Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs viewing

Lissa: “Should someone be writing something?” Drew asks as we sit around our house (erm, “our” being me and Duckie, and “me” being Lissa) in chocolate-induced stupors watching Futurama 2. (I’m sure there’s a longer name for it, but I’m lazy.) Hey, I’m down an article, so I commandeered Al’s computer for a moment, and let the Futurama Mutant Viewing begin!

Okay, that was weird. Fry’s girlfriend just announced she is a polygamist. Or something like that.

Anyway, we have four Mutants… four guys pressing their sweaty naked bodies? Um, okay. Oh – that’s not us, by the way – that was the movie. Four Mutants – Al, Drew, Sue, and me, and Mutant-in-law Duckie, who unfortunately keeps getting dragged away by the incessant demands of T2.

Hmmm, so far we seem to be devoid of wisecracks. I’m handing it off to Drew.

Drew: Well, no pressure on me, eh? After encountering the anomaly and being knocked unconscious, Bender remarks that all he can remember is a blinding light and a searing ass pain. For most of us that’s just a long weekend in college we’d prefer to forget, but hey, that’s Futurama for you.

I’ve heard from a lot of people that they think this Futurama movie is way better than Bender’s Big Score, but I have to take the opposing viewpoint. Maybe the long hiatus between the show’s cancellation and the first movie just made me extra forgiving, but I liked how Big Score referenced so many past Futurama episodes, even if I wasn’t crazy about some of the changes it made to the show’s continuity. On the other hand, this one has more Zapp Brannigan, and that’s never a bad thing.

I don’t know, let’s see what Al has to say…

Al: Say? But I brought the laptop! I don’t think I have to contrib— Oh. Seems I do.

(ahem)

So. Futurama. I’ve never watched much of the television show, to be honest. It wasn’t intentional, I’ve always loved it when I did get to check it out; I just never quite latched onto it the way I was apparently supposed to. But the movie is pretty funny so far and it feels good to be watching something culty again. Scanning up the page here, it appears that all anyone’s mentioned about the plot is sweaty naked guys and ass pain, so I feel like I ought to elaborate a bit:

The universe is in peril, if you believe the local news. A giant tear has opened in the sky, presumably to another universe, and it’s up to the intrepid crew of the big green Futurama ship to investigate the anomaly and SAVE THE UNIVERSE! They fail (natch). Instead, all world-saving duties fall to perpetual blowhard Zapp Brannigan, who sets out to destroy anything he finds but only succeeds in killing poor, nebbishy Kif. Fry, meanwhile, has moved in with his new girlfriend, Colleen, only to find out he’s actually boyfriend #5.

Bender has become depressed over losing his best friend to a woman and, as I’m typing, is being hazed as the newest member of the super-secret, human-hating League of Robots.

Bender: Do all the tests involve drinking?

Calculon: I hadn’t really thought about it, but now that you mention it, yes.

The parallels I could be drawing right now, the parallels — that is, if Sue weren’t sitting right next to me giving me the evil eye. It’s like she can read my mind… and it seems like she wants to type something.

Sue: Okay, Sue in here. (Coughing up my lungs, but no one seems to mind.) For the record, I did not give Al the evil eye, although I’m mightily concerned about his apparent obsession with Johnny Depp wearing Willie Wonka and/or Mad Hatter regalia. But that’s a whole different movie… er… movies. Potentially.

I have to admit that I was never a rabid Futurama follower, although I liked the episodes I caught now and again. Futurama might very well fall under the heading of “Shows Sue never watched until after they were cancelled, but at least she can rent/buy the DVD’s”. Farscape is a sterling example of that.

In any case, although I’m floundering a bit over who’s who and undoubtedly missing the inside jokes, this is spiffily entertaining. Almost as entertaining as watching Lissa and Duckie tag team up and down the stairs to pacify their offspring.

As I type, two rival but reluctantly cooperative professors have convinced President Nixon’s head to encase the planet in….stuff. To save it from the other universe. Or something. Now our dear home world resembles a golf ball. Apparently quite a fragile golf ball, cause as I type there’s tentacles and stuff coming through it. I hope someone had a warranty on that stuff.

Interesting quote: “Quick, hand me a machete! We can still save his legs!”

Also… “Bouncing off the tentacle like meatballs off Mothra?” I remember Mothra. Good times.

So, as I type, listening to the wail of tiny infants and the snorting of fellow mutants, Fry has become the Pope of a new octopus related religion. Hey, if it doesn’t work out, it’s calamari for everyone! Sign me up!

Lissa seems to be missing, so I’ll hand it off to Drew.

Drew: I remembered one of the things that bothered me when I first watched this movie – the notion that Fry is so despondent over breaking up with his new girlfriend that he jumps ship to another universe. This is the guy who’s been pursuing Leela since the middle of season 2 and gotten shot down more times than Snoopy fighting the Red Baron. Yet now he’s in a relationship with this woman for a couple of weeks and a breakup puts him in a suicidal slump? It just doesn’t wash. Is there any reason they couldn’t have used Leela for the same purpose with only minor plot changes?

Oh yeah, Amy’s a ho. And honestly, Leela, aren’t we all saving our necks for a rich, handsome Dracula? I know I am.

Fry is right, by the way – it’s unacceptable to break up with anyone via text message, ever. (Ya hear that, Marcy? Not cool.) And now, as Nixon puts it, it’s time to cut this turd loose… to Al, that is.

Al: Uh thanks… I guess. Three quick background bits from earlier: Space Farm Insurance Agency and the Shovel Command arcade game both made me laugh and I want one of the Pac-Man board games Professor Farnsworth was playing. I could do without the genderless terminology, though. We have enough of that among trendy people here in CT without big tentacly aliens doing it, too.

It looks like after a few dates, the human race decided too break up with Yivo the Space Octopus creature, but Yivo proposed instead and now our universe is moving in with schlim. Everyone gets to go live in the other universe except for Bender, who is left alone with only the machines (awww). Did we mention robots can’t switch universes? Well, they can’t.

So Bender is feeling forlorn and surly, and the robots are milling around a deserted Earth like in the commercials for Wall-E. Over in the Yivo-verse, everybody has discovered that Yivo is basically heaven and is having a great time except for Leela, who can’t get around her commitment issues. Finally, however, she learns to put them aside and can fully embrace—hey, robot space pirates!

Now Bender is attacking heaven and Fry gets everyone broken up with the other universe. And Kiff is alive again and (finally!) knees Zapp Brannigan in the knards.

The End. Roll credits.

Final thoughts, anyone?

Lissa: Lissa gets to type! My silence has not been because my fellow Mutants were hogging the computer, but because my offspring refused to go to sleep. Be prepared, Drew…. Buahahahahahahhahahahahahahahah!

Anyway, I missed most of the rest of the movie, so unfortunately I can’t comment except that it looked like they were spoofing Pirates 3. Of course, I haven’t seen Pirates 3, so that really isn’t a deep and insightful comparison, really. But we did watch the preview for the third movie, and it looks really funny. Bender’s Game – the title alone amuses me, and the fact that it’s a D&D style movie/theme/whatever… yeah. It looks good.

I really wish I could be more insightful, but I think I used up all insight tonight making dessert. Not really, of course, but isn’t it a good excuse? I think so. So with that, I’ll sign off.

But seriously — robot space pirates. Even just the sentence is cool.