STUDIO: Fox
RELEASE DATE: November 4, 2008
STARRING: (THE VOICES OF): Billy West, Maurice LaMarche, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, and Phil LaMarr
CREATED BY: Matt Groening
FEATURES: Audio Commentary by Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, Michael Rowe, Claudia Katz, and Dwayne Carey-Hill
Video Commentary Picture In Picture
Storyboard Animatic
Futurama Genetics Lab - Cross-breed your favorite characters!
D&D&F (Dungeons & Dragons & Futurama) Featurette
How to Draw Futurama in 83 Easy Steps
3D models with animator discussion
Deleted Scene
Blooperama 2: Outtakes from Bender's Game
Bender's Anti-Piracy Warning
Into the Wild Green Yonder - A sneak peek at the next Futurama Epic!

With the recent announcement that King of the Hill has been canceled after 250 episodes, one wonders if that show will eventually show up in straight-to-BD releases like Futurama: Bender's Game. Let's hope they turn out a little better than this movie. I've been kind of easy on the Futurama movies. The first one, Bender's Big Score, was amusing mostly just because of the return of some beloved characters and spectacular voice actors. Sure, it wasn't as funny or clever as the best of the series, but I kind of thought that the team behind the four Futurama straight-to-DVD movies would find their groove. The opposite has happened. Except for a great guest voice appearance by David Cross, The Beast With a Billion Backs kind of sucked and the third movie, Bender's Game, is just weak. I expected the team behind Futurama to be reinvigorated by the feature-length potential and the return of their show from the dead, but Bender's Game is simply not that funny. I think the problem is stretching 22 minutes of material to 88 ticks of the clock. Futurama episodes were always packed with detail and smart pop culture references, but the format grows thin and tired when it's multiplied by four. Bender's Game feels twice as long as it is and will undoubtedly work better broken up into four installments, as Comedy Central plans to do for future airings. But as a Blu-Ray disc, Bender's Game is disappointing. I'm hoping the team can rally for the fourth and final Futurama movie, Into the Wild Green Yonder, but consider this a miss.

Bender's Game is a screenwriting mess from the opening act. The previews made this look like a trippy journey through Bender's mind and the opening segment, which is a riff on Yellow Submarine, sets it up as such, but disjointed storytelling and surreal animation are different things. In the opening act of Bender's Game, fuel prices are rising due to a lack of dark matter. Farnsworth has prohibited the ship from flying because of fuel costs, but Leela has grown reckless and enters her ship in a demolition derby. Because of her impulsiveness, Farnsworth puts a collar on Leela that shocks her when she has angry thoughts or swears. Meanwhile, Bender realizes he has no imagination when he can't understand why Cubert and Dwight are enjoying playing Dungeons & Dragons. The problem is that Bender's imagination creates a real world of Cornwood (robots have that kind of power), which eventually sucks in the whole gang. I guess. There are some Enron riffs too and a lot of D&D jokes. Bender's Game is a mess, trying to combine Lord of the Rings, the fuel crisis, Dungeons & Dragons, and much more, but it never clicks. There are some funny jokes, but not nearly enough to warrant the feature-length running time. Bender's Game is a sub-par episode of Futurama stretched four times its usual running length.

Bender's Game is the first Futurama movie released on Blu-Ray and the jump is a lot more negligible than you might think. I went back and sampled the first two Futurama movies upconverted and they don't look significantly worse than Bender's Game. The widescreen picture of Bender's Game is never bad - the lines are always distinct and the colors are well-defined - but you won't notice a marked difference in picture or audio quality from the standard releases. The special features on Bender's Game are typically excellent. That's one thing that the Futurama movies have done absolutely right - impressive and extensive special features. The Blu-Ray version does include a BonusView video commentary, where you can see what the team behind the show looks like while you watch the movie, so that's a cool advancement from the standard definition releases. As usual, fans of Futurama will find every detail about the making of the movie that they could possibly ask for and more. These films are clearly being produced for a loyal audience and the production of them has been documented in such a way to truly satisfy those fans with special features. In other words, the extras on the DVD are clearly being considered during the actual production, not just when it's time to put the release together. Deleted scenes, commentary, outtakes, featurettes, and a preview for Into the Wild Green Yonder. It's rare, but the special features on this Blu-Ray release are actually more entertaining than the film itself. Let's hope they right the spaceship for the fourth Futurama film or it will probably be the last.