Futurama: Bender's Big Score (2007)

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

Director:

Dwayne Carey-Hill

Writers:

Matt Groening (created by), Matt Groening (developed by)

Stars:

Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
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 (voice)
Katey Sagal	...	Turanga Leela (voice)
John DiMaggio	...	Bender Rodriguez / Barbados Slim / Robot Santa / Mr. Panucci / Elzar / Sal / Constantine / Curly Joe (voice)
Tress MacNeille	...	Linda / Dr. Cahill / Dr. Shlavinowitz / Turanga Munda / Tinny Tim / Hattie McDoogal / Leela's Wrist Thingy / Bender's Computer (voice)
Maurice LaMarche	...	Kif Kroker / Transition Announcer / Hedonismbot / Schlump / Morbo / H.G. Blob / Donbot / Clamps / Leelu / Cyrogenist / Leroy / Inuit #2 / Charles de Gaulle's Head / Headless Body of Agnew (voice)
Phil LaMarr	...	Hermes Conrad / Ethan 'Bubblegum' Tate / Dwight Conrad / Philip Joshua Fry (voice)
Lauren Tom	...	Amy Wong / Philip J. Fry II (voice)
David Herman	...	Nudar / Scruffy / Turanga Morris / Terry / Father Changstein El-Gamal / Nude Bartender / Sweet Clyde / Phillip Fry / 21st Century Newscaster (voice)
Dawnn Lewis	...	LaBarbara Conrad (voice)
Kath Soucie	...	Cubert Farnsworth (voice)
Frank Welker	...	Nibbler / Fleb / Seymour (voice)
Coolio	...	Kwanzabot (voice)
Al Gore	...	Al Gore / Al Gore's Head (voice)
Mark Hamill	...	Chanukah Zombie (voice)
Tom Kenny	...	Yancy Fry Jr. (voice)

Storyline

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

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Plot Keywords:

paradox | time travel | 30th century | harlem globetrotters | year 2000 | 

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Taglines:

All-New Feature-Length Epic!

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Genres:

Animation | Comedy | Romance | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

During their "hero" introductions in the opening seconds, Leela's hair and Fry's hair blow in opposite directions. This is the first of several instances when the "hero wind" gag is used throughout the series.

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Goofs

The Nobel peace price is presented in Oslo, not in Stockholm as depicted. Since the time stamp on that particular presentation is 2308, however, there's sufficient time for the Nobel Organization to move the location. Also, there were no contextual clues to point to Stockholm being the location presented.

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Quotes

[everyone is huddled in a giant rock igloo on Neptune after the scammer aliens have taken over the Earth]
Bender: Rrrrr... it's so cold, my processor is running at peak efficiency!
Leela: What are you, a whining machine? If you want to worry about something, worry about the Yetis.
Zoidberg: Jedis?
[a chorus of howling Yetis is heard from a distance]
Zoidberg: Oh... YETIS!
Professor Farnsworth: Amy - you speak Yeti - what are they saying?
Amy Wong: I'm not sure, but it sounds like something to do with... assaulting the interlopers!
[...]

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Alternate Versions

This direct-to-DVD movie was the 1st of 4 to be released after the tv series was cancelled at the end of season 5. When the series was to be revived on a different network, this movie was split into 4 parts, each part equal to the usual length of a tv episode, and shown first as season 6 episodes 1 through 4. The other 3 movies were also similarly split and formed the remainder of season 6, 16 episodes in all. Finally, the new episodes made specifically for tv followed as season 7. This practice was identically used for later tv syndication and streaming services such as Hulu.

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Connections

Referenced in Atop the Fourth Wall: Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating Superman (2015)

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Soundtracks

30 Century Man
Written by Scott Walker
Performed by The Jigsaw Seen

User Reviews

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.)

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 November 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Futurama Movie

Company Credits

Production Co:

20th Century Fox Television, Rough Draft Studios, The Curiosity Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1