Futurama: Bender's Big Score

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Futurama: Bender's Big Score
Directed by	Dwayne Carey-Hill
Produced by	Lee Supercinski
Written by	Ken Keeler (teleplay and story) David X. Cohen (story)
Starring	Billy West Katey Sagal John DiMaggio Tress MacNeille Maurice LaMarche
Music by	Christopher Tyng
Editing by	Paul D. Calder
Distributed by	20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Release date(s)	November 27, 2007 (US) March 5, 2008 (AUS) April 7, 2008[1] (UK)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Followed by	The Beast with a Billion Backs
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Futurama: Bender's Big Score is an Annie Award-winning straight-to-DVD film based on the animated series Futurama. It was released in the United States on November 27, 2007. Bender's Big Score along with the three follow-up films will comprise season five of Futurama each film being made into four episodes of the broadcast season. Bender's Big Score made its broadcast premiere on Comedy Central on March 23, 2008.^[2] The movie was written by Ken Keeler, based on a story by Keeler and David X. Cohen, and directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill.

Along with the major characters of the series the film features return appearances by many of the recurring and one-shot characters in the series. Several of the notable ones include: the Nibblonians, Zapp Brannigan, Kif Kroker, Fry's dog Seymour, Barbados Slim, Robot Santa, the God space entity, Hedonismbot, Al Gore, the Robot Mafia, Kwanzaa Bot and Richard Nixon.

Special appearances include Coolio as Kwanza Bot, Al Gore as himself, Mark Hamill as the Chanukah Zombie, Tom Kenny as Fry's older brother Yancy, and Sarah Silverman as Fry's 20th Century ex-girlfriend Michelle.

[edit] Plot

[edit] Part 1

Two years ago the executives of the Box Network (an allusion to the Fox Network) canceled Planet Express's contract. Now those executives have been fired and ground into a fine, pink powder, so Planet Express is back "on the air." They throw a party to celebrate, during which Hermes is decapitated and his body crushed. His head is placed in a jar while his body is repaired (and his wife LaBarbara leaves him for her ex-husband, Barbados Slim). The man who performs the procedure, Lars Fillmore, takes an immediate liking to Leela, much to Fry's chagrin.

During a delivery to a nude beach planet, Leela points out a Bender tattoo on Fry's buttocks, of which Fry was unaware. While on the beach, a trio of scammer aliens use flimsy excuses to get the entire Planet Express crew to sign petitions and provide their e-mail addresses.

Upon returning to Earth, the entire crew receives hundreds of spam messages. The crew respond to the offers and Bender is infected with a virus. The scammers fool Professor Farnsworth into signing over his business to them, and they show up to take over. Bender's virus compels him to obey the scammers. The scammers are drawn to the tattoo on Fry's buttocks, which is revealed to contain the code for paradox-correcting time travel. Nibbler once again reveals himself and explains that using the code could destroy the universe, but the scammers ignore him.

[edit] Part 2

Bender destroys New York while being pursued by Swedish authorities in 2308, one of the many moments of continuity with the previous episodes.

Since the time travel code only allows travel into the past, the scammers have Bender steal valuable objects from Earth's past, waiting out the time between in a cave beneath Planet Express. During this time, Hermes asks Bender to travel back in time and kill an earlier version of himself for a replacement body (unfortunately, Zoidberg puts his head on backwards). The Professor analyzes the time-travel code and discovers that all time-travel duplicates, including Hermes' new body, are doomed.

Once Bender has stolen everything of value from history, the scammers deem the time-travel code too risky to use any further, so they decide to destroy it by killing Fry and blanking it from Bender's memory bank. Fed up with everything that is transpiring, Fry uses the time code to escape to January 1, 2000, the day he was frozen. Bender is sent back to kill him. Bender creates a duplicate of himself when he needs to use the bathroom. The duplicate catches Fry as he appears in the past and attempts to kill him, only to have an emotional crisis (and his need to badly urinate) cause an overload. Fry shoves him in a cryo-tube where he is frozen for a thousand years before he can explode. Fry leaves and the original Bender spends the next twelve years hunting him, eventually blowing up Panucci's Pizza when Fry walks inside.

[edit] Part 3

Once Bender returns to report his apparent success, the scammers erase the code and the obedience virus. Fry shows up at his own funeral, having created a duplicate of himself which remained in the past while he froze himself and returned to the future; the Professor points out that the duplicate was doomed anyway. Nibbler destroys the time travel tattoo to keep the scammers from abusing it any further.

We soon get a glimpse of what the doomed duplicate's twelve years of life in the 21st century was like. He spent all the time he possibly could with his family and friends, but by making a commitment to never return to the future, he had isolated himself from Leela, becoming depressed. After some time, Fry decided to stop living in the past (his past, anyway, as it was in the future), deciding Leela would be better off with Lars, and got a job as a trainer for Leelu, a rare toothed female narwhal, at the aquarium. The two bonded over the next ten years until Leelu was to be returned to the wild. Fry became depressed once again, but decided to chase by becoming a whaler, finally reuniting with her after two years at the North Pole.

Everyone is now living in poverty thanks to the scammers, while Leela and Lars decide to get married. Fry tries to sabotage the wedding, but his plans are foiled by an oblivious Lars. However, a chain reaction leads to Hermes again being decapitated, his body crushed by a chandelier. The Professor again explains that, as a time-travel duplicate, it was inevitably doomed. At this point, Lars becomes agitated and calls off the wedding.

[edit] Part 4

Earth President Richard Nixon is tricked into selling Earth to the scammers and everyone evacuates the planet. They assemble an attack fleet and defeat the scammers' fleet of solid gold Death Stars, achieving victory thanks to Hermes' bureaucratic strategy (which wins back LaBarbara). The scammers threaten the crew with a doomsday device Bender had stolen for them, but fail to realize that Bender has double crossed them. The crew fires the device at the scammers' ship, destroying it. Everyone returns to Earth to celebrate the New Year 3008, where Bender is commended for his deeds and Hermes is (properly) re-capitated onto his original, newly-repaired body.

We are given one more glimpse of the life of Fry's duplicate in 2012 before Bender's attack. Though Leelu and Fry were reunited, she began acting up in the presence of a male narwhal. At first Fry thought the male was upsetting her, but soon realized that she wanted to be with him. Fry decided to do what would make Leelu happy and released her back into the wild to be with the male before returning home to his fate.

Fry sees that Leela is still unhappy that Lars left her at the altar, and tries to get them back together. The reunion is cut short by Nudar, the lead scammer, who survived the explosion of the doomsday device thanks to radiation-resistant armor (the only thing closest to clothing that he is ever seen to wear). Nudar claims that the time-travel code still exists on Lars. Lars tricks him into approaching the cryo-tube with the Bender on overload; once that Bender is released, he explodes and kills Lars and Nudar. The explosion singes off some of Lars' clothing, revealing the time-travel tattoo. A flashback explains that Lars is actually Fry's duplicate, having survived Bender's attack in 2012, which burned off his hair and injured his larynx, deepening his voice. Upon realizing that he was in fact the Lars he knows from 3007 (seeing a picture of himself with Leela from the future), the duplicate Fry froze himself (in the same tube as Michelle) to return to the future and be with Leela. However, once he realized that all time travel duplicates were doomed, Lars broke off the wedding because he didn't want to cause any more pain to Leela, as explained in his video will. Leela understands, and gives the original Fry a kiss on the cheek after he comments how Lars was a great guy.

During the funeral, Bender peels off the tattoo from Lars' charred corpse and travels into the past to place it on the Fry frozen in cryo-sleep to make sense out of all that has transpired, thus completing the circle. Upon returning, Bender has all of his copies leave the cave with him instead of emerging when they were logically supposed to. The exponential "doom field" created by the Bender copies exploding one after another causes a giant tear in the universe, prompting Bender to remark as the film closes, "Well, we're boned," raising the prospect of the next film.

[edit] Cast

• Billy West as Philip J. Fry, Doctor John Zoidberg, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Zapp Brannigan, Earth President Richard Nixon, Lars Fillmore and additional voices
• Katey Sagal as Turanga Leela
• John DiMaggio as Bender, Robot Santa and additional voices
• Phil LaMarr as Hermes Conrad and additional voices
• Lauren Tom as Amy Wong and additional voices
• Maurice LaMarche as Kif Kroker and additional voices
• Frank Welker as Nibbler and additional voices
• Al Gore as Himself
• Dawnn Lewis as LaBarbara Conrad
• Coolio as Kwanzaa Bot
• Mark Hamill as Chanukah Zombie
• Sarah Silverman as Michelle
• David Herman as Nudar, Scruffy and additional voices
• Tress MacNeille as Linda and additional voices
• Tom Kenny as Yancy Fry
• Kath Soucie as Cubert Farnsworth

[edit] Production

In February 2007, Futurama co-creator Matt Groening addressed speculation as to whether Futurama had been revived in episodic or feature-film form, explaining that the crew is "writing them as movies and then we're going to chop them up, reconfigure them, write new material and try to make them work as separate episodes."^[3] A preview of the film was shown at Comic-Con 2007.^[4] It was also reported at Comic-Con that once the movie is "chopped up" it will be reconfigured into four episodes that will be broadcast on Comedy Central on March 23, 2008. The same will be done with the succeeding three movies, creating a sixteen-episode fifth season.^[5] The voice recording finished on July 3, 2007.^[6] An official trailer was released on October 10, 2007.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score is the first carbon neutral DVD to be released by 20th Century Fox.^[7] The studio worked to reduce the carbon impact of DVD manufacture and distribution. It also features "A Terrifying Message From Al Gore", an animated short produced to promote guest star Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, a discussion on the use of mathematics in Futurama, full length audio commentary by cast and crew members. It also features an Easter Egg (accessible by highlighting the bender icon on the second page) as well as a full length episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad.^[8]

[edit] Broadcast and reception

Bender's Big Score made its broadcast premiere on Comedy Central on March 23, 2008.^[2] The film was broken into four separate episodes which will serve as the first part of Futurama's fifth season, followed by the other three expected films. The extended opening from the film is cut in the broadcast premiere, and placed before the scene where Hermes is decapitated as opposed to after it. The first two scenes in the montage of Leela and Lars' dates were cut. The three additional opening captions are: "Watch, Rinse, Repeat.", "Apply directly to the foreclaw", and "Last Known Transmission of the Hubble Telescope". The billboard scene in all four is identical to the single scene in the film.

Overall the film was well received. It won the 2007 Annie Award for Best Home Entertainment Production.^[9] The movie received an "A" rating from a review at UGO noting that its two musical numbers are "hilarious" and that the quality has not decreased from the show's original run.^[10] Dan Iverson of IGN gave the movie an 8 out of 10, stating that "it is easy to recommend Bender's Big Score to fans of the series and those new to the show alike." They also gave the DVD a 7 out of 10, praising the extras but lamenting the quality of the video transfer.^[11] It has been given a 9/10 by Movie Power magazine and a 'B' by the Washington Post. Rotten Tomatoes overall rated it 100% as the users rated it 82%.

[edit] Torgo's Executive Powder

Torgo's Executive Powder is an elaborate running gag throughout the film in retaliation against the Fox Network for its alleged mishandling and eventual cancellation of Futurama.^[12] The product is said to have "a million and one uses" and consists of ground-up executives, including those of the film's thinly veiled Fox Network parody (the Box Network), and makes repeated appearances due to its miraculous utility in such diverse tasks as seasoning, surgery, delousing, feeding heads in jars, cosmetics, bomb disposal, artillery, and the care of head transplant patients. In the Everybody Loves Hypnotoad episode released with the film, Torgo's Powder is advertised as a parody of HeadOn, stating "Torgo's Powder: apply directly to the buttocks" three times in the same fashion. The name of the product is a reference to Torgo, a character in the horror film "Manos" The Hands of Fate, which had been made famous by the 1990s cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000.^[13] When the film was aired on Comedy Central, a fake commercial was shown preceding the first break in which a woman dumps some of the powder in a toilet.

[edit] Special packaging

With the release of Bender's Big Score a limited edition issue was available that featured a lenticular sleeve. ^[14]

[edit] Cultural References

• The weapon Bender uses to hunt down fry in the past is similar in both appearance and function to the peacemaker from Jak II.
• The scammers' solid gold Death Stars are modeled after the Death Star from Star Wars.
• Al Gore refers to An Inconvenient Truth when attacking the gold Death Stars.
• When Lars and Leela fall down a cliff and get followed by a huge rock and safely land by hovering only to be hit by the huge rock, this is what the writers of Futurama refer to in the commentary as "Road Runner physics".
• In the 21st century, Fry-2 has a Family Guy calendar on his wall with Peter and Stewie Griffin on it.
• In the beginning of the film, the Head Museum has a banner that says, "A Life in Film: That Horse's Head from The Godfather".
• Comedy Central is referenced twice in the film as a reference to Futurama's move to Comedy Central:
  • Among the many pop-up ads that invade Amy's laptop after getting the "hi how are you" virus says "Watch Comedy Central"
  • In the Head Museum, two unidentified heads are those of Jon Stewart from The Daily Show and Eric Cartman from South Park, both of which are Comedy Central programs.
• Many references to Terminators 1 and 2 can be found in Bender's chase for Fry in the 21st century:
  • The most obvious is is use of the sunglasses.
  • Bender's time travel duplicate says to Fry, "Hasta la vista, meatbag!"
  • Bender looks up all the possible "Philip J. Fry"'s in a phonebook, just like the Terminator did with Sarah Connor.
• After Hermes gets decapitated again, Barbados Slim remarks with "Cruel runnings, mon!", a play on the movie Cool Runnings.
• The Chanukah Zombie's battle vehicle is a TIE fighter, the same battle vehicle used by Darth Vader in Star Wars. Not coincidentally, both the Chanukah Zombie and Luke Skywalker are played by Mark Hamill.
• When LaBarbara first sees Hermes' head in a jar, she calls him her "little love pirate of the Caribbean."
• In the song "This Toyshop's Going to War", Kwanzaabot instructs the Neptunian elves to "pimp my sleigh", a reference to Pimp My Ride.
• Hermes says, "At least a monster has a body! What I wouldn't give for Wolfman's torso or any of the Groovie Goolies!"
• Some of the vehicles, especially the ambulance in the opening scene, make the "Pbpbpbppbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpb" sounds made by the vehicles in The Jetsons.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The bunnies that the Neptunians are manufacturing is Bongo from Matt Groening's early comic 'Life in Hell'.

• Zylex, the new character promised at the intro of the movie, is seen for only three seconds in Elzar's restaurant in the entire movie.

• This is the first time Futurama was made in 16:9 format.

• This movie marks the second appearance of Kwanzaabot ("A Tale of Two Santas") and Philip J. Fry II ("The Luck of the Fryrish"). It also marks the first appearance of the Chanukah Zombie, who was mentioned in "A Tale of Two Santas".

• John Franco is listed in the New York City phonebook that Bender looks through to find Fry.

• Bender says during the movie that for the first time ever he has to use the bathroom. In "I, Roommate," Fry says he needs to use the bathroom, Bender's response is "Bath-what?," Fry says "Bathroom," Bender than says "What-room?," and Fry says again, "Bathroom!", and Bender's last question is, "What-what?"

• The title of the film Bender's Big Score is possibly a twist on the sequel to the original Shaft film entitled Shaft's Big Score.

• Alien Language: In Elzar's Fine Cusine, the sign above the window for soup reads "Human Broth" in Alien Language 1.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Bender's Big Score

• Futurama: Bender's Big Score at the Internet Movie Database
• Press Release
• Review of Benders Big Score on DVD at www.sci-fi-online.com
• Bender's Big Score at The Infosphere.