Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Review of Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder

I got ahold of Futurama's Into the Wild Green Yonder yesterday, and have to say I was fairly pleased with this outing of the series - in fact, I think it's the best of the four. Characters were written true to the essentials of each character, the Fry and Leela relationship was addressed satisfactorily, the inside jokes were there but not overly obvious or irritating.
Evolutionary factors were both the villain and hero of these four episodes - the evolutionary forces that caused less robust species to go extinct were labelled "dark ones" and the forces to preserve evolutionary diversity - somewhat mysterious - were the "encyclopods." A strange premise, making personifications of evolutionary theory good or evil.
The best extra was the "making of" documentary, in which...well, let's just say Lauren Tom features heavily, and it's pretty hilarious. You can also watch Matt Groening bounce around at zero G!
It never reached the greatness of the original four seasons, but at no time did I look away in disgust or get so bored I stopped watching (as happened with the three previous movies,) and the ending has some emotional resonance.
Billy West has said there is a possibility than Futurama might have new episodes on Fox, a la the resurrection of Family Guy.

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