Thursday 26 February 2009

Futurama - Into The Wild Green Yonder

In 1999, Matt Groening, creator of 'The Simpsons', had a new show start on the Fox network in America, that series was 'Futurama'. It ran for 72 episodes, and despite receiving huge critical success and a huge fanbase, it was cancelled in August 2003.
In 2007, after four years of fans begging for a reunion, the team got back together in for a straight-to-dvd feature film, 'Bender's Big Score. This was followed by three more, 'The Beast With A Billion Backs', 'Bender's Game', and the film I am reviewing today, 'Into The Wild Green Yonder'



As much as I love the original series, I have to admit, the films have been a let-down. The writers seem to have struggled dragging a 25 minute episode out to an hour and a half film. The viewer can also tell that as it is a film, Groening's team have thought that the stories must be more epic than the episodes where nothing exciting had to happen to be entertaining. Luckily, for this film, they seem to have resolved that.

The script obviously had a lot more work done on it than the three before combined, as this film really does have an epic story, in which the entire universe must be saved by Fry (Billy West), and finally wins the heart of Leela (Katey Segal), with plenty of subplots and genuinely funny jokes for a change.

Don't get me wrong, in my eyes, nothing is going to surpass the original television series, but this final film definitely comes close, and before anyone asks, yes, it does leave the story open for a new season!


VERDICT - GREAT, BUT NOT AS GREAT AS THE TV SHOW

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