Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder - "But if I keep them and she marries him... then he probably won't want me dating her."

I'm a long time Futurama fan. It's the sort of thing that seems to have been designed explicitly for the use of me or people like me. In no other place can you find jokes about Star Trek, scifi cliches and Nixon in the same place. Not to mention that on average it's got a really great cast and an incredibly compelling romance plot in the background. The fifth season of Futurama is I think one of the finest mixes of sci-fi romance comedies that shall ever be forged.

The last two Futurama movies have, however, been complete disappointments. Bender's Big Score was okay, even if it was a bit redundant storywise with the fifth season... but The Beast With a Billion Backs' arbitrary break-up of Fry and Leela and shitty octopus plot really brought Futurama into a nosedive. Bender's Game was a bit better, but I was still thinking by the end of it I was thinking that the magic was gone and Futurama's glory days were over.

Into The Wild Green Yonder proves that I was wrong and it does so by quietly pretending that the last two movies didn't happen.




I've been saying ever since these movies started airing that the Futurama writers fear Fry and Leela's relationship. They're really good at writing Fry as the lovable nerd pursuing and idolizing Leela, who is a pretty ordinary person. One of my favourite scenes in Futurama is probably from the last episode of season 5, where Fry tells Hedonism Bot that he's going to make his opera and then it cuts to Leela on the other side of the room eating what appears to be a giant severed cockroach leg saying " *gasp* Me?!". It's just brilliant stuff. But the fear the Futurama writers possess is really of what comes after that... whenever Fry and Leela have had a moment that makes you think 'oh they're together now', it's often completely forgotten a few moments afterward.

I think the reason for this is a desire on the part of the writers not to interfere with the character dynamic. Futurama stems from the Simpsons and if there was ever a series that tries to maintain the status quo, it's the Simpsons. But for whatever the reason, the writers kept the two in a sort of pre-dating stasis field for the longest time... until, that is, now.

Into The Wild Green Yonder is not a Fry and Leela movie. The plot doesn't have much to do with their relationship and it's only in the background. But here's the thing: they have one. After so much bullshit about Fry suddenly dating someone else and Leela going back to being completely disinterested, they finally did a Futurama story where the two of them appear to already be together. And guess what? It doesn't actually change much! The character dynamics are more or less the same, except that I'd say that both Fry and Leela are greatly improved. They aren't mushy at all... Fry will still be as tasteless and dumb around her as always, while Leela still has a healthy amount of contempt for him. It's actually a bit sudden, considering that nothing happened between them last movie, but again that's why I'm saying they're pretending the last two movies did not happen. And in any case, what you get as a result is a nice breath of fresh air.


Amazing what happens when you let your characters develop rather than futilely clinging to an outdated status quo. One wonders why they didn't do it earlier.


Besides that, the rest of the movie was really nice. The first three movies often resorted to rehashed jokes. You know what I mean... having Mom do various Mom things that she's done before or just throwing the Hypnotoad out there. But this movie decided to do something controversial, mainly: tell new jokes. Fry's bits about how to be dramatic, the protesting feminists, Bender's bit with the Robot Don and pretty much everything Nixon said and did were just hilarious. For the first time, it felt like the Futurama writers were really having some fun.


What's more, I'd say this is the first actual movie out of the set. The other three had the problem of being a bit like three or four episodes of Futurama with a vaguely overarching plot gluing it all together. This one though had a beginning, middle and end. The major plot twist actually managed to be a bit surprising and it all wraps up nicely.



I've heard it said that this may be the last bit of Futurama ever made. If so, then I'm glad they went out on a note like this. It certainly wasn't the best bit of Futurama ever made, but it was quite well done. There's more ...

Safehold Series - "Charis expects that every man shall do his duty."

Let me start this post with an aside... the way Canadian bookstores handle their books is ridiculous. You have a situation where half the time you pick a promising title off the bookshelf, it'll end up being Book 2 of the Such-and-Such series or Book 3 of the Awesomeness Trilogy. And then you'll look at the bookshelves and find that the first book isn't there.

Such was the case with a book I saw called 'By Schism Rent Asunder' by David Weber, which is the second book in the 'Safehold' series. Fortunately I was able to remember his name and acquire both books. Unfortunately, they weren't particularly good.

Whenever an author writes anything, it's natural to get attached to your characters. As you walk down the dark, cold and lonely path that is authorship, your characters become not just your friends but rather a part of you. There is a danger in this, however... because if an author gets too attached to a character, he or she will become hesitant to do anything bad to them or portray them in a bad light.

This is the pit that Weber falls into, but he doesn't just do it for one or two characters. He does it with an entire country.



So very quickly:
The premise of the book is that a human space colony has reverted to a 15th century technology and is dominated by an anti-technology Church. The plot revolves around a nation that rebels against said Church with the help of an ancient robot girl wizard man. This results in a holy war. There's a lot more to it than that (the Church was made by some asshole colonial administrators and the rest of humanity is wiped out), but that's the gist of it.

The Kingdom of Charis is the country that's in rebellion. At first, you get the idea that what's going on is that the robot lady man is trying to subtly guide the people there back to the path of technology, but as the story goes on it becomes apparent that what Charis is actually just the sort of place that Weber thinks he would like, filled with the sort of people Weber wouldn't mind hanging out with. With very few exceptions, everyone in Charis is a paragon of virtue who values Human Rights above all else. Meanwhile, most people from the Church are either corrupt/evil or going through some sort of moral dilemma that boils down to 'Oh no, I love Mother Church, but Charis is just so right!'

Honestly, it's ridiculous. This is probably the most unrealistic book about a Holy War that anyone could ever write. At one point, the Church's Inquisition massacres a bunch of innocent Charisian merchants and their families (including women and children!) for being heretics... when news gets back to Charis, there's a scene in a bar with common sailors and soldiers talking over drinks that goes something like this:

"How dare they massacre our merchants! I say we go over there right now and burn their whole city down, women and children and all!"
"Oy! I didn't hear about no women and children attacking our ships!"
"Yeah! We can't sink to their level! I'm as upset as you are, but vengeance only begets more vengeance! We must respond in a measured and proportionate fashion"
"My apologies for my hasty words, friends. I spoke out of passion."
"Don't worry, we all make mistakes. Care for another drink?"

Honestly, it's ridiculous. Common sailors and soldiers reacting to a massacre of their fellows with restraint and reason in the midst of a religious war. Yeah that's incredibly realistic, Weber!

Charis also can do no wrong in the books. It's really a nation of overpowered Mary Sues. Weber spends hundreds of pages building up to epic sea battles, which Charis proceeds to effortlessly win. One major Charisian character has died in two books and his death was preluded by pages upon pages of 'HEY SYMBOLIC DEATH COMING UP'. At one point, it looked like one of the major characters was going to be assassinated, but that got Deus Ex Machina'd. The assassins were killed and said character went on to give a long speech about how Vengeance Is Wrong while still drenched in their blood.

To make matters worse, there were a few other characters that were against Charis that I actually liked, but they end up seeing the light and joining Charis, which pretty much leaves only the "Grrr we are the Evil Church" people on the other side.

I honestly would put it down to cowardice. Weber created this nation of Charis that he thought from the get go will be a place where people he likes will live and make didactic speeches about relgion and tolerance and being a good sort of person. Because Weber likes Charis so damn much, he sabatoges his own writing and makes the whole 'war' so damn one-sided that it's just ridiculous.

Good writers are willing to let bad things happen to good people. Not just that, but good writers have to be willing to let a good person appear in a negative light now and then. That's what keeps a story interesting and engaging. But alas, David Weber is not a good writer.

I'm probably being too hard on him. I mean, the books were page turners and I'll probably read the third one whenever it comes out (though not right away). But alas, until Weber learns to step back from his characters and learn to write what is best for the story he's telling rather than what's best for the characters he's writing he will forever remain in the pits of mediocrity. There's more ...