tek's rating:

Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder
IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Wikia; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Vudu

Caution: potential spoilers.

This is the fourth DVD movie based on the TV series Futurama, following Bender's Game. First of all, it does not in any way address the issue from the end of the third movie that I said I was hoping it would. But whatever, it's not important. Um... anyway, Amy's parents (mainly her father, Leo Wong) are planning to... well, um... first of all they destroy old Mars Vegas and build a new one, but that's not really important. And there's a subplot about Bender dating the wife of Donbot, head of the robot mafia. That's not important, either. Oh wait, looking at Wikipedia, something that didn't make sense to me in the movie suddenly makes sense and I guess explains the thing I wanted addressed that I didn't think was. Wow, that was so subtle I missed the significance of it. Thanks, Wikipedia.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Um... Leo Wong wants to build the universe's biggest mini-golf course, basically using star systems as holes. Or whatever. Meanwhile, Fry... suffers an accident that enables him to read minds, and gets recruited by the Legion of Mad Fellows, who tell him about two ancient races, the Dark Ones and the Encyclopods. And um, I guess the two species were at war with each other or something, and now the Encyclopods are like extinct. The Dark Ones want to destroy all life, and now because of them there's just a fraction of a fraction of the number of species that once existed. But the Encyclopods had preserved the DNA of all endangered species, and could restore extinct species. And now an Encyclopod egg is about to be born or hatched or fertilized or whatever, but the Dark Ones want to destroy it. Actually, Leo's plan will destroy the egg, so the Mad Fellows want Fry (whose mind can't be read by the Dark Ones, which makes sense if you're familiar with the show) to stop Leo from destroying the egg to build his golf course, but he also has to stop the Dark Ones from stopping him from stopping Leo.

Meanwhile, Leela joins a group of eco-feminists (and they're later joined by Amy and some other recurring characters from the show). Leela takes up a leadership position among the group, and they sabotage Leo's construction efforts, ultimately wanting to protect a violet dwarf star (which is actually the Encyclopod egg, though they don't know anything about any of that). Leela is also protecting the last Martian muck leech, and that's also more important than she realizes. But not necessarily in a good way. And Fry gets a job as a security guard for Leo, to infiltrate his organization so he can stop the destruction of the violet dwarf, though he can't tell Leela or anyone about that, because if he did, the Dark Ones could read their minds. So he's worried about Leela hating him for working for the enemy.

Anyway... I dunno what else to say. I don't want to spoil the ending, but good stuff happens (both on an epic scale and a personal scale), and then... something else happens which leaves everything very uncertain for the future of the whole crew of the Planet Express (plus Kif). But... the series has been renewed, so hopefully that'll explain the outcome of... stuff. Meanwhile, this movie was... fairly funny, especially if you're already a fan of the show. And there's surely more consistency and references to things established in the series than I could possibly pick up on (thanks for making me feel dumb, Wikipedia). And... I dunno, more development in the whole Fry/Leela relationship, which is always nice. Still, as a whole, the movie is kind of... well, it was my least favorite of the four movies, and certainly not as good as the series. But still pretty good. I guess. *shrug*


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