Some Tough Love for "Bender's Big Score" from a Futurama Fan

Now, I consider myself something of a Futurama snob. Meaning that I have seen every single episode at least twice, and listened to all the commentaries. In plain English, I'm kind of a dork about it. But I've written about that before, what I really want to talk about is the inappropriately titled Futurama movie, "Bender's Big Score."

Unlike past strange pop culture obsessions I've had, one bad go-round can't make me stop loving Futurama. For example, the movie "Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life" was so bad that it managed to sour me on the first action shlockfest that I had grown to love so well. (Not the game of course, nothing could spoil any of the games for me.) But after seeing the sequel, it really killed my buzz for the first one. I lost the will to defend it as a good solid action movie, because the second one was so bad I almost didn't want to talk about the franchise at all. And it certainly killed my hope for a third Tomb Raider, unless they want the draft I wrote of course, but that's a whole 'nother ball of dorky wax for another rainy day.

So Futurama, you can never kill my love. Despite. Yes, despite "Bender's Big Score". First of all, the title is wrong. The movie has next to nothing to do with Bender other than using him to advance the plot. The movie should be titled, "Fry's Undying Love" or even, "Parade of Fan Favorites". But not "Bender's Big Score". In fact, you took away the fun of Bender's character at all by making him simply a pawn. Really, the Bender we know and love to watch rebel and ignore the fate of his friends is taken prisoner by an obedience virus? Honestly? I know he overcame it in the end, but the Bender I know would've stolen all of history's treasures without any obedience virus. And I also think you missed the opportunity to make the scammer aliens related to Zoidberg somehow...but I digress. It was hardly about Bender at all, but Jon Dimaggio still mesmerized me with his hysterical code recitations.