Movie: (1989) The crew members of an undersea laboratory weren’t expecting an attack from the inhabitants of an undiscovered world.
Opening: Jonah is in Moon 13, working on the containment vessel. The boneheads are chasing the Crow and Tom around. Jonah is scooped up and deposited on the SOL.
Invention exchange: J&tB unveil the hand dryer air hockey table. The Mads have invented motion-capture drone probes.
Segment 1: Crow and Tom have invented a goop that causes Jonah to relive shameful memories.
Segment 2: Tom and Crow settle a dispute through rhyme. Meanwhile, Kinga and Max tease a post-movie segment
Closing: After some discussion of the movie by J&tB, we switch to Moon 13, where we meet Donna St. Phibes of the Habitat for B-Movie Monsters. She has brought along a Lord of the Deep.
Stinger: The alien gets friendly.
(21 votes, average: 3.81 out of 5)
Loading...
Thoughts:
• J&tB have a fanboy conversation about “Dr. Who.”
• The “Trippy Blob” song (which I very much liked) was written by Paul and Storm.
• I believe this is first time in the history of the show that an episode has opened with the host and the bots on the same set as the Mads.
• The Boneheads were played by Tim Ryder, Zach Thompson and Deanna Rooney.
• Yet another self-reference.
• Callback: Buh-boom (Atlantic Rim).
• Cast and crew roundup: In front of the camera: Bradford Dillman did voice work on “The Atomic Brain.” Behind the scenes, writer Howard R. Cohen also wrote “Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell.” Cinematographer Austin McKiney was also cinematographer on “The Skydivers,” production manager on “The Incredibly Stranger Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies” and editor/assistant director/production supervisor on “The Beast of Yucca Flats” and executive producer Roger Corman, well, you know. Quite a few of the crew on this film also worked on “Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II,” including production designer Kathleen B. Cooper, art director Roy Meyers, set decorator Ildiko Toth, assistant director Jonathan Winfrey and prop maker Peter Flynn.
• An interesting sidenote: this ripoff of “The Abyss” feature a few crew members who worked on “The Abyss,” including special effects makeup artist Roy Knyrim, model maker Steve Cotroneo and prop maker Crit Killen.
• Is it me or were there a lot of Seinfeld references in this one?
• Fave riff: “I like my oxygen fat.” Honorable mention: “The ‘excuse me while I get my phone and go into the bathroom for like 10 minutes.’”
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
Space Mutiny is brought up way more than it deserves. That’s the issue. Over and over. It’s mediocre at best. To say it’s clearly superior to the previous 148 episodes of MST3K is madness, IMO. But why get mad at me? I’m clearly in the extreme minority. You’ve won.
Perhaps that’s why I point out why I’m baffled by it’s popularity. I’m virtually the only one doing so. Maybe in hopes that others see the Emperor Wears No Clothes? Nah. It’s more to spread the love around. Why doesn’t The Thing That Wouldn’t Die get more love? Where’s the attention for The Undead? No love for I Was A Teenage Werewolf? You never hear anyone bring up The Deadly Bees or The Space Children. Not to mention the sheer brilliance of Season Ten. No, it’s always Space Mutiny. A movie I feel shouldn’t have been on MST3K. And if they hadn’t shown it, it would not be a cult movie. It would be just as forgotten as the many other 80s Star Wars cash grabs. It’s the only episode of MST3K I don’t laugh at. It’s really not bad enough for the show. Talk about eye roll, every time I see a Space Mutiny praise or post online I wonder, what makes it so special? Why isn’t Riding With Death the tops?
And aren’t horror films about seeing good conquer evil?
As a fan of horror and slasher movies I can confirm that Jason Voorhees has on occasion used a harpoon gun. Jason has a habit of using anything at hand as a potential weapon, and despite a preference for handheld impliments he will deign to use a projectile weapon to mix things up now and then. Peace.
I don’t know. Space Mutiny is one of the few movies (along with Manos) that actually had me laughing uproariously all by itself. I had to watch it 2 or 3 times before I could even hear what was being said during the floor-buffer chase scene. By my definition, that makes it one God-awful movie.
I agree, though, there are a lot of great episodes from the Sci-Fi years, and I also agree that some of the ones you mentioned are especially underappreciated.
There are a couple of episodes like that for me. “Manos” and “I Accuse My Parents” are big fan favorites, but I don’t get it. “Manos” is ok, nothing special, but “Parents” is in my bottom five.
I think “Space Mutiny” is pretty good, but there are far better season 8 episodes, and I LOVE “Riding with Death”!
Just here to say: Space Mutiny.
Space Mutiny Space Mutiny Space Mutiny Space Mutiny.
Sorry, too easy.
I apologize for the tone of that last post: something about the combination of Friday the 13th and your Space Mutiny comment grabbed my hinder. I was trying for a lighter, more bantering affect, but it came out a lot crankier than that. (I’m not sure why: it was the first beautiful day here in weeks, I had finally gotten enough sleep, I was in a good mood . . . ) It all made sense to me at the time, but a few hours later I was having my doubts and wishing they still had the edit button.
Space Mutiny will always be in my top 5. I still laugh out loud, as I did just last week when I re-watched it for the umpteenth time. It is one of those episodes where I stop laughing at the big, obvious stuff and then they hit us with a little throwaway bit that doubles me over again (“Hey, they’re waking up the Oak Ridge Boys!” “Elvira . . . “). Plus I have fond memories of my kids roaring with laughter back when it first came out.
And I second your observation that there are plenty of Sci-Fi episodes that deserve far more recognition than they get.
Not all of them, no.
Fine, he doesn’t use harpoons on A REGULAR BASIS. Better?
;-)
Is it okay to point out that some of us are baffled by your insistence on pointing that out?
There are any number of episodes whose popularity I don’t understand (and, ironically, “Space Mutiny” is one of them). With due respect, I’m under no illusion that anyone else is interested in hearing about it. :-)
Who needs a computer with more than two colors anyway?
Well, at least I found this one more interesting than ‘Atlantic Rim’ for the practical effects if nothing else. Didn’t laugh as much as at Mac & Me, but still better.
I have to admit, however, that all this talk of riffing being ‘mean’ or not just baffles me and leaves me questioning whether I can let myself enjoy my favorite show. Maybe it’s because I don’t keep up with podcasts and interviews, so I don’t hear much from the creators themselves. If one doesn’t find a given riff funny, okay, but so much of this analysis seems like trying to be mind readers. Anyway, I’m going to try and really just relax…
Fave riffs
I think I’ve just seen the end of the movie and oy vey, it does not look good!
Something took down the Magic School Bus!
Who’s Phil S. Classified?
She’s like if God didn’t finish creating Michelle Pfieffer.
Did her psychotropic journey suddenly turn into a Beggin’ Strips commercial?
I can’t tell if he’s being evil or sarcastic.
I almost forgot, one character is named ‘Dobler’ and no one thinks to turn it into a ‘Doblone/Toblerone’ callback?
This is another really compact opening. First is the brief cold opening where they obtain the plans to the battle station, er… I mean Reptilicus Metalicus. So, is that what the Gizmonics intruder alert in 1202 was all about? Probably not. I doubt those plans would have been there. I do like Jonah and Bot’s invention exchange. Quite frankly I think “boy I wish I was playing air hockey” every time I look at a hand dryer. After all what else are they good for? Certainly not drying hands. On the other hand, the Mads’ invention seems to have a small design flaw to work on.
The shameful memories goop serum is actually more interesting than the goop in the movie to this point.
The post movie segment was cute, but it didn’t really blow me away.
I’m not really sure what I think of this episode. During the first third I thought it was boring. Then suddenly I started getting into the story a bit. Yes, it was the Abyss meets Aliens meets 2001 but I still started enjoying it. The riffing never really got going all much. I think in that respect it was the weakest so far of this season. You know what they say: Your mileage may vary.
Favorite Riffs:
Crow on Claire “She’s like God didn’t quite finish making Michelle PFeiffer.”
Claire talks in her sleep. Crow “Jonah this is like when we watch you sleep. Except with less screaming and thrashing and sobbing about will I ever get to see my loved ones again?” (Yount really channeled Corbet ridiculing Mike on this one.)
Claire explores the aliens cave as Jonah and the Bots channel SNL’s Stefon
Crow “Located in the lobby of the W hotel, Fouts (?), New York’s hottest new bar is made entirely of Big League Chew.”
Tom “Or looking for a homier experience, head over to Esophogusses a down home dive located inside an old man’s throat.”
Jonah “or Ghostbuster’s 2: the bar. You’ll love our slimeorita.”
Tom “Finally a Sarlac Pit that’s strong enough for a man but PH balanced for a woman.”
Moments like that seems kind of inconsistent with the whole “relax, it’s just a show” perspective. IMHO.
First there was Spielberg. Then there was del Toro. Now The Gauntlet takes on James Cameron for a completely whacked ripoff of The Abyss, with hysterical results! I’d never seen this bizarre, trippy flick before, and I have to admit, it’s a fun little cheesefest of a movie on its own. It’s also a relief to get back to slow moving 80’s fare after the crushingly awful Atlantic Rim, and that sense of relief almost seems to affect the riffers as well as the audience. This is a great episode, continuing the more breezy joke pace and throwing in some fun host segments, to boot.
Some thoughts:
-Full confession: even though it’s just a show, and I should really just relax, I LOVE getting backstory. Secret NASA dark mater skunkworks? Plans that explain Reptilicus Metalicus and everything?! I wanna see that stuff! I know it all doesn’t particularly matter, but with all the pseudo-world building done in the last season, it’d be nice to get a few answers, even if they only end up being the butt of a joke.
-One of the Boneheads identifies Crow as a “golden reindeer”. That’s a deep cut reference.
-Another vast improvement over last season is the camera movement. Namely, the fact that there IS camera movement. I think Joel’s idea of having Cambot attached to a ceiling rig that traveled down the doorways ended up not translating to the screen very well, resulting in a fixed camera that took away from the depth of the bridge set and often made the characters look like they were green-screened into the environment. Not only does the camera move across the set now, but there are zooms and an overall handheld feeling that make the SOL scenes less artificial.
-The Invention Exchanges are both winners. Tom’s freakout with the urinal cake is priceless. The “Super-Animarionation” drones are hysterical, and feel very classic MST. By the way, the rigs that appear on the SOL are made, in part, of drainage tubing and plastic wine goblets.
-Again, Gypsy delivers Waverly into the theater with the payload. Again, he disappears. What’s he up to?
-“If it wasn’t for these blinds, it’d be curtains for me.” God I love a good pun. Somehow, Tom avoids having his head ripped off. Crow dissects the merits of puns later in the episode, and eventually gives in to their charms.
-Roger Corman?! Huh. Did no one notice, or were they holding back in order to, ahem… maintain a positive future business relationship? Who knows.
-“Swing and a miss” pops up for the third time in as many episodes.
-The “Now streaming/airing on *such-and-sych*” running gag is pretty funny. I counted nearly a half dozen times it was used, and recognized the name of the channel/service maybe twice. Apparently I’m not up on my streaming lingo.
-“You’re not gonna “Shape of Water” with it, are ya?” I hope the ultimate legacy of that film isn’t “that movie with fish nookie”. There’s SO much more depth to it than that.
-Jonah really knocks it out of the park in Segment 1. Much like Joel and Mike before him, Jonah is essentially playing an exaggerated version of himself on the show. In this segment, he gets to show off his acting chops, and it’s impressive!
-Nice to hear the phrase “Information Super Highway”.
-The guys’ trippy sitar song is proof that last season’s UFO song from Starcrash was a test run for in-theater musical numbers. It’s not the last one this season, and they’re pretty enjoyable!
-Segment 2 serves little purpose other than to set up the final segment. It’s cute, but doesn’t do a lot. At least we get to hear the instrumental “Livin’ in Deep 13” again!
-There are quite a few Seinfeld references in this episode. Not sure what’s up with that, but they’re always welcome!
-The last segment is a personal favorite of mine from this season. MSTies who attended the 2018 live shows were introduced to Dr. Donna St. Phibes of the Habitat for B-Movie Monsters before the new season dropped, and her introduction included an hysterical video (showing her interacting with various classic MST monsters/aliens via photoshopped stills) that was sorely missing from the actual season. The character is immediately likable, and quite honestly, she has the job I’d want if I lived in the world of the show. Her Lady of the Deep puppet is simple but effective, and is one of the season’s best props. Also, in a show known for consistently referential character names, is there even the slightest chance that she’s NOT named after Vincent Price’s “Abominable Dr. Phibes”? Well played, Joel. Well played.
-Callbacks: Like, buh-boom? (Atlantic Rim); It stinks! (Pod People)
-Classic MST Bits: Jim Henson’s “Hunt For Red October” Babies
-Favorite Riff: “She’s like if God didn’t quite finish making Michelle Pfeifer.”; Honorable Mention: “We now return to Wet Star Trek.”
Revisiting this one again. It’s one of the better episodes of Season 12. The movie has a feel that would have been right at home in Season 4. “That’s not riffing, that’s talking” abounds, but I’ve come to expect that, and try not to focus on it too much. There’s some good riffing in here, and fun to be had.
I noticed in this episode something I’ve been trying to put my finger on for a while now. I feel that some of the people that work on this new version of MST3K think they are working on either Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, or both. No offense to those programs, but MST3K is not those programs. I suppose this must be the L.A. effect on MST3K. It’s not bad, but its tone is so, off, that I can’t tell who the audience for this is supposed to be, little kids, teens, adults? The old show was very subversive in it’s disguise of being a “kid’s show.” The new version seems to think it really is a kid’s show, to an extent (?). It’s not necessarily bad, it’s just a different taste of MST3K, and one I probably won’t take in too often.
There’s a strange indifference, emptiness and resentfulness (?) mixed up in Season 12’s vibe, imo anyway. YMMV, of course.
Also, this is the most abrupt ending of any movie ever featured. I’ve heard of chopping off the credits, but this is ridculous!
As always, I enjoyed reading through the comments from last summer, but, man alive, it makes my seat squirm to see how cranky I was! I can only think that that was because of those first three movies in S12. I remember Lords of the Deep did not outrage me at the time as much as Mac & Me and Atlantic Rim, but in retrospect I recall a note of preachy sanctimoniousness utterly out of place in a third-rate cinematic rip-off, so now I guess I feel a kind of delayed-reaction outrage. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for you who binge-watched that opening trio!
It is interesting to read your comments about the reboot after having time to reflect.
This comment, in particular, sums up what a lot of you were feeling; and Johnny D’s observation that the new crew seems to not really know who their target audience is seems on-target, too. Again, it reminds us that all the people involved here probably view this as a cute side project, while for the original Brains, it was their living.
Someone who talked to Jonah at an event said that Season 12 was originally scheduled by Netflix to premiere around the same time as the 2018 tour kicked off, but that Joel asked/persuaded Netflix to move the date to Thanksgiving to commemorate the 30th Anniversary. Jonah said that meant they had to do some last minute rewriting to make the show and the tour fit together, especially about the Donna St. Phibes character.
It’s the Henson Company effect. There’s a lot of connection/overlap between people who have worked for or with the Henson Company and people who worked on NuMST, and Joel’s always been fascinated with The Muppets and that style of puppetry. The 2019/2020 Cheesy Movie Circus Tour has also solidified that turn toward puppet show, with the host segments basically becoming showcases for the neat tricks the puppet props can perform. Tom and Crow and Gypsy used to be characters more than puppets, by which I mean their physical characteristics as puppets were secondary to how they were written and what they did as the characters they were. Joel said in a newspaper interview at the very beginning of the tour that, “And fortunately for us, there’s a big puppet boom, as weird as it sounds. There’s a big puppet boom going on. There’s a lot of people who just love puppets, and we’re one of the few live touring puppet shows in the country right now. And so, there’s people come to [sic] that reason.”
I think that’s fair enough, I couldn’t care less about what anyone involved in the MST3K revival does outside of the show either.
That is an absolutely brilliant observation. It perfectly sums up the state of affairs in the reboot: Servo can fly, Crow has four working limbs, but we can never tell which of them is riffing in the theater.
…and now back to our regularly schedule episode discussion, already in progress…
The first time through this episode, I found it to be a snoozefest. Hard to follow, nonsensical, and with a “twist” that raised more questions than it answered. Even the best efforts of the SOL crew couldn’t help. Now those are all the reasons that I like it. It’s not my favorite of the season, but it’s certainly risen in the ranks. That’s one of the many things I love about the show. It really rewards repeat viewings. Even episodes I’ve seen dozens of times continue to surprise me.
Before I was unable to quite put my finger on the differences between the original episodes and seasons 11 and 12, but after reading through these comments it has become clear to me. In a nutshell, the original show was akin to watching a local pick-up band on a street corner in New Orleans’ French Quarter. One guy has a clarinet, another blows a trumpet and somebody else has scrounged an old washboard to beat out the rhythm. You just had to smile. The new seasons are like watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. A full blown production on each episode including the guest celebrities. I almost expected a Bullwinkle balloon to show up. Actually, that would have been pretty cool.
There is no criticism implied here. Just a bit of imagery.
Just wondering, when this season/gauntlet is done, will we be starting over with the KTMAs and/or season one?