Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder
Fry, Leela, Bender and the rest of those far off future citizens are now in their own full length feature film saving, or destroying, parts of the universe.
Film making 18/25
Cinematography 18/25
Audio 18/25
Bonus Features 20/25
Total 74/100
After a quick opening sequence of watching a green explosion deep in space and a nearby asteroid getting pummeled by the green ray’s life is born on the asteroid. We then cut to old Mars Vegas and an opening musical credits scene ending in the explosion of old Mars Vegas to make room in the pocket books of travelers for the new Mars Vegas.
Amy’s wealthy parents Leo and Inez are creating a new resort and interstellar mini golf course but eco-feminists led by Freda Waterfall are out to stop the devastation to the environment that the golf course would cause. The golf course would run through several parts of the galaxy and Leo wants to destroy the violet star that is the center of the solar system where the asteroid and its new life is evolving.
When Leo tries to stop the eco-feminists by blowing them up one of the eco feminists falls on Fry who with everyone else important in Futurama were visiting the construction site of new Mars Vegas. A pendant imbeds itself into Fry’s head and his hair quickly covers the protruding amulet from view of others just as Leela questions Leo about the construction and its impact on the environment.
Fry figures out that he can hear others thoughts encounters a bum who also hears peoples thoughts and has Fry wear a tinfoil hat to stop others from hearing their thoughts and to stop them from hearing others. Hutch, the bum, informs fry there are others who also hear thoughts and through a few scenes interspersed with other Futurama silliness Fry learns of the Dark Ones and the Encyclopod.
Fry is introduced to the group of telepaths named the Legion of Mad Fellows and explains to Fry how the green explosion is the Chi or life giving force. They explain that this force is part of the Encyclopod’s plan to bring the extinct species back to life but the Dark One is trying to stop them.
The Dark One is a being who’s mind they cannot read and is out to blow up the violet star that is the last remaining egg of the Encyclopod. If they save the Encyclopod they will save all the species that have been extinct that the Encyclopod has been saving to reintroduce into the universe.
Leela has joined the feminists and with her leech that she saved from the construction site has gone into hiding when one of their protests killed the body of Spiro Agnew. The Dark One is trying to blow up the violet star through Leo and Leo has hired Fry as security of his construction site when Fry tells him all he wants to know by reading his mind.
Fry can read Leo’s mind but not the Dark One that inhabits Leo and Leo uses Fry to get to work destroying the violet star for his golf course. Fry is using his position to get behind the plot to destroy the violet star as he wants to stop Leo from destroying the star just because Leela wants to save the star and the asteroid with its new life.
In the end Fry saves the day and they all find out the Dark One is actually the leech Leela saved from the construction site that has been influencing Leo. While I have tried to simplify the film I have left out parts like the Robot Mafia Don named the Donbot, Bender falling in love with the Donbot’s girl robot and other silly nonsense but it all works out in the film.
I have gotten out of touch with Futurama and did enjoy the first several shows of the series when it first came out but it began to get tiring to me. The film is a new breath of fresh air, space?, into the series and a fun trip back to the show.
You do not have to have seen any of the series to enjoy the movie and it is really funny at times and also so dumb it is hilarious at other times. Into The Wild Green Yonder is a good film and well worth the price of admission for young adults and older, this is a direct to DVD/Blu-ray so there is no rating but it should be PG-13.
The Blu-ray edition has a ton of extras from commentary by Matt Groenig, David Cohen and others to storyboards, a feature on how they make Futurama so good, deleted scenes, and many others. The Blu-ray includes a special toilet paper animation by Billy West and another special hidden feature but I’m not telling how to find them.
Some of the extras are the traditional informational and interesting making of and others are just goofy but still informational extras. The Blu-ray edition has a good animated film as well as the included extras you would expect from a bunch of guys, and girls, which created Futurama.