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"Futurama: Bender's Game Review"

The main cast of Futurama: The Professor (Billy West), Hermes (Phil LaMarr), Leela (Katey Sagal), Bender (John DiMaggio), Amy (Lauren Tom), Zoigberg (Billy West), Nibbler (Frank Welker), Fry (Billy West) as well as Mom (Tress MacNeille) and her three bumbling sons return in this 80-minute special. Futurama: Bender's Game is unlike Futurama: Bender's Big Score and Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs due to this instalment not having a movie feel at all to it. Futurama: Bender's Game is designed to be aired in four-parts when it premières on television and it feels like a four-part episodic.

In the beginning of the film you are first introduced to a Futurama version on "Yellow Submarine". I believe this is just symbolic of how crazy the upcoming scenes get. Whilst driving about in the Planet Express Ship, Leela, Fry and Bender run out of fuel and luckily Nibbler had one ball of dark matter, which was enough to get the ship to a petrol station. The same guy Sal (John DiMaggio) that always seems to be at one of these stations makes fun of the crew's ship. Sal states even though his ship is beat up, he won the Space Destruction Derby five times. Due to Leela's unrelenting anger issues, she decides to enter the derby and later returns the ship severely damaged.

Later, Dwight Conrad (Hermes Son voiced by Phil LaMarr) and Cubert Farnsworth (the Professor's son voiced by Kath Soucie) are playing a game of "Dungeons and Dragons". Bender thinking that it is a form of gambling, wants to join in, only to find out that it is nothing like that. Dwight and Conrad tell Bender that it is the kind of game that you have to use your imagination and anything will be possible. Bender is finally able to use his imagination, but causes him to go mad, believing everything that happens in real life is happening in "Cornwood" (fictitious Dungeons and Dragons land).

The Professor annoyed with Leela's anger issues, has a shock collar put around Leela's neck, so anytime she has any thoughts or act of violence, thoughts of sexual perversion and/or lies, she will be electrically shocked. Mom appears in an interview with Morbo discussing the "problems" of dark matter and that she hopes to take care of them soon. The Professor perturbed at the interview explains how he created dark matter as a usable energy source. He further explains that Mom has the positive crystal and he has a negative crystal that he cannot find. He says that if the two crystals come together, that it will make dark matter useless. Mom tries to avoid the destruction of dark matter by sending her sons as "Owl Exterminators" to retrieve the crystal.

The Professor sees past the boys ruse and finds out that his anti-matter crystal was being used as a die in the Dungeons and Dragons game. Bender having completely gone mad is submitted to the HAL Institute which cannot help his problem. The crew heads over to Mom's base to destroy her crystal. While, the professor is able to get the two crystals to come in close contact, which causes the dark matter to glow, it somehow amplifies Bender's imagination to send everyone to Cornwood.

From this point on the crew are each changed into a Dungeons and Dragon character or a "Lord of the Rings" character. Cornwood is essentially Lord of the Rings with Dungeons and Dragons theme to it. The rest of Futurama: Bender's Game tries to wrap up the convoluted story as much as possible. Overall Futurama: Bender's Game is very silly. This is a good thing as they brought back much of the Futurama humour and have many jokes about things you may have forgotten from the 1990's. I felt that this adventure is a big step in the right direction from Futurama: The Beast with A Billion Backs as this was actually funny. Futurama fans should enjoy this as long as they just relax and enjoy it as it is without preconceived notions and realise it is very silly.
4/5

Picture:

Futurama: Bender's Game is presented in the 1.78:1 (16:9) format. The picture was crystal clear throughout and I could not find any skipping, frozen frames or blur in the picture.
5/5

Sound:

The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. The sound was very well done throughout, but since they decided to make this like the television series, you do not get much in terms of cinematic sound. The voice actors voices were always clearly audible in the centre speaker during the talking scenes, which for some films can sometimes be problematic.
4/5

Special Features:

The special features are rather dull. There are not too many special features and even when you think you find something good such as a deleted scene, it is just a story board with sound. The team that assembled this DVD got rather lazy as far as extra features go.
3/5

Review Round-Up

Movie: 4
Picture: 5
Sound: 4
Special Features: 3

Overall: 4

Final Thoughts:

The first thing I would like to say to Futurama fans is: DO NOT watch this as if it is a film nor should you have ideas floating around in your head about how great/awful it will be. You need to just sit back and watch it as if you are watching the show and enjoy the silliness of this adventure. I found the part when the crew ran into Zoidberg in "The Cave of Hopelessness" and what happens to him reminiscent of Maria in the video game "Silent Hill 2". If you played the game, it may give you a chuckle, if not, you will enjoy it all the same. Whilst, I wish that Futurama: Bender's Game was produced as a film rather than a four-part TV series, it made me chuckle several times. I recommend this DVD/Bluray to fans of Futurama as it is a very silly one that makes up for the disaster that was Futurama: The Beast with A Billion Backs and I definitely recommend this to casual Futurama fans.

"Lord of the Futurama Movies"
The first one tried to tie the storyline together, but became too entangled in its own explanation. The second one was a story of morals and experimentation that went where no Futurama episode had gone and should go again.

This third Futurama movie finally delivers what I think fans of the series have been waiting for: a Futurama movie which works like an extended Futurama episode (a la Season 5). Without too much explanation, without a contrived message, a fun, light, yet substance filled Futurama installment that can be watched over and over again.

"GET THIS MOVIE!!!!!"
This is my favorite movie in the Futurama series, by far. The first one sucked, the second one was good, but this recent installment was hilariously awesome and just the BEST!! The artistry was very precise, which made the movie that much better.

I pre-ordered this movie and I am so glad that I did. When I saw that movie on my doorstep, my husband wanted us to wait until we moved into our new home to watch it - we saw it that very same day. I have seen this movie almost ten times and I got it on November 5th! This is a movie that will DEFINITELY not disappoint!!!!

"A must-see for Futurama fans"
This is a woderful Futurama DVD, and if you're a fan you are sure to love it. It contains all the silly humor of the TV series and maybe more. The story is a little D&D mixed with Lord of the Rings. If you don't know the general futurama story, or haven't watched all the TV episode you may be a little lost, but not much. They do make reference to many stories from the TV series.


"All three movies"
I have casually watched the series in the past. Recently, I casually watched a few reruns and started really getting into Futurama. I saw some of Bender's Big Score on TV and then watched the whole movie on DVD.

Of the three, I loved BBS the best. There were a lot of funny jokes and I love how they complexly interwove time travel into the movie. Couldn't watch the whole Hypnotoad episode. Zzzzzz. 5 stars.

The Beast of a Billion Backs was an interesting story but I personally didn't think it was that funny. 3 and half stars.

Bender's Game was funnier than BBB but I'm not crazy about parodies because if you've missed the parodied movie.... In this case, it was the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy. 4 stars.

Still, I am great fan and will purchase the 4 season episodes.