Futurama : The Beast With A Billion Backs
06.01.08 By Collin DavidIf there’s one testament to the power of vocal internet nerd-dom, it’s that we can offer an endless discourse on why our favorite things are our favorite things. Sure, no one instrumental may be listening in on your favorite message board, but all it takes is one important ear to implement the changes that you desire. It was with this discourse that we brought Futurama back.
Because I like animated people a lot more than I like real people, I was pretty disappointed with the mishandling of Futurama while it was originally on FOX. While it began as another surefire Matt Groening creation (the man also responsible for The Simpsons), it was always treated like a ‘Simpsons in the future’, and it eventually faded out. Sure, a cartoon that joked about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Donkey Kong and the Harlem Globetrotters all in the same breath didn’t have an appeal to the widest common denominator, but us geeks loved it for how smart it was. Still, despite winning Emmys, Nebulas, and all manner of animation awards, Futurama left us in 2003 after 72 episodes, which I can pretty much recite. Don’t test me.
So, I was elated in 2007 when our nerd-swell of e-support precipitated the creation of a direct-to-DVD Futurama movie called ‘Bender’s Big Score’ (which would also air on Comedy Central shortly after release). The lenticular DVD cover didn’t hurt my elation, either. Even after 4 years, Futurama returned with all of the same voice actors, many of the same writers, and didn’t skip a beat. On June 24th, the second (of four planned) Futurama movies will be released, and I’m pleased to report that this second DVD is even better than the first. While I’ve heard no plans to release all 4 DVDs together as a boxed set (as the first 5 seasons of Futurama have been), I view these individual volumes are a fairly essential part of any animation DVD collection.
The best part of this new volume, called ‘The Beast with a Billion Backs’, is that we’re not slowed down by any musical numbers. While classically charming, they’ve never been my favorite parts of the series.
One of the greatest parts of Futurama is that while every episode stands alone, they’ll usually refer back to previous episodes and events as if they were genuinely sequential, which acts as a kind of reward to loyal viewers. Most cartoons seem to operate in a timeless, ageless void where one day will rarely have any large resonance through the rest of the series, but Futurama’s always rewarded attentive viewers by making everything relevant. They’ve also been inserting decodeable alien alphabets into the show, and when decoded, they add additional humor to the show. Even something as inconsequential as a complex math equation on a blackboard might be an enormous joke or a clue - but inserted in such a way that it’s no big deal if you miss it, because you’re still laughing. This time out, expect themes of polyamoury, the end of the universe (which are indicative of each other anyhow), and even some really interesting theological concepts. In a cartoon where a robot can go and hang out with God and talk about the meaning of life for half of a hilarious episode, expect anything.
The DVD includes a whole bunch of neat extras. First off, we have a commentary with the primary voice actors, creators and animators, and it’s actually a commentary worth watching. I always enjoy hearing voice actors riffing on their own characters, and while half of the commentary conversation focuses on interesting details of the show, the rest of it is banter from a bunch of people who clearly enjoy working together. I watched the DVD a second time through just to absorb the great conversation.
Also included is the ‘lost’ Futurama episode, which was not actually ‘lost’ but scripted into the rare Futurama Playstation video game. It’s presented here in its hour-long entirety, animated in clunky 3-D and mixed with a few cut scenes from the gameplay itself. I opted to not watch the whole thing, as I still have plans to play the game and wanted to avoid any spoilers.
Other mini-features span only a few minutes each, and they include some deleted scenes, film of live-action voice performances, and a few moments talking about the evolution of some of the film’s concepts - nothing amazing, but the DVD itself is refreshingly superb. Even better, it was produced using a carbon neutral process, so you’re not injuring the environment by participating in this form of debauchery.
We’ll just have to wait and see if the DVD has a lenticular cover.
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Article Tags: cartoon, DVD, futurama================
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