Into the Wild Green Yonder

For my money, this is BY FAR the worst of the movies (yeah I know you love it, bite me).

Where to begin? It's about as funny as Bender's Big Score, which if you've read my review, you might remember I found to be bitterly unfunny. However, I forgave Bender's Big Score due to its wonderful storyline.

What does this have going for it in the story department? An epic science fiction adventure? Nope, some boring environmentalist crap about bringing a bunch of animals that went extinct and thus "failed nature's test" in Fry's own words back to life. People have argued to me that this is an epic because the dark ones were slowly but surely wiping out all life in the universe. Oh no! You mean that without the events of this film, all life might have ceased to be several more MILLION years down the line? That's a really urgent struggle between good and evil I can get behind. Is there an emotional core to the story? Sort of. There's some nice Fry and Leela stuff but it just feels tacked on to the plot. It doesn't compliment anything else going on and ultimately I couldn't buy into Leela suddenly confessing her love for Fry at the end when you see some of the gestures she's flat out ignored in the past. What about interesting new places for the characters to explore? None of that here. They go to Mars. Mars. The most boring location in Futurama's history. The location responsible for the craptacular Mars University and Where the Buggalo Roam. Great! Animation and music? Well the animation is pretty sexy when they're in space, but a lot of it is wasted on Mars which just looks bland. The music is adequate, nothing special by Futurama's standards.

But my complaints are still far from over. Let's look at the guest stars. Penn Jilette shows up as himself and does a fine job, he's off the hook. Seth MacFarlane sings the opening song which is also very nice; again, he's off the hook. But that leaves us with Snoop Dogg. Not only can the guy not act whatsoever but his appearance is self-gratifying, does nothing to help the story and really only offers to inject a vast number of TERRIBLE hip-hop jokes into the script. We also have Phil Hendrie, the man responsible for the wonderful Free Waterfall family. If you recall A Taste of Freedom, the funning gag of passing the baton from Free Waterfall family members ended with Frida Waterfall running into the fray. Phil Hendrie voicing a woman was fine as a throw-away gag which is basically what it was. However, she returns and is a gigantic part of this film's plot and her voice is utterly grating. It's awful. It's clearly a man doing a sub-Monty Python woman voice and it sounds horrible as well as not fitting within Futurama's universe. Plus the character herself is awful and nothing she says is remotely funny unless you get off on puns.

This film is the most hated by passive fans and viewers in my experience, and yet, for some reason, the most beloved by Futurama's hardcore fans. I will never understand why as for me, it's one of the weakest entries into Futurama's canon of all time. Not quite as bad as episodes like The Cryonic Woman, but I'd certainly watch That's Lobstertainment! over it any day.

"Into the Wild Green Yonder" is the last of the series of four direct-to-DVD Futurama movies, and since the series had not yet been extended when it was being made, served as the de facto series finale. It had a lot to live up to and didn't quite accomplish all of its goals, but it's a visual spectacle that packs a galactic-scale plot into 90 minutes and provides plenty of fan-service moments while still remaining faithful to the characters in whom millions of Futurama fans are so heavily invested.

The movie starts off with Seth MacFarlane perfoming an entertaining Rat-Pack-inspired number as the ship flies past the futuristic versions of the high-class Las Vegas properties which make up "Mars Vegas". It then cuts to our heroes visiting the Wongs as they blow it all up and construct a new Mars Vegas. While Leela expresses concern about the environmental impact of the new resort town, Fry has an accident in which a piece of jewelry embeds into his brain, giving him mind-reading powers. After our heroes spend an entertaining but ultimately dispensable chapter in Vegas, Leo Wong reveals his plan to build the universe's largest (and undoubtedly most ironic) miniature golf course. Horrified at the destruction of life that Wong's project entails, Leela joins a band of eco-feminists (who unfortunately are a shrill parody of a parody) to stop Wong and are later declared outlaws.

After Fry and Leela bid a tearful farewell, Fry is indoctrinated into the "Legion of Mad Fellows", a secret society of telepaths, and learns that a violet dwarf star which lies in the way of Wong's projected golf course holds the key to all biological life in the universe and that a malevolent species of psionic beings known as the "Dark Ones" seek to destroy the violet dwarf star. As Fry's delta-wave-free brain confers immunity from the Dark Ones, he alone must must save the star without revealing his intentions to anyone, forcing him to work undercover for Leo Wong and bringing him in direct conflict with Leela. Meanwhile, Zapp Brannigan is sent to capture Leela and the eco-feminists; Bender joins Brannigan and initiates a crucial plot twist.

The galactic-scale plot gets messy and tangled in a few spots but is helped along by visual effects and world-class animation, the likes of which had never been seen on Futurama before; the shots of the outer space and the violet dwarf star system are nothing short of stunning. The humor also slows to a trickle during the second half of the movie, making portions of the film feel very tense. Yet the film remains true to its characters, including Bender, the self-centered wildcard, and Leela, the passionate (and angry) crusader. The character who truly stands out is Fry, the lifeblood of the series, an unsophisticated, dimwitted buffoon who nevertheless strives to find meaning and do the right thing in a universe which doesn't reward him for it.

The specific way in which the ending was to be written -- specifically, how Fry and Leela resolve their feelings for each other -- was a point of great debate among the Futurama writers. Somewhat surprisingly, it was Matt Groening who insisted that they write such a definitive conclusion. If "Into the Wild Green Yonder" had been the finale, it would have been a worthy end to the series. As it stands now, the movie's ending has paved the way for even greater things.

Quite possibly the best of the Futurama movies. Into The Wild Green Yonder has a really funny first act (the parts inside the Wong casino), whilst the others are on par (and not as good), and follows quite a good plot too in my opinion. The pacing of the movie is kind of strange in this one, since it splits into two or even three plots: One follows Leela, the other follows Fry, and the last one being Bender (Who merges into both Fry and Leela's plots too). Being written by Ken Keeler, similar to Bender's Big Score, Into The Wild Green Yonder had that Futurama feeling to it, and don't get me wrong, there are still a few jokes in there that are not perfect, but its hit-miss ratio is much better in this one than The Beast With A Billion Backs and Bender's Game.

The twist of the Dark One being the Leech I didn't actually get the first time around surprisingly, but I thought it was interesting that they sort of put the Fry and Leela relationship in this episode again, though its only a subplot. The eco-feminists plot was probably the worst part of the movie, but it was still passable, as Fry and Bender's storylines had more jokes, and they even squeezed in some funny Zapp moments in there too. The conspiracy about the number 9 man here was explained too, but the downside to these parts were the lack of jokes, but it wasn't too long and I personally found these parts interesting on the plot side. The final scene, leading up to Rebirth from Season 6, was a good way for the series to go, since we see almost all the Futurama characters, and a scene where Leela finally confesses her love to Fry, as the crew head into the Panama Wormhole to escape Zapp from uncertain doom. Overall, I enjoyed The Wild Green Yonder and I'm going to give it an 8/10, and it wasn't bad for a series finale.