Okay, after a disastrous sci fi movie experience (aka Alien vs Predator: Requiem), I was wary to watch another scifi flick for a long time. But me being a scifi fan, couldn’t resist. So when Bender’s Big Score came to me, I didn’t hesistate to watch it (basically just grabbed it off the post box, which… have scraped the DVD box a bit, ugh)

To those who do not know me (or didn’t know this about me), I love Futurama. The writers of Futurama have managed to write several zany episodes (like the one where Fry becomes his own grandfather), and touching at the same time (like the one with Fry and the seven leaf clover, or the one with his fossilized dog). And Futurama was written by Math and Physics PhDs, and I got quite a bit of the inside jokes, which I immensely enjoy.

Anyways, back to the review. First, the first impression:

First Impressions
Whoa. Widescreen! Such lush, bright colours. And the owl swooping thru the air - just a rush of euphoria, I suppose. Awesome! The scene then proceeds to the Planet Express roll call. Bender obviously has been promoted to Assistant Sales Manager (or did I miss out on the episode where he became ASM). After the roll call, there were some scenes involving the Fox Networks Box Networks executives. That’s when the crew broke the fourth wall (or not!). I thought that to be very fun - both breaking the fourth wall, and staying in story at the same time (’What does this mean for us and our many fans?’ ROFL!!!). Then Hermes lost his head. I was a bit taken aback. I hate decapitation scenes. But all was good.

The Story
Bender’s Big Score has a very very good solid story. It’s not as hard as hard scifi, but its not pussy either. It’s a well balanced mixed, so that non-scientifically inclined fans can watch it and have a good understanding of the story too. But I’d say, this is probably one of the most complicated Futurama stories I’ve seen. Ever.

It involves a lot a lot of time travelling (which makes Bender older than 10 thousand years old - watch it to understand why). It involves Fry and Leela in a touching story. The story is the most awesome Futurama story I’ve seen since the Rosswell episode. Then again, I’m a time travel junkie (as in I love time travel stories, not time travelling itself), maybe that’s why I think I love this story so much.

Also, this story doesn’t exclude itself from those who aren’t really interested in time travelling asides from being a plot device. Bender’s Big Score also appeals to emotion (at least to mine). I felt the whole Fry and Leela and Lars arc is very touching.

Also, this movie has been sexed up. No gratituous nudity, but a whole load of nudity (and ass showing) nontheless.

This is about as close as you can see Leela and Amy naked, you perv

The Good
The good thing about this story is that it’s strongly scripted, and well paced too. The intertwining between past and present (I mean the future) is very well done, and viewers won’t miss a beat. It ties up a lot of lose ends (like how Seymour, Fry’s dog got fossilized). They brought in a lot of the old, one shot characters, like the God-bot (from which the time spheres actually originate).

Scientific references galore! There was an ice cream cone drawing on Prof. Farnsworth’s blackboard that points out a Planck brane and a Randall-Sundram cone (to those of you who have been following the m-theory), as well as the Greenwaldian theorem, named after Sarah Greenwald.

All the things I loved about Futurama, from Fry’s goofy character, to Bender’s kleptomaniac behaviour (he basically steals EVERYTHING in this movie, hence the name) to Dr. Zoidberg’s stupidity, they’re all back in this movie. Awesome! And oh, the head museum too!

The movie creators even had spam mail play a big part of the story!! (This movie made my SpamWars screenplay feel lame)
One thing I like about this is it doesn’t feel episodic. Instead, it feels movie-like. Unlike the Simpsons Movie (which I liked too), which felt like it was pieced together with many Simpsons episodes (from one random thing to another), this one has one solid strong backbone. I like it like that.

The Bad
This movie has its fair share of flaws too. After watching this, I felt this movie cheapens a few of the older episodes. It makes the episode with Seymour (Fry’s dog) being fosillized less touching.

Also, I felt that the movie was stuffing too much. The Globetrotter’s Bubblegum guy came back with quite a number of lines. He wasn’t a particularly memorable or likable character for me (because I can’t wrap around my head basketball players doing physics), though on the whole he was okay. But the sudden inclusion of the Globetrotters in explaining the paradox-free time travel sequence made it feel as though as the creators want to say: “See? We featured this character before! Don’t forget him!”

Also, I find the sequence with Nibbler talking and the Nibblonians attacking to be utterly pointless. I mean, now everyone knows Nibbler can talk (heh, Nibbler was even a commander at the final battle scene), and how is that going to change the future stories? It was as if the creators wanted to remind us that the Nibblonians still exist. That scene was one off, and didn’t play a significant part at all, unless the creators are using it as a base for the next movie.

Even so, I still found it cute though. So, maybe it might be a good thing.

I also felt that the final battle scene could have been more intense. The whole sequence felt like the animators used the smooth keyframe in/out curve the whole time.

Conclusion
Overall, I liked Bender’s Big Score. The script was well thought out. It was well executed, it is colorful, it is fun. Save for a little pointlessness (like the Nibblonians), this show is good. I’d recommend it to anyone.

7/10.

And oh, I emailed Bender here’s what Bender wrote back (watch the movie):

Click to Enlarge

Yes, I know, it’s a little cheesy, and I know, the Futurama guys had an autoresponder, but what the heck, it’s cool right? You can email spam Bender at bender@ilovebender.com. The other two email addresses (Amy’s and Zoidberg’s) are fake.

p/s: The DVD box is cool. The image changes. Get it to see what I mean. You can get it here on Amazon

Cool? DiggDel.icio.usTechnoratiFeedsterFurl
RSS feed for comments on this post  |  TrackBack URI for this post