 612 - THE STARFIGHTERS
Genre: Jet fighter Pilots (1964, Color)
Synopsis: This movie is about fighter pilots and the women in their lives as they train in the desert in their shiny,
fuel-guzzling jets. The training consists of refueling, blowing up rectangles on the ground, refueling, shooting at triangles being pulled behind other jets, and refueling.
So basically this movie is like Top Gun with just about as much plotlessness and without all of that annoying
’80s music assaulting our ears.
Instead we get easy listening music, to help soothe us while the jets are taking off, refueling in midair, blowing things and refueling in midair.
And whoever made this movie used as much jet footage as possible
– when the jets take off, we see them all take off, one after another after another after another.
And when they midair refuel, we see all of the jets refuel – so much so that M&tBs ran out of sexual innuendo riffs in these scenes and switch to junkie riffs instead
(I’m surprised they didn’t do one
Dr. Strangelove riff, though, because that great movie begins with a
very similar scene).
As for the plot (if there is one), the three main pilots are sent to this remote base to train, one of them is married and another is starting to date a girl with a helmet of hair.
Also one (I’m not sure which) is the son of a senator and the senator keeps calling and calling to try to get his son to transfer from the fighter wing to the B-52 bomber wing.
Does this side story go anywhere? Why, no, of course not
– it’s all just basically filler. Eventually, the fighter pilots are transferred to Europe and they all, one by one, take off to fly there.
And that’s it, the end of this pointless movie.
Don’s Review: Awful plotless wonder that turns out to be absolutely perfect for MSTing because M&tBs are hilarious throughout (of course, I personally love the military riffs on MST and this episode has a ton of them).
The host segments are pretty good, except for an out-of-place BBQ Sauce skit but even it is still amusing.
So, for me, this is a really good episode that’s a lot of fun to watch.
Trivia Note: One of the pilots is played by Robert Dornan,
later a U.S. Congressman. (he obviously didn’t use this movie in his
campaigns, otherwise he never would’ve been elected! In
fact, he didn’t lose his long-held seat in Congress until after
this movie showed up on MST3K... now that really makes one
wonder!!)
Don’s Rating: 
Forrest’s Review: I had only seen part of
Starfighters once when it was showing on Comedy Central.
I vaguely remembered anything about it, and I bought a DVD of this
episode to try it out again. Boy, I had no idea what I was in for.
I’ve seen
Manos, I’ve seen Monster A Go-Go, I’ve seen Hobgoblins,
I’ve even seen
Hulk, but never have I seen a movie more terrible, more hideous, more boring, and more repetitive than
The Starfighters, and, as of the day I write this
(August 14, 2003), I believe Starfighters to be the worst movie ever shown on MST3K, and the worst movie ever made, period.
Not one thing, nothing, happens the entire movie, at least Monster A Go-Go had the class and style of having the tall, ugly guy walk around a bit. In
The Starfighters, only two things happen: guys talk a lot on telephones, and most of all, jet fighters
refueling in mid-air. Who would appeal to this movie is beyond me.
I don’t even think people in the U.S. Air Force would find this movie the least bit
interesting. Strangely, even though this movie is practically unriffable, Mike and the bots riff it so well that I believe I was watching a miracle.
Some of the funniest laugh out loud riffs ever can be heard in the
episode. Riffs so funny, that they rival the riffing in The Beast of Yucca
Flats, Santa Claus, and even The Final Sacrifice.
Unfortunately the riffing can’t save the whole movie. Amazingly, M&tBs are able to make the 35 hour scenes with jets
refueling moderately entertaining, and very, very funny. But there are two kinds of scenes as I said before: One where jets refuel, and one where two people are talking on either a radio or telephone.
That’s it, there’s your movie: people talking on telephones and jets
refueling in the air...oh and there are some scenes where the jets blow up white squares, which is by the way, the most entertaining part of the
entire movie. Oh and there is a scene that’s about "poopie suits", but they never figure into the story.
As I was saying, the scenes where jets are refueling and/or blowing up white squares has extremely funny and relentless riffs, some of the very, very, very best ever heard on the show.
The only problem is, this movie is so damn tedious (in fact as funny as it was, I had to take 5 minute breaks every now and then during the experiment), and the parts where people are talking on telephones are 100% unriffable, so there were a few long stretches of silence in this episode, but when the riffs come, they are excellent. The host segments, were quite good, and while I liked Tom Servo Song thing, my favorite was the
Mike’s Bold BBQ skit. As Don said in his review, the skit was out of place, but I found it
hilarious.
Frank: "It’s good, but is it bold?..."
Mike: "Hell yes, it’s bold!"
It’s just such a great redneck moment. Also I really enjoyed the skit where Crow was trying to log onto the internet, but just
couldn’t. The superb
riffing seen in this episode would be an automatic winner of Five Crows in any episode... except this one. The movie is more inept than
Manos: The Hands of Fate, more disturbing than Hobgoblins, has even less plot than
The Hellcats, more boring than Monster A Go-Go, more confusing than
Castle of Fu-Manchu and has less action than Fire Maidens From Outer
Space. What an awful, awful movie. But, due to outstanding riffing, this
episode gets great marks in my book.
Forrest’s Rating:
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