Futurama Benders Game

Futurama Benders Game

Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 11/04/2008 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: Nr

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars An ode to Dungeons and Dragons and the best Futurama film so far!
Futurama: Bender’s Game brings Dungeons and Dragons to the thirty first century. With Bender hooked on the popular role-playing game, Fry and the rest of the gang try to get to the bottom of a dark matter shortage. What they find on the way is surely going to rock their world! A tribute to Gary Gygax, the late creator of Dungeons and Dragons, the movie also makes references to Star Wars and Star Trek, the latter with a guest appearance by George Takei!

All the actors, without exceptions, give it their 100% and it really shows (the animation does come alive)! Very well written and very well presented, the movie is without a doubt guaranteed to provide more than just a few laughs.

The setting, the plot, the dialogues, the humor, and the music are all excellent!

Following the cancellation of the show (I wonder what “genius” came up with that idea???) life was pretty hard without these amazing characters. The comic books are good, but nothing beats the actual show, so it’s so good to have everybody back.

Strongly recommended along with the other three Futurama films: Bender’s Big Score, The Beast with a Billion Backs, and Into the Wild Green Yonder.

In short, KEEP’EM COMING!!!

4 Stars anathor great futurama flick
This movie is a lot like all the other futurama movies but takes a very interesting turn. There is a “shortage” of dark matter and fuel prices are sky rocketing, meanwhile bender wants to play dungeons and dragons but he wasn’t programmed with imagination. these story seem totally diffrent but they do cross paths eventully when they enter a fantasy land were dice have all power. this is anathor hilarious futurama movie that is sure to please.

3 Stars Pretty good movie, HORRIBLE DVD case
I like movies where they poke fun of D&D and other RPGs, so this one does take the cake. My main gripe is the casing: To be carbon neutral, they make a cardboard case? Jeez man, these cases last a few weeks in the best of care, and there’s no replacement for this. If you buy this movie, make a copy of the DVD art and place all in a real case, then ship the POS case back to Groenig.

5 Stars Would you like a taste of Scroto?
I love all of Futurama. I have seen all four of the movies and this is my favorite.

I’m an owl exterminator!

Please buy the movies so that they bring the show back!

2 Stars No one wanted this to be great more than myself, but…
Note: No one wanted this movie to be great more than myself. With that said…

Fearfully I say unto thee, Futurama Faithful: the series has taken another hit. That’s not to say “Bender’s Game is a hit!” but rather the third installment of direct-to-DVD movies leaves Futurama fans unfulfilled. Now, for those of you who sat through Beast with a Billion Backs biting back bitter, beleaguered bellows of disappointment - you might think Bender’s Game takes the series back in a better direction. And you might be right but that doesn’t solve the very low volume of laughs to be found here. I’ve found that Beast with a Billion Backs, though initially disappointing, gets better with age and I can only hope the same is true of Bender’s Game.

The price of dark matter has reached an all-time high in the year 3000 and after a series of costly events Professor Farnsworth decides to take steps against Mom and her outrageously high profits in times of “dark matter shortages” (sounds oddly familiar…huh). In order to destroy Mom and her conglomeration, the Planet Express crew sets out to recombine the two crystals that when joined will render all dark matter useless and usher in a new era of scientific fuel research (instead of spending that money on makeup for dogs). Amidst all this, Bender finds himself lost in the imagination activated while playing Dungeons and Dragons ultimately leading to his insanity and eventual mental implosion into the world of D&D - taking the entire world with him.

Herein begins every conceivable Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy fiction joke you could imagine. With Leela taking on the body of a centaur and Fry a ring-burdened hobbit the story restarts with the good guys once again setting out to defeat Mom and her three enjoyably incompetent sons.

While the plot is fittingly geeky in premise, which is why I still like it, it simply fails to deliver on the funny. I remember laughing a grand total of three times - listen for the explanation on where hobbits come from, awesome. The jokes that work may be few and far between but Bender’s Game successfully achieves two objectives essential to Futurama glory.

First overarching plot develops. Unlike the Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park the world of Futurama doesn’t simply revert back to normal when the story comes to a close. In fact, after Bender’s Game, there are a few rather important plot points that alter the Futurama universe forever. Few shows allow themselves such extensive plots and for that reason Futurama deserves all sorts of credit (for proof please see Bender’s Big Score - you don’t get more complicated than that).

The second beautiful aspect of Bender’s Game is the layered references. While any doofus can pick out the Lord of the Rings and D&D nods to be found within it’ll be the more dedicated viewer who truly benefits from the glorious comedy buried within. For example there’s a Home Shopping Channel reference in the movie with a hilarious - research worthy - jab that you’ll find on YouTube if you’re so inclined. These Easter eggs are littered throughout the feature and add a desperately needed entertainment value to what is otherwise a comically empty installment. Maybe it’s just that Lord of the Ring jokes have been done to death - maybe Futurama just got there too late, but Bender’s Game’s ability to parody the material is greatly hindered by all those who have already done so.

The DVD’s special features include the typical audio commentary with the typical Futurama crew and sadly, I found the commentary audio track funnier than the feature. Granted there was a bit of talk about how Gary Gygax, the D&D founder, had influenced the writers but beyond that there’s nothing more entertaining than hearing Billy West and John DiMaggio laughing hysterically. Some of the more amusing features come in the form of a humorous “How to Draw Futurama characters” and the Futurama Genetics Lab. The “How to” featurette gives the Rough Draft animators a little bit of camera time while the Genetics Lab gives you an “Anthology of Interest”-worthy look of how two characters would work when spliced together. Beyond that the featurettes are pretty typical and run for less than five minutes. What may be of greatest interest to all your Futurama fans is the trailer of the upcoming (and regretfully) final Futurama epic. I’ll say this - the trailer for the fourth Futurama movie made me laugh more than the entirety of Bender’s Game.

I hesitate to offer this to anyone but the truly Futurama devoted.

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