More on Futurama…

Updated on July 31, 2007 By Ken Begg 11 Comments

Amongst the news issuing from this year’s rather amazing Comic-Con, Rotten Tomatoes reports on the upcoming Futurama revival.  New details confirm that a DTV movie called Bender’s Big Score! will be released on Nov. 27.  (Cool.  I can probably score it for free for my birthday.) 

Three more such movies are planned to follow next year.  The titles will be The Beast with a Million Backs, Bender’s Game (har har), and The Wild Green Yonder.  

The sad news, however, is that the new episodes to appear on Comedy Central next year are in fact going to be re-edits of the DTV movies.  Hopefully they’ll at least include expanded footage or something of that sort.

Still, it’s wonderful to see this show coming back in any form at all.  Kudos to Matt Groening and the gang.

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  • Beppo

    I’ll go buy the DVDs and Comedy Central can bite my shiny metal ass.

  • Ed Richardson

    Buy? Ever hear of Bittorrent?

    I watched my first full episode of Futurama last night. It’s very very good and I will watch more but it is what I always expected: second rate to The Simpsons. You’re just not as invested in the characters as much Bart, Lisa, Homer, Marge. I think it’s more of a showcase for Matt Groening’s uber-Geek fantasies. That’s not a bad thing at all because many parts are funny, but there’s no one character with half the entertainment value of Homer Simpson. Perhaps they will grow on me, but The Simpsons are clearly Groening’s magnum opus.

  • Ericb

    I think Futurama is an aquired taste. It doesn’t hit you right away like The Simspsons does, it’s more drole than laugh-out-loud funny and the characters take some time to grow on you.

  • I can’t disagree with you, Ed. I don’t agree with some fans’ opinions that Futurama is superior to the Simpsons. Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but I had a feeling Futurama would resonate to the younger college crowd and not to late night Sunday audiences. In a way, Adult Swim was a much better fit than Sunday nights on Fox.

    But then again, what is superior to the Simpsons? The Simpsons paved the way for the new world of adult animation with fresh, witty humor.

    However, Futurama is still a good show. I’ll skip Family Guy on Adult Swim nowadays, but if Futurama is on, I’ll watch it. I’m not much a fan of the Season One stuff (some of the humor did seem kinda forced, in the pun-filled Flintstones/Jetsons variety), but I thought the show grew in later years.

    The one thing that I can Futurama does better than the Simpsons is character development. On the Simpsons, all archetypes remain the same; that’s the nature of the show. On Futurama, though, people learn and grow, and the experiences in one of the episodes actually impacts the characters in later episodes.

  • Ed Richardson

    I watched it last night on Adult Swim which, to my surprise, runs on the Cartoon Network, right smack dab in the middle of every kiddie channel on cable.

    What I find entertaining about Futurama is the Douglas Adams science fiction-based humor. Much of it is right out of Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

  • Jimmy

    I’d find it hard to choose between Futurama and The Simpsons when the show was at its peak. Compared to the Simpsons we’ve been seeing for the last decade Futurama is way better. By the time Futurama started the Simpsons had just about passed the plimsoll line for crappiness. Futurama never had the chance to become the sad and degraded parody of itself the Simpsons has become. I’m just hoping these new DVD movies don’t change that.

  • Ericb

    I guess I’m showing my age here but my favorite of Groening’s work will always be the Life In Hell strips from the 80s.

  • BeckoningChasm

    I agree that the show got a lot better as it got older. The episode with the giant bees still makes me tear up.

    However, the titles of the upcoming films make me sigh, as they’re obviously going to be Bender-Centric. Now, Bender was one of the greatest supporting characters of all time, but whenever he was the “lead” in story, I thought those stories were pretty bad. Bender’s greedy, amoral, selfish, etc, etc, yes, I got it. For me, he doesn’t make a compelling lead.

    Here’s hoping that at least the films won’t have Zapp Brannigan in them. Nothing kills my interest more than Zapp Brannigan.

  • Aw, man…. I like Zapp Brannigan. :( Not as the lead, but as a supporting character. He usually gets some pretty good lines. My favorite Zapp role had to be that Starship Troopers spoof: he ends up falling for Leela eventhough she’s disguised as a man, and he starts getting uncomfortable about what he thinks are newly found homosexual urges.

  • Jimmy

    Gotta’ have Zapp. My favourite Brannigan hijink would have to be the ‘Brannigan Begin Again’ episode with his hatred of the neutrals. “What makes man turn neutral.” etc.

  • BeckoningChasm

    I dunno guys, different strokes and all that, but when Zapp appears, the player goes off. I guess it’s a survival thing.