Futurama: Bender's Big Score (2007) (V)

Director:

Dwayne Carey-Hill

Writers:

Matt Groening (creator)
Matt Groening (developer) ...
(more)

Release Date:

27 November 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Just when you thought it was safe to watch something else!

Plot:

Planet Express sees a hostile takeover and Bender falls into the hands of criminals where he is used to fulfill their schemes. |

Plot Keywords:

Hostile Takeover | Cult Favorite | Criminal Syndicate | Killer Robot | Scientist

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Billy West	...	Philip J. Fry / Dr. John Zoidberg / Prof. Hubert Farnsworth / Zapp Brannigan / God Entity / President Richard Nixon's Head / Lars Fillmore / Inuit #1 / Silly Willy Wideo Will Guy / Additional Voices (voice)
Katey Sagal	...	Turanga Leela (voice)
John Di Maggio	...	Bender Rodriguez / Barbados Slim / Robot Santa / Mr. Panucci / Elzar / Sal / Constantine / Curly Joe / Additional Voices (voice) (as John DiMaggio)
Tress MacNeille	...	Linda / Dr. Cahill / Dr. Shlavinowitz / Turanga Munda / Tinny Tim / Hattie McDoogal / Leela's Wrist Thingy / Bender's Computer / Additional Voices (voice)
Maurice LaMarche	...	Kif Kroker / Transition Announcer / Hedonismbot / Schlump / Morbo / Horrible Gelatinous Blob / Donbot / Clamps / Leelu / Cyrogenist / Leroy / Inuit #2 / Charles de Gaulle's Head / Headless Body of Agnew / Additional Voices (voice)
Phil LaMarr	...	Hermes Conrad / Ethan 'Bubblegum' Tate / Dwight Conrad / Philip Joshua Fry / Additional Voices (voice)
Lauren Tom	...	Amy Wong / Philip J. Fry II / Additional Voices (voice)
David Herman	...	Nudar / Scruffy / Turanga Morris / Terry / Father Changstein-El-Gamal / Nude Bartender / Sweet Clyde / Phillip Fry / 21st Century Newscaster / Additional Voices (voice)
Dawnn Lewis	...	LaBarbara Conrad (voice)
Kath Soucie	...	Cubert Farnsworth (voice)
Frank Welker	...	Nibbler / Fleb / Seymour / Additional Voices (voice)
Coolio	...	Kwanzabot (voice)
Al Gore	...	Himself (voice)
Mark Hamill	...	Chanukah Zombie (voice)
Tom Kenny	...	Yancy Fry Jr. (voice)
Sarah Silverman	...	Michelle (voice)

Directed by
Dwayne Carey-Hill

Writing credits
Matt Groening		(creator)
Matt Groening		(developer) &
David X. Cohen		(developer)
Ken Keeler		(teleplay)
Ken Keeler		(story) &
David X. Cohen		(story)

Produced by
Elise Belknap	....	associate producer
David X. Cohen	....	executive producer
Matt Groening	....	executive producer
Eric Kaplan	....	supervising producer
Claudia Katz	....	producer
Rich Moore	....	animation executive producer
Michael Rowe	....	supervising producer
Lee Supercinski	....	producer
Geraldine Symon	....	animation line producer
Geraldine Symon	....	producer: main title
Gregg Vanzo	....	animation executive producer
Patric Verrone	....	co-executive producer (as Patric M. Verrone)

Original Music by
Christopher Tyng

Film Editing by
Paul D. Calder

Casting by
Scott Muller

Production Design by
Serban Cristescu

Production Management
Michael Hughes	....	production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Mike Smith	....	director: main title
Mun Jeong Yu	....	assistant director (as Yumun Jeong)

Sound Department
Peter Cole	....	sound re-recording mixer
Brian Phillipson	....	track reader
Travis Powers	....	sound designer
Carlos Sotolongo	....	production mixer
Samuel C. Crutcher	....	sound effects editor (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Don W. Kim	....	3D animator (as Don Kim)
Gena Kornyshev	....	digital background painter (as Genna Kornyshev)
David Lee	....	effects animator
John MacFarlane	....	effects animator
Mark Orme	....	3D animator
Jason Plapp	....	digital camera and composite
Chris Stover	....	3D animator
Doug Tiano	....	digital camera and composite
Scott Vanzo	....	3D director: main title
Scott Vanzo	....	digital camera and composite supervisor
Scott Vanzo	....	director of computer graphics
Eric Whited	....	3D animator
Eric Whited	....	3D animator: main title
Mike Wodkowski	....	digital camera and composite

Animation Department
Daniel Bond	....	character layout artist
Crystal Chesney	....	retake director
Patrick Dailey	....	character layout artist (as Patrick T. Dailey)
Stephen DeStefano	....	storyboard artist (as Stephen Destefano)
Erben Detrablan	....	background layout artist (as Erben Detablan)
Orlando Distor	....	character layout artist
Edgar Duncan	....	background & prop designer (as Edgar Duncan Jr.)
Tim Eldred	....	storyboard artist
Jim Feeley	....	character designer
Edmund Fong	....	storyboard artist
Bradley J. Gake	....	background layout artist (as Bradley Gake)
Christofer Graham	....	storyboard artist (as Chris Graham)
Colin Heck	....	storyboard artist
Peter Hixson	....	animation timer
Timothy Hwang	....	background layout artist (as Tim Hwang)
Claudia V. Keene	....	character layout artist (as Claudia Keene)
Karapet Keroglyan	....	character designer
Jae H. Kim	....	character layout artist
Sean Kim	....	character layout artist
Julianna Korsborn	....	character layout artist (as Juliana Korsborn)
Joy Ki Peum Lee	....	background layout artist
Sang Am Lee	....	animation checker
Brian LoSchiavo	....	character layout artist
Peter Maivia	....	design clean-up artist
Aimee Major	....	character layout artist (as Aimee Steinberger)
Kenny McGill	....	background layout artist
Jeff Mertz	....	background & prop designer
Maureen Mlynarczyk	....	animation timer
Robert P. Moore	....	character layout artist
Jeanette Moreno	....	character layout artist
Brian Phillipson	....	track reading & lip assignment
Drew T. Pierce	....	character layout artist (as Drew Pierce)
Vladi Rubizhevsky	....	background & prop designer
Stephen Sandoval	....	storyboard artist
John Seymore	....	background & prop designer
Hyunbo Simm	....	character layout artist
Steve Socki	....	animation timing director
Pablo Solis	....	storyboard artist
Derek Lee Thompson	....	character layout artist (as Derek Thompson)
Roger Viloria	....	character layout artist
Stevan Wahl	....	character layout artist
Bonnie F. Watkins	....	animation accountant (as Bonnie Watkins)
Cindy Azada Whitman	....	design coordinator
Mun Jeong Yu	....	overseas animation supervisor (as Yumun Jeong)

Editorial Department
Samantha Harrison	....	color supervisor
Rachel Stratton	....	color key
Danik Thomas	....	associate editor
Samuel S. Williams	....	editor: RDS (as Samuel Williams)
Chad Woods	....	color key

Music Department
Scott Schirle	....	music editor

Other crew
N. Vyolet Diaz	....	assistant to producers
Hugo Linares	....	production assistant
Deanna Maclellan	....	assistant to producers (as Deanna MacLellan)
Jeffrey Perez	....	production assistant
Sylvia Ramirez	....	assistant production accountant (as Sylvia C. Ramirez)
Carolyn Roach	....	production assistant
Michael Saikin	....	production assistant
Helen M. Saric	....	production coordinator
Carson Sciarrino	....	production coordinator
Ben Sigman	....	systems administrator
Ursula Wendel	....	assistant to producers
Hyejoon Yun	....	overseas liaison
Katie Krentz	....	assistant to production executive (uncredited)
Marci Proietto	....	studio executive (uncredited)

Production Companies

• 20th Century Fox Television
• Curiosity Company, The

Distributors

• Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (2007) (worldwide) (all media)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2008) (UK) (DVD)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• Comedy Central (2008) (USA) (TV)
• FS Film Oy (2008) (Finland) (DVD)
• Gativideo (2008) (Argentina) (DVD)
• Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (2008) (Netherlands) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Before Noon Post-Production  post-production facilities
• Travis Powers Sound Design  sound design

Also Known As:

Bender's Big Score (Australia)
The Futurama Movie (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

USA:Not Rated | Australia:PG | Singapore:PG | Finland:K-11 | UK:12 | Spain:13 | Netherlands:6 | Germany:12 | Argentina:13 | Ireland:12 | Canada:14A (Manitoba) | Canada:PG (Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Norway:10 (TV rating)

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

If you look at the "ASCII-art" of the time code, it looks like a rocket ship.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings," after Bender made a deal with the Robot Devil and deafened Leela, Leela made a deal with the devil to restore her hearing, which he did with Calculon's ears. In Bender's Big Score, however, she has recovered her hearing and has no robotic ears. However, it has been at least two years from "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings," making it entirely probable that she could have received enough treatment to no longer need the robotic ears.

Quotes:

Turanga Munda: Our little girl is finally getting married, and to a normal two-eyed human.
Turanga Morris: Eh, he's not good enough for her. Leela deserves a guy with a dozen eyes.
Turanga Munda: Quit trying to fix her up with Fly Mutant!

Movie Connections:

References The Godfather (1972)

Soundtrack:

Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

I didn't doubt they could do it, although some did!

I honestly thought this show was dead and would never come back. I only watch the episodes once a year because I don't want to wear out my favourite animated show. To hear of the comeback was great. To have to wait quite a while, not so much. Seeing the final product, a real joy and pleasant surprise.

To be sure, they're a little rusty in places. Some of the lines, especially in the initial third of the film, are questionable and would not have made the final cut under the regime that provided us with the standard series. Hermes, only occasionally an entertaining character, gets too much screen time in a somewhat superfluous side plot featuring his equally unentertaining wife and his irritating enemy Barbados Slim. The villains - the scammer aliens - are disgusting when they should be fearsome. These are the things that lose the film a perfect rating, and are the sorts of niggles I would have expected after such a long hiatus - after all, much of Family Guy's comeback season (number four) is terrible when stacked up to the classic old episodes and a fair few new ones.

But I marvel at what they did right. It retains much of the trademark dynamic writing, taking in some of the same unbelievable and jaw-dropping spins on science and human/alien relationships and making us laugh when explaining away the continuity errors the writers were aware were needed to create an engrossing story.

It makes good use of screen time and never drags it heels which I felt both the Family Guy and Simpsons features did. In the end, both of those other features were such a plot compromise, where you ended up had so little bearing on where you started you had to laugh unintentionally. With this Futurama feature although the plot is bombastic in the greatest sense of the word (like a Queen record for example) it ties up everything I wanted to know in a timely fashion using classic storytelling techniques - and where necessary awesome, seamless and not gratuitous 3DFX - throughout.

Now I've covered the good and the bad, it is time to address the ugly - the backlash. Some have moaned that there isn't enough humour in this feature. To be honest, one of my favourite features of the original series was getting us away from the old cliché which seems to doom a lot of animated shows, namely: Cartoon = Funny. Yes it has several moments of great humour - a nice fifty-fifty of building set pieces and incisive one-liners - but it balances them well with a poignant story which I think they pull off as well as 'The Devils Hands Are Idle Playthings' if you consider that they had to pace it out over nearly ninety minutes which is over four times the length of a standard episode. It's a tall order for almost any script writer used to cramming in the jokes in thirty minutes or less, but these writers don't have a lot of trouble with it.

Another point of contention with the hardcore fans has been what a few of them have called a hopelessly complicated plot. This makes me laugh because the hardcore brethren praise the show constantly for intelligent post-geek humour then with the same breath criticise this new installment for breaking out of the shows comfort zone to use that same intelligence to create a mind blowing story. They must have been watching a different movie because I stuck with almost every twist and turn with awe, and the few I haven't resolved yet will - like all great works of art - reveal themselves with further observation.

In closing - to you hardcore fans who say this isn't a patch on the original episodes, get off your soap box and think yourself lucky there's anything new at all and secondly, I bet you only grew to love those episodes through repeated viewings so stop being so hard on what is a logical continuation of a great premise! 8/10

(NOTE: For those new viewers who missed a lot of the in-jokes that spilled over from the original series and who aren't sure why there is such an abundance of characters, go and buy the Season 1-4 box set from Amazon or eBay and it'll all make perfect sense.)