Long out of print, Mystery Science Theater 3000 — The Movie is back, thanks to a DVD reissue by Universal. This is the film that the Best Brains gang made between the sixth and seventh seasons on Comedy Central, leaving a truncated seventh season in its wake. I’m not sure it was worth the trade off to get a 75-minute “movie” instead of another dozen or so two-hour TV episodes, but it is a kick seeing a bit higher production values for the Deep 13 and SOL segments, which don’t feature the departed TV’s Frank or Joel Hodgson but do feature Mike Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy and the usual suspects in fine form.
It is a bit odd seeing 1955’s This Island Earth mocked as an allegedly bad movie. In fact, it was fairly top-flight sci-fi for its day. But as Mike and company have shown in Rifftrax, a movie needn’t be bad for them to have fun making fun of it.
One quibble is that the disc has absolutely no extra features. For such a short production, a little bit would have helped, even if only Earth’s original trailer. But at least a cherished MST3K chestnut is back on the fire, where it certainly warms my heart.
Tags: Add new tag, DVD, Movie, MST3K, sci-fi
February 4, 2009 at 9:16 pm |
[...] a darkly amusing review — as I was wont to do — or to snarkily attack it with quips, as MST3K’s crew always liked to do. And now they’re still doing it via DVD, thanks to today’s launch of [...]