Futurama: Bender's Game
Year:
2008
Directed by:
Dwayne Carey-Hill
Rated:
PG
Country:
United States
Runtime:
1 hr. 30 min.
Production Company:
Twentieth Century Fox
Written by:
Eric Horsted
David X. Cohen
Michael Rowe
et al.
Starring:
Billy West
John Di Maggio
Katey Sagal
Tress MacNeille
Similar Films:
Futurama: Bender's Big Score
Family Guy: Blue Harvest
Spaceballs
Fry and gang go from future to fantasy in a parody of both genres.
Yet another winner from the Futurama team. Futurama: Bender's Game is insightful, funny, and at times a little ridiculous, just as the series has always been. This time, it also takes shots at science fiction's close cousin, fantasy, and the humor translates perfectly. The result is an irreverent yet warm appreciation of both realms of geekdom, tailor-made just for geeks.
In a time of skyrocketing fuel prices (dark matter being this age's primary fuel source), the Planet Express crew, along with pretty much the rest of the world, has become fed up with the dictatorial energy industry. Their solution is to force the world to find a better source of energy. Luckily, Professor Farnsworth's past has put him in a position to do just that. Years ago, he inadvertently created a crystal whose mere existence turned all dark matter into the fuel source that it is presently. However, he also created an "anti-backwards" crystal at the same time. If and when the two crystals ever meet, they will cancel out the fuel crystal's effect, rendering all dark matter once again useless. So, they set out to break into the dark matter mine of "Mom," the autocrat of the dark matter industry, in order to bring the two crystals together and end her reign over fuel.
Venturing into a mine to bring two crystals together in order to break a tyrant's rule over the world? It sounds like something straight out of a Tolkien novel. I don't know whether the writers planned it from the start or realized the fit as they went along, but the story ends up making its way into a Middle-Earthian parody, complete with wizards, knights, monsters, and centaurs, as the main characters make their way to the Geysers of Gygax to join the two crystals and save the world. How does the movie get here? Through a great, self-acknowledged contrivance involving Bender's nascent and out-of-control imagination, brought about by Dungeons and Dragons, magnified by a pile of dark matter, and forcing itself upon everyone. As a result, this movie becomes the ultimate comedy for nerds, containing equal parts science fiction and fantasy, and referencing sources from everywhere.
The genius thing about this plot is that in the real (future) world and in the fantasy world, the characters are attempting to do essentially the same thing, which brings to the forefront of the film the truth that lies in fantasy. When it comes down to it, the only real differences in the worlds are their physical characcteristics. Wizard Greyfarn (Prof. Farnsworth) succinctly summarizes the fantasy world's difference: "[I]nstead of science, we believe in crazy hocus pocus." The basic realities of greed, heroism, and, of course, humor stay the same. In fact, when juxtaposed with a "real" world in which slime monsters and talking aliens are everyday facts of life, the otherworldly inhabitants of the fantasy realm are no longer otherworldly at all. And the wizardry of this world is hardly any more dynamic than the science of the thirty-first century, a world in which little balls of dark matter are harvested as a fuel source and nihilistic kleptomaniac robots are an everyday part of life. Bender's Game is at once a thank-you and a salute to fantasy fiction and gaming, recognizing the genre's importance to the world even as the film pokes fun at it. That is what the best parodies do, and that is what Futurama has always done; it's just that this time it extends its reach to fantasy as well.
There is also some obvious inspiration from today's soaring fuel prices in the story1. Interestingly, the answer to the situation in this movie does not lie in finding more untapped dark matter or strong-arming the industry into lowering prices. The answer, as the characters see it, is to force change. Although their idea for an alternative source of energy is not perhaps the ideal way to go (wait for the end of the film), they realize that the best way to break old habits, old dependencies, is not to merely try to convince the world to change but to make change absolutely necessary. As one who takes interest in business and economy, it has baffled me how reluctant people, particularly those involved in the automobile and oil industries, can be to embracing alternative sources of fuel, as it is becoming clearly a necessary change for the long run. Bender's Game, I believe, has it right; sometimes people just will not change, even if that change is for the better, unless they have to. In that case, make them have to.
