Movie: (1974) An astronomical event endows an ant colony in the Arizona desert with sentience. Two scientists are sent to investigate, but who’s testing whom?
First shown: 1/15/89
Opening: The Mads are running low on funding
Host segment 1: Joel discusses Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics
Host segment 2: J&tB discuss the first thing they plan to do when they get to Earth
Host segment 3: A game of “I spy” becomes a performance of “Wipeout.”
End: Joel programs Crow and Gypsy to recite a new robotic law
(140 votes, average: 4.16 out of 5)
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• This episode is the first episode (not counting KTMA episodes 1-3) to feature a non-Gamera movie, and the first episode featuring a movie that would not be riffed on the show later. As such I will, with this entry, begin the “Cast and Crew Roundup” feature (I will do the Sandy Frank titles when they come back around in season 3).
• References.
• There’s lots going on in the opening. It’s the first time the show has started with The Mads instead of Joel. It’s also the first time we get a sense that there is somebody with authority over The Mads (btw, the nickname “Old Leadbottom” is from a ’60s TV show called “McHale’s Navy.” Look it up, kids!). We also get the first mention of “the madscientist-mobile,” which would come up again.
• Also this is the first time, as far as we know, that Joel did the “getting run down by Cambot” routine, which both he and Mike would do again in the future.
• One thing that has surprised me is: there’s been no explicit mention so far of Gizmonic Institute! Clearly The Mads are transmitting FROM Gizmonic Institute during KTMA (Joel once directly confirmed that to me). I guess he had not come up with the name yet?
• I saw this movie when it first came out. I thought it was a pretty good little sci-fi thriller and I still do. The ant photography, as well-done as it is, goes on a little long and slows the pace down too much, and the acting by the humans is pretty low-key, but it’s not really a “cheesy” movie.
• The Brains must have thought so too. They seem to get into it. Several times they say something like “uh-oh” when a plot development unfolds, a sure sign they are caught up.
• However, Josh never seems to quite get the premise of the movie. “Yes, because most ants have the power of reasoning…” he says sarcastically when the movie suggests that they do. Later he yells: “They’re ants!!” when a character suggests that there is an intelligence behind their actions. That’s the premise of the movie, Josh!
• A segment of riffing in the theater, starting at about 7 minutes into the episode (not counting commercials), was included on the pitch tape that was used to sell the show to the Comedy Channel. That tape was included included on the MST3K Scrapbook tape. Question: Was that really the most sparkling few minutes of riffing the whole season?
• Servo extends his head again in the theater.
• Another first in segment 2: The first time a bot mentions his “load pan.”
• Now-dated reference: When a high-pitched sound makes some glass break, Crow says “Ella!” That’s a reference to a then-popular Memorex commercial featuring jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald.
• Uh, could Segment 3 get any more random? It’s completely stream-of-consciousness. Were they are just killing time?
• At one point in the theater somebody drops something and it makes a rather large noise, so loud the performers feel they can’t ignore it, so they acknowledge that it happened. Then there is a strange scraping noise, which they don’t acknowledge. Was someone dragging whatever it was away?
• Movie observation: For a science lab that was just built, it sure has a lot of shelves full of spare parts laying around, like a warehouse that has been sitting there for years.
• Joel calls Gypsy Gipsum again.
• Cast and Crew Roundup: Screenwriter Mayo Simon also wrote “Space Travelers. Camera operator Jack Mills also worked on “Gorgo.” In front of the camera, Alan Gifford was also in “Devil Doll.”
• Fave riff: Meanwhile Grandma and Grandpa are patty melts out on the lawn. Honorable mention: Hope nobody’s eating rice at this point…
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Unfortunately, my copy of this episode has badly muffled audio, so I don’t have much to say about the riffing. The episode also seems to have disappeared from YouTube (where there was once a copy with much cleaner audio), so I’ll have to pick it up from CheesyFlix.
One of the older comments mentioned the “lost” alternate ending by director Saul Bass. In the four years since this episode was last in the rotation, that ending has been found, and it was screened along with the film at a Los Angeles festival in 2012:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/saul-bass-phase-iv-original-ending-cinefamily-paramount-341449
I agree that “Phase IV” is a pretty good film, but it’s too hard to enjoy it in its muddy and muffled K09 incarnation, so it’s one of two or three of the KTMA movies that I’m going to add to my library in their un-MSTed form. I was tempted to wait until a restored edition with the original ending, but that doesn’t seem likely for such a relatively obscure film, so I’ll probably just pick up the theatrical edition.
Another interesting feature on “Phase IV” and Saul Bass, this one from the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443792604577575440133817760.html
The 1970s are all over Phase IV, but unlike any other eco-horror movie from that time period, this one is intelligent.
Also, the macro photography, as others have noted, is absolutely incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it equaled.
All in all, a poor choice for MST fodder, but hey, it was KTMA, making it up as they go along. Gotta cut em some slack.
The 1970s seem to have been the perfect years for strange films like “Phase IV”; the bleakness of these films reflected the overall bleakness of that decade, and it somehow made the films more effective.
Inspired by the part they played in inspiring MST3K, I recently added “Silent Running” (1972) and “The Omega Man” (1971) to my movie collection, along with “Westworld” (1973) and “The Andromeda Strain” (1971). They’re all very much cut from the same 70s cloth, especially visually; I don’t think they would have been the same movies if they had been made in the 60s or in the 80s.
I don’t know if anyone cares, but I cleaned up the audio a bit and made an mp3 (ala Rifftrax) that syncs with the VHS:
http://173.44.39.14/~eegah/mst3k/
Send me the ant movie. I wish I had a pristine copy of this experiment. A watchable film, with, pretty good riffing by the guys.
The alternate-full crazy ending of Phase IV is on Youtube. It’s…something else.
Watch it here.</a>
If only they had gotten to riff that alternate ending! I feel like I just watched The Matrix… or Teenagers From Outer Space, with the forced perspective and all.
So Gizmonics Institute is KTMA. That makes sense when Season One starts and they’ve moved to Deep 13.
@#57: Thanks for the link! One of the YouTube commenters said it best: “Exactly how I like my sci-fi. Trippy, subversive and dreamlike.” I can’t stand it when movies try to explain everything to you; they’re sometimes so hermetically sealed with dialogue and exposition, out of a fear that “people won’t get it”, that there’s nothing left for the imagination.
They definitely should have kept that ending in the film.
The true start of the KTMA era, and the start of the episodes I’ve watched (I refuse to watch the KTMA Gamora episodes – why do that, when I can enjoy them in their full glory in Season 3?)
On the topic of bleak 1970’s sci-fi films, I give you Family Guy’s take on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pioBHf11N78
I was never convinced that The Mads were at Gizmonic Institute during the KTMA series. The word “Gizmonic” was never used until the first episode of Season One. Also, Joel once stated that the reason his character and Dr. F do invention exchanges is because that’s something they used to do at Gizmonic Institute. The invention exchanges didn’t start till the first episode of Season One either. Ah well, KTMA isn’t canon with the official seasons anyway.
My old posts can be found around #21, #31, and #40. I love this movie and this episode. I’ve been beaten to the punch (and lemonade) about the news regarding the lost ending being found. Like the rest of the movie I don’t think that the ending makes any sense. But it makes no sense in a spectacular, beautiful (sort of) and interesting way.
Whoever released this film with the ending chopped off, like the movie had been run into a ditch and abandoned instead of ended, must have had even more rocks in his head than most executives. Why not release 2001 without its ending you knob?
The deleted end of Phase 4 not only contains the philosophical core of the film, but also it’s the most interesting visually, conceptually, cinematicly etc. The theatrically released version not only had its heart ripped out, but its head cut off as well in a way that made the poor filmmaker look like a chowder head. I really felt bad for Saul Bass. I don’t know of any other movie that was so totally ruined by the studio.
http://www.lynne-frederick.com/index.html
Check out this tribute site to Lynne Frederick.
And even if they were smart enough, how did the ants learn about the construction of state of the art mobile laboratory’s and how to precisely sabotage them? Did they take Votech classes or just read the manual with their compound eyes after studying remedial English at the local community college?
BIG thanks to jaybird3rd and Tarlcabot for pointing out and sharing the original ending of Phase IV! I really hope this overlooked gem gets a decent DVD release with a remastered version of the original (and much better) ending.
The heart of the confusion in this movie stems from looking at an insect colony/hive and musing about how wonderful a human society could be if it was modeled on an insect one. The mistake here is that an insect colony is not analogous to a human society, but a human body, with individual ants/bees/termites being analogous to individual cells.
The vast majority of ants are workers who lack reproductive organs and spend their entire lives doing simple repetitive tasks. Furthermore individual ants are even more expendable than individual skin or blood cells. An ant colony can survive the destruction of the majority of its workers much better than a human can withstand the loss of the majority of its tissue. Ants mourning the loss of their individual dead would be like every living cell in a human body pausing for a moment of silence whenever a skin cell died.
And individuals are free to pursue their own interests. Individual ants deciding they didn’t want to spend their short existence reinforcing tunnel walls and becoming performance artists would undo the colony. Just as individual biological cells deciding they wanted to do their own thing would reduce a human being to a puddle of uncooperative one celled organisms.
And any human society based on an insect model would largely consist of expendable workers born to do one simple repetitive task and who lacked genitalia. The only community members with reproductive organs would be one gigantic immobile woman that excretes offspring all day long and her intimidated attendants. If this is utopia I’m going back to Thunderdome. So if anyone reading this is considering creating a human society modeled on an insect colony, don’t.
Anyone have any idea how the solar eclipse or whatever at the beginning made some ants hyper intelligent?
Although ants abandoning their colony to become performance artists might ruin the nest, it could make for an interesting Pixar movie.
Personally, I thought A Bug’s Life has always been a bit underrated (and Finding Nemo is hugely overrated). I particularly liked how it took the basic concepts of The Seven Samurai and twisted them.
BTW that’s some good stuff you wrote up in post #65. Brings to mind the Robert Heinlein quote on all the things a human should be capable of doing, while noting that specialization is for insects.
Thanks Sitting Duck (any relation to Sitting Bull?). I love the way this movie makes you think.
I also have a thing for the character of Kendra. She has the appearance of a demure Pre-Raphaelite nature spirit that stepped out of a John Waterhouse painting and shucked her diaphanous gown for jeans and a shirt. She seems like she never said or did a mean thing that wasn’t warranted. But she has some steel in her. She gave the ants what for when she started to realize what had happened. And she sacrificed herself to save the others (in a scene Tomservo made hilarious with the whole “Take me, ravage me” bit). The actress Lynne Fredrick had a rather sad life that ended early and with few friends. Check the above link and the whole internet for more details.
Watching again now I’m wondering how the ants got Kendra from where we thought they killed her to the sand pit at the end. Did they convince her to join up and walk barefoot through the desert for miles? Did they slip her a roofie? Hit her with a taser they built? Tie her up carry her away like a giant chicken leg? Why didn’t we get to see any of that?
And Hubbs. Aside from the callous disregard for humanity. Scientists are supposed to study and learn about nature. Not manipulate it and put it in its place. That’s what technology is for.
I know. I just love this episode too much. The movie definitely needs a restored director’s cut DVD, and if only one KTMA MST episode is released it needs to be this one.
I’m his lesser known cousin who, along with Crazy Quilt, whalloped the 6 7/8 Cavalry at the Battle of the Medium-Sized Horn. :P Actually I’m from Virginia and haven’t been further west than Michigan (except the one time I visited my brother when he was stationed in Alaska).
#54
And yet the 1970s was also when “Star Wars” was made. Lots of levels of study there.
My original comments are @ #41
In the opening,
Larry: “We sold your Dodge.”
Joel: “Not the Slant Six Swinger!”
Joel and the Bots do a “ducking away from the screen” gag here, when they’re
trying to figure out what the out-of-focus object heading toward them is,
“Oh.., it’s a truck. It’s a truck! DUCK!!”
during a smoky part,
Joel: “Somebody threw some doobs down there.”
Crow: “Ants make your party mix more lively.” :party:
–
There are 3 local KTMA commercials on my copy of this ep.
The first is a Club Travel ad that features Kevin (he only has a couple lines, sits in a chair most of the time).
That is directly followed by an ad for Joel’s standup act at Comedy Gallery Riverplace, featuring a couple of his bits.
The third is later, during the last commercial break, and is the Pizza N’ Pasta Pizza ad with the Mads. “Yummy sounds.”
I still like the Host Segment #3 version of “Wipeout” that Joel and Servo slap out on the table.
This is an okay-ish movie, a little dry, but trippy.
Still, it’s a KTMA episode of MST3k.
1 out of 5 ant-stars.
It’s kind of fun to watch how Joel & the bots kind of get sucked into the movie while they are riffing on it. Definitely a better movie then they would usually watch. Although I will say I’m not a fan of these 70’s movies that are dark and drab. Still an interesting idea for a movie, sounds like the original ending was more explanatory then the ending that got used. Overall pretty good KTMA episode.
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