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The Movie
Futurama is Matt Groening's futuristic sci-fi spin-off
of his mega popular animated hit TV series, The Simpsons.
Futurama is inventive, unpredictable, and inherently
darker than its older sibling, but is still able to strike the
funny bone with the same wacky, off-the-wall humor. Futurama
is a lot like The Simpsons except that it actually tries
to follow a linear plot line, whereas on The Simpsons,
anything can happen if it makes you laugh. Both shows are drawn
in the same Groening style, so there's no mistaking that these
shows are related. And thankfully, Futurama follows the
same Groening recipe for comedy that makes The Simpsons
one of the funniest shows on TV today.
The premise for Futurama is the perfect springboard for
comedy. The year is 1999. The show is centered around, Fry, a
25-year-old pizza delivery boy who is your basic loser who has no
real direction in life. His girlfriend cheats on him, his
apartment is a pigsty, and he doesn't have any friends. One night
he makes a late delivery to a cryogenic freezing facility that
turns out to be a prank call. While wallowing in self-pity, he
clumsily falls into an empty chamber and freezes himself for 1000
years. When he is revived, he finds himself in the year 3000, and
needless to say society has drastically changed. Fry hooks up
with his great, great, great, etc. nephew, Professor Farnsworth
and ends up working for him. Ironically, he becomes a delivery
boy for the professor, carting packages across the galaxy to
strange alien planets filled with life threatening danger. Fry's
partners in crime include a rude, lazy, alcoholic robot named
Bender, and a tough, seductive, military-like, one-eyed alien
named Leela. As I said before, this is a prefect recipe for wacky
comedy.
Futurama - Volume One is a fantastic set that lets fans
of this hilarious show travel back in time to re-watch the season
that started it all. Arguably the funniest seasons made, this set
shows you the origin of all the main characters and sets the
stage for the escalating insanity to follow in later seasons. Futurama
is definitely more of a thinking man's show than The Simpsons
as the jokes range from obscure, to obvious, to outright raunchy.
Nothing is sacred on this show, and I love it for that very
reason. Futruama is fresh, witty, and one of the
funniest shows to ever be televised.
Here's a breakdown of all the included episodes on this
three-disc set:
Disc 1
Episode 1: Space Pilot 3000
Episode 2: The Series Has Landed
Episode 3: I, Roommate
Episode 4: Love's Labours Lost In Space
Disc 2
Episode 5: Fear Of A Bot Planet
Episode 6: A Fishful Of Dollars
Episode 7: My Three Suns
Episode 8: A Big Piece Of Garbage
Episode 9: Hell Is Other Robots
Disc 3
Episode 10: A Flight To Remember
Episode 11: Mars University
Episode 12: When Aliens Attack
Episode 13: Fry & The Slurm Factory
There wasn't one episode on this set that I didn't find funny.
And there wasn't one episode where I didn't listen to the
included audio commentary. That's right, every single episode has
its own audio commentary track with the creators, animators,
writers, and voice talent for the show. The commentaries are
always entertaining, and offer a lot of insight as to the making
of this futuristic comedy, so true fans of the show should pick
up this set for that reason alone. Futurama - Volume One
is a great looking and sounding DVD set that begs to be added to
your collection.
The DVD
Video: Futurama is presented in its
original 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio. The picture quality here
is generally excellent. This is the best this show has ever
looked. The video is bright and exceptionally clean. Colors look
fantastic, and black levels are extremely dark. The show looks
absolutely wonderful.
What really separates the look of this show from The Simpsons
is the use of 3D computer animation. This tool really gives Futurama
a perception of depth that looks light-years ahead of what we see
on The Simpsons. Also, the still frames are colored
completely by computer. So color uniformity is obviously not a
problem here. The animation looks as good as I could have hoped.
Audio:
Every episode has a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround audio
track. For a 2.0 track, the surround sound effect is surprisingly
good. So every episode just sounds wonderful. All the dialogue is
dubbed, so naturally it sounds crystal clear and is easy to hear
at all times. For a cartoon TV series, you wouldn't necessarily
think that the sound should be all that great, but thankfully the
audio for Futurama goes above and beyond what it needed
to do. This set sounds incredible, and I couldn't be happier with
the way it turned out.
Extras: I was a little disappointed with the
features given on this set. I was expecting a lot more in the way
of behind-the-scenes footage. Unfortunately we really don't get
any of that. There is a nice featurette included in this package,
but it is way too short, coming in at under five minutes. I would
have thought a comedy TV show like Futurama could come
up with enough footage to fill at least a 40-minute featurette.
Perhaps we will see something with more substance in future
releases.
However I was thrilled to see that the Futurama team
took the time to record individual audio commentaries for every
single episode in this series. With many TV series being released
on DVD today, often the producers of these shows only record one
commentary for the first, or pilot, episode. So I was excited to
see that we have not one, but 13 different commentaries on this
DVD package. All of the commentaries are excellent, giving the
viewer an accurate look at the true-life personalities that come
to work everyday to make this fabulous show. Most of the talking
is preformed by Executive Producer/Head Writer David Coen, which
is actually a good thing, because he is full of interesting and
humorous information. On a side note, his voice is
unintentionally funny, and makes me wonder why he hasn't been
used as voice talent on the show before. Futurama
creator, Matt Groening is always present for the commentaries but
never seems to chime in very much, which is somewhat
disappointing. But the commentaries are most definitely worth a
listen, and can add new life to an episode that you may have
grown tired of watching on its own.
Other features include a sparse collection of deleted scenes, and
a concept art gallery of videos and stills. Nothing really
exciting here, but thankfully the oh-so short featurette and 13
individual commentaries lift this potentially disastrous feature
package out of the dumpster.
Final Thoughts
I am admittedly a science fiction nut, so it should come as no
surprise that Futurama is one of my all-time favorite TV
shows. If you've seen the show, then you know why. It's
hilarious, inventive, and gloriously wacky. And with the addition
of the highly entertaining set of commentaries, this becomes a
must-own DVD collection for any true fan of the show. The video
transfer is great, the audio soundtracks are great, and the show
is incredible. And if you're still unsure if this DVD set is for
you, remember that it's much more enjoyable than drinking the
addictive juices secreted from the butt of an enormous mother
worm. Or, at least that's what I've heard. Highly
Recommended
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