820 - SPACE MUTINY

Genre:  Low-Budget ’80s-era Cheesy Sci-Fi (1988, Color)

Synopsis:  Fleeing from the Cylon Tyranny... oh, sorry, wrong movie.   Instead, in this ultra-lame sci-fi flick that uses licensed special effects footage from Battlestar Galactica, a huge ship (battlestar?) called the Southern Star is carrying thousands of people to a new world to live (apparently the special effects aren’t the only thing this movie lifted from the Galactica TV show).  But there are some rebels who don’t want to go this new planet for some reason.  These rebel are lead by the lame MacPhearson (who also walks with a limp) and the evil Elijah Kalgan.  How do we know Kalgan is evil?  Because he has a hammy, maniacal laugh – that’s how.  The rebels first blow up a ship by hiding a bomb in the basement and the resulting explosion, seen through futuristic BattleZone graphics, disables the landing area of the Galactica... I mean, the Southern Star.  Meanwhile a bulked-up guy named Dave Ryder (who looks like Brian Bozworthless, although with less cheesy hair) and his new Hula-Hoop-boogying, hot-pants wearing girlfriend Lea, the daughter of the grandfatherly (or, more accurately, Santa-Claus-erly) commander of the Southern Star, are uncovering the bad rebels’ nefarious plans deep in the dank basement of the ship.  The Southern Star is then attacked by a couple of Cylon Base ships – I mean “Rebel” Base ships – but the attacking ships are destroyed fairly easily by launching only a couple of missiles at them (they sure don’t build Rebel Base ships like they used to).  There also is some sort of side plot with some Stevie Nicks wannabes called the Bellarians who do an interpretative Macarena dance in their dark room and then really do nothing else besides more interpretative dancing for the rest of the movie (...and yet they are somehow integral to the main plot – go figure).  Ryder and Lea finally lead an assault on the rebels in their basement stronghold, which means there are a lot of explosions and lots of guys falling over some walkway railing.  Ryder then must scream a lot and chase down Kalgan in a zamboni-machine chase scene which must have reached breakneck speeds of 4 or even 5 miles per hour.  So the rebellion is crushed and Kalgan is killed by Ryder (...but not really).

Don’s Review:  Ultra-cheeseball sci-fi film is given a much-deserved MST treatment in this experiment.  Although M&tBs riff it fairly well… I was shocked that they never once pointed out the absurd use of recycled special effects footage from Battleship Galactica!  Doing at least one “Fleeing from the Cylon Tyranny” riff was as natural as doing a “Little Buddy” riff whenever Alan Hale Jr. is in a movie!  So it really amazes me that the Galactica connection wasn’t even pointed out once – instead M&tBs made fun of the effects, which didn’t make much sense because Galactica actually had some pretty decent special effects.  The SOL host segments were all pretty humorous, particularly one in which the ’Bots crash the escape pods from the ship, and the Mad segments were fairly decent as Pearl & the Guys are prisoners in Ancient Rome and trying to escape.  So an overall decent and enjoyable episode but I can’t close without first saying this: “Fleeing from the Cylon Tyranny, the last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest...a shining planet known as EARTH!”  There, BBI, was that so hard?

Don’s Rating: 

Forrest’s Review:  Space Mutiny is an example of an MST3K episode that holds up well, because it just gets funnier and funnier on repeat viewings.  I had a double feature of Space Mutiny and Girls Town the night before I write this, and while Girls Town did hold up very well for me on a repeat viewing, Space Mutiny just gets better every time.  The movie is the main cause of this.  The movie is truly funny on its own.  It is cheesy, but more than cheesy, it’s just plain bad.  It’s one of the worse movies seen on the Sci-Fi years.  But for some reason, it’s easy to watch, something I find in common with most Sci-Fi episodes that feature movies from the 80’s.  Yes, they’re bad, but for some reason, most of them are easy to stomach on repeat viewings.  Which may have been the bigger problem I have with Season Six, because although it had riffing that was much more clever and just as funny as in the Sci-Fi years, the movies themselves were much more tedious to sit through in that season.
     Space Mutiny, on the other hand, never gets tedious, instead you just get frustrated with the movie.  The characters are all great for Mike and the bots riffing.  Kalgan, or whatever the hell his name is, always laughs a lot, so M&TB’s have plenty to riff on him.  Our main hero, I forget his name, and I’ve watched this episode at least six times, and yet, I still forget his name...anyway our main hero’s voice always cracks!  Like he’s still going through puberty. He’s this big muscle guy, and yet he screams like a girl.  And Lea, is supposed to be our young hero’s love interest, and as Mike and the bots point out, she looks like she’s 50 years old, so they got plenty to riff on her too. Plus there’s the captain of the space ship who looks an awful lot like Santa Claus, so plenty of riffs there, and not to mention his sidekick who looks vaguely like Billy Idol.  So Mike and the bots have more than enough to work with in this movie. And the riffs are great. While the riffing is built up on many very simple riffs, they make me laugh very hard, and, for me, that’s all that counts.
     As for the host segments, I do enjoy the MAD host segments in ancient Rome, but then again, they’re about as funny as the KTMA MAD host segments. As for the SOL segments, they are amusing, but not super funny. The one where Crow acts like one of those telepathic alien women from the movie was surprisingly pathetic, but the one where Crow and Tom Servo fight in their escape pods in outer space is quite funny. I really don’t like to base my reviews on host segments for the Sci-Fi era because, most of the time, they are just lacking the hilarity of earlier seasons, but they do have a charm on their own, so I don’t hate the Sci-Fi host segments, but the majority of the time, they simply don’t make me laugh very much.
     And as for the riffing, most of the time it’s very good in the Sci-Fi era, and Space Mutiny is no exception. I had me laughing from start to finish, and it just holds up so well on repeat viewings. So due to the A+ riffing, this episode gets A+ marks.

Forrest’s Rating: