Bender's Big Score

Bender's Big Score is the first of the four Direct-to-DVD films, and was released on November 27, 2007 in the USA. Years have passed since The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings, both in the show and in reality, the opening reflects this, but also reflects the cancellation of the show.

Each of the films will be chopped up into four episodes each, possibly with additional material, for the Comedy Central season due to air in 2008.

A preview of the film was shown at Comic-Con 2007. 

The film is released in wide screen format and soon be available in Hi-Def DVD.

Plot outline
The film is introduced with a cold opening, with Hermes introducing everyone by their full name and title. Apparently, Hermes is now a grade 34 bureaucrat. But as he introduces Farnsworth, Farnsworth tells the crew that they are all fired, because the delivery network canceled their license two years ago. However, the phone rings, and he is soon told that the people who canceled their license were themselves fired for incompetence, brutally beaten, and some killed. The ones who died were ground into a fine powder, marketed as Torgo's Executive Powder. They throw a party, and as Hermes shows his moves in limbo, his head is cut off by a falling sabre, and his body is crushed under the Planet Express Ship.

The title sequence starts, only this time with a special extended theme and introductions of each character, but with the same familiar events in the sequence. At the Head Museum, Hermes is put in a temporary head jar by Lars, the jar feeder at the Head Museum, while Lars flirts with Leela. When LaBarbara and Dwight enter to find Hermes in a jar and learn that his body won't be fixed for at least a week, LaBarbara immediately goes out to find a handsome, new husband. Farnsworth enters to tell the crew that they have a delivery to take to the Nude Beach Planet.

At the Nude Beach Planet, on which the entire crew must remove every aspect of clothing from their bodies, Leela finds out Fry has a tattoo of Bender on his ass, which even Fry is surprised to find. Later, Bender is approached by the nude alien Nudar, along with two other associates, to sign a petition and to give them his email address managing to get most of Planet Express crew to sign up.

Back on Earth, Leela is dealing with a lot of spam, but an email about an animal going extinct unless it gets her bank account number opens her eye. Similarly, Amy is also getting spammed, and manages to order some fake anti-depressant pills. Bender is keen on the fact that he can Get Rich Watching Porn, but ignores when his system tells him to perform a virus scan. He is immediately infected with the iObey virus. Dr. Zoidberg is the victim of a Nigerian scam.

When Farnsworth finds out about the scams (with his illegal keylogging software), he wishes to teach the crew how to spot scams on the Internet. But he becomes a victim as well; he believes that he won the Spanish National Lottery for a grand prize of 400 dollars. Despite warnings from the rest of the crew, who now know better, he signs the form on the site, and immediately the doorbell rings. When Farnsworth opens the door, the trio of nude aliens from the Nude Beach Planet informs him that they now own the company, presenting a contract signed by the Professor.

Bender, being infected with the obedience virus welcomes the new masters. And soon Planet Express is turned into the base of operations for the nudists' scams. Later, Lars returns to bring Hermes his permanent jar and asks Leela out. The scammers are apparently part of a species who enjoy information (and may even feed off it, in some way), and they sense a large amount around Fry, or rather a very important piece of information, which is revealed to be the tattoo of Bender on his ass. Then, they force the Professor use a large microscope to zoom in on it to see if there is any information in the tattoo, and within Bender's eye on the tattoo is a binary code. Nudar tells Bender to read it aloud or Scruffy dies. As he finishes it, the Galactic Entity hears it, and sends back a time sphere, they very key to traveling through time.

As they debate what they can do with the time sphere, Nibbler appears to warn them about the consequences of using it, shocking everyone with his ability to speak. After an unsuccessful attack by the Nibblonians' kitten-class ships, Nudar wants to take the time sphere for a ride. Farnsworth objects, because time travel invariably creates a paradox. Nibbler informs them that it is a paradox-correcting time code, which means everything will work out all right. Nudar travels back to one day prior, where he meets himself, and apparently made out with himself (and possibly more). Suddenly the Smell-O-Scope falls upon the new duplicate of Nudar and kills him. In Farnsworth's words: "Paradox resolved."

A problem occurs with their plans to steal all things of value in Earth's history. Because the time sphere can only get them back to the past, not forward into the future, they may be able to steal things, but they would be dead before they could reap the benefits. Bender informs them that he can travel back in time, steal the stuff, then hang out in the basement of the building, and come up after a few centuries or more. And so his stealing of Earth's past values begins. And in 2206, where the Nobel Peace Price is being given to an unknown person for bringing a truce between the East and West Coast Rappers, Bender's ship and it's decoys destroy the original New York (1ACV01) while escaping after stealing the Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, Hermes' wife LaBarbara has left him for Barbados Slim. Lars informs him that since the scammers bought the hospital, his body won't be fixed for months, or maybe even years.

Farnsworth wants to sell off his doomsday devices in order to make money, but he won't sell his favorite, the Sphere (very similar to the one used to stop chronoton particles from bombarding the universe (3ACV14), possibly a replacement), which he places in a satchel he then handcuffs around his wrist. The scammers order Bender to get it, using the old method of "Switcheroo", replacing the real satchel with an empty one. Bender does this by sawing off the professor's hand. When Hermes sees how well Zoidberg sewed the professor's hand back on, he asks if he could do the same for him and his body. Hermes asks Bender to go back in time and get an undamaged body from the past; Bender, curiously, does not object. Unfortunately, after they get the body, Zoidberg puts Hermes' head on backwards.

Meanwhile, the professor has invited the Globetrotters to assist in figuring out how paradox-free time travel is possible, and Sweet Clyde's "razamatazz" calculus ensures it is. The reason is due to the doom field in the equation, which means that a duplicate created from a time travel is always doomed. This essentially means that, although no paradoxes are created, the universe balances itself out by eventually destroying duplicated matter.

Lars and Leela goes out on a date, and Bender has finally stolen all the stuff the scammers wanted. However, now that the scammers are rich, they suddenly care if the universe gets destroyed. They intend to delete the code from Bender and vaporise Fry&mdash;rather than just removing the tatto&mdash;in case he memorized the code. Fry escapes by using a mirror to read the code off of his tattoo. He travels back to January 1, 2000, 12:30 AM, 30 minutes after he was frozen. Bender is ordered to travel back a few moments before he arrives (just to be safe) and terminate him (hence the "cool" sunglasses he wears, mimicking "The Terminator"&mdash;though he just claimed it was brighter in the past). Bender arrives at 12:28 a.m., but after drinking the beer Fry left before he was frozen, Bender (for the first time in his life) needs to go to the bathroom. So he goes back 19 seconds in time and asks the former Bender to wait for Fry to come while he goes to bathroom, creating a doomed Bender duplicate.

Before Fry arrives, another copy of Bender arrives in a tuxedo and says that he is Bender from "way at the end." He tatoos the time code on the backside of the Fry that is within the cryogenic tube, thus revealing how he got the tattoo in the first place. Fry arrives, and Bender threatens to kill him, but when Fry explains he is his friend, Bender goes through a moral crisis and ultimately enters his Automatic Destruct Sequence due to an internal error in programming caused by the tension. Before he can explode, Fry kicks Bender into the freezer and sets it for 1 million years.

The Bender in the bathroom leaves, and spots Fry waiting for the elevator. He tries to catch up, but is too slow. He consideres commiting suicide in what he initially believes to be a suicide booth, only to stop after realizing it's actually a telephone booth. After giving up on suicide, he begins his hunt for Fry, and continuously fails in finding him. After 12 years, he finally catches up to Fry on the docks of New York City. Fry had grown a long beard and was walking off a boat. Bender calls for a cab (driven by Al Gore) and offers the former Vice President $100 to catch up with Fry. However, Gore's "Hybraxi" (a hybrid taxi) gets into an accident, and Bender is hurdled to Panucci's Pizza. Al Gore ominously explains that the hundred dollars Bender would have given him could have bought him one gallon of gas.

Bender spots Fry in the window above the restaurant, and shoots into the window, destroying much of the building. It collapses, and Bender is suddenly filled with remorse over killing his best friend. He walks up from the basement in the Planet Express hangar, where he explains his mission is accomplished to the scammers. The scammers insert a head cleaning tape into his mouth, and the virus, the time code and 50 terabytes of porn are deleted.

In Central Park, the crew holds a memorial for Fry. Bender arrives at the scene and explains it was he who killed him, though the crew understands that it wasn't really his fault. Fry then suddenly reappears out of nowhere, which greatly relieves Bender. Fry explains that at 1:00 AM, January 1, 2000, he realized that he had no money from that era. Knowing where he can find free pizza, he goes back to Applied Cryogenics, but since the pizza is cold, he travels back an hour to eat it while it was still hot. This is where he sees himself kicking Bender into the freezer, but his past Fry warns the current Fry of using the time code. The past Fry leaves, and the other remains.

Fry then realizes that his frozen self has a lot of old money, but since his pants are pulled down due to the tattooing of his buttocks, he touches his own butt while reaching for his wallet. He is disgusted, and slips on the chair he originally fell from and into the tube with his time duplicate. When originally frozen Fry walks out of the tube on December 31, 2999. The other Fry turns the timer to 7.95 years and freezes himself again. He explains that he just came back to the park from the Cryogenics Lab at that moment. Lars leaves before Farnsworth explains to Bender that the Fry he killed was doomed anyway, being a time duplicate.

Fry learns that his other time-clone lived for 12 years before Bender killed him (coincidentally the same amount of time Seymour lived before dying), so Fry wonders what his life was like, and while none of the crew members may never know, the narrator declares that the viewer will. In a flashback, time-duplicate Fry returns to Panucci's, but instead of asking for food, he asks if he can rent the storage room upstairs. Mr. Panucci gives his permission and Fry begins living there. While watching television, Fry soon discovers that his true calling is helping a rare horned female narwhal named Leelu.

Meanwhile, Fry in 3007 is getting his tattoo removed by Nibbler's third-eye (which emits a laser) so they cannot use the time code again. Since they are all unemployed now, and the entire city of New New York is being turned into a panda-hunting reserve, they are all without homes. On Xmas in 3007, they are all living in an alley (which was nothing new to Zoidberg). Robot Santa appears while they are singing in the alley, and attacks them, and Leela explains in song that Lars proposed while they will hugging and singing in fear.

Back in the past, Fry is getting along with the narwhal, Leelu. He teaches her to eat and carries on a friendly relationship with her, even "swordfighting" by sticking a plunger to his head. But in 2010, he is informed that she must be sent back into the wild to make room for the Loch Ness Monster (which is just a log with a Halloween mask glued to it). Fry reluctantly agrees, but then later decides to follow the narwhal and capture her back.

In the future, the wedding between Leela and Lars begins. Fry's plan to stop the marriage is to replace the pen to sign the wedding license with one that has no ink. When Leela finds out that the pen isn't working, Lars nonchalantly pulls one from his pocket. As they are replacing the pen, they accidentally stick it in Hermes' eye as he is cleaning his glasses. He slips over a rope, and the chandelier falls down and destroys his body. The Professor exclaims that this was bound to happen, because the body was a time duplicate. When Lars hears this, he calls off the wedding and dumps Leela.

Back in the past again, Fry captures Leelu back, and has her placed in a tank on the ship. Leelu seems forelorn and distraught and won't eat or play with Fry. At first, Fry thinks that another narwhal outside the ship (this one with an orange-colored skin) is upsetting her.

In the future again, President Nixon reveals that he is about to close a deal to buy back Earth. Unfortunately, he fell for another obvious scam, and Earth looses its final bit of money. The populus is forced to evacuate the planet. Ships at South Street Spaceport carry people to different planets in the solar system, with the Planet Express Ship bound for Neptune. Once there, they meet Robot Santa, who is too depressed for murder and mayhem, as the scammers have also scammed him. But Leela decides it is time to fight back.

A strategy is proposed, but it is revealed that the scammers have used the money to build several remote-controlled solid gold Death Stars. Robot Santa reminds them that he still has elves to build weapons, so he gets together with his friends the Kwanzaa-bot and the Chanukah Zombie. Soon their weapons are built, and they are ready to attack, being lead by Zapp Brannigan, whose plan is to send in a brigade of children first to buy them a few seconds. As they approach Earth, one of the Death Stars shoots down the Nimbus (though the entire crew manages to survive). Leela takes command of the fleet, but is soon overwhelmed by the complexity of directing so many ships. Hermes uses his vast knowledge of bureaucracy and organization to control the entire battle smoothly (with the help from the Professor, who wires his head into the mainframe). Soon the battle is won, and Hermes wins LaBarbara back.

But the scammers have one final trick up their sleeves. They reveal the doomsday device's bag that they stole from the Professor. Nudar gives them 30 seconds to decide on an ultimatum. Bender then reveals that he was the one who cut off the Professor's hand with an extremely dull saw. But to their surprise, he also reveals that he has the bag with the actual doomsday device, and that the scammers have been scammed. They fire off the device and destroy the scammers' ship. Bender explains that after he was off the virus, he pulled the old "Switcheroo" again, and got the device for himself to use later.

Meanwhile, Fry in 2012 realizes that Leelu is actually in love with the male narwhal, and decides to set her free, in his words; "I want what makes you happy, not what makes me happy."

At the New Year's eve celebration, Bender is awarded the Dirty Double Cross, Earth's highest honor in swindling, for saving the world. Lars comes and gives Hermes' his body back, fully repaired. Fry tells Leela to meet him at Applied Cryogenics, and he secretly invites Lars as well. But as Lars is trying to explain to Fry why he and Leela simply cannot be together, Nudar enters, explaining that he was wearing a doomproof vest. He says he wants the time code, but Fry stresses that Nibbler removed it from him. But Nudar isists that Lars has it. As Nudar threatens to kill Leela, Lars does what he says, explaining that he has always loved Leela. Lars goes to the tube with the Bender duplicate in it and opens it, dragging Nudar onto Bender with himself. Bender counts down, and instead of blowing up at first, he just says "boom!" After a brief giggle, the duplicate Bender blows up, killing himself, Nudar and Lars. Leela rushes to Lars' body and sees that he has the same tattoo on his butt as Fry...

Back in 2012, Fry is entering his home above Panucci's when Bender comes around destroys it. The initial blast doesn't kill Fry, but Fry's hair is burnt off, his beard shortened, his skin darkened, and his larynx damaged; he sees himself in the mirror with his new appearance and deeper voice and realizes that he is Lars. He rushes to the Applied Cryogenics lab, and gets in the tube with his old girlfriend Michelle, setting it for 990 years. Waking up in 3002, he gets employed at the head museum, as he now has experience feeding sea creatures.

At Lars' funeral, it is explained by Lars in a video will that he waited for the day Leela would arrive. When he saw Hermes' body destroyed at the wedding, he realized that as a time paradox duplicate, he himself was doomed, and would not put Leela through having to deal with his death. Fry says that he was a great guy; Leela agrees, implying that both Lars and Fry are great, and kisses Fry on the cheek. Nibbler and Bubblegum Tate remind everyone that in order for any of this to make sense, someone must travel back in time for one last time to tattoo Fry's backside in the first place. Bender (noticing his tuxedo from the past) goes back to do this.

Back at Planet Express, Bender comes up from the basement and says that he has done the job. He then says that he met all his own copies down in the basement, and told them to stick around instead of come up when they logically supposed to. This creates an extreme amount of duplicates. Nibbler fears the worst, and using an as-yet unseen Nibblonian ability, consumes himself; presumably, the high-density compression of his digestive tract allows him to teleport to an unknown dimension. As each duplicate explodes one after the other, a massive rift in time and space appears before them. Bender sees this and ends the film with, "Well, we're boned."

Miscellany
for trivia, quotes, etc.

Characters
(this list is not yet complete)

Cast

 * Billy West as Philip J. Fry, Dr. Zoidberg, Professor Farnsworth, Zapp Brannigan and Additional Voices
 * Katey Sagal as Turanga Leela
 * John DiMaggio as Bender Bending Rodríguez, Barbados Slim and Additional Voices
 * Phil LaMarr as Hermes Conrad and Additional Voices
 * Lauren Tom as Amy Wong and Additional Voices
 * Maurice LaMarche as Kif Kroker and Additional Voices
 * Frank Welker as Nibbler and Additional Voices
 * Al Gore as Himself
 * Coolio as Kwanzaabot
 * Dawnn Lewis as LaBarbara Conrad
 * Mark Hamill as Chanukah Zombie
 * Sarah Silverman as Michelle
 * David Herman as Nudar and Additional Voices
 * Tress MacNeille as Linda and Additional Voices
 * Tom Kenny as Yancy Fry, Jr.

Episode Credits

 * Writers
 * David X. Cohen
 * Ken Keeler
 * Director
 * Dwayne Carey-Hill
 * Voices
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Dave Herman
 * Frank Welker
 * Special Guests
 * Al Gore
 * Sarah Silverman
 * Coolio
 * Tom Kenny
 * Mark Hamil

The DVD
The DVD contains the following:
 * The film itself.
 * Commentary track
 * The reading of Futurama Returns from Comic-Con
 * A 22 minute episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad.
 * Deleted storyboard scenes.
 * A Terrifying Message from Al Gore.
 * Commentary track with Matt Groening and David X. Cohen
 * Bite my shiny metal X &mdash; a math lecture about math inside Futurama.
 * 3D models
 * The original first draft of the script
 * New character - design sketch
 * Original 5-minute Comic-Con promo