Not the thread for the debate in question, but my compassion would (conceivably) extend to the Datas, Bishops, EMH’s, and yes even Benders of this world, or any other.
Sorry for the necropost but I just saw TBwaBB yesterday.
Wow I was … disappointed.
I only ‘discovered’ Futurama last year, so I haven’t had four years to get my expectations wildly raised. And I rather liked BBS; it had emotional impact, silliness, and a convoluted sci-fi story (even better, it was a time travel tale, which I love figuring out, especially since the Futurama writers generally do a very good job with keeping things relatively consistent).
But BwaBB bothered me for a number of reasons.
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First, it wasn’t very funny to me. There were certainly laughs peppered throughout the film, but they didn’t feel … Futurama-y. Too often the writers dipped into the well of gross-out humor that felt more like Drawn Together or South Park. I kept thinking: dudes, I know Comedy Central is your home now, but you don’t have to emulate their shows’ style. There was more cruelty than usual, as well. Sometimes this worked for me – I have to admit grinning at their tossing the Koala through the faux rift and saying “he made it through safely!” as the poor thing continued out the window to its probable death. But then they took it too far by having Farnsworth and Wernstrom (Werrrrnstrom!) gleefully killing the mini-robots.
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Poor character continuity. Fry spent the last two seasons mooning after Leela, with a lapse or two, and most importantly his previous two outings (Devil’s Hands… and BBS) were all about his abiding love for her. Suddenly without the slightest attempt at explanation, Fry’s head over heels in love with some chick we never met, so far gone that after they break up he’s willing to essentially commit suicide by going to the rift in the universe?? I’d buy this behavior in The Simpsons, which lives and dies by its cheerful willingness to press the Reset Button on any character developments. Not in Futurama.
Other irritating character inconsistencies: Nibbler’s really gone (which sucks, I loved that little guy!) but Leela apparently couldn’t care less, though she was heartbroken when he went missing in I Second That Emotion. Amy spending years loving Kif but happily sleeps with Zapp only a month after her husband dies. Where was Hermes’ family? Bender suddenly has a ‘son’ (not sure how that works with a robot!) whom he’s willing to harm by tossing into molten lava so he can destroy humans because they … harm robots. (Which would be funny irony but even for Bender this was pretty freakin’ cold.)
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Not enough Zoidberg!
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Speaking of which, did they really have to use yet another Yiddish-speaking stereotype as one of Colleen’s lovers? I don’t think the “Matzah fever” line was worth it. Any humor inherent in the situation was watered down by the fact that Shlomo sounded too much like Zoidberg and the other Decapodians.
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Some of the vocal performances seemed off, particularly Billy West’s Professor & Fry and to a lesser extent Phil LaMarr’s Hermes and Tress MacNeille’s newscaster woman whose name I always forget. And Brittany Murphy was pretty useless, but then she always is IMO.
I wouldn’t say no Futurama is better than bad Futurama. I wouldn’t even call this bad, really … there were clever and funny bits in it. Just didn’t have as much of the heart and smarts that I love in the show.
For the record, some of my favorite Futurama episodes are:
Hell is Other Robots
The Problem with Popplers
Fry and the Slurm Factory
Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?
Mother’s Day
Amazon Women in the Mood
Parasites Lost
The Day the Earth Stood Stupid
Roswell That Ends Well
Godfellas
The Why of Fry
The Sting
The Farnsworth Parabox
The Devils Hands Are Idle Playthings
Nice review.
I have to agree with being disappointed. My main beef is that the plot feels very flat–there’s no real climax, just a steady movement from one plot point to another. The one point where there could have been a major climax (fighting against the tentacle monster) was almost entirely avoided. There’s no build-up, no suspense. It flows well, but you wind up with the feeling that nothing actually happened.
Oh, and let Fry and Leela be together already! Or at least let there be a reason besides a busty blonde if they’re not.
When we picked up the movie, I made a comment about tentacle rape (“C’mon, doesn’t that image look like something out of a hentai?”) and Owls chastised me for always going for the tentacle porn reference. After the movie was over, he conceded–there was tentacle rape in the movie.
I rented it and didn’t have time for special features so I missed the missing episode 
I liked it. I would say it was more clever than laugh out loud funny for the most part, but that’s just fine with me. The alternate universe tentacle beast that wants to date the entire universe was an awesome premise. I liked Bender’s Big Score a little bit more, because it really threw in the whole kitchen sink, had an awesomely convoluted plotline, and had more “heart”. Beast was probably more “fun” though. Sort of like BBS was the “myth arc” episode and TBWABB was the “monster of the week” episode.
I have to say that i did like the part with Farnsworth and Wernstrom throwing the mini robots into the force field. If not for this line alone…
“playtime is fun time”
My sister and I just watched this last night. She liked Bender’s Big Score better because of the call backs to the previous seasons, but I liked Beast With a Billion Backs because it’s Leela centered. I did think the pacing of this one was a little slow though… and a little erratic when they cut back and forth between Fry+Colleen, then to Bender, then oh wait… Fry is all of a sudden the pope of a new religion. It seems like the story didn’t really reveal itself until halfway through… until with BBS.
Oh, and Leela is not with Fry not just because he’s immature and doesn’t know what respect really means yet. Yes, he has the potential, and as my sister pointed out, if Leela really cared about him, she would guide him to maturity. (My sister’s older than me, but she can still be SO naive about “love”) The problem also lies in the personality that Leela has.
Throughout the series, she is shown to be this awesome independent female captain who is bent on proving that despite having one eye and working in a (still!) misogynist world, she is competent and capable all by herself. Not to mention her childhood as an orphan that’s produced a few rough edges. I think this has turned her into a cynical character and judging by how she keeps expecting Yivo to be some sort of sham even when schlee is offering paradise, I can easily see why Leela won’t establish a relationship with Fry until she knows for sure that he is capable of dealing with his end of the issues.