Production
The Futurama staff began working on the movie in 2006, and at two different points labor issues affected the production process. According to producer Lee Supercinski, the Futurama studio realized that they were going to receive the animatic of the movie from Rough Draft Studios two weeks before the deadline for the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike. As a result, the writers were forced to make revisions to the script without having completely reviewed the animatic; no writing was done during the strike. The Futurama studio then received the colored film in June 2008, weeks before a proposed Screen Actors Guild strike deadline, again forcing the writers to revise the script without completely reviewing the picture.
Aware that Into the Wild Green Yonder could have been the final Futurama episode at the time of writing, the writers inserted numerous references to that fact. The title screen displays the message "The Humans Shall Not Defeat Us" in Alien Language 1; according to Cohen, the message is a defiant statement regarding the possible end of the series. Midway through the movie, a shot of the exterior of the Planet Express building draped with a banner reading "Going Out Of Business Forever! Again!" is shown, a reference to the original series' previous cancellation in 2003. The scene where Professor Farnsworth removes Zoidberg's and Hermes's career chips and the countdown scene at the violet dwarf implosion ceremony both reference events from the pilot episode, "Space Pilot 3000" and also "The Cryonic Woman". The cliffhanger nature of the final scene in the movie was devised so that it could conclude the series on an emotional note but also provide a point of departure for a series renewal, according to Cohen.
The script contains several detailed scientific references, such as the Keeler Gap in the rings of Saturn, the asteroid 2261 Keeler and the Keeler crater on Mars, all named after astronomer James Edward Keeler. In the movie the violet dwarf star is located at "galactic coordinates 167.84, -58.03, Mark 948", and Cohen mentions in the DVD commentary that the first two coordinates refer to another astronomical object. In addition, the Martian muck leech is given the scientific name Cyprinodon martius. Writer Ken Keeler adapted the name from Cyprinodon salinus, the scientific name of the Death Valley pupfish, which like the Martian muck leech lives in the desert and is nearly extinct.
The opening musical theme is a Frank Sinatra-style number sung by Family Guy and American Dad! creator Seth MacFarlane as the Planet Express ship flies around the casinos of Mars Vegas.
Read more about this topic: Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder
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