Into the Wild Green Yonder

Into The Wild Green Yonder
DVD Movie Information
Released	February 24, 2009
Running Time	84 min
Credits
Directed By	Peter Avanzino
Written By	Ken Keeler
Guests	Seth MacFarlane Snoop Dogg Penn Jillette Phil Hendrie
DVD Movie Guide
Preceded by	Bender's Game
Followed by	"Rebirth"

Into The Wild Green Yonder is the fourth Futurama straight-to-DVD film. It was thought to be the last episode of the series, until Comedy Central announced the series would be revived with new episodes starting on June 24, 2010.

Plot

In deepest space, a wave of green energy animates a small system causing DNA to form.

Hutch Waterfall

The scene switches to Mars Vegas, which is promptly demolished and New Mars Vegas is being constructed. Leo Wong has no interest in what he destroys, like an oasis, or the Martian Muck Leeches. Leela is only able to save one, which repeatedly sucks blood from her, before Leo covers the rest of its colony with cement. During a protest from the Eco-Feministas, led by Frida Waterfall, Leo blows up the ground beneath their feet, causing Frida's femi-necklace to lodge itself in Fry's head, hidden by his "hair horn". Leo compromises by giving Fry a token to a free poker tournament and the rest of the crew a free vacation. Soon enough, Fry seems to know what everyone else is thinking or going to say next. He leaves the casino, only to be overwhelmed by a number of voices in his head. He runs into an alley, where he meets a transient named Hutch, who gives him a tinfoil hat to place over his head to block out the voices. However, Hutch discovers that he can't read Fry's mind. He warns Fry not to tell anyone or else the Dark Ones will get him easily.

I'm Bender, let's do it.

Bender falls in love with Fanny, a Fembot married to Donbot, head of the Robot Mafia. They have an affair when the Donbot isn't looking. However, his cohorts, Joey Mousepad and Clamps grow suspicious. Deciding to do something good with his telepathy, Fry enters a poker tournament with use of the chip Leo gave him and all of his life savings. Bender enters also, using Fanny's bra, instead of running before the Donbot gets wise. Fry manages to get to the finals with his telepathy. However, Bender wins by dumb luck, especially since Fanny gave him the Donbot's lucky foot. Finally, suspicious, the Donbot and his gang take Bender and Fanny out into the Martian Desert, where they shoot and bury them. But since, as robots, they couldn't truly be killed, they emerge from the ground next day. They breakup the affair and Franny goes back to the Donbot.

While surveying a system with a Violet Dwarf Star, the Planet Express crew locates primordial lifeforms on an asteroid but the Professor, having been bribed by Leo, decides to demolish the system anyway.

The Legion of Mad Fellows

Fry meets Hutch again, who knocks him out and drags him down into a secret lair beneath a dumpster and is introduced to the Legion of Mad Fellows, a group of telepaths who are trying to stop evil forces from destroying the gateway to the "green age". Their leader, the Number 9 Man, explains that the energy force called Chi gave life to the universe. However, it receded, causing the majority of the universe's species to go extinct. He tells Fry to go undercover as Leo's security guard and make sure that he does not destroy the violet dwarf.

Leo Wong goes to demolish an arm of the Milky Way for a "miniature" golf course, prompting Leela, Amy and LaBarbara to join the Eco-Feministas. Unfortunately, during a peaceful protest, an golf cart accidentally kills the Headless Body of Spiro Agnew. Forced on the run from the government and Zapp Brannigan, Leela proposes that they take more direct action. After sabotaging many of Leo's construction sites, they gain support from Earth's female populace. They even hijack the Planet Express ship and paint it pink, locking the Professor, Hermes and Zoidberg, who were hired by Leo to build a fence, in a go-go cage. They then locked Leo in his own fence.

While on duty, Fry discovers Frida attempting to hammer down another terrible slogan on Leo's property. He manages to tell her to pass on a message to inform Leela that he's trying to save the violet dwarf too. But when she mentally reminds herself back at the Honeybun Hideout, the Dark One hears her and demands to know who gave her the message. Luckily, she didn't know Fry's name, but unluckily, she is psychically murdered. With her dying breath, she pleads her long-lost brother to avenge her death.

At the second meeting with the Legion, in the old Martian reserve that was abandoned five years ago (as seen on Where the Buggalo Roam), Number 9 explains to Fry about the ongoing battle between the Encyclopods, a race who seeks the preservation of all life and the Dark Ones, who desire destruction of all species, who had since evolved from a frog and snake living in symbiotic harmony. When the Chi receded, only the strongest could survive, like the Dark Ones, while a significant amount of life was extinguishing, like the Encyclopods. But they believe that they left an egg behind, which is the violet dwarf star. Once the Encyclopods are reborn, they can recreate all the species that ever went extinct. However, Fry can't tell anyone about this, as the Dark Ones will know of the Legion's existence and kill anyone who knows about the egg.

Dixie and Trixie help Bender dress as a distracting hooker

The feministas return to the Honeybun Hideout, coincidentally next door to the reserve, to find Frida murdered. Having heard from Amy that Fry is working for her father, they all fear that he murdered her on Leo's orders. Leela calls Fry to prove them wrong, but when he mentions Frida, she fears that he killed her. However, they agree to meet at Keeler Canyon. Unfortunately, Zapp was eavesdropping on their conversation, due to Bender bugging Fry's phone, and ambushes them. Thinking him a traitor, Leela takes Fry hostage. Eventually, after a chase around the miniature golf course, the Feministas are captured, put on trial, sentenced and sent to jail. However, the Dark One telepathically urges Leela to escape. Leela's initial plan was to have to the Martian muck leech tunnel their way to freedom but the hole it digs is too small and takes too long. Bender soon breaks them out, stating that he'd be committing fifteen felonies at the same time. However, breaking out was even more difficult, as security was tight. After a failed plan to distract the guards with Bender as a hooker, they decide to run for it, as Bender bends a brick wall. Once outside, they are evacuated by the rest of the Planet Express crew.

At his third meeting with the Legion, Fry is given the mysterious Omega device to momentarily disable the Dark One at close range. The only problem is knowing who and what the Dark One looks like after eons of evolution and the fact that his mind is unreadable. Worse, the Dark One can sense their thoughts, even through their tinfoil hats, therefore, they can't come up with a plan. Number 9 Man trusts Fry, whose lack of a Delta Brainwave renders his mind unreadable, to find and stop the Dark One.

At the ceremony, Fry is given the honor to blow up the violet dwarf star, while scanning the crowd for the Dark One. Unfortunately, he is unable to even detect the Dark One's presence and concludes that since his mind can't be read, he must be the Dark One. Just then, the Planet Express crew arrives and takes the detonator. The Dark One telepathically urges Leo to blow up the star, but is disabled by a swing of a golf club from Amy. As Leela is about to defuse the detonator, Fry urges her to give it back to him, though he is unable to explain his intentions: after a moment of reflection, Leela decides to trust him and gives it back. Fry pushes the trigger anyway, having rewired it to the Omega device, intending to destroy himself. However, the device extends into a more complex mechanism and an orb of green light briefly engulfs Fry and Leela. Dumbfounded that he was still alive, Fry yells, "It didn't work. I'm the Dark One and it didn't do anything!" Just then, the Dark One reveals himself as the Martian muck leech, who is affected by the device.

Fry and Leela share a kiss

The asteroids in the system form a sperm-like shape and go into the violet dwarf, triggering the birth of a massive Encyclopod that looks like a manta ray with a biodome on its back, containing countless alien species and plants. As Hutch is about to explain everything, the Dark One attacks him by the throat. Fry slaps away the evil creature. Hutch notices Frida's necklace, who is his sister, lodged in Fry's brain and takes it out, thus ridding Fry of his mind-reading abilities, before expiring. Vowing to avenge Hutch, the Encyclopod then destroys the leech and its corpse is eaten by the always-hungry Zoidberg before its DNA could be preserved. The Encyclopod preserves Hutch's DNA before leaving, ignoring Fry's insistence that humanity is not an endangered species. Zapp tries to arrest the Planet Express crew again for fifty-three counts of "fugivity" and they all flee in the ship, with Kif going along with them. While escaping the Nimbus, they decide to fly into a wormhole, not knowing the destination. Fry and Leela say that they love each other: they kiss as the crew flies into the wormhole. In Rebirth you find out where the wormhole takes them.

Continuity Issues

• Nixon says, "I did stage the moon landing... on Venus!", but Fry and Leela find the lunar landing site on the moon. The ship was moved to the moon by a group called the "Historical Sticklers Society". Though this was used as a way to explain the Lunar Ascension Module's appearance and it is a valid explanation as to how the lander may have been found on the moon, it is not an explanation for the foot prints found outside the lander. He also references finding nothing on the moon except for the revolting Onion people in the Beast With a Billion Backs.

Trivia

• The song about Mars Vegas at the beginning of the movie was sung by Seth MacFarlane
• We have seen the "Dark One" before.  His first appearence was "The Tunnelling Horror"  in Bender's Game during which he is shrunk to his current size.  Two characters remembered him.  Leela must have realized he used to be the tunneling horror which is why she snuck him into the prison and attempted to use him to tunnel the feministas out. Zoidberg hated the tunneling horror in Bender's Game which explains why he was so anxious to eat it throughout the Wild Green Yonder.
• The demonstrations sing the beginning of one of United States' most famous songs from 1940 "This Land is Your Land"
• Every character living in the Futurama series appears in this film besides "Old Man Waterfall".
• Botany Bay, a hotel in New Mars Vegas, is a reference to the real Mandalay Bay and also the ship aboard which Khan escaped Earth in Star Trek: The Original Series episode Space Seed. Also, Khan and his followers use the SS Botany Bay as a shelter on Ceti Alpha V in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.
• All the main characters, except Cubert Farnsworth and Dwight Conrad are on board the Planet Express Ship at the end.
• The sandworms on Mars are similar to the sandworms from the books and films, Dune.
• The co-ordinates Zapp gives to find Leela, 36,24,36, are the same as Bart Simpson's locker code, as well as being the measurements for an hourglass figure.
• Number 9 can be seen in many episodes incognito.
• When searching for existence of life near the Violet Dwarf Star, Bender is using the same scope that Spock uses in regular episodes of Star Trek.
• This film aired in 4 parts from 3 July to 6 July 2010 on Sky1 in the UK.
• The prison where the Feministas go to serve out their sentence contains a Panopticon . Its architect, Jeremy Bentham, declared it "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind."
• The green energy shown in the movie could be the time traveling sphere from Bender's Big Game
• Mom is seem not wearing her "fat suit" in public. Ether this was a mistake, or Mom had given up on pretending to be a kindly old woman.
• When the "cave man" falls from the tree after Leo sprays for Eagles, it is either Don Henley or Glenn Frey.

Background Information

• According to David X. Cohen, the movie has a "real epic sci-fi story that involves this ancient battle that's been going on for billions of years and our crew, of course, ends up in the middle of that. It ends on a real sweet note and we'll be content with that if it's the last we ever do."

Goofs

• Leela's parents are seen in the audience outside the Violet Dwarf System, although they may have gotten a pass to come to the surface.
• Morbo's statement was wrong: a child was in fact there, Cubert Farnsworth.
• When the main characters enter the Planet Express ship, Leela is wearing her feminista outfit and Fry is wearing a formal uniform:, but once inside, they can be seen in their classic outfits - this was most likely intentional, however: assuming this was the last episode/movie of Futurama, the creators probably ended it with all the characters in their original outfits, although LaBarbara Conrad still had her Feminista outfit on. Also, Kif is wearing his white uniform when he enters the Planet Express ship, but in the final scene when the camera focuses on Bender, he is wearing his red uniform in the background.
• When Hutch Waterfall was murdered by the leech, he is still there with the other minor characters.
• When saving the Martian Muck Leech, Leela steps on it 4 times, yet when she looks to pick it up, there are 5 bootprints.
• When the Eco-Feministas destroy the device Leo Wong is using to destroy Saturn's rings by shoving a potato in the tailpipe, Leo claims he can smell potatoes and yet he's wearing a helmet, as well as the particles can't travel through airless space.
  • If this were true, however, the Professor's Smell-o-scope would be completely useless as Cubert first suggested.
• After Hutch first knocks Fry out, Fry's tinfoil hat is on the ground at the mouth of the alleyway. However it is no longer there seconds later, as the dumpster's lid closes after Hutch gets into it. Additionally, Fry's hat is on the mattress beside him in the next scene, though this could be because it was retrieved off screen when Fry was unconscious.
• When the feministas are arrested by Bender, he says that he weighs 2 tons, which is about 4000 pounds, even though he weighs only 525 pounds.
• When Leela and the Eco-Feministas trap the Wongs with their electric fence, Frida Waterfall can be seen standing behind Leela in the ship. Leela then states that their chief slogan-writer (Frida Waterfall) is back at the honeybun hideout, despite also being on board.
• When the Professor says "Money talks" and holds up a bill, there's a close-up of the bill talking. However, the hand that's holding it belongs to Hermes. When the close-up ends, it's the Professor holding the bill.
• Clamps' soldering line "scar" vanishes and then reappears as he is ranting to the Donbot in the kitchenette behind Small Bill's.
• At the beginning of the Eco-Feministas' trial, the back of Fry's head can be seen without a tinfoil hat on. Seconds later, Fry is wearing a tinfoil hat after the camera pans from the Feministas to the Planet Express crew.

Videos

Futurama Into The Wild Green Yonder

Status

On June 9, 2009, it was confirmed that Comedy Central picked up the show for 26 new episodes that will begin airing in 2010, spread over two seasons.

Alienese

• The two signs in Alienese read, "Caution: Falling Humans" and "The Humans Shall Not Defeat Us".

Ongoing Themes

Fry and Leela

This movie was the first time Leela returned Fry's feelings. It is unclear exactly when Leela fell in love with Fry, most likely after Bender's Big Score. It's possible she only admitted it because she thought they were going to die but she does seem to continue with her feelings for Fry later on. However, she does seem to have a lot more affection for him throughout the movie than usual so she probably did fall in love with him earlier. They become an on again off again couple in the next season before becoming more permanent in season 7.

Character Arcs

Farnsworth pronounces "Wong" with a "wh".

Identity

Leela's Wrist LoJack-a-mater serves as a ray gun to kill, or at least disable, a muck leech: it's possible that this is not a new feature, as it could simply be the emergency face-laser that she used on Fry in Spanish Fry.

Hermes and Zoidberg

Endowed with psychic power, Fry "hears" Hermes thinking that Zoidberg is "pathetic but lovable". So now we know for sure that Hermes genuinely likes Zoidberg. His occasional strange, cruel outbursts must represent either a generic anger-control issue for Hermes, or a specific interpersonal issue that Hermes has with Zoidberg.

Injury, Death

• Bender is shot by the prison guards machine gun fire.
• Three heads are eaten by H.G. Blob.
• Leo Wong detonates explosives at the feet of the Greenioritas, rendering them all unconscious.
• One of the Greenioritas lands on Fry, embedding a piece of jewelry in his forehead and knocking him to the ground. Zoidberg pronounces him dead and for a moment, the entire crew believe that Fry is dead.
• Farnsworth briefly recounts to Wong the experience of culling ponies with a machine gun. Leela is repeatedly attacked by a muck leech.