Producer David X. Cohen on Futurama's Final Final Season

One thing that has moved from real life into this coming season of the show is 3D printing. We actually have the kit for the MakerBot printer. This is about two or three models back, when they were still selling it as a kit. Ken Keeler just so happens to have a masters degree in electrical engineering and Ph.D. in applied mathematics. He put the kit together during his lunchtimes for about a month, and after that it was running pretty much continuously for the entire season. People asked where we got our ideas for this season. I think it was from the plastic fumes that were floating around there.

We were just printing out little Benders and all kinds of amazing things. That was the inspiration to have an episode that was based on 3D printing?probably the first show ever to embrace 3D-printing technology. In the show, Bender meets his hero, a famous folksinger who was in jail for the 30th time, and Bender wants to duplicate his success. Of course, that means duplicating his guitar. Bender's efforts to steal it in a maximum-security prison fail, so he has to resort to 3D-printing technology to duplicate the guitar? again with horrible consequences.

We're always happy when real life provides us with ideas. But then there are a few examples that [have] more preposterous technologies coming up. We have an episode called "The Inhuman Torch," in which people have begun mining helium from the sun, thanks in part to the Professor's antiheat technology.

We also have technology to resuscitate dead robots. When Bender's favorite robot, Calculon, dies, Bender has to bring him back to life using a high-tech, intensely satanic-looking ceremony, which also involves playing an installation CD backwards, Led Zeppelin style. We're going to revisit that whole concept of the robot soul, which?I take pains to point out?is the disembodied software running on the computational cloud. We also have Dan Castellaneta, who is also the voice of Homer Simpson, back as the Robot Devil.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/digital/fact-vs-fiction/producer-david-x-cohen-on-futuramas-final-final-season-15445588?src=rss

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