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 start, with Hermes introducing everyone by their job title and full name. Apparently, Hermes is now a grade 34 bureaucrat. But as he introduces Farnsworth, Farnsworth tells the crew that they are all fired, because of the delivery network shot them down two years ago. However, the phone rings, and he is soon given the information that the people who cancelled their license were them themselves fired for incompetence. And also that some of them died and were ground into a fine powder, marked as Torgo's Executive Powder. They throw a party, and as Hermes shows his moves under a sabre in limbo, his head is cut off, and his body runs wild like a chicken and gets the entire Planet Express Ship to crash onto him.

The title sequence starts, with altered music, and introductions of each character, but with the same familiar events in the sequence. At the Head Museum, Hermes is put in a jar by Lars, the jar feeder at the Head Museum, who is flirting with Leela. When LaBarbara and Dwight enter to find Hermes in a jar and that his body won't be fixed until at least a week, LaBarbara goes out to find a new handsome husband. Farnsworth enters to tell the crew that they have a delivery to the Nude Beach Planet.

At the Nude Beach Planet, Leela finds out Fry has a tattoo of Bender on his ass, which Fry did not know he had either. Later, Bender is asked by Nudar and his gang to sign up for a petition and to give them his email address. They manages 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. Similar Amy is also getting spammed, and manages to order some 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 Nigeria 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 himself becomes a victim. He believes that he won the Spanish National Lottery for a grand prize of 400 dollars. He signs the form on the site, and the doorbell rings. When he opens, Nudar and his gang informs him that they now own the company.

Bender, being infected with the obedience virus welcomes the new masters. And soon Planet Express is turned into a scam house. Later, Lars returns and asks Leela out. The scammers are apparently a species who enjoy information, and Fry apparently has a lot of it, or rather a very important piece of information. Which is revealed to be the tattoo of Bender on his ass. Then, they zoom in on it to see if there is any information in it, and in 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 Galaxy Entity hears it, and sends back a time sphere.

As they debate what they can do with the time sphere, Nibbler appears to warn them about the consequences by using it. And after an unsuccessful attack by the Nibblonians' kitten-class ships, Nudar wants to take it for a ride. But Farnsworth objects, because it would create a paradox, but Nibbler informs that it is a Paradox Correcting Time Code, which means everything will work out all right. Nudar travels back to yesterday, where he meets himself, and apparently made out with himself. But suddenly the Smelloscope falls upon the new duplicate of Nudar and kills him, with 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. 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 given to the East and West Coast Rappers, Bender is revealed to be the alien spaceships that destroyed the original New York (as seen in the pilot episode).

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 a while, maybe 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 in Time Keeps on Slippin'), which he handcuffs around his wrist. The scammers order Bender to get it, using the old method of "Switcheroo". Bender decides to saw off the professor's hand. When Hermes sees how well it worked when 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 his body. But as fate would have it, Zoidberg puts back on backwards.

Meanwhile, the professor and the Globetrotters are discussing if paradox-free time travel is possible, and Sweet Clyde's "razamatazz" calculus ensures it is. The reason is due to the doomsfield in the equation, which means that a duplicate created from a time travel is always doomed; it is only a matter of time.

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 Bender and vaporise Fry, but Fry escapes. Using a mirror, he reads the code off of his tattoo. He travels back to January 1, 2000, 12:30 AM. Bender is ordered to travel back a few moments before he arrives and terminate him (hence the "cool" sunglasses he wears, mimicking "The Terminator"). Bender arrives at 12:28 a.m., but after drinking the beer Fry left before he was frozen, Bender (for the first time) 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.

Before Fry arrives, another copy of Bender arrives in a suit and tattoos Fry's backside (which is explained later in the film). Fry arrives, and Bender threatens to kill him, but when Fry explains he is his friend, Bender goes into Automatic Destruct Sequence due to an internal error in programming. Before he could explode, Fry kicks Bender into the freezer and sets it for 1 million years.

The Bender in the bathroom leaves, and spots Fry leaving for the elevator. He tries to catch up, but is too slow. He begins his hunt for Fry, and continuously fails in finding him. After 12 years, he finally spots 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 Fray. 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 the building with his gun. It collapses, and he cries 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 is deleted.

In Central Park, the crew holds a memorial for Fry. And Bender explains it was he who killed him. But suddenly Fry appears once more, and 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 is pulled down due to the tattooing of his buttocks, he touches his own butt instead of his wallet. He is terrified, and slips on the chair he originally fell from and into the tube with his time-clone. When originally frozen Fry walks out of the tube on December 31, 2999. The other Fry turns it to 7.95 years and freezes himself again. He explains that he just came back to the park from the Cryogenics Lab right now. Farnsworth explains to Bender, that the Fry he killed was doomed anyway.

Fry learns that his other time-clone lived for 12 years before Bender killed him, so Fry wonders what his life was like, and while none of the crew members got to know, the narrator declares that "You, the lucky viewers do!" 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 purple narwhal named Leeloo.

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 narwhal, Leeloo. He teaches it to eat and carries a friendly relationship with it. But in 2010, he is informed that it 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. When Lars discovers this, he calls off the wedding and dumps Leela.

Meanwhile, Fry captures Leeloo back, and has her inserted into a tank on the ship. Leeloo 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, 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. The Planet Express Ship leaves 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 have elves to build weapons, so he gets together with the Kawanzaa-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 children brigade first to buy them off a few seconds. As they approach Earth, one of the Death Stars shoots down the Nimbus. Leela takes control, but soon realizes that it is too difficult to control an entire fleet of 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.

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 destroys the scammers' ship. Bender explains that after he was off the virus, he pulled the old "Switcheroo" again, and got the device for himself.

Meanwhile, Fry in 2012 realizes that Leeloo is 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, Lars comes and gives Hermes' his body back. Fry tells Leela to meet him at Applied Cryogenics, and he also invites Lars. 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 suit. He says he wants the time code, but Fry stresses that Nibbler removed it from him. But Nudar says 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 Bender 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, Bender blows up, killing Nudar and Lars. Leela then sees that Lars 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. During the fire, Fry's hair is burnt off, and his larynx damaged. His voice changes, and so does his appearance. He sees himself in the mirror 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 realizes that as a time paradox duplicate, he himself was doomed, and would not put Leela through that. Fry says that he was a great guy, and Leela agrees, now knowing that Lars was a time-clone of Fry. 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) goes back to do this, explaining his appearance earlier in the film.

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 coming up when they logically supposed to. This creates an extreme amount of duplicates. Nibbler fears the worst, and thus escapes out of the universe. Suddenly, a huge riff 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)
 * Headless body of Agnew
 * Al Gore
 * Amy
 * Barbados Slim
 * Bender
 * Bubblegum Tate
 * Chanukah Zombie
 * Charles de Gaulle's head
 * Cubert Farnsworth
 * Dr. Zoidberg
 * Dwight Conrad
 * Fry
 * Hattie McDoogal
 * Hedonism Bot
 * Hermes
 * Kif Kroker
 * Kwanzaa-bot
 * LaBarbara Conrad
 * Lars Fillmore
 * Leela
 * Linda
 * Leeloo
 * Michelle
 * Morbo
 * Narrator
 * Nibbler
 * Nudar
 * Philip J. Fry, II
 * Philip Joshua Fry
 * Phillip Fry
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * The Galactic Entity
 * Robot Mafia
 * Robot Santa
 * Sal
 * Scruffy
 * Seymour
 * Yancy Fry, Jr.
 * Yancy and Mrs. Fry
 * Zapp Brannigan
 * Zylex

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 have been confirmed to contain 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 (what exactly it is is unknown as of now)
 * 3D models
 * The original first draft of the script
 * New character - design sketch
 * Original 5-minute Comic-Con promo