Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs Talkback (Spoilers)

Bit of a dodgy site, banner ads and pop ups i'm to scared to look at, otherwise great review, I like the little 1920s Leela, wonder what that'll look like in the film.
I'll need to pick up both this and Bender's Big Score, as it's only been out in the UK for a month and I've been too busy to actually buy it and I've been a bit tight for cash.
 
I'm not sure if I said this before, but these DTV films are really a smart idea. The wait in-between them is good for two reasons: It means the writers/animators are putting more time into them than a normal TV episode, and it builds anticipation among the fans. Can't wait to see "Beast" in a few weeks.
 
I don't like it when every critic in the world feels they must compare the show they're reviewing to Family Guy.

I didn't mind at first, but now it seems like I can't read anything about any cartoon without stumbling onto a paragraph about how much Family Guy sucks and Seth is a hack yet everyone is ignoring his writing work on American Dad, Johnny Bravo, and other 90's Hannah-Berbara cartoons.

That just seems a bit unfair.
 
That's fine, but people only talk about Family Guy. They ignore American Dad and his Larry & Steve short, which showed that he was able to draw cartoony and expressive.

What if I kept comparing South Park saying it was horrible to ever show I like and that Matt and Trey were complete hacks, completely disregarding they're work on things like Team America, BASEketball, That's My Bush!, and everything else.
 
That wouldn't really make sense, since you also have to acknowledge their other work. However, if you hate all their work, then it would be a different story.


You were away for both nights? Because it aired a second time the week after it aired on TV. :confused:
 
Pssst, want to know why everyone thinks of Family Guy first? Because it's just that much more popular and mainstream than anything else Seth has ever done and probably ever will do. That's the show he'll be remembered for the most. It's really as simple as that.

As for Trey Parker and Matt Stone...they didn't make Baseketball (they only starred in it) and That's My Bush was pretty forgettable. And while Team America was great, South Park will always be what Trey and Matt will be remembered for. I'm willing to bet they're going to ride this show out as long as they can and when it ends they'll retire comfortably with the hundreds of millions of dollars they've made on the show.
 
I saw Bender's Big Score and pretty much liked it, but I'm not sure if I'll bother with this new one. I've read spoilers and apparently:


SPOILER SPACE



The Fry and Leela relationship, such as it is, is reportedly completely disregarded in Beast With A Billion Backs. More than disregarded - all the events in Score are completely ignored and Fry gets a new girlfriend. Now, if Groening and the gang want to put an end to Fry's attraction to Leela, I'm like, whatever, but I WOULD like an explanation for it. Apparently this new DVD is like a total redo, and no explanation is forthcoming, and that irritates me. As for Fry's pursuit of Leela, while I think it makes Fry likeable, I'll admit it was a little over-the-top in Score. Yet at the same time, it made the show more interesting...anyway, maybe some fans don't care for the Fry/Leela thing, but I do think it might be a mistake if it's discarded altogether. JMHO.
 
*mockingly* Can't afford the DVD? O_o

Nah,I'm kiddin' ya.I haven't thought about getting the DVD yet.Maybe one of these days I'll try renting it or something.
 
As much as I enjoy the Fry/Leela relationship I really wouldn't want to see them focus on it all the time like that. That happened in the series too. Didn't "I Dated a Robot" (Fry seeing the Lucy Liu robot) come immediately after a Fry/Leela episode?

I'm sure it's not going to be discarded altogether. They'll get back to it.
 
I was also able to see the movie today

I was very dissapointed

It was not nearly as good as Bender's Big Score. The guest stars all had very minimal roles (with the exception of Britney Murphy, whose character wasn't very interesting or worth watching).

The plot just kept jumping around, not staying with 1 plot for more than 10 mins. Bender's Big Score had multiple plots and you could tell when the episode would be cut for Comedy Central, but all the plots connected. With this movie, the plots don't really intertwine.

The overall plot was pretty lame too. I didn't find the Yivo parts to be any good at all, especially the end part. Despite being on the cover, Leela barely has a role in the movie other than the Yivo part.

Overall, it isn't too bad, but if you expect this to be like Bender's Big Score, you will be very dissapointed

2.5/5
 
KaiserNeko's review of

Futurama: Beast With A Billion Backs

Love has been one of the most popular subjects and themes of many a movie since the conception of cinema. It seems like there isn't a movie made nowadays without some sort of love interest, whether it's the center of a romance or the more-often-than-not obligatory attraction of the action hero.

Futurama: Beast With A Billion Backs, however, takes a very unique look at the concept of love. Not too soon after we've taken up where we left off at the end of the movie prior to this, we're interrupted from learning about this rip in the time/space continuum to find Fry with the girl of his dreams... and it's not Leela. Her name is Colleen (voiced by Brittany Murphy) and she's apparently become the center of Fry's attraction.

But just as soon their relationship is introduced, the already well covered romance of Amy and Kiff becomes center attraction with a bizarre, alien wedding ceremony filled with an amusing look at Kiff's family, the return of the Grand Mid-Wife (though now, the Grand Priestess and later on, the Grand Funeral Director,) and some minor-gross out comedy that works well enough.

The movie continues to build upon Fry and Colleen, but it's worth noting that at this point, we're 9 minutes into the film and we're not yet back to the original threat provided at the end of Bender's Big Score. This is distracting, because anyone who saw the film would go into this feature expecting more coverage of what seems to be one of the biggest, baddest, and boldest threats to the universe the Futurama cast has yet to see, yet we're taking a backseat to a sudden and jarring disregard of something else that was set up so meticulously before this.

Fry and Leela's relationship was a key part of Bender's Big Score and I personally felt like it's absolute abandonment here is bizarre. It's obvious the crew behind the series are all fantastic at what they do. They're not amateurs and they know what works and how to build a great story. They've also never been afraid of continuity and in fact have built a reputation of honoring it effectively. So why remove such a beautifully constructed aspect of their relationship for this?

More on that later, as we have another plot-line going on that seems almost as jarring. Bender becomes Calculon's official stalker which, while somewhat questionable considering how little it has to do with any of the already prominent threads, is hilarious and par the course for Futurama, and goes on to bring several laughs during it's descension into organization of Bender's dreams.

Over the course of the movie, Bender loses Fry's attention and becomes more and more isolated to his robotic comrades. We finally have more development of the primary plot-line, through an entertainingly decided upon mission to the tear. We're faced with the death of a character and the subsequent grieving of the character's better half. Finally, Fry and Colleen break up in a manner that's both strangely prophetic and honestly intriguing in it's portrayal of polygamous relationships with Fry seemingly losing himself to depression over the loss.

If you can't tell, there's a lot going on that seems pretty unrelated to the other. But something underlies and connects each of these threads in a manner that the audience has to keep an open mind to understand. The reveal of who the beast is and it's intentions for the many people of our universe is somewhat disturbing at first, but as we continue on through the final act of the movie, we realize the underlying theme of each plot and their importance as a whole. It wasn't so much that every action intended reaction but instead, intended to display a manner of love.

As I said at the beginning, the theme of this movie is love, ultimately and truly. No one kind of love, but the love we all share and know. Romance, friendship, lust; this movie gives the subtlest look into each and finally into the dirty truth of what love is at it's core as illustrated somewhat hastefully into the credits. This is what tries to save the movie from it's jarring jumps between scenes and at times awkward pacing because, in the end, there's a theme that ties it together.

The problem is, even with the theme that ties this movie together, the film suffers still from how it's presented. There's not enough focus going on with the actual storyline and we're constantly wondering when we're going to get to the meat of things. When we do, it's satisfying, but the road there is just so questionable. It makes the whole film feel like one long episode, or a stretch of episodes strung together.

Ultimately, it's a satisfying romp back into the Futurama universe, but I can't help but feel there could have been some better connection with between each scene to make things flow better and give a better feel of an overall plot. As well, their decision to trash Leela's relationship with Fry so they could play on his the polygamous relationship with Colleen just feels wrong, no two ways about it.

Futurama: Beast With A Billion Backs = B-
 
I've just watched the movie....

It was alright,and there were some amusing moments (mostly stuff involving Zoidberg and Zapp Brannigan....those two never fail to make me laugh)...but I hated that they completely ignored Fry and Leela's relationship in favor of Fry getting a new (and completely uninteresting) girlfriend....IMO,the movie would've been better if they'd done more with Fry and Leela's developing relationship rather than ignoring it/introducing a new love interest for one of them....
Bender's Big Score was way better,though this movie is still worth watching....and on the plus side,the next DTV movie looks good (and will apparently be out for the holidays this year)...
 
I think the leap from regular episodes to full length movies has hurt the humor a bit. I wasn't laughing nearly as much as the TV series, and most of the laughs were merely "heh"s and not guffaws. I laughed a few times- anything with Kif and Brannigan was gold, as always, and little jokes here and there like Zoidberg telling the story of how Fry and Colleen met (which began with Zoidberg asking FRY how they met- good 'screw you' joke) were good. But for a 90 minute feature, I wasn't laughing as much as I should have. It seems like the writers wanted to make a big epic, which they did, but forgot to make the jokes equally as epic.

The plot could've used some work, too. The main tentacle plot takes a while to get going (I think it's a good 40 minutes before Fry finally ventures to the other side of the anomaly), and oddly feels without momentum for some of it despite the seriousness of the situation. And Bender's plot barely ties into the main plot until the last ten minutes or so, when he and his league decide to conquer Earth. And then the climax, with the human race in "heaven", was over as quickly as it started. And was Fry sad about leaving the tentacles at the end, or his old polygamist girlfriend? I couldn't tell, nor did it seem to matter. Wernstrom and Farnsworth joining forces also felt very anticlimactic and subdued, especially given their rivalry in the TV series.

I hate to scream "false advertising" too, but Leela having a relatively minor role in the plot aside from the "escape the tentacles" section and the climax in heaven didn't feel right, since she's the focal point of the cover and all. Really, this was more of a Fry story.

Overall, it had its sporadic moments, acceptable art/animation, and some creative ideas as always, but I liked "Bender's Big Score" much better, despite being more confusing.
 
The best scene of this movie was without a doubt, Bender's son.

This movie basically had the same problem I had with Big Score. For a good amount of time, (Though not as long as Big Score) a main character was controlled and didn't really feel like himself. I also hate how the plot is just kicked around and going all over the place. I still like this movie much more than Big Score, though.
 
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