Movie: (1988) The leaders of a space colony must fight back when their security chief plans to take over the ship.
First shown: 11/7/97
Opening: Crow and Tom think Mike’s encyclopedias are outdated
Intro: Mike has new encyclopedias; Pearl, Bobo and Observer are in prison
Host segment 1: Mike’s tea time is interrupted by the bots trashing some escape pods
Host segment 2: Crow’s a Bellerian…or is he?; Bobo’s escape plan fails
Host segment 3: Servo installs railings
End: Tom is buff, Crow less so. Meanwhile Pearl, Bobo and Observer escape, and a fire begins!
Stinger: Our hero bravely screams like a girl and bails out
(402 votes, average: 4.87 out of 5)
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• First of all, has everybody signed Sherri’s birthday card?
• For several episodes now, the show had been going very strong, but many fans point to this show as probably the zenith of season eight, where everything worked and they were firing on all cylinders. It’s good, okay, at least in terms of the riffing. Still, a geeky scandal plagues this episode and many of the segments are only so-so. I’m not sure the next two eps aren’t just as good.
• References.
• The many many names of Dave Ryder just got funnier and funnier—and one, “Big McHugelarge,” later became a bumper sticker BBI sold. Scarcely a week goes by that someone doesn’t tweet that video.
• Paul’s take on this episode is here.
• This episode was included in Rhino’s (and now Shout’s) “The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 4.”
• The big scandal about this episode was the “Battlestar Galactica” footage nobody at BBI recognized. I remember at the time that several online fans simply COULD NOT CONCEIVE of the POSSIBILITY that they would not recognize this footage. It seemed simply out of the realm of possibility to them. I said at the time that this lapse pointed up the painful lack of nerds on the Sci-Fi Channel-era writing staff. If Frank or Trace were still on the staff, I don’t think this would have been missed.
• The encyclopedia segment sort of predicts Wikipedia, which would launch a few years later.
• That’s Patrick and intern Dan Breyer as the Roman guards, and that’s Best Brains Controller Tim Johnson, hopelessly typecast as Mike Down, CPA.
• Classical music buffs: What is the piece Mike is listening to in segment 1?
• Movie observation: Reb Brown’s character is supposed to be a military officer, isn’t he? Then why the heck is he walking around in a wife-beater?
• Trivia: The Mitchell family infests this movie. In addition to Cameron Mitchell, his son Chip Mitchell portrayed mustachioed crew member Blake and his daughter Camile Mitchell provided the voice (but not the body) for Jennera.
• The rest of us may not enjoy Cisse Cameron’s portrayal as Lea (and btw I cannot BELIEVE they gave the female lead in a space action movie that name). But Reb Brown apparently liked what he saw. The two are now married and the set of this movie is where they first met.
• Callback from the old days: The line “Guard! Guard! Sick man!” is a bit from “Red Zone Cuba.”
• Of course, another classic moment in this movie is when the character we saw killed in the previous scene is quietly back at her station on the bridge.
• Mike does a very good impression of SCTV’s Ed Grimley at a couple of points.
• Segment 2 is another of those “Crow is not right in the head” segments. I think they work because Bill really commits to the concept.
• Crow is still wearing his Bellerian costume in the theater.
• Mike, channeling protective father figure Joel, covers the bots eyes during some suggestive moments.
• Segment 3 gives Mike a chance to do some nice physical comedy. He nails it.
• Servo thinks the movie is Canadian. Nope, South African.
• Another closing credits conversation.
• The final segment is not the first time the bots have bulked up. They also tried it in episode 410- HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN.
• Cast and crew roundup: special effects guy Jerry Kitz also worked on “Soultaker.” Makeup person Debi Nichol worked on “Outlaw of Gor,” as did production designer/art director Geoff Hill. In front of the camera, John Phillip Law was also in “Danger: Diabolik” and Cameron Mitchell was in “Stranded in Space.”
• CreditsWatch: Produced & directed by Jim. This was intern Todd Severson’s first episode.
• Fave riff: “JUST STOP AND AIM, YOU IDIOTS!” Honorable mention: “She’s presenting like mandrill!”
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Space Mutiny is what I think of as an idiot movie. What I mean by that is that its premise and plotline fail to clear even the lowest “suspension of belief” bar. Consider that the Southern Sun is a colony ship searching for a new home planet. Okay, fine, a tired premise, been done before, but that’s okay. So then, where do David Ryder, the professor, and Ryder’s unnamed wingpeople come from? Some other colony ship? Or maybe a habitable planet? If the latter, it cannot then be one of the space pirate worlds, right? Basically, the screenwriter wasn’t capable of or wasn’t interested in reconciling this threat to the film’s premise, so we got what we got. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg – one could write up a big analysis of the movie’s failure to hang together.
This is part of the reason I find Space Mutiny so entertaining.
Two other beloved idiot movies, just off the top of my head: Robot Holocaust (Neo asks the robot who the Dark One is, then just a few minutes later reveals that he’s on a quest to topple the Dark One – THEN WHY DID YOU ASK ABOUT HIM?) and The Doomsday Machine (the human race is going to be preserved and kickstarted by just THREE women? I don’t think so. also, they’re going to set up shop on Venus, perhaps the most hellish and inhospitable of the inner planets? sure)
The BSG? What is that, the sequel to The BFG? The Big STUPID Giant?
Wait. Never mind. ;-)
Moving along — (sigh) — man, some of you folks’d complain if they were hangin’ you with a new rope…
And that’s okay.
So, sort of like the army and the cops, then. ;-)
It’s a big ship. It has to be, to sustain multiple generations of people. It’s probably the size of a small city OSLT.
From, uh, an in-universe character who knows a lot more about “the Enforcers” than we do?
Well, he probably didn’t know they were *homicidal* until it was too late. Besides, as with the sheriff in Village of the Giants and Crenshaw in Boggy Creek, some people just can’t adjust to rapidly changing shifts in power…
Kalgan’s nuttier’n a Stuckey’s log, that’s how.
Sure Sting guy knew that, and we knew that, but no one said that KALGAN knew that…
The generation ship proceeded to its destination at its steady pace only to eventually find that Earth subsequently developed FTL ships which zipped ahead of them to wait for them…at their destination.
D’OH!
>>>SAMPO: Reb Brown’s character is supposed to be a military officer, isn’t he? Then why the heck is he walking around in a wife-beater?
It’s what he was wearing under his pilot uniform or whatever it was. It’s his undershirt. Evidently he didn’t want to wear a Southern Sun uniform (which I’d presume is all they’d have handy). Perhaps wearing the uniform of a ship you’re not assigned to just…ISN’T DONE.
and the pesos, just to see their smiling face-os, for the money, money, money, money, money…
Also, take it yet again, Mr. C…
“I’ve made some of the greatest films ever made – and a lot of crap, too.” — John Carradine
An actor ACTS.
Maybe it was just deemed so accurate. ;-)
Yes. That was mean. I apologize.
43rd century? Was that specified?
Anyway, nostalgia brings styles back again and again. Maybe they were in the 119th revival of the Funky Seventies…
I’ve never understood what was supposed to be so dreadful aboud disco to begin with.
Like the army and…the cops, then.
The, uh, “the planet”? You mean Earth, future birthplace of Pearl, Mike, Joel Creator-of-Bots, and so many others? Yeah, I think you stand alone on that.
No no no no no no no, it’s not wrong and stupid, it’s *stupid* and WRONG! Incredibly stupid! And wrong!
;-)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FandomHeresy
We have just experienced the above. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I mean, if your argument is seriously “We shouldn’t examine whether a movie is sexist because it might also be racist,” then I guess I can’t compete with that impeccable reasoning. Might I suggest that if you’re not interested in discussing something, you just don’t discuss it, instead of interjecting about how uninteresting you find it?
Translated:
Those Bechdel posts would be more interesting if they were about men.
Oh stop with the faux internet outrage. Lighten up.You don’t agree with me.. Who cares? We had a national tragedy a few days ago.. None of the **** we say here matters at all..
Uh no.
None of the stuff anyone says here ever matters, period.