TV Review: FUTURAMA, "Reincarnation"
"The season finale of Futurama is not going to be to everyone’s tastes. It uses three highly-stylized animation styles to tell three largely unrelated stories. Shades of “Anthology of Interest”, but there’s no real reason given why these stories were done this way; they just are, and that’s good enough for me.
rating: 5
The list of things Ive heard now contains everything! The season finale of Futurama is not going to be to everyones tastes. It uses three highly-stylized animation styles to tell three largely unrelated stories. Shades of Anthology of Interest, but theres no real reason given why these stories were done this way; they just are, and thats good enough for me. The first story, Colorama, done in glorious black and white, is a tribute to the old Disney cartoons like Steamboat Willie. If features talking houses, everyone bouncing constantly and the greyest rainbow you ever did see. The story, such as it is, centers around a diamond comet thats passing close to Earth. Fry wants to get a piece of it so he can make an engagement ring for personal reasons. When the crew lands on the comet, he makes his move. This was the weakest of the three story-wise, but was something of a feast for the eyes for those who like older animation. For those who dont, such as my friend Rob, this was more of an endurance test. I was quite pleased with what I saw up on screen, and give massive props to everyone involved. The next story was Future Challenge 3000, which had our crew rendered in glorious 8 bit CGI. The story exploits all the old sound effects and weirdness of games from that era, including a hilarious scene with Bender trying to exploit the physics of the world. The plot for this one features the Professor trying to find the smallest particle of matter in the universe, and thus create a unified field theory. Its the same sort of thing Stephen Hawking used to do before he started doing cartoon voices. I like physics, he says in a great cameo, but I love cartoons. Eventually the Professor locates the basic building block of all matter (a pixel), and then is distraught to learn that theres no more questions to answer. The story here was a bit more interesting, and I really loved all the incorporation of video game elements, including Morbo showing the days list of high scores. I also thought it was pretty great that we in the audience couldnt read the Professors theory because it was too low resolution. Action Delivery Force is the final story. If you grew up in the 1970s, like me, youll remember that anime back then, or at least the stuff we got in the USA, was a slipshod affair, with questionable animation and bad translation. This story, rendered in the style of those old animes, is the best of the three stories both in content and presentation. In this one, the crew has to deal with an invading alien species that only communicates through dance. I really dont want to say much more than that about the plot because to do so would spoil much of it. I will say that anime Fry is kind of sexy and the translation errors were incredibly amusing. This season of Futurama has had its lows, like Mobius Dick and its highs, like All the Presidents Heads. This episode definitely falls on the good end, and its a great way to wrap up the shows second return season. I really look forward to seeing what they do for us next year!