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2001
- Futurama DVD Season 1 R2
The first season of Futurama has been released on DVD for Region 2 and for us people in Region 1, it is worth picking up as there are no scheduled releases for us here in the States. Make sure you have a region free DVD player if you are not in Region 2 before picking these up or else when you put them in your player you won't see anything. Luckily for us Fox has decided to release Futurama by production order and not by air dates. Why is that good? Because on this first set we get 13 episodes for our viewing pleasure and not just 9 like were originally shown when Futurama first premiered. The four episodes are When Aliens Attack, A Flight to Remember, Fry and the Slurm Factory and Mars University. All great episodes and essential to the overall scope of the first season. While all the episode are great the last 4 really show the creative staff taking flight with the characters, animation and music. If you don't believe me watch Space Pilot 3000 and then watch any of the 4 mentioned before and you will see what I mean. We will come back to the episodes in a bit but first I wanted to talk a bit about the set itself. It comes in an attractive slip cover case with little circular windows that reveal the box art behind it. On the slip cover are images of Fry, Leela and Bender in an homage to the episode When Aliens Attack. The art on the box features a view of New New York. the discs themselves feature each of the three main characters of Futurama with plenty of background goodies that reflect some of the events of the first season. What is really fun about the covers is if you put them side by side you get a neat little murial. The fun doesn't stop there as when you open up the discs there is even more art as well as a little joke tied into each disc and the background image behind the disc when you pop it out. An example of this is on one of the discs there is a picture of Amy and Hermes in the boom tube, lift the disc out and behind it you see an image of Amy and Hermes crashing head first into each other in the very same boom tube. It is a fun little way of getting some of the other characters involved in the overall appereance of the set. Oh, and be on the lookout for L'rrr - all I can say is ooh la la! But the season discs are what this is all about and Fox does not dissapoint in this area. Each disc contains at least 4 episodes transferred beautifully and with great sound. Futurama done almost exclusively on computer really lends itself to this type of transer as the images are really crisp and clear. Because of this it will give all of you who are freeze frame buffs to really disect each and every scene for background gags, messages and the all important Alien Language I. Also included for each episode are commentaries which brings us further into the world of Futurama. All commentaries feature Matt Groening and David X. Cohen with appearances by others such as Billy West, John DiMaggio, Rich Moore, Scott Vanzo and others involved in bringing Futurama to life. To go into detail of what was said would spoil owning these discs for yourself. Extras on the discs also include deleted scenes for various episodes, a making of featurette with interviews of Matt Groening, David X. Cohen and others as well as a special bonus on disc 1 featuring an animatic, storyboard and script for the episode Space Pilot 3000. With all this information not only do you get a behind the scenes peak at the creation of an episode but also how a single episode can go through so many changes and leave so many ideas and jokes unseen. The animatic is a particularly interesting perspective on the pilot episode and I highly recommend sitting through the entire thing to see what was left out. There are also stills galleries and other little things like the always popular Easter Eggs. I won't tell you what they are or how to find them as that is what makes them so fun. The menu's are alot of fun as well and will put you behind the eyes of some of your favorite Futurama characters. The designers of the menu's must have had a ton of fun putting them together as there are more little inside jokes to look at that if you are not a fan of Futurama you would probably dismiss as jibberish. If you have friends who have never seen the show must see episodes from
Season 1 include Space Pilot 3000, I, Roommate, Love's Labour's Lost in
Space, When Aliens Attack and Fry and the Slurm Factory. Those are all
great episodes and for me are the cream of the crop of the first season.
It also shows tremendous growth in the evolution of Futurama. Compare the
pilot episode of Futurama to the first season of that other Matt Groening
show The Simpsons and it is incredible to note how far advanced Futurama
was when it first started compared to The Simpsons. The fact that there
was an even greater leap forward just in these first 13 episodes is really
a credit to the staff of Futurama. Timing and pace became quicker, the
jokes really started to fly and the animation just kept getting tighter
and tighter.
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