I can't sleep so you guys get a picspam. That souds fair, right?
Spoilers, duh. But only for this movie. And a little for the next one.
Don't use my caps for anything. Don't repost them, don't use them for things like icons or picspams or whatever else you can think of, etcetera, etcetera. I'm really not kidding. When I see that I get very bummed and I don't feel like making picspams anymore.
This picspam has absolutely no theme, direction, etc. I was trying to make a short picspam of Bender's Big Score which totally backfired, as you can see. And then, while trying to keep it under control it went from 'general Bender's Big Score' to well, you can see where my mind was the other night. Oh, well, I'll just have to do another one later. I love this movie so much it's not like that'll be a chore anything. :3 (Though I did get some shots of Leela's wedding dress in there. Clearly the best of her various wedding dresses. I mean, I understand the deal with the 'Cyclops Built for Two' dress but what the hell she thinking in Time Keeps on Slipping?)
Speaking of how much I love this movie I watched it twice yesterday. Only once on purpose. I thought 'hey, let's listen to a few minutes of the audio commentary' and then it's an hour and a half later and I'm wondering if I really just watched the whole thing (my favorite part of the AC was when middle-aged Fry (who you should know I love) is watching Leelu leave and Billy West says, in perfect Fry voice, 'I wish I could afford botox'. It's worth keeping the disc in my computer just for that). I think maybe my initial 'ehhhh' to this movie was because of the weird time travel stuff, because it really does seem to get better with age.
time travel!
Though I am now fairly certain that there's a missing Fry duplicate in the movie. The time code seems to stay paradox free by making the time-traveler's past self a copy at the moment the time traveler falls back on his timeline. The copy sorta diverges from the original timeline and can no longer do anything to change the time-traveler's history. So you can go back in time and shoot yourself in the face and it's not going to affect you, your existence, or the fact you went back in time at all, not even a little bit.
The first time Fry time-travels the Fry in the Cryo-chamber should have become a duplicate. It's almost like the time code creates a little isolated pocket or loop in time. In the movie the Fry in the Cryo-chamber wakes up in the year 3000 and time-traveler Fry makes a point of pulling up his pants before he walks out. It doesn't really matter though because the Cryo-chamber Fry can't do anything to affect time-traveler Fry's past.
Though when Bender goes back in time to put the code on Fry's ass in the first place he shows up just before Fry time-travels for the first time (I think. I'm pretty sure) so that part of it isn't a hole. Really there's a very simple way to fix this. Bender could have just shot Cryo-Fry in the face after the other Frys left the building. What's it with me and shooting people in the face? Anyway. Maybe a bus ran him over while he ran from Leela when he woke up. But then this has we thinking is that Leela a copy, too? If the Cryo-Fry died and he wouldn't affect the corresponding Leela's history, which... if he dies before he meets her then maybe... You know, this is why I think the time code creates a pocket in time. In any case! I love time travel (ties with robots as my favorite scifi convention) so even with the weird stuff the time travel code is probably a large chunk of the reason I love this movie so much.
Fry/Leela
The other part is, of course, Fry/Leela. Some of stuff they do with them in this movie makes it much easier for me to ship them. After two-ish? seasons of pursuing Leela to a degree that makes me uncomfortable (even if there were perfectly reasonable extenuating circumstances) Fry accepts that he isn't the one who's going to make Leela happy and gives up on trying to win her over three times between two copies. That is one loaded sentence. I don't think this was character development exactly. He has a history of trying to help her for unselfish reasons but it makes me feel less guilty about shipping them happy to have it emphasized and underlined and highlighted in neon orange like this.
And then there's Lars. I get so freaking teary-eyed over Lars. It some ways he has a great life, but in other ways he really gets screwed over. If this were a drama instead of a cartoon comedy I might love Lars as much as I love Boomer. It's that kind of sad. As it is I try not to think about it too much. But just thinking of that scene where Fry sees that he's Lars gets me doing the happy/sad tear thing everytime.
spoilers for the next movie
I should really rewatch Beast with a Billion Backs. I remember it being pretty good the one or two times I watched it right after it came out but I just have so much trouble watching it right after Bender's Big Score. Fry dating, falling in love with, and moving in with Luuann Platter some girl right after the whole 'Lars' thing just doesn't make any sense. I'm not fundamentally opposed to Fry falling in love and dating a girl other than Leela. But when he does this right after she tells him she knows in her heart she'll never love any man but his time paradox duplicate it honestly hurts my brain worse than the time travel. Okay, I lied. The time travel doesn't hurt my brain. But this still kinda does? I guess I could fast forward through that stuff but... then I wouldn't get fun/goofy Brittany Murphy being fun and goofy. A conundrum. I has one.
I wish they'd made some attempt to make this not totally incomprehensible. Like have Nibbler wipe everyone's minds or say it happened the week before. I mean sure, with a mind wipe you get rid of character development but this is one case in which I'd be okay with character development taking one for the team if it meant I could watch 'Beast with a Billion Backs' without feeling I need to periodically shout 'dude, Leela loves you!' at the screen. Beast with a Billion Backs has battle ball, and teeth throwing, and Stephan Hawking being better than everyone. Also Tobias Funke. Come on! uuuuughh.
I'm gonna go wash some clothes now :\