Review of Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008) by Shawn M — 23 Aug 2008

When a series franchise decides to become a movie franchise, the biggest impediment is that the writers are still attempting to do multiple story lines, or episodic elements, within the context of the movie itself.

This, unfortunately, carries over into "The Beast with a Billion Backs" somewhat badly.

It feels like a few different Futurama episodes that have been spliced around each other.

Certainly, this works as a movie, but it is not a single coherent storyline, or even the multiple storylines that tie into one. It feels more like a few episodes of a series that are connected to each other... Which Futurama neer really did well.

Added to this is the fact that many of the jokes in Futurama are now becoming entirely too predictable, or simple recycling of older ones.

One of the sub-plots in this revolves entirely around Bender's jealousy of Fry having other friends and significant relationships. This was already done in the episode "Jurassic Bark", vis-a-vis Fry's pet dog from his former life.

There are moments that are quite insightful.

The playful jab at the old-school anime trope of tentacle rape on a massive scale comes into play.

There is also a rather well thought out commentary on loving relationships in both monogamy and polygamy, and how the socially accepted forms of a relationship can often be more destructive and hurtful than those that are frowned upon... although it does get somewhat buried in the rest.

It's kind of sad that what was once a witty and biting social satire, is quickly becoming a string of one liners that are all too predictable, and as much as it pains me to say it, perhaps it is time that Futurama packed it in and let people remember it as a genuinely funny and, at the time, original show.