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"Into the Wild Green Yonder" Discussion and Review

Rate "Into the Wild Green Yonder"


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TheBrew

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So we come up to the last Futurama movie... for now. I will start off with some good news: apparently Fox is in talks for a 6th season since the DVD Movies sold very well. This would not be more movies, but a full on TV season.

Anyways, onto the movie! The rest of this post will have SPOILERS (and I hate using tags), so BEWARE! (actually, they are slight spoilers... but I should warn just in case)






Still reading? Last chance to turn around.

Good.

Here is a quick summary that I cribbed off of gotfuturama.com

"Leo Wong - much to the dismay of the Eco-Feminists - gets rid of what nature there is left on Mars in order to build a new "Mars Vegas". While business is seemingly going well, Leo sets his sight on something bigger: a galactic-scale miniature golf course. Of course, this requires some more nature removing. The threat of a whole arm of the galaxy being turned into a black hole ball return causes the Eco-Feminists' ranks to swell. However, darker forces than Leo Wong are at work and a secret society tasks Fry with protecting the universe."

This is pretty much the main plot, though the nature of Fry's involvement is a bit more complicated. The movie starts off fine with a really funny opening song that sounds like Frank Sinatra, but I suspect is a parody because of the lyrics. I didn't see a credit for it in the credits, so someone will have to dig up the answer.

This movie plays out really well. It does lag a bit in the 2nd quarter, but the rest of it works much better as a movie than the previous installments. Unlike the previous 3 movies, you are introduced to the main plot early on with elements building up over the course of the movie that come to a head in the finale.

The finale itself is really good. I would say that it is better than "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" as a finale because it involves all of the cast and not just the Leela/Fry Romance, though that has a big moment that puts it over the top. It is a cliffhanger, but it leaves you very excited for the very real possibility of more Futurama to come and could lead to a big shakeup in the status quo, though I would imagine everything will get reset fairly quickly. But it is nice to at least entertain the notion that the show might be making a very bold step, especially for a prime-time animated show.

As for the side characters, there is a good amount of Zapp and Nixon, both big pluses in my book. It is too bad that there wasn't much follow-up on Kif's big moment in "Beast With a Billion Backs" when he punched Zapp, but he does have a very funny *sigh* moment.

This is a *slight* eco-friendly message movie, but the Eco-Feminists do a good job of lampooning the movement, so don't let that turn you off.

It comes out on the 24th and is well worth picking up for any Futurama fans.
 
I thought it was great. Not the best of the four, but a damned good slice of Futurama. Donbot was especially hilarious towards the beginning - he really wants to be sure before he accuses anyone of wrongdoing.
 
It was quite fantastic.

Not the fanwank fest of Bender's Big Score, but quite good.
Better than Beast with a Billion Backs, sorry I didn't love that. I'm a Fry/Leela shipper :)
Not as crazy as Bender's Game, but quite crazy anyway.

Slightly below A+ or something like that.

My favourite points:
-Fry dead
-The repeating pun of the leech attacking Leela
-Cautios Donbot
-The fantastic final scene of the crew riding hand in hand towards a black hole...

I loved it!

If there is no more Futurama (please, let there be a sixth season) this is a perfect and fitting ending to the best animated series ever.
 
I avoided reading the above posts, mostly because I refuse to view the film until it comes out on DVD. If it is the final Futurama story, I really hope it is good. I've felt the movies have been so disappointing (except for BWABB, which I thought was hilarious) to me for a variety of reasons, that I'd rather it go out on a high, than a whimper.
 
Even though I haven't seen Bender's Game yet, I'm excited to see this one and that at some point. I've never seen a bit of Futurama that wasn't at least mildly amusing, and most are hilarious. When I find the money lying around somewhere...
 
I thought it was good, far better than the two previous ones, although I still prefer Bender's Big Score.
 
Do I dare ask how you guys have already seen it if it doesn't come out until the 24th?

I'm looking forward to it. I've been a bit disappointed by the Futurama movies thus far, but they've each had their amusing moments, and overall they're not bad. I've come to the conclusion that it just works better as a half-hour series, which is why I'd be extremely giddy if it did come back to TV (I hope those "talks" aren't just rumours, and that something good comes of them).
 
So we come up to the last Futurama movie... for now. I will start off with some good news: apparently Fox is in talks for a 6th season since the DVD Movies sold very well. This would not be more movies, but a full on TV season.
Wow that's the first I heard of this and it makes me extremely happy. I was hoping that these movies sold well enough to get the series renewed but I was expecting them not to so I wouldn't get my hopes up. Hopefully Fox will make a smart decision and renew the show.

While the movies haven't been great, I do believe that's atleast partially due to the format and that the show works much better in a 22 minute format. If Futurama does come back hopefully it wont be like Family Guy where the show became a hollow unfunny shell of its former self.

I'll definitely be picking up this DVD release on day 1. :techman:
 
Yeah, I haven't been thrilled with any of the movies myself. I haven't even watched any of the special features on the previous 3 DVDs and I used to listen to all the commentary tracks on the original episodes.

My main problem with the films is that they're so obviously made to be chopped up and aired as 22 minutes episodes so the plots never really seems to flow very well. I had the same problem with the Family Guy DTV movie. Sure there's funny lines, but I dunno, I find them a bit of a chore to sit through for 90 minutes. A good Futurama film is very possible, but needs to be broken and constructed at the script level as a continuous narrative similar to the way the South Park movie and The Simpsons Movie were, two examples of, in my opinion, animated features based on half hour comedies that worked very well.

Anyway, hope they will make a 6th season. Futurama is my favorite animated comedy series.
 
Do I dare ask how you guys have already seen it if it doesn't come out until the 24th?
It first showed up online on the 11th--two weeks ahead of time isn't a completely unreasonable time for a store to release it early.

With it already on order from Amazon, I don't feel too bad about downloading it early. I'll let y'all know what I think tomorrow. ;)
 
So we come up to the last Futurama movie... for now. I will start off with some good news: apparently Fox is in talks for a 6th season since the DVD Movies sold very well. This would not be more movies, but a full on TV season.
Wow that's the first I heard of this and it makes me extremely happy. I was hoping that these movies sold well enough to get the series renewed but I was expecting them not to so I wouldn't get my hopes up. Hopefully Fox will make a smart decision and renew the show.

While the movies haven't been great, I do believe that's atleast partially due to the format and that the show works much better in a 22 minute format. If Futurama does come back hopefully it wont be like Family Guy where the show became a hollow unfunny shell of its former self.

I'll definitely be picking up this DVD release on day 1. :techman:

It is all preliminary stuff, so no green light given yet. Here it is from Billy West's mouth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi920ztPFIQ
 
Do I dare ask how you guys have already seen it if it doesn't come out until the 24th?

My dvd came in the post at the weekend.

It was a decent enough showing. Better than Bender's Game, but still, not overally great. Futurama when on form is top quality, but in my opinion none of the four dvd movies have approached that.
 
I'm going to watch it this weekend with a freind who's also been a longtime Futurama watcher. My thoughts on the Futurama movies so far:

Benders Big Score: Futurama Poetry. It throws the traditional narrative form out of the window but you see how well connected it is in repeat viewings.

Beast of A Billion Backs: I was quite disappointed with this one. The parts with Yivo's tentacles invading Earth, Yivo dating the universe, and Yivo as heaven were pure Futurama. But you have to sit through like an hour before you get to any of the good stuff.

Sidenote: "Weren't you already the pope of something?" has an eye-crossing sort of zen to it.

Benders's Game: As good as the first one. It has a poetic narrative structure too -- one with a fearful symmetry. It's probably a bit more coherent too.
 
Posting my review here since the other thread is too negative (not just about the movie but between posters):

I liked it. It had some of the same excesses and weaknesses of the previous DVD movies; in particular, the whole first act with the poker tournament and Bender's affair was mostly pointless. But overall, it was a nicely epic story that was very well-made, and the ending was fun and heartwarming. Sure, the payoff for the Fry-Leela shippers among us was a bit tacked on, but very sweet. I guess after all this time, we didn't really need a whole story about the Fry/Leela relationship; essentially, that was the point, that Leela already knows all she needs to know about Fry and it was just a matter of accepting it.

Surprising to see Leo Wong as the main villain. He's never really been played as an out-and-out baddie before, just a self-absorbed jerk in a universe full of the same.

Some nice continuity nods, like the five-year-old abandoned Martian ruins, and the ship now running on whale oil since dark matter was neutralized as a fuel source in the previous film.

I have a bit of a nitpick about the portrayal of Nixon as being anti-environment. The real Nixon was a supporter of environmentalism, and actually founded the EPA. In his time, and going back to Teddy Roosevelt, environmental protection was a Republican issue, and conservation was considered part of conservatism. It was Reagan and his contemporaries who redefined conservative priorities to be about protecting big business rather than protecting nature.

But then, this is Nixon's reanimated head in a jar, so I guess historical accuracy isn't exactly on the table. Still, despite all the things the historical Nixon deserves criticism for, it feels a bit unfair to paint him negatively when it comes to one of the only policy areas where he actually deserves praise.

Anyway, I'm glad that Kif defected and went with Amy at the end. If the show does come back, I hope that's a permanent change. I think Kif should've left Zapp years ago. Don't worry, I'm sure he can give exasperated sighs about the things Fry or Bender or the Professor do.
 
Yeah, it would have been funnier if Nixon was pro-environment and used that for his nefarious schemes, but I didn't think Leo was out of character since he took all that Martian land.
 
I didn't say Leo was out of character, just that it was unexpected to see him portrayed as an outright villain in a cosmic-scale story when he's never previously been more than an irritant on a personal level.
 
I didn't say Leo was out of character, just that it was unexpected to see him portrayed as an outright villain in a cosmic-scale story when he's never previously been more than an irritant on a personal level.

True. I did like that the villain was an established character and not someone new.
 
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