Lissa's Bender's Big Score

[TheLuckyOne]

Nice one, Liss! After no one posted in the thread I started on the Movie board, I was worried I was the only one who saw this thing. Good review- I also enjoyed the folding chairs and could have used a bit less Hermes, a bit more... I don't know, Zapp Brannigan, maybe.

Also, good catch on Jon Stewart in the Head Museum, I must have missed that. Although I was super amused to see Cartman's head- you can really tell which animated shows the Futurama writers admire (Cartman in the head museum) and which they dislike (the Family Guy "12 laughs a year" calendar).

-D

[Lissa]

Thanks! I got it for Christmas (excellent present, btw), and was just impressed we managed to watch it so soon.

Yeah, I like Hermes, but there are other supporting characters I like better. Maybe in one of the future movies though. I totally missed Cartman, though. I really want to freeze some of the scenes and take a better look at them!

[Storm_Rider]

I'm also quite a big Futurama fan, and I have seen the movie for some time now, several times

You can see Lrrr and his wife as guests at the wedding.

Good review. I had no problem with the Lars thing, and yes way too much Hermes.

[TheLuckyOne]

Reviving this thread because Bender's Big Score was (as promised) sliced up into 4 normal-length episodes and aired on Comedy Central last weekend. And after watching them again with fresh eyes and re-reading Lissa's great review, I realized something: while Futurama is still really funny and I'm glad it's back, I'm disappointed that some of the events in BBS basically invalidate two of the most poignant earlier episodes. They're pretty minor things, I guess, but it still kind of bugs me. (Spoilers ahead, by the way, so anyone who plans to check the show and/or movie out someday but hasn't gotten around to it yet, read no further.)

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In "Jurassic Bark," Fry finds the complete, fossilized remains of his old dog Seymour and learns that the Professor would be able to clone Seymour a new body and even copy his old brain waves, in effect restoring the original to life. Fry is ecstatic, but when the Professor announces Seymour was 15 when he died, Fry realizes Seymour lived 12 years after Fry was frozen and calls off the process, deciding Seymour probably had a long, full life that he was only a small part of. But as we learn in a heartbreaking flashback, Fry was wrong: Seymour sat on the same street corner every day, hardly moving, for 12 years, waiting for his master to return.

And in "The Luck of the Fryrish," Fry finds a statue of "Philip J. Fry," a 21st century rock star who dated supermodels and visited Mars, famous for his lucky 7-leafed clover. Problem is, the clover used to belong to Fry, and he recognizes the statue's likeness as his brother Yancy, who was always jealous of Fry and tried to copy him. Furious that Yancy stole his identity after he was frozen, Fry visits "Philip J. Fry"'s grave to retrieve his clover, where he learns the truth: "Philip J. Fry" was actually Fry's nephew, born after Fry was frozen, who Yancy named in honor of the brother he loved and missed every day.

Nice, right? A couple of pretty poignant episodes, certainly by cartoon standards. Except... Bender's Big Score invalidates them both by having Fry time travel back to the day he was frozen and stay in the present for another 12 years. Now, Seymour didn't forlornly wait on the same corner for 12 years, he got to see his master every day for a decade. Yancy didn't name his son in memory of his missing brother, because his brother wasn't missing. I know those aren't big things in the grand scheme of things, but it just feels like BBS took all the emotional impact out of two great episodes through those actions. Did anyone else feel the same way?

-D