Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

I have a very strange history with Futurama. I had never watched a full episode of the series when this DVD series first started to hit the shelves in November of 2007. Then I started to watch and review these discs... and I really started to like them and, as I would do interviews with David X. Cohen or Billy West for these releases, I really got to like them even more. While this is the last of the four that Fox commissioned the Futurama crew to make, this is easily the best and most hilarious of the bunch and, I really honestly hope the strength of this fourth disc will ensure future DVD's - or even bringing the series back to Fox - down the road.

This film starts off in fabulous Mars Vegas... just as it's being destroyed for Leo Wong to build a bigger and better Mars Vegas. But Wong's razing of this desert oasis is criticized right away by a feminist coalition and after an impromptu explosion, things start to change for some of the Planet Express crew. Leela finds herself at odds with Wong, who clings on to a nasty little desert slug as the last remaining aspect of life there and, after one of the feministas fall onto Fry after the explosion, and her femnecklace becomes embedded in his head, he discovers - with the help of an odd vagabond with a tinfoil hat - that he now has the power to read everyone else's thoughts. With the new Vegas built, Bender falls in love with a robot dancer, who happens to be married to the DonBot, the head of the robot mafia, but he still starts his torrid affair with her anyway. And all of this is just for starters in the most hilarious and jam-packed Futurama DVD yet.

This is really the funniest Futurama DVD that's out there and I don't know if it was just something that I didn't pick up on when I was younger when the show was on, but this just seems damn hilarious to me now, especially this one. John DiMaggio and his Bender character are really in top form here as he really provides most of the laughs here. While he seems to be the craziest of the Futurama characters, it seems they really let him off the leash in this one, with just hilarious results. He has some awesome one-liners throughout the flick and he gets a nice little storyline with his mob boss wife thing and he's really all over the place in the flick in other aspects. If this is the last we see of Futurama, we have a bit of closure with Fry (Billy West) and Leela (Katey Segal) and their relationship and we get some good stuff with Leela joining the feministas in their fight against Wong and the uber-huge mini-golf course he's building... that would destroy this star system... that actually holds the key to all the extinct species in history and could bring them all back to life. Yeah, like I said, they cram a LOT in this DVD and it's almost all hilarity the whole way out.

Like in most of these, though, there are some jokes that fall flat, but perhaps they're just lost on me since I had never really watched the show thoroughly when it was on the Fox airwaves. There is another aspect of this movie that will be a treat for old fans, which is the explanation of the "Number 9 Man" and there are some guest voices that are a treat for anyone. The big dog of these guest voices is none other than the D-O-Double-G himself, Snoop Dogg, who guest stars as himself... or his head, who has become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in this future world, in a pretty damn funny spot towards the end. We also hear from (the head of) Penn Jillette as the announcer for the big Mars Vegas poker tournament (which features some hilarious riffs off the game as well), radio personality Phil Hendrie and, in another treat for longtime fans, the return of the awesome Zaff Brannigan and his docile sidekick, Kif Kroker. Brannigan provides for a lot of the non-Bender laughs here as well and he's an awesome addition to this DVD. What's great about this DVD as well is, if this really is the end (which I sincerely hope it isn't) they give us some truly wonderful end moments, with everyone aboard the Planet Express ship that really sends this series off in a great way... if this really is the end.

Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder gives us a fantastic swan song to this beloved animated series, but it's so damn good that I - and likely the rest of the fan collective - don't want it to stop there. These are truly some wonderful DVD's and over the course of the year or so between the release of these four discs, I've really come to love this show. I refuse to believe this is the end of the series, but if for some reason it is, they surely go out with a bang.

We get a wealth of features on this new DVD which is kicked off with a Storyboard Animatic. I don't really get these and yet I seem to see them all the time on animated DVD's. It's basically some early drawings with the sounds from the movie. We do see some bits that didn't make it into the movie, but generally it's pretty lame. There is really no need for this to go as long as it does, especially since most of it is exactly the same as the movie, but with rough drawings instead of animation. It's about 23 minutes long and I just don't see the need for this.

Next up is a five-minute "docudramarama" dubbed Futurama: The Making Of... It. This is a hilarious little mockumentary that shows us a fake little way of how this show is put together. The funny thing is that they mockingly set this up that just one person - Lauren Tom, who provides the voice of Amy and others - is responsible for all the writing, voice acting, animation and even the sound effects. It's a hilarious little piece that had the crowd at the screening in stitches, with some awesome voiceover animation (apparently also "performed" by Lauren Tom... not really, but yeah) and it's just a witty little alternative look at the show.

Louder, Louder! The Acting Technique of Penn Jillette is next and it's just a quick two-minute bit with Jillette, who appears as himself (or just his head) as an announcer for the poker tournament on Mars Vegas. It's just a little mash-up of Jillette blathering about whatever and it's kind of lame.

Golden Stinkers: A Treasury of Deleted Scenes is next and there are five deleted scenes here for your viewing pleasure. They run about three minutes long total and they're usually little one-liners that were sacked for time reasons, but some are pretty funny and since they're all so short, I'm surprised they were cut. Oh well. They're worth checking out here though.

Next up is Matt Groening and David X. Cohen in Space and it's pretty interesting, even though it really has nothing to do with the show. This is a little ditty that's narrated by Groening and Cohen that talks about their experience on one of these "weightless" flights where you actually do experience moon gravity and weightlessness just like you were in outer space, and stuff. We hear them narrate and see a bunch of pictures from the day and some video footage inside the actual plane. It's an interesting little four-minute video and I never really knew there were things like this out there, but it sounds pretty sweet... expensive I'm sure, but still sweet.

How to Draw Futurama in 10 Very Difficult Steps is a continuation of this series that they've had on the other DVD's. This one shows you how to draw Professor Farnsworth, Nibbler, HypnoToad and Fry, as shown by several of the Furturama crew members. It's pretty interesting to see how each character is drawn and this is a slick little 12-minute featurette.

3D Models with Animator Commentary are next and we hear from Scott Vanzo, director of computer graphics and Peter Avanzino, which directed this DVD and they show us some of the 3D models used in the film. They talk about the asteroid, the Feminista VW Bug van, the mini-golf gorilla, the Nimbus, Zapp Branigan's ship and a wormhole. It's a little over four minutes long and worth a look-see.

Next is Bender's Movie Theater Etiquette and it's a witty little minute-long bit with Bender breaking every cardinal rule of proper movie theater etiquette. Worth a look-see.

Zapp Brannigan's Guide to Making Love at a Woman is the last featurette we get here. It's a nearly three-minute long featurette that features the wannabe Romeo Brannigan giving the viewers tips on how to succeed wth women. It's pretty funny here and there, but, since it isn't that long, it's worth a shot.

The film is presented in the widescreen format.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound format.

This one pretty much falls in line with the first three DVD's. They all usually show the three main characters: Fry, Leela and Bender and feature them in a certain way that reflects each disc's theme. This one is no different, with Fry, Leela and Bender hurtling through space with a title card and some related items in space with them as well. It works just fine and gets your attention just as well as the previous three did.

I came into this DVD series with maybe watching bits and pieces of episodes here and there. Now, after this fourth and hopefully NOT final DVD, I have to say I'm a full-fledged Futurama fan. This is by far the funniest of the four DVD's and one that surely anyone will get a kick out of - fan or non-fan alike.