B-Movie Science 101

Recently on Netflix I've been watching a lot of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" from the late 80s-late 90s.  If you aren't familiar with the program it was on Comedy Central in the 90s though I think it originated on a local Minnesota station, or something.  (I suck at research.)  The creator of show Joel Hodgson (later replaced by head writer Mike Nelson) watches terrible movies with two robot puppets named Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot.  During the movie they make all sorts of funny comments, like the ones you and some friends (if you have any) would make, though less dirty because even cable wasn't so R-rated back in those days.

On a side note, it sucks that Netflix doesn't organize these as a series like other TV shows.  I guess since they're being released on DVD in volumes of 4-5 episodes and not in sequential order either.  Probably because of licensing issues and stuff.  Makes it a pain in the ass because I have to go through and put them in my queue one at a time.

Anyhoo, a lot of the B-movies they show are crappy mad scientist movies or cheesy sci-fi movies.  I think on the old blog I talked about this in relation to comic books, but things were a lot freer back then when you didn't have so much hard science to get in the way.  Some examples:

• There's a race of people living on the moon plotting to take over Earth!  They have cities and tanks and stuff, which apparently no one can see using telescopes on Earth.  Also they have gravity.  (Commander Cody and The Radar Men From the Moon serials.)
• If you want to be young and live forever, just find a new, young bride and take some fluid from her neck and then inject it into you! (The Corpse Vanishes.)
• Or if you don't like needles, you can transplant your brain into someone else (or even a cat!) with surgery and a healthy dose of radiation! (The Atomic Brain)
• You can use a polygraph on giant mutant locusts!  Also, you can create giant mutant locusts (not to mention giant mutant tomatoes and strawberries) with radioactivity! (The Beginning of the End)
• You can get just about anywhere in the galaxy with a rocket.  (Manhunt in Space)
• Also, everyone in the universe will speak English!

As dumb as these things are, I like how much simpler it was back then to just make shit up.  Nowadays in the more modern Star Treks or "Stargate" or "Terra Nova" you have to float all this pseudoscience that sounds like you know what you're talking about.  Most of it is probably just bullshit, though.  But when you pair bullshit with better special effects and maybe better acting people don't care as much.  Or make it purdy in 3D, right James Cameron?

On another note, I find most of the movies on MST3K to be pretty fun to watch.  I really don't care if they're silly or dumb, because that makes them fun.  The ones that are intolerable are the ones that are just really, really BORING.  Like this one called "The Starfighters."  Without reading the description I thought it would be some Star Wars ripoff or something.  Nope.  It's mostly a lot of stock footage of F-104 Starfighters refueling in midair.  The crux of the "plot" is that some new pilot there has a father in the Senate who wants his boy to fly bombers like he did instead of fighters.  Ooh, take that "Top Gun!"

Another really boring one was called "Ring of Terror" but there was no terror to be found.  First it had this really stupid framing device where a cat is running loose in a graveyard and its owner (the graveyard caretaker or something) goes to find him and stops at this one tombstone.  Then he proceeds to tell us this boring story about how this "kid" in medical school goes to an autopsy and sees this ring on the corpse.  He's pledging at a fraternity and as a prank they make him break into a crypt and oh no it's the same guy with the same ring!  And that's it.  Really?  Also as Joel and the robots pointed out, all the "kids" in the medical school looked to be in their 40s.

So the lesson is it's OK to be dumb or silly.  Just don't be boring.