Futurama Returns!

Random BedHead Ed writes "Good news everyone! After a five year vanishing act the sci-fi spoof Futurama returned this week with a direct-to-DVD feature. Wired has an article about its return, including the story of the show's origins, a behind the scenes gallery, interviews with creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, and some interesting trivia. For example, did you know the ship has an overbite like a Simpson's character? Or that the show's title is taken from an exhibition at the 1939 Worlds Fair?." We just talked about this a bit the other day, too, in reference to a great interview on TVSquad.

Comments

Forget the DVD!

[explosivejared]

I'll just pirate my own copy with blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the pirated movie!

Re:Forget the DVD!

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

To take a slightly more serious note on piracy/copyright infringement. As soon as I heard the Futurama dvd was coming out this November I asked for it to be bought as a christmas present, however a few days ago I discovered it was coming out in November in the USA. I'm in the UK here, and it actually comes out on dvd sometime in 2008.
It doesn't take many guesses for what I did and no, it wasn't flown over my magic carpet...

We'll see if in 2008 I still have the impetus to buy it when it comes out, considering the nature of the internet and how it's stupidly easy to get this kind of stuff nowadays I wish companies would wake up and start doing their releases simultaneous or near simultaneously worldwide. (especially when they're in the same damn language with the only difference of one being NTSC format and the other PAL)

Re:Forget the DVD!

[AbRASiON]

Couldn't agree more, with the way the internet works the world has changed, region coding is fucking stupid (especially for games consoles) and releasing TV shows and movies later (by a large degree) often just costs them sales.

1 week is fine but months or more? their loss.

Re:Forget the DVD!

[Kazzahdrane]

As a massive Futurama fan who greatly looked forward to buying each season on DVD on release date, I empathise completely. Not having even a confirmation that there will EVER be a Region 2 release boggles the mind (AFAIK, perhaps a R2 release has been confirmed recently?). The funny thing is that all 4 DVD seasons came out here in Europe before North America, apparently because the show had such a big European fanbase so it was a good testing ground.

Like you, I resorted to other means to watch this first movie, something I (almost) never do on principle. I believe that good work should be paid for, but I wasn't willing to wait possibly over a year to then find out I'd just need to import anyway. I'll definitely be buying the DVD if it's ever released in R2 though, not because I thought the film was amazingly good, but because the Futurama DVD commentaries were always fantastic and very very funny.

Re:Forget the DVD!

[Anonymous Coward]

If the only difference in releases was the encoding, I would be a hapy customer.

But when I (a region 4 person) find out that most of the DVDs I have bought over the years come without all the many extras on USA (and Japanese) releases... well, then I'm a pissed off customer.

I just can't work out why extras on DVDs differ so much by region. It isn't a case of music release rights, because most of these extras just don't have music like that in it - I'm talking about things like behind-the-scenes documentaries, minidocs, commentaries etc.

Compared to the minefield of trying to work out which DVD region offers the better purchase for a fan (even ignoring the multiple version release scam), a difference in release dates between countries seems minor :)

Re:Forget the DVD!

[MobyDisk]

Just remember, it takes months and years to sign distribution deals in other countries. And there is a shortage of talented voice actors and translators who can translate American English to UK English. How many people do you know who understand the minute differences between pants and trousers? Between a truck and a lorrie? Don't even get me started on Canadian English. Adding all those "eh's" into the end of each characters lines requires digitally lengthening each episode by 5 minutes.

Okay, leaving tongue-in-cheek mode to make a technical point: Back in the VHS days, you had to translate media between PAL and NTSC. Today, there's no reason a DVD player can't handle both. The DVD players can already rescale the video, frame rate no longer has anything to do with "tracking" or "synching." So the PAL -vs- NTSC excuse doesn't hold water any more. Especially since that conversion can be done in real time on a midrange PC these days.

Re:Forget the DVD!

[Citizen of Earth]

Don't even get me started on Canadian English. Adding all those "eh's" into the end of each characters lines requires digitally lengthening each episode by 5 minutes.

Out of sheer frustration, many of us Canadians have learned American English. The missing "eh?" makes listening like reading messages in all-caps, but this is the price for an early release.

And may I be the first to say...

[CaptainPatent]

All Hail Hypnotoad!

oblig.

[niteice]

And Zoidberg!

Great show, decent movie

[Synesthesiatic]

One thing I've realized about Futurama is that, unlike most "adult cartoons," it actually has a lot of heart. The episodes about Fry's brother, his dog, Lela's parents, and of course the whole Lela and Fry subplot are quite sweet, and you it actually give a crap about the loserish characters.

As for the movie, the story wasn't amazing, but there was a huge amount of fan service in it. To the point where only an avid fan could really appreciate it. I was so overjoyed to see new content that it was pretty easy to overlook the flaws.

Re:Great show, decent movie

[explosivejared]

Lela and Fry subplot are quite sweet

I say this with all seriousness! It is one of the greatest "romances" I can remember in any show, movie, what have you. The show actually made me care about a love subplot, and that never happens. It was so painful for the both of them, and as a typical nerd, I related to it so much. It was such a funny yet touching ride. I know this offtopic as opposed to the random show references (I'm guilty of doing that with the first post already), but I am completely serious. One of the best fictional "romances" ever! Period.

Re:Great show, decent movie

[Unoriginal Nick]

The episodes about Fry's brother, his dog,...

I have all the DVDs, and I still watch the repeats on Adult Swim once in a while, but I'll never watch "Jurassic Bark" again. Saddest. Ending. EVER.

Everybody Loves Hypnotoad!

[WombatControl]

The DVD has the single most awesome DVD extra ever -- an entire half-hour episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad (with commercials). It's worth watching just to see the 30th century commercials...

I'm still waiting for the Season 1 DVD box set with all 365 episodes myself...

The Secret to Futurama's success

[ArcherB]

From TFA Groening says:

"The operating principle of Futurama was that you can do a joke that 1percent of the audience gets, as long as it doesn't derail the enjoyment of the mass audience," Cohen says. "And that 1 percent becomes a fan for life." You also see the same formula in Dennis Miller's material. You only get 1/5 of the jokes, but that one make you feel so smart that you become a fan.

I didn't care much for Futurama until one night, I was watching an episode where Bender jumped off a "See where the stars live" tour bus and kept knocking on Calculon's door. Finally, after the third or forth time, Calculon asked him, "Do you have an extra goto ten line?"

I've been a fan ever since.

Re:I downloaded it

[lucas teh geek]

I downloaded it too, but I live in Australia. they dont even have a release date set here (region 4) yet. stupid media companies and they archaic "regions". if you dont want to sell it to me when it comes out, dont expect me to buy it a year later when you decide my region can finally have it.

binary (possible spoiler-warning)

[bumby]

A previous episode of futurama has had a binary-joke. Benders room number is $ in binary ascii.
So when I saw the binary code here I instantly tried to figure out what it said. It turned out
the message was really IN the binary this time.

001100
010010
011110
100001
101101
110011

s/0/_/g
__11__
_1__1_
_1111_
1____1
1_11_1
11__11

It's the spaceship, from above! Fixed font would be recommended :/

CUNT! DAMN SPOILER!

[Anonymous Coward]

DAMN YOU! YOU CUNT!
I mean that from the bottom of my heart!
I'm so fucking mad that I put on caps lock!

SPOILER WARNING GOES IN THE SUBJECT LINE.

captcha text was "incurred"
YOU HAVE INCURRED MY WRATH!!!

I bought the dvd the day it came out

[kithrup]

I was rather disappointed with it. It had some funny moments, for sure, but for the most part, we were bored. Maybe we had too-high expectations (Godfellas is my favourite episode, and we'd just watched it on Cartoon Network), but it was just... enh. Not really bad, but not particularly good. Not something that would make me want to bring the series back from the dead.

Re:I bought the dvd the day it came out

[CCFreak2K]

Attention, Groening. We are reasonably satisfied with the events we have seen. Overall I would rate it a C+. OK, not great. As a result, we will not destroy your planet, but neither will we provide you with our recipe for immortality.