Futurama: Bender's Game

Futurama: Bender's Game
Directed by	Dwayne Carey-Hill
Written by	Teleplay: Eric Horsted (Parts One and Two) Michael Rowe (Part Three) Eric Kaplan (Part Three) David X. Cohen (Part Four) Patric Verrone (Part Four) Story: Eric Horsted David X. Cohen
Produced by	Lee Supercinski Claudia Katz
Starring	Billy West Katey Sagal John DiMaggio Tress MacNeille Maurice LaMarche Phil LaMarr Lauren Tom David Herman
Edited by	Paul D. Calder
Music by	Christopher Tyng
Distributed by	20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Release dates	United States: November 4, 2008 United Kingdom: November 3, 2008 Australia: December 10, 2008
Running time	87 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Futurama: Bender's Game is the third of the four direct-to-DVD Futurama films that make up the show's fifth season. It was released on November 4, 2008 on DVD and Blu-Ray.

According to the Beast with a Billion Backs commentary, the film, which spoofs Dungeons and Dragons, was in production when Dungeons and Dragons creator, E. Gary Gygax, died. The film contains a post-credits tribute to Gygax in the form of a title card and a clip of him from the episode "Anthology of Interest I". The title of the film is also a pun on the book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.^[1][2]

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Ignoring Professor Farnsworth's orders to conserve fuel due to a rise in dark matter prices, Leela borrows the Planet Express ship to enter in a demolition derby. As punishment, she is fitted with a shock collar to correct her violent behavior; however, she gradually gets used to the shocks and even comes to like them. Meanwhile, Bender finds Cubert and Dwight playing Dungeons and Dragons with their friends and wants to join in, but cannot since, as a robot, he has no imagination. Trying with all his might, he manages to imagine himself as a medieval knight named "Titanius Anglesmith" and enters the game. Unfortunately, he soon gets lost in his fantasy and abruptly goes on an insane rampage through the city, resulting in his commitment to an insane asylum for robots.

Farnsworth learns that Mom is making a fortune from her dark matter mining operations and realizes that she is controlling the world's supply for her own profit. He reveals to the crew that while working for her many years ago, he stumbled on a way to make dark matter into starship fuel. The process created two energy crystals, with Mom keeping one for herself and Farnsworth hiding the other, "anti-backwards" crystal. If the two crystals are ever brought together, they will render all dark matter useless once again. Farnsworth has since forgotten where he hid his crystal, but in reality it is being used as a 12-sided die in the kids' D&D game. Mom determines its approximate location and sends her sons Walt, Larry and Igner to retrieve it, but Farnsworth, Fry, and Leela foil their attempt and flee the Planet Express headquarters with it.

Reaching Mom's dark matter mine, the trio discovers the heart of the operation: thousands of captive Nibblonians, including Leela's beloved Nibbler, forced to excrete dark matter. Igner spots them, having earlier overheard Mom telling his brothers a secret about him, and helps them reach the main office. Here, Farnsworth tries to bring his and Mom's crystals together, but he is ultimately forced to swallow his in order to keep it out of Mom's hands. Meanwhile, in the robot asylum, Bender is diagnosed with insanity and is due for a "Robotomy": a painful procedure in which his imagination processor will be removed. This action triggers a resonance in all dark matter throughout the world—including a stockpile Bender has stored within his body—and catapults all the characters into Cornwood, the realm Bender imagines himself to be from. The other members of the Planet Express crew (Hermes, Zoidberg, and Amy) are transported as well.

"Frydo" (Fry) and "Leegola" (Leela, now a centaur) emerge first and encounter Titanius (Bender); no one in Cornwood has any memory of their real-world lives, except for Fry and Leela. The three are attacked by "Waltazar" (Walt), "Larius" (Larry) and "Ignus" (Igner), who are trying to recover the anti-crystal. While fighting them off, Frydo drops the anti-crystal, which rolls like a die and magically banishes the sons from the area. Frydo and company meet the wizard "Greyfarn" (Farnsworth), who explains that in this world, the anti-crystal is known as the Die of Power. The evil sorceress "Momon" (Mom) molded a set of powerful dice, but lost this one and has been trying to locate it so she can tap its immense potential. The only way to stop Momon is to enter her lair and throw the Die into the lake of molten plastic from which it was formed, destroying it.

As the group sets out, the intersexual, pacifist centaur "Hermaphrodite" (Hermes) bars their passage, since his/her people are opposed to the violence that Frydo and company intend to do. However, he/she is easily pushed aside by Leela, who leads everyone else on toward the Cave of Hopelessness. As they approach, "Gynecaladriel" (Amy), queen of the Water Nymphos, joins their quest. Inside the Cave, a horde of "Morcs" (orcs) attacks; followed by a gigantic lobster creature (Zoidberg), which Leegola mistakenly and brutally cuts to pieces; and the wormlike Tunneling Horror, which Frydo defeats by rolling the Die to use its power. As Frydo becomes obsessed with the Die, Leegola renounces violence and flees to take refuge among the peaceful centaurs. That night, Frydo makes a botched attempt to murder the other members of the company; when foiled, he flees with the die.

The remaining travelers journey to Wipe Castle to raise an army against Momon, only to find that Roberto, as its insane king, has already sent his men on a pointless suicide mission. The heroes are left to defend the kingdom alone as Waltazar and Larius lay siege to it, until Leegola regains her violent nature and rallies the centaurs to help her friends. Meanwhile, Frydo makes his way into Momon's lair, aided by Zoidberg's still-living head; Frydo cannot bring himself to destroy the Die, so Zoidberg bites him to force him to drop it. Momon becomes a dragon and goes after the Die, but when it stops rolling, it turns Frydo into a dragon as well. The two battle as the rest of the company arrives, along with Ignus, who reveals a secret Momon told to his brothers: he is Greyfarn's son. Overwhelmed by this revelation, Greyfarn falls on the Zoidberg creature (who had claimed the Die), allowing Momon to seize the Die.

The entire realm of Cornwood collapses in on itself, hurling all the characters back into the real world. Farnsworth, realizing that Igner is his son in this world and that the latter has probably swallowed Mom's crystal in defiance, asks to hug Igner before Mom has the Planet Express crew killed. The hunch proves correct, and the hug brings the crystals in the two men's stomachs close enough to render all dark matter useless, breaking Mom's stranglehold on the fuel supply. As a temporary propulsion source, the crew harnesses dozens of Nibblonians like sled dogs to pull their ship home.

• There is no development of Amy's relationship with Kif, which ended in "Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs". The alternate reality allows Amy, in her role as Gynecaladriel, to return to the promiscuous habits seen in early episodes of the show.
• Bender is sent to the HAL institute as in "Insane In The Mainframe". Also at the institute is Roberto, who in the aforementioned episode escaped only to be arrested again. Roberto was seen briefly in line for an upgrade in "Obsoletely Fabulous", but has presumably been sent back to the institute since then.
• Farnsworth relates the third and, so far, final time he got back together with Mom, before the relationship ended once again; this time, with him being fired.
• Nibbler, having previously blanked Fry's mind to prevent him telling the others Nibbler could speak, wasn't seen to do the same at the end of "Bender's Big Score". This is addressed when the crew members point this out to Nibbler when he asks them why they are not surprised to hear him speak.
• The history of Mom's monopoly of dark matter, as related by Nibbler, recalls events in the episode "Love's Labours Lost in Space".

The opening subtitle of the DVD and the first part of the broadcast version is "The flames in your TV are not part of the show". The cartoon on the Jumbotron is Quasi at the Quackadero. Similar to the previous film, instead of the ship crashing into the Jumbotron as in a regular episode, it gets absorbed through the screen, whereupon the opening sequence becomes a parody of the 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine. The crew flies by bits of the number e then smashes back out through the screen and into the real world.

The DVD features an Audio Commentary, Storyboard Animatic, Futurama Genetics Lab, Dungeons and Dragons and Futurama featurette, How to draw Futurama in 83 easy steps Featurette, Deleted scene, 3D Model with Animator Discussion, Outakes, Bender's Anti-Piracy Warning and sneak peek at Into the Wild Green Yonder. Easter Eggs show David X. Cohen displaying a collection of different Polyhedrons, and extra outtakes of Billy West.

The Blu-Ray also exclusively features Picture-in-Picture video footage of the commentary.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Futurama: Bender's Game.

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• Futurama: Bender's Game at IMDb
• Bender's Game at The Infosphere.