DVD Review: Futurama Into the Wild Green Yonder
20th Century Fox Film Produced By Matt Groening, David X Cohen
Feb 12, 2009
As of this writing, the fourth Futurama movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, will likely be the last. If so, this flick is a fine send-off for Matt Groening' intergalactic comedy.
It's an entertaining direct-to-DVD film that – much like Groening's The Simpsons Movie – manages to stay funny while saying some very smart things about humanity's relationship with our environment: think An Inconvenient Truth with giggles.
What's Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder About?
Ruthless developer Leo Wong is demolishing part of the galaxy to make way for a gigantic miniature golf course. In the process, he wants to blow up a violet dwarf star whose nearby planetoid has started displaying signs of life.
In response, Amy and Leela join an Eco-Feminista organization in order to sabotage Leo's efforts. In the meantime, a suddenly-telepathic Fry gets embroiled in an ancient war between the The Dark Ones and the Encyclopods, who also have a vested interest in what's going on in the system.
Leo Wong isn't taking all this lying down: he's hired Bender, Zoidberg, The Professor, Hermes and intergalactic hero Zapp Branigan to apprehend the Eco-Feministas. Magician Penn Jillette, Seth McFarlane (The Family Guy), talk show host Phil Hendrie, and rapper Snoop Dogg cameo as heads in jars.
As someone who had previously written off Futurama as The Simpsons' less entertaining sibling, Into the Wild Green Yonder is a pleasant surprise. It's fast-paced and funny, which is pretty much what anyone would want from an animated comedy. The flick follows an all-too-familiar arc for anyone who's ever followed The Simpsons or Futurama during its television run: the style's not threadbare, but Groening's clichés are showing.
The cel-animation-plus-CGI concept is an occasionally uncomfortable fit but when the story's this good, who really cares?
Extra Features
They really packed the extra features onto this DVD, for which the audience is always grateful. An audio commentary by Groening, Cohen and a cast of thousands (okay, a slight exaggeration there) ensures that the audio is crammed with in-jokes and general badinage that occasionally bears resemblance to the visuals. Viewers can also dig into some deleted scenes, and a photo essay of Groening, his son and David X. Cohen taking a zero gravity ride.
There's a behind-the-scenes featurette – which claims that voice actor Lauren Tom (Amy Wong, among others) actually does all the work on Futurama – as well as a guide to drawing several characters on the show, including Fry, Nibbler and Hypno-Toad. Guest voice actor Penn Jillette gets his own featurette
There are also a couple of shorts, including "Bender's Guide to Movie Theatre Etiquette" and "Zapp Branigan's How to Make Love at a Woman" which features sequences taken from Futurama's television run. There are also a bunch of other bits, including an Easter Egg (no spoilers here, folks, but it's not hard to find).
The Final Analysis
While Futurama at its best never rivaled The Simpsons for ratings and sheer cultural impact, it joins Firefly as yet another perfectly good show ruined by Fox TV's moronic scheduling. If Into the Wild Green Yonder stands as the last gasp of Futurama (Groening and Cohen have both expressed a desire for the show to continue in some other form), there are worse ways for it to end. It's a solid send-off for a show that never really had a chance.
Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder gets a 7/10.
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