Mystery Science Theater 3000 #820:
Space Mutiny
This placid bunch is ruled by a bearded Cameron Mitchell and his elderly daughter in hot pants (the pants being the hot item in this case, and not what they envelop), and all seems well until the movie starts, when the security forces in this warehouse (spaceship!! Darn!) come to their senses and plan a mutiny to force Captain Santa to land anywhere.
The bad guys are foiled when the thickly-muscled Rider, a free-lance jock/pilot, bullies his way to the top in this goofy world, simply because he and no one else has any command or leadership qualities. There is fighting; there are guys falling over railings; there are some real skinny dancing girls (the kind you would in fact expect to find dancing in a warehouse space), and after we get to see Rider and The World's Oldest Daughter rolling on the concrete floor of this spaceship, the mutiny is put down.
Prologue: Crow and Servo are outraged that the ship's encyclopedia is so out-of-date; they engage in a bit of bot-ish hyperbole to make their point.
Segment One: Mike gets new encyclopedias, with on-line links and all, but the 'bots are mad cuz they like complaining. In Rome, Pearl and friends are locked in a dungeon. Brain Guy's brain has been taken from him, so he is somewhat addled, as shown by his lame attempts to bring Mike down to help.
Segment Two: Inspired by the film, Crow and Servo take the only two remaining escape pods on the SOL (of which Mike knew not a thing) and have a fine dogfight out in space before crashing them into the SOL. Man these guys are idiots sometimes!
Segment Three: Be-wigged be-robed Crow declares himself a "Bellarian" (the name for the skinny dancing women), but then is not so sure. In Rome, Bobo regurgitates several items, including a key to his chains; but in his excitement he forgets to do anything but get a banana to eat.
Segment Four: Servo installs safety railings all over the SOL. They're not that safe. They make people fall over a lot, in fact. It's just another example of Servo taking something to a ridiculous extreme.
Segment Five: Crow, having lifted, shows off his wee muscle to Mike, who manages to insult it; Servo is all bulked up and thick-voiced, and asks Mike for a spot. On the planet, Observer regains his brain and sets them all free, while using Mike as a distraction: the spluttering boob is rejected by Flavia just long enough to do a tiny bit of good. Bobo burns down Rome.
Stinger: Rider (aka Flank McBrickgroin) screams and leaps from his golf cart.
As has been the case with several of our movies over the years almost everyone in this world talks in what would seem to be an Australian accent, although we've found out since taping that the thing was made in South Africa, of all places, so this qualifies as the MST equivalent of caving in and playing Sun City. Oh well.
We got a lot of Internet comment on how we didn't joke about how this movie used the Battlestar Galactica ship for the exteriors, and I have to admit, in retrospect we didn't joke about that at all. To quote the jury foreman at the end of The Producers, of this charge we are in fact incredibly guilty. And little did we know at the time, that the same "star" would turn up in our very last MST movie, #1013, Danger Diabolique.
- Paul Chaplin
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This movie is also available on videotape without Mike & the bots
(first 10 minutes, part 1 of 10).
Previous episode #819Invasion Of The
Neptune Men
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