The Officially Awesome Futurama Season 7 / Volume 6 Time!
- Thread starter bigdaddy
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I thought that was hilarious! It was the funniest thing about the episode for me. It's a joke on a cartoon it doesn't have to be realistic. And realistically, that was just the way the old coot was remembering it.
This episode was definitely a step up from the last few stinkers
I think that's unfairly condescending toward cartoons as a medium. Realism is a creative choice that's completely independent of format; there are animated productions that are highly realistic and live-action productions that are completely surrealistic.
And yes, Futurama does a lot of silly things, but one thing I like about it is that it has generally made a moderately good effort at consistent worldbuilding, establishing a past and present for its universe that has some solidity and dimension to it. I don't think in terms of lazy stereotypes about "cartoons" -- I like this particular show on the basis of its own distinctive approach to its worldbuilding, and I found this particular thing to be inconsistent with that approach.
Okay, now that argument actually makes sense. It's like Zoidberg having Fonzie hair in the first flashback -- explicitly not meant to be accurate. You should've led with that one.
Oh come off it. Most cartoons like this are designed to be humorous. Getting upset that a joke isnt "realistic" is pointless and silly.
^You're completely missing my point -- both my points -- but I'm tired of trying to penetrate closed minds.
You're taking that joke too literally, Christopher. The joke is the fact that there shouldn't have been fields there when the Professor was young, because that shows how absurdly old he is. Otherwise, what's the joke?
And it has nothing to do with Farnsworth remembering it that way, because that's not a joke. Futurama doesn't do a lot of "realistic" jokes. Given the subject matter, that would be a challenge.
And it has nothing to do with Farnsworth remembering it that way, because that's not a joke. Futurama doesn't do a lot of "realistic" jokes. Given the subject matter, that would be a challenge.
The current batch of episodes has mostly been a disappointment (which is odd, because they were produced as part of the same batch as the previous broadcast season, and intermixed in production order), but last night's "Cold Warriors" was a return to the Futurama of old. I could quibble about why it took eleven years for Fry's cold virus to manifest, but the rest of the story was strong enough that I'm willing to overlook it. It was nice to get another look at Fry's childhood and his parents -- and this episode was rich in the continuity whose absence I've been lamenting of late, with details like the 7-leaf clover, Fry's interest in space, his rivalry with Yancy, and of course his horrible, horrible parents -- although we got to see a softer side of his father at the end, touching in a twisted sort of way.
And the storyline was better than a lot of recent ones. It wasn't generated by randomly and artificially forcing a character into an uncharacteristic role (Fry joins the police, Leela creates a children's show, Leela becomes Captain Ahab), but it was a plausible science fiction premise that arose organically from the situation (a cryogenically frozen person reintroducing a disease that future civilization has lost its immunity to) and the character story arose organically from the cast's known personalities and background rather than pushing the characters into contrived roles. There's been a lot of shark-jumping in recent episodes (in the original sense of the phrase, telling stories arising from random gimmicks rather than ones that grow naturally out of the characters and premise), but this episode shows they can still find more legitimate stories to tell about the Futurama world and its characters.
Best of all, it was great to see an episode that didn't exaggerate Fry's stupidity to an obnoxious degree, but instead showed him really trying to accomplish things and not settle for living within others' low expectations, and showed that he could occasionally have good ideas and achieve important things through sheer persistence despite his intellectual limitations. That's who Fry really is -- not just a hopeless idiot and loser, but a dreamer and an optimist who doesn't let his limits define him. That's what makes him an endearing lead character, and I think that's been too often forgotten in this production season. But this episode gave us the real Fry once again, and it felt like the real Futurama once again.
And the storyline was better than a lot of recent ones. It wasn't generated by randomly and artificially forcing a character into an uncharacteristic role (Fry joins the police, Leela creates a children's show, Leela becomes Captain Ahab), but it was a plausible science fiction premise that arose organically from the situation (a cryogenically frozen person reintroducing a disease that future civilization has lost its immunity to) and the character story arose organically from the cast's known personalities and background rather than pushing the characters into contrived roles. There's been a lot of shark-jumping in recent episodes (in the original sense of the phrase, telling stories arising from random gimmicks rather than ones that grow naturally out of the characters and premise), but this episode shows they can still find more legitimate stories to tell about the Futurama world and its characters.
Best of all, it was great to see an episode that didn't exaggerate Fry's stupidity to an obnoxious degree, but instead showed him really trying to accomplish things and not settle for living within others' low expectations, and showed that he could occasionally have good ideas and achieve important things through sheer persistence despite his intellectual limitations. That's who Fry really is -- not just a hopeless idiot and loser, but a dreamer and an optimist who doesn't let his limits define him. That's what makes him an endearing lead character, and I think that's been too often forgotten in this production season. But this episode gave us the real Fry once again, and it felt like the real Futurama once again.
"Overclockwise" was fun, not one of the all-time greats, but certainly one of the few standouts of a largely mediocre (half-)season. At first it seemed to be jamming in too many different subplots at once, first Bender's overclocking, then the Professor's arrest, and then Leela's decision to leave, which smacked of finale-itis, the tendency to force too many things to go wrong at once because the season's ending. But then I realized that they were all aspects of the real core storyline, which was about Fry feeling that his life was coming apart. So it wasn't arbitrary that it was all happening at once.
Still, it would've been nice if "Bender becomes the universe" had been explored more fully. That by itself could've been a really cosmic episode like "Godfellas," but instead it seemed kind of tacked on to a story that was mostly about Fry and the Professor. We got some good gags out of it but it wasn't developed as a story concept to the extent that it deserved.
It also might've been cool if the video game, instead of being WWII, had been about one of those alien invasions or collapses of civilization hinted at in the pilot and occasionally thereafter. A lot of stuff happened in the intervening thousand years between now and Futurama's time, and I'd like to see it explored more. This show is best when it's actually embracing the possibilities of its science-fiction setting rather than just tacking them onto a more conventional sitcom story as decorations. "WWII video game" is too ordinary a concept, and even the motion-capture method of playing is barely any more advanced than what we have today. This could've been so much more imaginative. Although I did enjoy the puns -- "I have to be Goering" and "I could've fired a V-8!"
The Infosphere wiki has a list of the only-visible-in-freeze-frame book titles Bender read through, and it's a lot of fun:
(Apparently How I Conquered Your Planet is a comedy novel by Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder.)
Still, it would've been nice if "Bender becomes the universe" had been explored more fully. That by itself could've been a really cosmic episode like "Godfellas," but instead it seemed kind of tacked on to a story that was mostly about Fry and the Professor. We got some good gags out of it but it wasn't developed as a story concept to the extent that it deserved.
It also might've been cool if the video game, instead of being WWII, had been about one of those alien invasions or collapses of civilization hinted at in the pilot and occasionally thereafter. A lot of stuff happened in the intervening thousand years between now and Futurama's time, and I'd like to see it explored more. This show is best when it's actually embracing the possibilities of its science-fiction setting rather than just tacking them onto a more conventional sitcom story as decorations. "WWII video game" is too ordinary a concept, and even the motion-capture method of playing is barely any more advanced than what we have today. This could've been so much more imaginative. Although I did enjoy the puns -- "I have to be Goering" and "I could've fired a V-8!"
The Infosphere wiki has a list of the only-visible-in-freeze-frame book titles Bender read through, and it's a lot of fun:
(Apparently How I Conquered Your Planet is a comedy novel by Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder.)
Good ep. "I could've fired a V-8!" may not be the worst joke of all time, but it's close. 
Some excellent lines (baring "I could've fired a V-8!") in this one.
"Farewell Monobrains!"
"Farewell Monobrains!"
And the season ends with "Reincarnation," another out-of-continuity episode with three distinct segments -- which, interestingly, have a common plot thread unifying them even though they're completely incompatible in other ways.
The first segment was in the style of a '30s Fleischer cartoon, although it sort of blended the style of some of the really early stuff where everything was just bouncing and singing and dancing with some of the later stuff like Popeye -- but such an overview is understandable if you're doing a parody of the genre. While it did a good job with the look and sound, I didn't feel the plot and acting were authentic enough to the period. It felt too conventionally Futurama despite the visuals. I wish they'd done it in the style of the Fleischer Popeye cartoons -- done the animation first (or at least the animatics) and then had the actors ad-lib to it, to give it that improvisational quality that the Popeye cartoons' voice acting had. However, I utterly loved it that they did a Fleischer-style 3D-background shot, like the ones they did in some Popeye cartoons with the character's walk cycle animated on glass in front of a miniature set on a turntable.
The 8-bit segment seemed to have the least connection between the format and the story, aside from a few isolated video-game gags. (Not being a video-game buff, I probably missed a lot of in-jokes.) But it had the best story, a lovely little vignette about the nature and goals of science. It's such a good story that I kind of regret seeing it overshadowed by the video-game gimmick instead of getting it presented in normal format. (And I did like the joke about Stephen Hawking giving up science to become a cartoon voiceover artist.)
The '80s-dubbed-anime was cool too. They pretty much threw in tropes from all over the genre. And while I was expecting music in the general style of those shows, I was startled that they scored it with direct quotes of the Voltron theme and one of the main action cues from Robotech (and one or two other cues that I didn't recognize but probably come from some other show, like the score when they did the Thunderbirds-style sequence of manning their separate vehicles). I liked it that they replaced the Professor's normal voice with the standard deep voice of an anime authority figure (provided by Phil LaMarr). There were some cute digs at limited animation too. And Sailor Amy was kawaii.
The first segment was in the style of a '30s Fleischer cartoon, although it sort of blended the style of some of the really early stuff where everything was just bouncing and singing and dancing with some of the later stuff like Popeye -- but such an overview is understandable if you're doing a parody of the genre. While it did a good job with the look and sound, I didn't feel the plot and acting were authentic enough to the period. It felt too conventionally Futurama despite the visuals. I wish they'd done it in the style of the Fleischer Popeye cartoons -- done the animation first (or at least the animatics) and then had the actors ad-lib to it, to give it that improvisational quality that the Popeye cartoons' voice acting had. However, I utterly loved it that they did a Fleischer-style 3D-background shot, like the ones they did in some Popeye cartoons with the character's walk cycle animated on glass in front of a miniature set on a turntable.
The 8-bit segment seemed to have the least connection between the format and the story, aside from a few isolated video-game gags. (Not being a video-game buff, I probably missed a lot of in-jokes.) But it had the best story, a lovely little vignette about the nature and goals of science. It's such a good story that I kind of regret seeing it overshadowed by the video-game gimmick instead of getting it presented in normal format. (And I did like the joke about Stephen Hawking giving up science to become a cartoon voiceover artist.)
The '80s-dubbed-anime was cool too. They pretty much threw in tropes from all over the genre. And while I was expecting music in the general style of those shows, I was startled that they scored it with direct quotes of the Voltron theme and one of the main action cues from Robotech (and one or two other cues that I didn't recognize but probably come from some other show, like the score when they did the Thunderbirds-style sequence of manning their separate vehicles). I liked it that they replaced the Professor's normal voice with the standard deep voice of an anime authority figure (provided by Phil LaMarr). There were some cute digs at limited animation too. And Sailor Amy was kawaii.
I finally remembered to watch Futurama! And it was good.
The Robotech music was a surprise in an otherwise huge failure of an anime parody IMO. Been an anime fan most of my life, and I've seen better parodies in other places. No one saw it, but "Clerks" springs to mind. It would've been much better if they'd at least used actual anime-style character designs - they'd have been totally unrecognizable as the main cast, but it would've looked awesome. 
BTW, if anyone wants to see a GOOD anime version of something out of American pop culture, try out the X-Men anime. Or Thundercats.
Mark
BTW, if anyone wants to see a GOOD anime version of something out of American pop culture, try out the X-Men anime. Or Thundercats.
Mark
I saw it. The bear was driving.
How can that be?!
Reincarnation was a great way to end the season. Now that the original series premise is well past being out of steam, the show needs to start branching into more bizarre and creative concepts that push the boundaries of what's "allowed" to be a Futuramaepisode. They have an audience that would probably watch anything, as long as it has some yucks.
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