Ship Trek: Deep Thread Nine

[Reply #360 on:]

Yes exactly, he had to break up with Universe A, but perhaps Universe 1 still has a chance, right? After all,

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schle'd at least find schlimself another Colleen

.

[Reply #361 on:]

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Maybe shclee visited every universe and found shclerself every Colleen...

[Reply #362 on:]

[Montey Python Opening Guy] ITS....... [/Montey Python Opening Guy]

BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS DAY!

Well its out, ready for eyeball consumption, mind digestion, and to be followed by fan discussion. For the context of the relationshipy elements, should we spoiler tag for a bit, or assume this thread became spoiler territory as of this morning?

[Reply #363 on:]

I don't think that BwaBB extinguishes Fry/Leela and I'm not suggesting that anyone posting here believes that, but I don't for a minute believe that they are even temporarily "over" each other.  If you listen to the commentary...

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...during the scene where Leela is painting Fry's forhead with laser aimpoints from three pistols, they joke about how twisted Kaplan's take on romance is, referring to how Fry and Leela are acting towards each other. 

More significantly, just before Bender's big closing speech about how there is no great love without great jealousy, do you notice how Fry and Leela are right out front heatedly arguing with each other? Both seem passionately engaged in it.  Also, I think the final heart shaped fade-out with Fry, Bender and Leela demonstrates more than just Bender's love for the other two.

I agree that they have strategically separated Fry and Leela somewhat for now, perhaps in anticipation of a final reunion in Green Yonder, but the Fry/Leela thread is still there, strong as ever, more like a thick Diamondium cable; it us just buried a bit deep in this one.

[Reply #364 on:]

Fry's two bimbos! Coleen and Chesty McNag-Nag.

Catchy nick name.

And because it fits the thread:



Least shes got pong.

[Reply #365 on:]

Jesus fuck I'm depressed now, and I haven't even seen it. Oh well. At least I have a wife to turn to...

[Reply #366 on:]

ETA: Nevermind.  I had a reply but now it won't come to me.  Stupid quick-trigger "Enter" key.

...As long as I'm here, though, I would like to question why Leela wasn't playing Tetris. :P

[Reply #367 on:]

That was my major concern with the movie. Tetris could beat Pong any day... Poor Leela, she's so confused. What a shadow of a woman...

[Reply #368 on:]

 

Originally posted by Archonix:
Jesus fuck I'm depressed now, and I haven't even seen it. Oh well. At least I have a wife to turn to...

My condolences.

I wouldn't worry too much about the fate of the Fry/Leela ship though. 

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After a sprinkling of instances in which she congratulates Fry on his new relationship, at the end Chesty, er Leela, reveals some serious jealousy.  It does seem that Fry might be truly "over" Leela, but he and Leela have a stormy argument in that final scene; if he didn't care about them, he'd just walk away.  As Bender's closing speech bluntly beats us over the head with this story's shippy theme, only true love can inspire jealousy.

[Reply #369 on:]

Just for the record (and this is coming from a Fry/Leela 'shipper)...

Coleen is HOT. 

"Woo-hoo! Bust those balls!"

[Reply #370 on:]

First off, I want to say hi to all of the old posters from back when, and welcome to all of the posters who've joined up since I've gone away.

The reason I'm back is simple, the movies have driven me back. At the beginning of BWABB, I thought that this would be a sort of reversal of roles, with Leela being the one actively pursing Fry who now has a steady relationship. After the fact it's painfully obvious that this is simply out of character, she prefers to be alone it would seem, maybe to an unhealthy extent.

Having not really been here for the initial feedback for Bender's Big Score, I don't know what the mass perception was, but I found the way it handled the Fry-Leela relationship to be amazingly lazy from a writing perspective. If you want to retcon out things that happened in season 4, fine explain it. (If a writer/executive producer did so in an interview, I apologize for not knowing about it.) Having it jump in the way it did was dishonest to both story line and character continuity.

All that said, I'm still being entertained, or else I wouldn't be back here on PEEL.

[Reply #371 on:]

Anyone catching the look on Fry's face up there, as if he's saying "Please don't talk about her like that." It's sweet.

[Reply #372 on:]

Looks more to me like he was in mid-blink.

[Reply #373 on:]

Nah, Fry goes on to frown as he says it. 

[Reply #374 on:]

He stops when bender gets shut off, but I can't tell if hes glaring at bender, or gauging a reaction form Leela.

Leela is just pissed at bender though.

[Reply #375 on:]

 

If you want to retcon out things that happened in season 4, fine explain it. (If a writer/executive producer did so in an interview, I apologize for not knowing about it.) Having it jump in the way it did was dishonest to both story line and character continuity.

Dude, you eight months behind me - I had that exact same argument the day I watched BBS.  And no, nobody mentioned in any interviews why Season Four was being ignored, what happened after Devil's Hands, etc.

It seems as if an ever-increasing number of people are disappointed with the way the "Grand Return of Futurama" was handled.

[Reply #376 on:]

So much of it is the result of having to slice into episodes. I do wish they hadn't limited themselves like that... I know it sounds egotistical but I know I sure as hell could have written the final third of BWABB better than they did. But the I expect they could have too, if they weren't forced into the 30 chunks.

Still, at least there's passion there between them now. Love and hate, anger and passion are two sides of the same coin. The fact that Leela and Fry are so very angry at each other speaks of something deep between them, in the way that only really close friends can get truly angry at each other. Perhaps there's a chance after all. 

[Reply #377 on:]

Why can't they make a movie that has a cliffhanger at the end that says, "To Be Continued"?  That way the DVD will flow much better.

[Reply #378 on:]

I have no doubt that they will get fry and Leela together by the end, The only reason they diddn't do something more final in The Devils Hands was they weren't sure if that was it. If Into The Wild Green Yonder is going to be the last Futurama period, then I suspect well see them married. If they get the green light to return to TV, there is a good chance Fry and Leela will wind up dating / engaged. Depends on how much they would want relationships to play a part in the return to TV.
 

[Reply #379 on:]

 

Originally posted by Archonix:
So much of it is the result of having to slice into episodes. I do wish they hadn't limited themselves like that... I know it sounds egotistical but I know I sure as hell could have written the final third of BWABB better than they did. But the I expect they could have too, if they weren't forced into the 30 chunks.

It's not an issue with quality, I think most of the writing has been of good quality. The issue is that they forgot to bridge the old and the new in any passable way. I thought they had more respect for continuity than that.

Hey, RS, long time no see. Do you have a Corvette, or just a fan?

[Reply #380 on:]

That's the thing aknightofni.... Into the Wild Green Yonder is not the definitive ending....  not necessarily.... but its script has already been written in skeletal form.

[Reply #381 on:]

 

Originally posted by HopelessShipper:
After the fact it's painfully obvious that this is simply out of character, she prefers to be alone it would seem, maybe to an unhealthy extent.

I never really got that impression from her. The only thing I took from it was that she thought "heaven" was boring because there's no difficulty or challenges. As for when she's pointing the blasters at Fry's head, if one of my friends was taking over the world with a giant tentacle in his neck I'd do the same thing. The one I thought was out of character was Fry. He just seemed to be acting strange throughout the whole movie. In addition to the fact that he almost totally ignores Leela after spending years focusing on almost nothing else he also seems desperate and lonely sometimes and almost evil at others.

[Reply #382 on:]

Yeah, I didn't have a problem with her leveling three lasers at Fry - in fact if anything it was pretty much in character!
It was amply justified by the situation, in any case.

It was her oversimplified capitulation to Yivo at the end that seemed far more off to me; I had more of an issue with that.

 

Originally posted by Frisco17:
 The one I thought was out of character was Fry. He just seemed to be acting strange throughout the whole movie.

Yes. That's an understatement; he was just as out of character in this movie as the previous one, if not more. As I've said in e-mail, he went from pining over a whale to lusting after an otherworldly tentacle-creature... I honestly don't understand what they're aiming to do with his character. They're demolishing it.

[Reply #383 on:]

 

Originally posted by Frisco17:
  I never really got that impression from her. The only thing I took from it was that she thought "heaven" was boring because there's no difficulty or challenges.

I wasn't referring to Leela in Billion Backs, but more of a general observation in the entire series. She is constantly complaining about being alone, but then sets standards that force her to be alone. She could date some of these people in a non-romantic way, but doesn't. I submit it's because she enjoys being alone. (This is hardly an original thought in regards to Leela, but one I didn't accept until now.)

What I was originally referring to was Fry's relationship to Colleen. At the beginning of the movie I thought she would be more jealous. IRL, how could you not be upset after things Devils Hands, The Sting, Love and Rocket, etc. and then he/she turns around and dates someone else at the drop of a hat? I say good for Fry, it was time to move on as it were. I still blame the writers for completely disregarding continuity. It was obvious that Leela was ready to play ball, why pretend it didn't happen? They will eventually get together, but'll be a lot less enjoyable, for me anyways.

The laser thing was completely in character btw.

[Reply #384 on:]

The sad part is that in the storyboard for the original first act of BWABB, they almost seem to be making jokes about the flaws in the movie. "Haha, we're ignoring everything in BBS" "Haha, we're ignoring Fry's pining for Leela."

Also, on Fry's out-of-characterness, yes, he was just as pathetically depressed as BBS, but for the rest of the movie I think he was under a pretty heavy Yivo influence. And here you say "But ahah! He said he wasn't brainwashed" and to this I say "But ahah! If he was brainwashed, he wouldn't come out and say it." Not that that's true, but it makes the movie more bearable to me.

[Reply #385 on:]

Hmph. That's an interesting way of looking at it. Yeah, I was pretty much going with the "not-being-brainwashed" angle. It says a lot, though, about the nature of these movies, if we have to start making up creative ways to rearrange things and make them seem, um, a little more palatable. 

 

At the beginning of the movie I thought she would be more jealous.

Mm-hm, some of us thought that they (the writers) might use this movie as an opportunity to have Leela show a touch of jealousy and maybe even pursue Fry for once. That basically got chucked out the window.
Along with characterization, plot development and subtlety...

[Reply #386 on:]

I didn't think Fry was out of character in BBS at all. I think he had a right to be that depressed considering how his entire life was imploding around him (Leela/Lars, Nudar, etc). The Leelu thing wasn't that strange either because it was like his pet and it filled the void left by all his future friends when he returned to the 21st century. Also that wasn't actually Fry but Lars.

 

Originally posted by km73:
It was her oversimplified capitulation to Yivo at the end that seemed far more off to me; I had more of an issue with that.

I forgot about that. It just seemed to happend out of the blue for no reason and I found myself thinking, "what the hell just happened?" I think it would have made more sense and fit her actions from the rest of the movie better if she'd taken Yivo's offer to return to Earth and helped Bender raise his army to fight Yivo.

[Reply #387 on:]

For what it's worth I've decided to have a crack at editing a decent episode out of this movie. There's plenty of material to play with... if I drop the whole part with Yivo actually talking, I might be able to do something cool. We'll see.

[Reply #388 on:]

 

Originally posted by Sine Wave:I think he was under a pretty heavy Yivo influence. And here you say "But ahah! He said he wasn't brainwashed" and to this I say "But ahah! If he was brainwashed, he wouldn't come out and say it." Not that that's true, but it makes the movie more bearable to me.

Anybody who think's he wasn't brainwashed obviously wasn't paying attention. Not only was he acting unusually evil there for a while but I also refuse to believe that he knows what the word "diction" means. It seems like something he would snicker childishly at instead of using it properly in a sentence.

Brainwashing: 2

Normal: 0

[Reply #389 on:]

 

Originally posted by HopelessShipper:
 
Hey, RS, long time no see. Do you have a Corvette, or just a fan?

1995 Coupe.  The engine is a LT1 bored and stroked to 383 cid,  Lt4 cam, Hypertech reflashed ECM, 58 mm throttle body, automatic overdrive transmission with B&M shift kit, 285/40-17 Cooper ZR rated tires and Corbeau A4 racing seats.

And yes, I'm also a fan.   

The wife-person made the avatar for me.




Notice the Handicap Parking Placard hanging from the rearview mirror?

[Reply #390 on:]

But he did say "symposia" once!!   

And the main way Fry was un-Fry-like in BBS - interesting, I just noticed that one could write that as "Bender's BS" - was that he acted so relentlessly mopey; and especially the part where he tells Amy about his feelings for Leela.

Oh, also, regarding what I was saying above about Leela and jealousy, maybe the writers didn't want to use BWABB as a vehicle for that because of the ending they had in mind - ie, the way it ended, with Bender making that speech about said jealousy.

[Reply #391 on:]

 

Originally posted by km73:
Oh, also, regarding what I was saying above about Leela and jealousy, maybe the writers didn't want to use BWABB as a vehicle for that because of the ending they had in mind - ie, the way it ended, with Bender making that speech about said jealousy.

Never thought of that. Good point.

[Reply #392 on:]

It does sort of feel like they got to the heaven part, then someone looked at the time stamp on the frame and went "shit... running out of time! Leela loves Yivo now MAKE WITH THE FIGHTING!" That or the gas has some interesting side effects on humans, I call foul on Yivo's atmosphere. Its probably diluted LSD...

Brainwashing does help the movie go down easier, like the entire galaxy was still influenced by Yivo when they made plans to go live with schlim. Leela was the only one never taken so she still doesn't want to go.

It would have been nice to see some Leela jealousy, but she doesn't seem the type to show it. Based off when she was jealous in "I second that emotion" she just smiled and told Amy to go have fun, seems like the same thing shes doing here. Letting her sadness bottle up so it can fester like a mental illness!! So yeah, that was in character.

Her shutting off bender was one of the greatest things Ive seen.

[Reply #393 on:]

The big with Leela loving Yivo was pointless anyway. She could have stayed skeptical and angry without affecting the plot and ending one iota.

Oh well...

[Reply #394 on:]

Well there is something to be said for Benders attack occurring JUST as the last being succumbs to Yivo. They might have been going for a "now that Leela has given in who will save everyone!" effect.

Robot Pirates, that's who.

Just noticed in the date with Yivo scene, you can see Michelle dancing with schlim!

[Reply #395 on:]

I wouldn't call taking away everyone's happiness and eternal life "saving"

[Reply #396 on:]

 

Originally posted by Anarchy_Balsac:
I wouldn't call taking away everyone's happiness and eternal life "saving"

Depends how you look at it. I think I'm with Leela on this one. (Up till the end anyway.) Something just doesn't seem right about the whole thing. That plus "perfection" for eternity would get boring. Part of what makes life interesting are the challanges. So yeah I would call it saving.

[Reply #397 on:]

How long until you got bored?

Humanity doesn't live to be happy. We live to struggle, the whole brilliance of it is that there are things out there we don't know, can't control, or can't be protected from. Yet. Where would the fun be in going to the moon if you could just blink there?

On a funny side note, there is a mural in the engineering lounge at my university with "There's a whole world out there, and we built it".

Yeah id not be too happy on yivo.

[Reply #398 on:]

I would, if I got bored I could just do nothing for a while until everythings fun again, lather, rinse, repeat for all eternity.

[Reply #399 on:]

If we had eternal bodies in this realm, we wouldn't be able to go to real heaven!