There’s a preview of the next Futurama direct-to-DVD movie out on YouTube!
Squeee!
OMG OMG OMG.
The first movie had some great moments, though a lot of it was lackluster. This preview looks a lot funnier, the equal to some of the best of the episodes. It has Morbo (kittens give him gas), and Nixon, and Kif, and and and…
It has a giant ant. Really. Oh man. I love giant ants. "Them!" is one of my favorite movies of all time.
I miss Futurama. More is coming! Yay!
Slurm’s up to io9.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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 | Open Lab 2008 is a collection of the best blog posts of the year, all in one place. Are you a science junkie? Yeah, you want it. |
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May 9th, 2008 at 8:02 am
I thought that the first movie was great. But it had that stretched feeling. It gave the impression that all this was an episode that was meant to be 20 minutes long like usual but they crammed it with fillers to make a movie outta it.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Movie giant ants tend to be bad science, but CARTOON giant ants are another matter altogether.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Uh oh BA, from this post I am diagnosing you with post-hilarity rejection syndrome. It manifests itself when a person ingests a large quantity of hilarity and then later on the mind cannot comprehend it and recalls it as being “just ok” or “not that great.”
In other words, the first movie was hilarious! Watch it again dammit! There’s a couple slow parts but it’s really damn funny. C’mon the spammer aliens were brilliant.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:33 am
:s That sneak peak have been on the Internet since the last film was released, since it was released together with it. You ought to keep yourself up to date on Futurama news on sites such as http://theinfosphere.org/ or http://www.futurama-madhouse.com.ar/
May 9th, 2008 at 8:44 am
“Them!” is one of my favorite movies of all time.
HEY! I have the squared-cubed law, and I know how to use it!
May 9th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Wow, i’ve not even seen the first one…
–
unrelated note: What about the Skeptologists logo contest? Wasn’t that supposed to be announced last monday?
May 9th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I’m still convinced that James Cameron’s Aliens was an homage to Them!
Little traumatized girl found in wreckage of her home, military called in to clear out nest of giant, killer insects…
May 9th, 2008 at 9:31 am
You know, I just realized that I’m conditioned to hear Professor Farnsworth’s voice whenever I see the words, “Good news, everyone!”
Much as I always hear Mr. Burns with “Excellent!”
May 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am
PeterF
I’ve thought the same thing. I was watching Them! on late-night tv one night and as they were walking through the L.A. tunnels I was struck by how similar it was to Aliens.
I thought the first Futurama movie was pretty funny, too.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I forgot to also add that there’s even better news, everybody:
“Futurama: Beast with a Million Backs” releases on DVD on June 24th! That’s next month…!
No release date on the other two in-production DVDs, “Bender’s Game” and “Into the Wild Green Yonder”, but they are recorded, in various stages of production and also have been said to be releasing this year to DVD…
May 9th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Great fun! Cool to see quickie storyboard sketch animation! Futurama Forever!
May 9th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Come on, Empire of the Ants was one of the all time greatest Giant Ant movies ever anywhere in the universe EVER. Giant ants taking over a sugar factory. COME ON! It doesn’t get any better than that.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Very nice of them to put out the roughs like that. Clever.
Giant (robot) ant.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:42 am
@PeterF: Incorrect, we know the European (region 2) releases of those films. Though only by month. Bender’s Game in November, 2008 and Into the Wild Green Yonder in April, 2009. You can presume that the region 1 releases will be around there as well.
Sources:
* http://theinfosphere.org/Bender%27s_Game
* http://theinfosphere.org/Into_the_Wild_Green_Yonder
* http://theinfosphere.org/Image:Europe_Releases.jpg
May 9th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Yeah, well, that’s because your website is called “Bad Astronomy”. Had you had a website called “Bad Biology”, you’d have a thing or two to say about giant ants.
Anywayzzz, nobody expects Futurama to be scientifically accurate, so never mind.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:47 am
@Svip, I have failed everyone. Fire up the Suicide Booth!
May 9th, 2008 at 11:56 am
wtf
May 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Giant *medium sized* ants even. I don’t nkow what to make of that.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Yeah, great stuff. And “Them” is one of my top 10 as well; absolutely terrified me the first time I saw it. Some parts of it are still chilling if I can get in the right mood.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
“Them.” Absolutely terrifying as a kid. I showed it to my 9 year old nephew recently, and he fell in love with it, even if it was in black and white. And who can forget Leonard Nimoy in his small role.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Phil,
Your link in “There’s a preview of the next Futurama direct-to-DVD movie out on YouTube!” leads to the eyeball video.
Shows how many out there click directly on play *grin*
May 9th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I think PZ might like the giant octopus from another dimesion.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
just FYI Phil, the link to “the preview” actually links to the “Creationism Disproved?” video. Ha ha ha…
May 9th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Empire of the Ants was one of the all time greatest Giant Ant movies
There’s an odd little film called Phase IV about normal sized, but hyper intelligent ants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_IV
MST3K covered it, but I’m not sure that was fair. It’s just odd, but interesting. Nice photography of the ants.
May 9th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I agree about the first movie. As a huge fan of the show, I was really let down by the first movie, most of the jokes were regular “sitcom-level” and not up to Futurama’s usual genius, but I was still grateful to have any Futurama, this one looks like it will be great!
@Quiet Desperation
I loved Phase IV! It’s been a while so I might be mis-remembering, but the premise of ants “rapidly evolving” a hive mind and constructing giant sand geometry (for resonance?) to destroy their much larger adversary was amazing to me at the time I saw it. On top of that the way there is almost no dialogue, instead artfully directed scenes of music and ants at work really made it unique and compelling for me. (Although most people used to the “modern” pacing of movies will probably hate it or fall asleep).
May 9th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I for one never expected to see Stephen Hawking and Brittany Murphy co-credited on anything.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Is it me……..or is Nixon just the funniest guy in the known history of mankind? I love how the voice guy for Nixon makes him sound like a crazed werewolf. Just have to have the body of Spiro Agnew on there too. (I never noticed how odd the name Spiro was until I just typed this…. I guess Barack isn’t the first top contender with an odd, unconvential first name.)
May 10th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Er .. Phil .. it seems a feral pig of some description has taken over typing your blog while you were looking the other way in your excitement.
Why’s it typing ’squeee!’ rather than just squealing ’squeee’? Hey, it beats me!
Oh & if ‘OMG’ stands for what I think it stands for ie. God well funny coz I didn’t think you believed in the Blighter …. & either way it (& the “Squee”)sounds a bit er .. gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if its what floats your boat but … yeck.
Being unnecessarily grumpy, pedantic and carping? Moi?
Good news everyone indeed! But I still haven’t seen the first ‘Futurama’ movie so I’m guessing it’ll be a while before it reaches the land of Oz. Sigh.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Hmm .. Italics originally intended for moi? NOT well the whole last sentence there.
Jai-Zeus I sure wish you’d let us edit here BA Sigh again.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:10 am
BTW. On an unrelated topic & probably bad netiquette (sorry
) but as I tried to ask in the other thread & got no answer I’m trying again here in the (hopefully not forlorn) hope you’ll answer this time (yeah, I’m persistent, sue me! Wait, actually don’t please! A-n-y-w-a-y.)
May 11th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Have you guys priced small atoms recently?
I didn’t mind the first movie at all. It was quite good. You can’t complain about Hollywood going all ‘blockbuster’ all the time and then complain when someone releases a more moderate movie style. Which is all they were trying to do. Combine a bunch of episodes into 1 long episode (aka movie). Not make the next Star Wars.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I like the first movie - some really great parts and some so-so. The whole time travel stuff was written great, just some of the comedy wasn’t the best.