Into the Wild Green Yonder
The fourth and final planned “Futurama” DVD, “Into the Wild Green Yonder,” was released last week (February 23, 2009) and my friends and I got together to watch it last Saturday night. If you don’t know, I am and always have been (since it originally aired in March 1999) a huge fan of “Futurama.” It ranks in the top echelon of my favorite television shows. It is within this context I will be reviewing the latest installment of the series. If I come across as saying something negative about the show, know it is because I hold it to a higher standard. What might be a negative when talking about Futurama would be praise for a lesser show. “Futurama” is like the animated form of sex, even a bad episode is good.
Why all the defense of the show before I even say anything? Because, I want to start by saying I found it to be the weakest of the four movie DVDs released. Now, it could have been the circumstances of the viewing, it could have been my mental state at the time, but it didn’t seem to be as cohesive to me. The story made sense, but it didn’t engage me as the other stories have thus far. Of course, it could have just been the subject matter. At it’s simplest the story was about big business not caring about the environment, and more to the point, about animal extinction. Such a story is automatically a turnoff to me. The story instantly had an uphill battle to win me over. I do not like to preached to through the shows I watch for entertainment.
With some time to digest the movie, I don’t feel now that I was preached too. It made great strides to not be preachy, and I can’t say it didn’t win me over in the end. For one thing, it treated everyone and everything with equal cynicism. The obvious characterization of Mr. Wong as a developer who is only interested in making money, all critters who stand in his way be damned. But, on the other side of the coin is the all female group of protesters (femanistas) who are completely inept and useless in their methods (unil Leela takes them over of course). Even the creature who is the motivation of the first protest, an unattractive and aggressive form of martian leech, has no arguable reason for existing other than the fact that it already does.
The story then sets itself up with the characters taking sides in a very black and white manner with either the protesters or with the developers. I should amend that with, “seemingly take sides.” As is so often the case with Futurama, nothing is black or white. When the authors want to write a story with some depth, they certainly can, and in this case, did. It stands as a testament to Ken Keeler and David X. Cohen that they can take a slapstick cast and still tell a story with relevant content.
The story is also not just about environment versus development. Actually, that is just the context in which the real stories take place. The ever evolving relationship between Fry and Leela is the main focus. The relationship between Amy and her father (Mr. Wong) as well as the relations between men and women as a whole are explored.
As I started by saying, comparatively, it is a good story and maybe worth a second viewing to really solidify my opinion. Of course, I will also watch it with the commentaries which tell what the storytellers were thinking. The commentary can always sway my opinion. In a similar situation, my negative on “Wall•E” was that it was preachy about the environment and global warming. The commentary from writer/director Andrew Stanton was very revealing. He never thought of it nor intended it as an environmental story. It was the notion of a lone robot on a deserted planet performing a thankless and repetitive task for hundreds of years that he was fascinated with. Cleaning up trash for seven hundred years fit the bill.
Back to “Futurama”. While it’s future is still unclear, I believe this was not the last we will see of it. Voice actor Billy West said Fox Television is in talks for a sixth season of the show as a result of the excellent DVD sales. I for one will be waiting eagerly for any movies or television shows.
Yeah, Greg and I agree that it was the least good of the three – but there had better be more Futurama, they can’t just leave us with these four totally disjointed stories out of nowhere and call it a day!
Comment by Christine | March 6, 2009
Keep you fingers crossed. I know have mine crossed. Of course I hope they announce something soon, it makes it hard to type.
Comment by Karl | March 7, 2009