Futurama: Bender's Game

Futurama: Bender's Game
by Dwayne Carey-Hill

Futurama: Bender's Game

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DVD details

Actor: Billy West, John Di Maggio, Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNeille
Director: Dwayne Carey-Hill
Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
Producer: Claudia Katz
Writer: David X. Cohen
Writer: Eric Horsted
Writer: Eric Kaplan
Writer: Matt Groening
Writer: Michael Rowe
Writer: Patric Verrone
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-11-04
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: 20th Century Fox

DVD Reviews of Futurama: Bender's Game

DVD Review: anathor great futurama flick
Summary: 4 Stars

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.

DVD Review: Pretty good movie, HORRIBLE DVD case
Summary: 3 Stars

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.

DVD Review: Would you like a taste of Scroto?
Summary: 5 Stars

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!

DVD Review: No one wanted this to be great more than myself, but...
Summary: 2 Stars

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.

DVD Review: Bender's Game DVD
Summary: 2 Stars

This is the 3rd Futurama release in their series comeback, but this one falls flat on it's face halfway through. There are a few laughs, however the film changes tone so greatly that it never recovers. I loved "Bender's Game" and "Beast" was OK but this one does NOT measure up to the other two. There are some Lord of the Rings and D&D jokes that are funny, but that's about it. Recommend a rental.

Description of Futurama: Bender's Game

With fuel prices skyrocketing, the Planet Express crew sets off on a dangerous mission: to infiltrate the world's only dark-matter mine, source of all spaceship fuel. But deep beneath the surface lies a far stranger place... a medieval land of dragons and sorcery and intoxicated knights who look suspiciously like Bender. So park your hover-car and saddle up your unicorn for Futurama's grandest adventure yet: BENDER'S GAME!

At once a merciless skewering of all things fanboy and an extremely satisfying addition to the Futurama franchise, Bender's Game is among the best of the animated series' feature length adventures. The game in question is Dungeons and Dragons, and Bender wants in--only robots aren't programmed with the necessary imagination. Naturally, Bender's plans to develop one go completely awry and land him in an android asylum. The role-playing plotline later re-emerges--in typically convoluted Futurama fashion--via a subplot involving Professor Farnsworth's conversion of dark matter into spaceship fuel, which created a key to a very D&D-influenced universe where our hapless heroes eventually find themselves. The alternate world storyline allows for much lampooning of fantasy tropes, with Lord of the Rings receiving the lion's share of the tweaks. Seeing as how the writers have already devoted much of the movie's running time to parodying Star Wars and Star Trek (and their Lego offshoots), one might think that Bender's Game might suffer from pop-culture overload, but surprisingly, it all feels fresh and frequently funny, and the writers are wise to ground the story in their eccentric characters rather than pinballing them through an endless string of gags. The result is probably the strongest of the direct-to-DVD Futurama releases to date, and one that newcomers to the show's cracked universe can appreciate as much as longtime fans.As with previous Futurama DVD releases, the extras come fast and furious on Bender's Game: commentary by members of the cast and production team (including Matt Groening) is both informative and funny, while interviews with the writers and producers discuss, among other topics, the influence of Dungeons and Dragons on the series and the 3D models used in the feature. Aspiring animators might appreciate "How To Draw Futurama in 83 Easy Steps and the storyboard animatic for the first part of the story, while the "Genetics Lab" feature allows for some amusing Dr. Moreau-style cross-breeding of the characters. Recording session bloopers and a deleted scene offer their own laughs, but the most enjoyable extra must be the preview for the next Futurama feature, Into the Wild Green Yonder, which suggests a shocking development for one of the show's regulars. -- Paul Gaita

Beyond Futurama: Bender's Game

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