Rate/Review Futurama: Bender's Game

[Tomacco]

I really don't think that should be an issue. Like I said, I hate Lord of the Rings, and I've never played Dungeons and Dragons. I have no interest in it and know next to nothing about it. I also consider the fantasy genre my least favourite in movies (the only movie I liked that could be considered "fantasy" was "The Princess Bride" and that's more of a romance) and yet I loved this feature. Yes, it threw in little references that will undoubtedly make the fantasy fans smile, but that doesn't mean it alienated everyone who isn't into that genre.

I dunno. I pretty much hated every scene depicting the kids playing D&D, and Bender was basically worthless for laughs through 90% of the movie while he was acting as his Titanius character. Fry as Gollum also didn't get any laughs from me. So, that's actually a fair amount of sacrifice of time and material devoted to D&D and LOTR stuff.

[jordan]

"This movie should have been called 'Slapping and Crapping'" - my friend Dave.

It was disappointing...It still had some priceless funny moments. And overall I enjoyed watching it. But strangely, many gags fell flat and the pacing felt off. I mean...mom coughing while she's laughing? Isn't that like an old Tiny Toons gag or something? I didn't get much humor out of the Fantasy segment, though in contrast to another poster, me and my friends laughed the MOST at the Knife gag!

I thought Beast w/ Billion Backs was the best one (seriously -- the funny gag-per-second ratio is through the roof in that movie, from start to finish), and this one really didn't come close. Still...I enjoyed it.


-Jordan

[Otis P Jivefunk]

Watched the commentary today. That did little to raise my opinions. Worst commentary of the three movies, again boring and most of the time they were just talking about random boring crap. That would have been ok if it was funny, but no...

It did remind me of the only two good points in the movie for me though. The joke with the professor and the monkey using his thoughts to talk through the monkey. What made that joke was the ending with the professor acting like a monkey to translate his thoughts, genius! That's the kind of Futurama jokes I like. the other good point was having The Scary Door back, that always cracks me up...

It also reminded me of a joke that bothered me. Leela getting angry at the rednecks and shouting at Fry in the shower. That really bothered me and seemed out of character despite the anger problems. I mean these rednecks are the same people who in Parasites Lost were making fun of Leela and it was Fry who reacted, not her...

[|Mr.Sparkle|]

I just finished watching it, and I have to say I was a bit disposition, it just wasn't that good, not horrible, but nothing too funny, and I really just don't like Lotr too much, I have seen the 3 movies, but only like once and well, I don't really like them too much, I've NEVER played a game of Dungeons and Dragons before and yeah, I know nothing about it. So I guess all that kind of stuff probably flew over my head. I didn't like the little Star Wars reference at the end, I am a big Star Wars fan, and really that scene in my opinion is way too cliche, and really making jokes at it, well there never really all that funny. One part I REALLY liked though was the opening, the yellow submarine thing, that was fun, funny, and just cool, they did an amazing job with it, and it tied in with the plot being all about Imagination. Anyways it was an ok movie, the worst so far, lets hope they really pick it up with the final one and make an awesome movie. 3/5

[Jims]

Just got this today. I saw there was a discussion thread here, and forgot the movie was out already.

One of my bigger gripes with the movie was in how they handled the fantasy aspect. Yeah, it sort of tied in with Bender's imagination, but it felt very much like a Deus Ex Machina how Bender was just magically whisked out of the asylum and all the other major players were sent to this fantasy realm. I get that it was somehow tied to Dark Matter, but it all felt EXTREMELY rushed and slapped-together for a show that prides itself on having some extremely well-thought-out story arcs. And they got sent back to the real world for an equally arbitrary reason: because Mom had "won"?

You nailed it.

*SPOILERS*

The plot in the first half of the movie seemed pretty organic for the show, and integrated a lot of the stuff from the TV series into the story. One of the things about "Bender's Big Score" that I liked a lot was that it rewarded you for already being a fan of the show. Moments like seeing Fry's 90s girlfriend again, the five-leafed clover, Seymour the dog, or Bender blowing up the buildings in the U.F.O. Call it fan service if you want, but these are direct-to-DVD movies. Futurama fans are the ones buying these things.

The whole plot with the dark matter was interesting and seemed to work. I recently rewatched the episode where they found Nibbler, and always wondered how he got there. Also, expanding on when Farnsworth used to work/screw (with) Mom. A couple nice examples of the writers taking something that already existed, and building a story around it. The Bender subplot worked as well, kinda like a wacky typical B-story in a regular episode.

I get where they were going by putting in the fantasy half, and they tried to connect it with the Bender D&D plot... But it didn't completely work for me, and therefore felt kinda arbitrary. Obviously, they were trying to mirror the first plot in the fantasy plot. It seemed like a big waste of time, though. We had already sat through a half hour of them transporting that thing to Mom's secret hideout... Now watch as they do it again! Maybe if the first half's plot was different and second half dealt with destroying the crystal (in the fantasy setting), it would've worked better for me.

Jokes were hit-or-miss. Some of the funniest jokes were the visuals, like Farnsworth's boomerang and the shtick with the knife. Almost a spot-on QVC parody, especially with the second guy popping in for banter. Not really a big Lord of The Rings fan (although I liked each movie), but the references were well done. The most amusing part was when they collided a scene from The Empire Strikes Back with one of the LOTR movies. It was insane, but it worked eerily well.

Overall, 2.5/5. Still worth my money, but not as enjoyable as the first two movies.

[Otis P Jivefunk]

I don’t like the over-heavy referencing of episodes in this movie either. To me it had gotten to the point where it referenced other episodes so much that I was annoyed at the movie for not being original enough. We’ve seen the whole mental asylum for robots before, it wasn’t worth bringing back unless there was truly something worth bringing it back for. It all seemed like filler, and again made the movie feel badly paced.

Roberto was wasted. He is one of my fave characters from the show, and here he just wasn’t very funny. The writers had written him as just being a parody of himself. Yes we know he is insane, now please write something original. Instead they have made Roberto out to be a very one dimensional character with the same jokes about the same thing. They didn’t try fleshing him out as a character and he wasn’t worth bringing back the way he was here.

Another thing and I know a lot of people will disagree with me here but I don’t like Cubert anymore. Most people hated Cubert in the first place, but I actually liked his annoying remarks. Now he has totally been toned down. This started to happen in The Route Of All Evil, and then more so in Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV. Now even more so in Benders Game. He just isn’t funny anymore and has no personality. He used to be great when he was first introduced to the show. Also I dislike how Bender’s voice has gotten so husky lately.

I’m not very keen on the animation in any of the movies. The widescreen look just doesn’t suit Futurama even for movies. The characters are often drawn painfully off-model. The art direction lacks much of the creativity that the show had, and this is unforgivable for a movie format. I’ll grant that BBS and BWABBB had there moments, which is more than I can say for Benders Game…

I think all of the movies are worse than the original series, and they’ve all had there problems. BBS has that alloying Leelu sub-plot which let it down for me. BWABB had a terrible ending. But at least those two movies were funny and felt more like Futurama. Benders Game is just quite utterly terrible really…

[|Mr.Sparkle|]

I don’t like the over-heavy referencing of episodes in this movie either. To me it had gotten to the point where it referenced other episodes so much that I was annoyed at the movie for not being original enough. We’ve seen the whole mental asylum for robots before, it wasn’t worth bringing back unless there was truly something worth bringing it back for. It all seemed like filler, and again made the movie feel badly paced.

Roberto was wasted. He is one of my fave characters from the show, and here he just wasn’t very funny. The writers had written him as just being a parody of himself. Yes we know he is insane, now please write something original. Instead they have made Roberto out to be a very one dimensional character with the same jokes about the same thing. They didn’t try fleshing him out as a character and he wasn’t worth bringing back the way he was here.

Another thing and I know a lot of people will disagree with me here but I don’t like Cubert anymore. Most people hated Cubert in the first place, but I actually liked his annoying remarks. Now he has totally been toned down. This started to happen in The Route Of All Evil, and then more so in Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV. Now even more so in Benders Game. He just isn’t funny anymore and has no personality. He used to be great when he was first introduced to the show. Also I dislike how Bender’s voice has gotten so husky lately.

I’m not very keen on the animation in any of the movies. The widescreen look just doesn’t suit Futurama even for movies. The characters are often drawn painfully off-model. The art direction lacks much of the creativity that the show had, and this is unforgivable for a movie format. I’ll grant that BBS and BWABBB had there moments, which is more than I can say for Benders Game…

I think all of the movies are worse than the original series, and they’ve all had there problems. BBS has that alloying Leelu sub-plot which let it down for me. BWABB had a terrible ending. But at least those two movies were funny and felt more like Futurama. Benders Game is just quite utterly terrible really…

I really liked Bender's Big Game, that really has been the only movie so far that I felt was really worthy of the series, personally I thought that movie was great and was a good as if not better then many episodes.

Now I agree Bender's Game was a let down, and even Beast with a Billion Backs wasn't too terrific, lets just hope the 4th movie tops them all!

[Ryan]

Watched the commentary today. That did little to raise my opinions. Worst commentary of the three movies, again boring and most of the time they were just talking about random boring crap. That would have been ok if it was funny, but no...

It did remind me of the only two good points in the movie for me though. The joke with the professor and the monkey using his thoughts to talk through the monkey. What made that joke was the ending with the professor acting like a monkey to translate his thoughts, genius! That's the kind of Futurama jokes I like. the other good point was having The Scary Door back, that always cracks me up...

Funny, I found the commentary to actually be more entertaining than the movie itself. John DiMaggio doing the knife guy was five times funnier there than in actual movie, which just hurt the pacing badly...

[Pedro Sanchez]

[Jims]

I love how that second guy gets up there and, for a second, tries to go on like nothing just happened. Even he can't ignore something like that.

[TriforceBun]

Aww, poor guy. Seems like a nice fellow, but I guess the katana couldn't take that sort of damage.

[Disgruntled Goat]

Did anyone else notice that dark matter isn't as powerful as it used to be? In the original Nibbler episode, it was worth a full tank of fuel and almost exploded the engine. In Bender's Game it barely filled a quarter of a tank.

[|Mr.Sparkle|]

I just listened to the commentary, and sadly I think it was funnier then the actual movie

"were owl exterminators" and the whole explaining of the knife gag was so funny, also I think I found Centaur Man




one odd thing, at then end of the commentary they cut off in the middle of a sentence, it's a bit odd.

[McClure]

One really minor thing has been bugging me, in "The Why of Fry", Nibbler says that he was stationed on Vergon 6 but would transfer to Earth so he could help Fry.

But in this movie, it appears that he only met Fry & Leela purely by chance.

[Cartoonnetwork]

I don’t like the over-heavy referencing of episodes in this movie either. To me it had gotten to the point where it referenced other episodes so much that I was annoyed at the movie for not being original enough. We’ve seen the whole mental asylum for robots before, it wasn’t worth bringing back unless there was truly something worth bringing it back for. It all seemed like filler, and again made the movie feel badly paced.

Roberto was wasted. He is one of my fave characters from the show, and here he just wasn’t very funny. The writers had written him as just being a parody of himself. Yes we know he is insane, now please write something original. Instead they have made Roberto out to be a very one dimensional character with the same jokes about the same thing. They didn’t try fleshing him out as a character and he wasn’t worth bringing back the way he was here.

Another thing and I know a lot of people will disagree with me here but I don’t like Cubert anymore. Most people hated Cubert in the first place, but I actually liked his annoying remarks. Now he has totally been toned down. This started to happen in The Route Of All Evil, and then more so in Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV. Now even more so in Benders Game. He just isn’t funny anymore and has no personality. He used to be great when he was first introduced to the show. Also I dislike how Bender’s voice has gotten so husky lately.

First let me say I completely agree with you about Cubert, I think he was hilarious in ACOMO and AOI 1. Toning him down a little could have been ok, or even seeing him hanging around with the other kids, but yes, now he doesn't have a personality at all. Besides, Igner's revelation in this movie...now Fansworth is going to have two "sons"? This is going to be odd...

I half-agree with the other two paragraphs. While I don't think they were such a big deal but you got a point there. I believe Roberto was ok-ish and it's probably not a character that they could flesh out that much, after all. But yeah, they could probably show him doing a little more than he did here.

I totally disagree about the other things I didn't quote, though. The first two movies were pretty good IMO and the third one has its moments. The characters don't look off-model to me and BWABB especially has some fantastic animation. About the only problem is that the pacing feels a little odd sometimes, the first two movies are quite fast paced but it seems a little tiresome in a whole movie instead of a shorter episode. Third movie is a little slow at first, the rest is ok. I don't think the series are perfect either, even though we always remember the greatest episodes there were some of them that just weren't so incredibly great IMO and I believe both Bender's Big Score and BWABB had the quality of some of the best episodes, or at least close to them.

[TheGingerDeadMan]

The ending totally reminded me of one of those god awful comic books for some reason.

[Sprocketeer]

One really minor thing has been bugging me, in "The Why of Fry", Nibbler says that he was stationed on Vergon 6 but would transfer to Earth so he could help Fry.

But in this movie, it appears that he only met Fry & Leela purely by chance.

Yeah, that was really the only continuity-related bit that threw me off. On one hand, it did explain why Nibbler was alone on that planet in the 4th episode. But it does conflict with the whole "destiny" thing in "The Why of Fry". Basically, it was a way of making sense of past continuity but also backfired in a sense.

I threw some brief thoughts into the speculation thread a few weeks back, but it doesn't look as if I wrote up a full review for this. Meh, I should probably rewatch it first, so expect one within the next week.
(As a preview, note that I give this a 3/5, in comparison to a perfect 5 for BBS and a 4/5 for BWABB.)

[RJF]

Seth MacFarlane to appear in movie 4
Apparently.

[Alpha]

I thought the movie was alright. The first two were so much better.

Seth MacFarlane to appear in movie 4
Apparently.

Jesus Christ, WHY?!!

[Postmaster]

I love that people are going to be really annoyed by this.

[|Mr.Sparkle|]

I thought the movie was alright. The first two were so much better.

Jesus Christ, WHY?!!

Well hopefully he isn't playing as himself, cause that would be really lame, I hope he's just voicing a new character in such a way that really you'd never know it was him unless you look at the credits.

[Upgrayedd]

^Seconded.

DXC noted that he has a great singing voice. Seems like we should be prepping for more musical numbers, I just hope that they make them better than the ones in BBS.

Also, all this talk about the 4th movie, time to start a 4th movie spec thread perhaps?

[vince23]

I'd like to thank you guys... for not getting my hopes up.
Made the film BETTER, in my eyes.
Ya' ever notice how when you go into something, knowing it's gonna be a piece of crap, your expectations are so low, you find it BETTER than if you expected a masterpiece?

[dapper dan]

For the first two movies I downld them first (mostly because the Australian release is a month behind) and liked them enough to buy them later. This one, I almost wasn't going to bother downing it and just wait... glad I didn't. Cause I didn't like this one (beyond a couple of jokes here and there) at all. Like a lot of people have said already, so I won't belabour the point, parodies are just not that creative, and would feel more at home in a FG movie.

Probably the first Futurama thing I haven't enjoyed, so that's a pretty good strike rate all in all.

[The Southern Dandy]

Wow, a Seth appearance. Could this be the beginning of peace talks between Family Guy and The Simpsons? Could the days of them taking mean shots at each other be over? We can only hope!

[Semaj]

The slight let-down was how they depicted today's economic problems into the first half of the movie. (You can't seem to escape it.)

Everything else was awesome. Billy West seems to get better with Professor Farnsworth every year.

The best of the Futurama films so far.

4.25/5

[Mira]

Worse of the films so far, hopefully the last film will be better than that.

Pretty good until the fantasy world stuff started; it went downhill from there.

Bender's Big Score had a great plot to make up for not being very funny. Beast w a billion backs had tons of laughs to make up for not having the greatest story. Bender's Game lacked in both aspects and overall was a big letdown.

[TerwilligerBob]

I actually kind of enjoyed it. I certainly didn't think it was good, it had a mediocre story, mediocre humor, and mediocre writing, but at least it didn't have anything glaringly bad about it. It was fun to see, but definitely not something I'd consider rewatching. With "Beast", well, I was literally suffering as I watched it, it just felt so appallingly non-Futurama, and as for "Big Score".....well, it was a really good movie and was really well made and had a great plot and fascinating time-travel greatness to make up for the lack of humor, but to say that I didn't...er....appreciate the retconning of two of my favorite episodes ever--"Jurassic Bark" and "Luck of the Fryrish"--is a vast understatement. I was literally fuming, with all my fingers crossed until I had watched "Beast" all the way through, praying it would turn into a "what-if" simulation, even though that would be corny. It bombed everything I loved about the movie. So all the movies have been let-downs for me in one way or another, but I'm hoping the fourth will blow everything out of the water.

[Captain Yesterday]

I just watched it today. It feels like the movie was produced by Cohen and Scully. Also, I can't help but get the feeling that the episode was made specifically for those fantasy fans that make up of about 90% of the writing staff. Some hits, and more-than-some misses. I enjoyed a few jokes but the overall story I did not care much for. Not a flop at all, as earlier posts led me to believe.

6/10

[troymclure17]

Airs on Comedy Central Sunday April 26!