it occurred to them that they should have done a parody of Martin Scorsese's films and called the episode "Gangs of New New York".

I like that idea!