FUTURAMA: Rebirth

[Too Much Fun]

Damn, that was just cruel. I made a thread about the joke, and someone else posted a link in there to audio of the actual session that the joke was based on.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Ahhh, the producer was a dumbell. I'm in a job where I also direct creative people and you frakken NEVER tell them how to do their job or (even more catastrophic) try to do their job for them. You tell them the outcome you want and then let them come up with solutions. You can say, "hmm, that doesn't really hit the mark" and they're supposed to be professional and take it in stride and come up with something else that might work better.

The producer should have said, "Nice job, Bill. Now let's get a few more takes with some variations. Let's start with one where you get more emphatic about it." Any actor will be okay with the notion of doing different takes and in voiceover work, I know it's perfectly normal. You could spend half a day getting one line right. Sometimes you don't even know exactly what tone you want till you hear several variations.

Of course the best way to handle this is Us Versus the Dumbshit Client. (This works even better if the client really is a dumbshit and everyone knows it. Fortunately this is also true in my job. ) "Very nice job, Bill! Loved it. But this voiceover is for a video game aimed at ten year olds, and we both know what that means..."

 

[Too Much Fun]

Oh, I'm not arguing that the producer was doing the right thing and didn't deserve any attitude from Shatner. I just think Shatner could have been a little less humiliating about it. I've heard stories of directors/producers on "The Simpsons" doing a great job helping guest stars figure out the best way to deliver a line by actually giving an example of how to say it, but I think that depends on the director/producer. This guy obviously lacked the ability to do that and should have known better instead of trying and inviting that supreme ownage, which Shatner baited him into.

 

[ITL]

I had to laugh when the fake disruptor/teleporter gun was introduced early on - most blatent "Chekhov's Gun Setting Up A Totally Obvious Consequence-Free Plot Resolution" type thing EVAR!

This episode? Good, not great.

 

[Wynterhawk]

I just saw the ep 12, their 100th episode and it was dang near all over the place in terms of storyline and pop culture references. But I do have to give them points for creativity in "returning" Fry to his original form. But wouldn't he have mutated in some form upon touching the water? Most definitely one of their weirdest episodes.

 

[Joeman]

Loved the finale. Couldn't stop laughing when Bender ran back for a head start. It's silly shit like that that always gets to me. There were several other really funny parts as well.

I would give the revival season an A+ easy.

 

[Christopher]

"The Mutants are Revolting" was a fun one, aside from the scatological humor which I could've done without. Doing a second episode riffing on the Titanic seemed odd, but at least this one was based less on the movie. There was a lot of effective humor, and they told a story that had actual consequences to the show's universe, which is a good way to wrap up a season.

My favorite bit was the shot of Bender's torso holding stock-still while the rest of the ship twisted and spun all around him. Best CGI gag ever.

I'm getting a little tired of the in-story commentaries on events in the show's production history. The "Box Network" gags in Bender's Big Score were okay, but then they repeated themselves with the "Comedy Central channel" bit in this season's premiere, and now with all the big "100" stuff here, which bugs me since I'm sure they would've made more than 100 deliveries by this point.

I'm surprised by the claim that Leela's true mutant heritage was unknown to the general public. In "Less than Hero," she got a pass to allow her parents onto the surface, so I figured the relationship was officially known. Then again, come to think of it, if mutants needed passes to be on the surface, that should've told me right there that she wasn't known to be a mutant. I guess it makes sense.

But I do have to give them points for creativity in "returning" Fry to his original form. But wouldn't he have mutated in some form upon touching the water?

The conceit, I suppose, was that he never actually touched the water at all, since he leapt right inside Astor.

 

[Mr Light]

Final episode I thought was just okay. I'd forgotten, they already did a Titantic episode. Weird. Of course that WAS eleven years ago!

 

[RJDiogenes]

now with all the big "100" stuff here, which bugs me since I'm sure they would've made more than 100 deliveries by this point.

I took that to be a joke about how lame their business is. "Wow, that's almost ten a year."

 

[Christopher]

Well, I just mean that if you counted up all their canonical deliveries, it would probably come to more than 100, since there are some episodes where they made multiple deliveries or were said to have done so between episodes. I look forward to the inevitable fan tallying of all known Planet Express deliveries. (Although I suppose the Professor's tally here might not have included the Awesome Express period, the PlanEx period, and the period when the Scammer Aliens owned the company. Which were probably the company's most productive times.)

 

[RJDiogenes]

Heh. There probably is already a fan page out there with a list of all their deliveries. Maybe there's a FuturamaWiki.

 

[Christopher]

I visit The Infosphere weekly, but it doesn't seem to have a list of deliveries yet.

 

[Count Zero]

I loved the Metropolis reference.

 

[Checkmate]

None of the counts would really matter anyway courtesy of the time travel episode. They're three universes away from the original series.

 

[Christopher]

But the universes are identical, with identical events. Past continuity still applies, at least as much as it ever did.

 

[kkozoriz1]

There are differences, the death of Eleanor Roosevelt for one. Also, the current universe has bodies of the professor, Fry and Bender buried under a bridge. And finally, the remote used to open the time machines are different in the two universes. There are differences but they don't seem to make a difference right now.

p.s. - This universe has two forward time machines.

 

[bigdaddy]

There are differences, the death of Eleanor Roosevelt for one. Also, the current universe has bodies of the professor, Fry and Bender buried under a bridge. And finally, the remote used to open the time machines are different in the two universes. There are differences but they don't seem to make a difference right now.

p.s. - This universe has two forward time machines.

People over think this cartoon way too much!

The first season, maybe even the second episode had Fry going to the moon and they had a little ride that told the history of the moon. History so old they got the moon landing wrong, so no one probably even knows who Eleanor Roosevelt is.

 

[Christopher]

The point is, I'm sure they're not going to assume the entire history of the show is no longer applicable just because they did a throwaway gag about the universe resetting twice. To all intents and purposes, everything that past episodes established about the show's own continuity is still valid. There have been continuity nods to past episodes since the universe reset, most blatantly Leela and Lrrr referencing the events of "The Problem with Popplers" last week. So responding to a discussion about continuity by saying "it doesn't matter anymore since they reset the universe" contributes nothing meaningful to the discussion.

 

[kkozoriz1]

The writers may never refer to the previous universes again. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they did either. Thus far, there's no obvous differences.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

There are differences, the death of Eleanor Roosevelt for one. Also, the current universe has bodies of the professor, Fry and Bender buried under a bridge. And finally, the remote used to open the time machines are different in the two universes. There are differences but they don't seem to make a difference right now.

p.s. - This universe has two forward time machines.

People over think this cartoon way too much!

Yeah save that for AbramsTrek. I liked this ep, and they're smart to rely more on interpersonal humor between the characters because they're pretty much out of sci fi tropes to parody by now. Is there anything they've forgotten?