Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie Blu-ray Movie Review

Bigger isn't necessarily better.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 6, 2013

Who needs critics when we have Mystery Science Theater 3000? Wait—maybe that wasn’t such a good opening sentence from a career perspective. Nevertheless, the lovable misfits who make up the MST3K universe and who snarkily rip apart seemingly every horrible movie ever made are in fact projections of most of our Ids, that primal side of our personalities that wants to scream out at the screen, “Hey! You suck!” MST3K is one of those true American stories, from any number of perspectives. This show started as a beyond low budget affair on Minneapolis station KTMA, premiering on Thanksgiving Day in 1988 and giving tryptophan overdosed folks a welcome alternative to football and Black Friday ads. From this small chestnut, a rather mighty oak grew, first in the Twin Cities region and then ultimately on both Comedy Central and what was then known as Sci-Fi. But there’s another American element to MST3K, namely the central premise of a bunch of wisecracking folks (human and robot) sitting in a theater and rudely talking back to the inane goings on. With MS3TK a cult staple by the mid-90s, it might seem to be an odd decision to try to port the franchise over into multiplexes itself, almost begging for a “meta” treatment where Mike, Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy watched themselves watching a hideously bad film from yesteryear, but instead the creative crew played it more or less straight (at least as straight as MST3K had ever been), simply lifting the series pretty much whole cloth and plopping it down in feature film form. What’s a bit strange about the feature film outing is that it actually runs shorter than most episodes and rather dramatically edits the film being lampooned, This Island Earth.

There’s a third way that Mystery Science Theater 3000 and specifically Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie is an archetypal American story. Like many a showbiz saga, MST3K started small, grew to rather unexpectedly huge proportions, and then was given carte blanche to make a film. Within mere moments, however, studio bigwigs who supposedly “knew better” got involved, sapping much of the insouciance of the original franchise out of the big screen adaptation. It’s the age old Hollywood sob story, only told this time by a marooned spaceman named Mike (Michael J. Nelson) and his robotic sidekicks in front of a megaplex screen where they're forced to watch cheesy old movies at the behest of Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu). According to the documentary included on this Blu- ray as a supplementary feature, it was also the “wise” studio graybeards who dictated that This Island Earth be “cut down to size”, certainly one of the more boneheaded decisions that at least slightly hobbles this enterprise (no pun intended, especially considering the William Shatner references Mike and the boys engage in).

The result here is a curiously bland outing at times which occasionally bursts into moments of relative hilarity. While the breakaway moments are manic and agreeable enough, they rarely rise to the all out insane levels that lovers of the television series may wish they had. The commentary during This Island Earth does have a few classic zingers (my own personal favorite, as relatively minor as it may seem, is “If it’s Universal, doesn’t that automatically make it International?”), but again there’s a definite feeling that meddling hands kept this outing from ever approaching the lunatic heights that many of the standalone episodes did.

One of the things that actually may work the most against MST3K The Movie’s ultimate success was its decision to utilize the relatively (emphasis on relatively) highbrow This Island Earth. This was actually one of Universal’s—er, Universal-International’s—biggest films of the mid-fifties, one that had then state of the art special effects and a reasonably intelligent script. It was also one of the last features shot in three strip Technicolor (though evidently some if not all of the special effect sequences were done in the Eastmancolor process). In other words, this was not the typical MST3K fodder of low rent, rudderless cinema with bargain basement scripts and acting prowess. Yes, This Island Earth is inarguably goofy and its aliens are laughable, but there just doesn’t seem to be quite enough raw material here for Mike and his cohorts to sink their comedic teeth into.

This is probably a case where the powers that be would have done much better to have simply left the little guys alone, letting them proceed down their snarky little path in the ways in which they had become accustomed over the years of the television show. While there's nothing shameful or atrocious about Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie, there is the lingering feeling that it could have been a lot better with a little (a lot?) less executive influence.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. There are of course "two" movies here, the framing elements with Mike and the boys, and the This Island Earth sequences which actually make up the bulk of the film. This Island Earth is obviously sourced from an older print with faded, brownish color and quite a bit of dirt and scratches, but after all, that's part of the point of MST3K. The interstitials are actually quite spry looking by comparison, with nicely garish colors (the greens are especially lurid) and a nicely sharp and well defined image. As crazy as this sounds, I have a sneaking suspicion that some moderate DNR may have been applied here (and after all, this is in a way a Universal catalog release), for grain is rather minimal in the framing sequences. This isn't the deal killer it might have been with more serious fare, however, and the image remains very watchable if slightly skewed towards a video appearance. (I have to say the thought of a Universal technician utilizing DNR on this film to "improve" it actually strikes me as at least as funny as anything in the film itself.)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is rather unexpectedly impressive in fits and starts. The opening riff on 2001: A Space Odyssey contains some nice panning effects as the spaceship drifts in from the left, along with some rather boisterous low frequency rumbling. Several of the framing scenes offer great sound effects and even the running commentary during This Island Earth features above average separation. Fidelity is excellent and, again defying expectations, dynamic range is quite wide.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie (1080p; 5:17) is a brief but entertaining EPK with a few interviews and scenes from the film.


• Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie: The Motion Picture Odyssey (1080p; 33:07) is a new and much longer piece which delves into this franchise's storied (?) past as well as the film. There are the requisite interviews, which are great, but some of the most interesting content is brief little snippets of behind the scenes footage showing various scenes from the film being shot, as well as some of the "secret" information about puppet manipulation.


• This Island Earth: 2 1/2 Years in the Making (1080p; 36:45) is another new piece which focuses on the film within the film. There's some well done history of both Joseph Newman and the film itself in this consistently interesting featurette.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 23:10) contains a warning that these have been sourced from the "best available" master, which looks to be an old videotape master.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:40)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie has a decent amount of laughs, but lovers of the best episodes of the television version are most likely going to be asking (in the immortal words of Miss Peggy Lee), "Is that all there is?" The supplementary features here tell the sordid tale of overactive studio involvement, which in this case may have been this film's death knell, or at least a crippling factor from which it couldn't adequately recover. Speaking of supplementary features, the two new documentaries on this Blu-ray are probably worth the price of admission even if you're not an especial fan of MST3K The Movie. The one about the film itself is an object lesson in a mismanaged franchise, and the one about This Island Earth is a nice little testament to mid-fifties sci-fi. This Blu-ray also offers very good video and excellent audio.