Audience Rating: To Be Announced
Binding: DVD
EAN: 5039036037709
Format: PAL
Label: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Region Code: 2
Release Date: June 30, 2008
Running Time: 85 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: June 30, 2008

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
The latest feature-length DVD spin-off from Matt Groening's terrific Futurama, The Beast With The Billion Backs picks up directly after the recent Bender's Big Score, and the momentum and fun from that production comes along with it.

The story of The Beast With The Billion Backs follows, as you may have guessed from the title, the arrival of a strange creature on Earth. Said creature then takes control of Fry, who becomes the Pope of a brand new religion that soon begins to exert its grip on the planet. And without giving too much away, the panic and paranoia becomes just one part of an ambitious animated adventure, that makes a fair few points among its many, many laughs.

The good news for fans of Futurama is that The Beast With The Billion Backs really delivers, with more guffaws and a better all-round script than the mightily enjoyable Bender's Big Score. It's not without the odd problem, and still doesn't quite manage to match the highs of the TV show at its finest, but it's a very welcome fresh addition to the Futurama universe.

Two further direct-to-DVD movies are in the works at the time of this review being written, and with them comes continued hope for a full-on revival of one of the funniest animated programmes of the past ten years. It may not make suitable family viewing, but Futurama is brilliant television, and The Beast With A Billion Backs offers plenty of evidence as to why. Strongly recommended. --Jon Foster

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Not perfect but definitely good fun!
The plot of this feature length Futurama episode is no where near as intelligent as "Bender's Big Score" but it is just as enjoyable and possibly slightly more humourous ("Bender's Big Score" wasn't big on laughs). The funniest part for me was Destructor's line "MY LEG FEELS FUNNY!" this was back to the old almost unexplained hilarity of Futurama.

However, the storyline is generally quite gross, which wouldn't bother everyone, but if you only like Futurama's really intelligent brand of humour, this is not for you.

The special features are brilliant, particularly the animated trailer for "An Inconvenient Truth" and the epidode comprised of all the cut scenes from the old Futurama videogame, a real must have for any Futurama collection.

Overall, I would say that this is brilliant for Futurama fans, it may not be as good as the series, but this is only because of the nature of the format.

Rating:

- WATCH IT AGAIN
I made the same mistake with this one as I did the last. I watched it the whole way through and came away thinking it was dreadful. Now, after watching it in 20 mins clips (as 4 episodes rather than a movie) I must confess....it is as good as the TV shows.

With Bender taking over Earth, Fry becoming pope of a new religion....this cannot be missed for a futurama fan...

gotta wait till Nov now for the next 1

Rating:

- So weak! No comparison to the TV series.
This and "Benders Big Score" where such a let down for me. I'm a huge fan of the TV series and was looking forward to these feature length films. But all the writers have managed to do is mess up the characters and storylines created by the excellent TV series. All the jokes have been taken from the series. The storylines are weak and they just drag on and on.

I wish they never bothered

Rating:

- Solid Futurama stuff...
I must be one of the very few people that prefered Bender's Big Score to this effort, which I gave 4 stars.

Don't get me wrong, this is funny and average for Futurama, which for a fan still makes it better than alternatives! There were funny things going on, but the whole tentacle thing ended up being tedious for me as did the colleen poly-relationship "joke". Could see where that was going pretty quick.

Some people said Big Score was too confusing.... Well, it's a sad fact that some things do need an IQ in double figures to follow. Hardly fair for all animated fun to be simplistic! For me, this was also too repetitive. A recycled swamp side-story is a prime example of this.

But.... As is sometimes the case with Futurama, the odd flashes of genius burst so brightly that their after image puts other more mediocre content in a better light, rather than just blowing it away. Bender's comments on love/lealousy are excellent observational type comedy, and the thing with the bricks... VERY funny. Almost made 3 stars into 4 in it's own right!

Rating:

- An great addition to the world of futurama
The Beast With a Billion Backs is an improvement on the already high standards of Bender's Big Score. Its plot and pacing are better suited to the feature-length format, and its romantic theme draws on the most touching elements of the television series. The dynamic between Fry and Leela is what makes Futurama more than a sci-fi spoof and remains an insistent argument for the continuation of the phenomenon.

I would urge all Futurama fans to buy the first two straight to dvd films, as well as the two that are to come. Even if you have reservations about how the show works in this format, Fox will view strong DVD sales will be the single most convincing argument in favour of bringing Futurama back as a full blown TV series. This happened when Family Guy was cancelled (in my opinion a far inferior series which relies heavily on derivative humour and cut-away gags that The Simpsons abandoned after its first few seasons.)

Encourage your friends to buy these DVDs, and indeed the boxsets of the first four series. We all know that Futurama is too special a series for us to let it fade Into the Wild Green Yonder.

Try searching the Internet for "Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs [2008]" or Ebay for "Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs [2008]".

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