Space Mutiny (also known as Mutiny in Space) is a 1988 legendarily bad science-fiction action film starring Reb Brown about, surprisingly enough, a mutiny aboard the spaceship known as the Southern Sun.The Southern Sun is a seedship, a spacefaring vessel full of colonists out to settle a new world. Its voyage has lasted generations, so many of its inhabitants have been born and will die without ever setting foot on solid ground. This does not please the antagonist, Elijah Kalgan (not be confused with Calgon), who conspires with the pirates infesting the nearby Corona Borealis system and the ship's Chief Engineer MacPhearson. Kalgan hatches a plot to disrupt the Southern Sun's navigation systems and use the Enforcers, the ship's police force, to hijack the ship and direct it towards this system. At this point, the inhabitants of the Southern Sun will have no choice but to accept his 'generosity.'Kalgan sabotages the vessel's guidance system just as an important professor's shuttle is on a landing trajectory, causing it to crash (offscreen). The ship's pilot, Dave Ryder, is able to escape, but the professor dies in the explosion. This sabotage seals off the flight deck for a number of weeks, allowing Kalgan and the Enforcers to hold the entire population of the Southern Sun hostage. Commander Jansen and Captain Devers enlist Ryder's assistance, aided begrudgingly by Jansen's daughter Dr. Lea Jansen, to regain control of the ship.Space Mutiny was lampooned in a November 1997 episode of movie-mocking television comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000, and has since been released as part of Vol. 4 of the DVD collections by Rhino Entertainment. The movie landed almost perfectly in that sweet spot for MSTing material: flawed enough to provide hours of enjoyable riffing, but not a completely unwatchable trainwreck, resulting in one of the most popular episodes. Mike and the 'bots had a great time pointing out some cast members' resemblance to certain celebrities, as well as the obvious fact that the actress playing Lea is much older than her character is meant to be (they refer to her as Jansen's "Grandma-daughter").The copious number ofRailing Kills nearly becomes a Drinking Game (and inspires Tom to fill the 'Satellite of Love' with pits and railings), and they also make up numerous fake bodybuilder names for the muscular hero Ryder, including, among others, Slab Bulkhead, Fridge Largemeat, Bolt van der Huge, Big McLargeHuge, Blast Hardcheese, Smoke Manmuscle, Punch Rockgroin, Roll Fizzlebeef, and Bob Johnson. Kalgan's frequent maniacal laughter is also a source of entertainment, as is the beefy protagonist's oddly girlish battle shouts. Kalgan's red-armored bodyguard ("Lobster Boy") and the death and miraculous "resurrection" of Lt. Lemont round out the riff targets.Oddly enough, the only thing Mike and the Bots don'tlampshade is the fact that every single "space" shot in the film is simply a clip from Battlestar Galactica—a fact they may not have known when they made the episode. It's also worth noting that Space Mutiny was filmed in South Africa during The Apartheid Era (a fact understandably not mentioned on the end credits - see also Prisoners of the Lost Universe, Golden Rendezvous, Hellgate etc), which some viewers think ties in to all the pseudo-fascistic goings-on (and explains the all-white cast, not that that was exactly unusual in Hollywood action movies of the time).
Back from the Dead: Due to poor editing, a woman who was murdered reappears (as an extra) in the very next scene.
Crow: Sir, I think it's very nice of you to give that dead woman another chance.
Mike: Okay, look alive everybo- oh, sorry Susan.
Better to Die than Be Killed: Steve Codell says he'd rather jump to his doom than join Kalgan (or be put on ice). He's just climbing over the railing when Kalgan gives him a push.
Mike: You know, a lot of people have compared this scene with the climactic chariot scene in Ben Hur. Yeah, you know they usually say, "Ben Hur was really good. This movie totally sucks."
Creator Backlash: The credited director, David Winters (whose other major contribution to the world of cinema was choreographing the dance routines in The Star Wars Holiday Special) actually only directed a small portion of it, after which he quit due to family troubles. He wanted his credit changed to Alan Smithee, but found out the hard way that the Director's Guild doesn't really care about the credits on low-budget exploitation films.
For an encore, Neal Sundstrom, the director who was actually responsible for the bulk of the film, wasn't very happy with the finished product either, and elected to have a "co-director" title which was buried in the end credits.
Curb-Stomp Battle: A Colony Ship that's old enough to have over a dozen generations of people on it can somehow take on three Space Pirate ships and win in a few seconds.
To be fair, the MST3K version cut out much of the battle, so in the original film was more like a few minutes.
It still wasn't really a battle, they just shot at the fighters until the main ships were in range then killed them all with one shot each. Fired at the same time. The footage is recycled from the Pegasus' glorious last stand in Battlestar Galactica, with all the return shots edited out.
Any time Ryder fights, he wins.
Dawson Casting: Lea (very obviously), Ryder (less obviously, making the former example all the more glaring).
Defrosting Ice Queen: At first, Lea hates Ryder, blaming him for the death of her friend the professor. Of course, she falls for him the very next scene.
Fridge Brilliance: If Cisse Cameron is to be believed, then it makes sense that this movie has every bad sci-fi cliche in the book. That was the point. Or so she claims.
Fridge Horror: At the end of the film, Kalgan, thought to be dead, suddenly opens his eyes, leaving the viewer with the horrifying implication that the filmmakers were actually planning a sequel to this piece of crap.
Get On With It Already: The ending, which has Mike and the Bots shouting "And his eyes open!" over and over until Kalgan's eyes actually do open, proving them right and inspiring Tom's line "I'm sitting in something wet"
I Meant to Do That: The filmmakers now claim that Space Mutiny is supposed to be a spoof. You buy that?
The people with the distribution rights to the film don't. The packaging for the un-MSTed version of the film clearly states, "It's Hilarious... But Not On Purpose".
Then there's the whole Creator Backlash thing (see above). They meant it to be bad, but still didn't want the blame?
Informed Ability: Please believe us when we say the "doctor" thing mentioned above never comes up again. Ever.
Join or Die: Variant. Kalgan offers a technician who discovers his evil plot to either join or be cyrogenically frozen. The Techinican made the third choice of dying. Kalgan obliged.
Large Ham: Not only our hero Ryder, but Kalgan and his right-hand flunky MacPherson.
Kalgan: I'm surrounded by incompetence! I'm being undermined by my own disciples!
Neutral Female: Lea's attempts to help out in a firefight are marginally effective at best. At worst, she does more damage to Ryder than to Kalgan, because she shoots Ryder's go-kart.
Mainly because the spaceship's sets were mostly a real-world factory.
The Omniscient Coven of Vagueness: Oh yes — a group of gauze-clad Space Witches called Bellerians show up early in the film, and proceed to do nothing for the rest of the film except exposit Fauxlosophically about the plot and dance in gauze.
Note that they have exactly no impact on the plot. It's fairly obvious the part was added after everything else was shot, since except for the one brief scene with Santa no-one they interact with ever shows up in the main story even as mooks.
Parody Retcon: Assuming you don't take Mrs. Cameron's insistence that this was a Stealth Parody at face value, of course.
People Jars: Kalgan tends to freeze prisoners (or failure subordinates) in cryogenic suspension rather than kill them outright. This is actually a fairly canny move, as once he's taken over the ship he can thaw them out so they can still be useful to him. Unfortunately the movie didn't have a budget for a cryogenics lab so they just hung four or five guys wrapped in plastic up on a coat rack.
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Not the actual pirates in the movie, who at least try to do something, but this trope does apply to Captain Devers.
Punch Clock Villain: The Mortuary Keeper is just there running the facility where failed Mooks are frozen until necessary. He may work for the villain, but when the heroes arrive he asks if they need help or would like a cup of tea. He also answers all their questions about the Big Bad's Evil Plan. He doesn't really seem evil at all.
You could arguably count Lobster Boy and the Enforcers as a whole, though they're at the very least openly mean-spirited.
Railing Kill: The Trope Namer, seeing as they appear in abundance. Hell, it even appears in the poster above.
Romance on the Set: The awkward romance between Dave and Lea is a major contrast to real life - Reb Brown (Dave) and Cisse Cameron (Lea) fell in love during the Ted Knight Show back in 1979, and are still married today.
Sexy Discretion Shot: After the final make-out session, the camera cuts to a shot of the whatever's engines flaring as it boosts upwards across the screen.
Mike(as guard): You know, the last eight times this happened the woman just wanted to get away...
Slasher Smile: For no readily apparent reason, Lea sports one of these while accidentally firing on Ryder's Enforcer kart... thus making her shooting at Ryder not appear accidental at all.
Mike: Does this really require the "Dun dun dun DUN dun" music?
Tom: Music that means means means nothing at all all all.
Space Clothes: An unfortunate double standard seems to be set: women often wear Space Leotards (though some do get to wear actual uniforms), the men mostly...don't. The captain wears a silvery muumuu.
Stealth Parody: Again, taking Cisse Cameron's word for it, this film was still perhaps too good at emulating the films it was trying to spoof.
If this is actually true, if this movie actually was intended to be a parody from the beginning, the simple fact that nobody buys that it was intentionally this bad is a testament to what an incredible job they did. This is a perfect storm of terrible, the entire cast is fascinatingly inept, mugging and stumbling and chewing the scenery over dialogue so awkwardly bad and yet so eminently quotable while the jaw-droppingly ridiculous special effects fight for screentime with laughable costuming and hilarious action scenes and impossible-to-ignore gaffs like a murder victim popping up as an extra in the foreground of the very next scene. Everything about this movie is at the exact perfect pitch of So Bad, It's Good, to the point where it becomes So Bad Its Brilliant. In essence, if this actually is a Stealth Parody, the makers of this movie are unsung and forgotten geniuses of film, worthy of mention in the same sentence as the likes of Mel Brooks in his prime.
More of a parody of movie making itself than the sci-fi genre, though.
Macphearson: It seems, gentlemen, that we are not all in agreement.
Mike: I disagree!
Too Dumb to Live - Engineer Parsons. At first the faction of mutinous engineers led by MacPhearson aren't actually that bothered by Parsons' refusal to join in the mutiny... until he says these words which, unsurprisingly, proved to be his last:
"This is mutiny! This is treason! Which I warn you I must report!"
Also the engineers that MacPhearson kills in the big fight near the film's climax. Their response to a man shooting wildly in their direction is apparently to ignore him and hope he'll go away.
Lea makes a wall-banger of a decision to go nip out from the bridge, after she and Big McLargeHuge have discussed the fact that the mutiny is ongoing. This allows Lea to grab the Distress Ball and be held hostage for...about 10 minutes.
With the exception of Bob Johnson, most of these names follow a very strict formula.
I Uh You Too: One host segment has Crow and Servo engage in a dogfight outside the ship, which they decide to end with a mutual high speed suicide landing:
Crow: Enjoy a nice serving of brown betty with... death... but mostly eat death!
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We get to see a brief shot of Crow and Servo in their ships at the beginning of the dogfight and another as they're about to crash land, but none of the bombastic fighting overheard for the bulk of the segment.
Mike: "The death of Rick Springfield" Tom: "Just I Wish I had Jesse's giiiiiiirl!"
Soft Water: Subtly done. In a parody of how many railing kills are in this movie, Servo installs railings all over the ship. The sketch ends with Mike tripping over one and falling into a pit. He lets out a good scream on the way down, before we hear him hit water at the end of the fall. He's presumably unharmed.
Stealth Pun: A person listed in the opening credits is named "Vincent G. Cox".
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