YMMV / Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie

• Awesome Moments: The deleted scene where Crow and Servo (the latter getting it together after being reduced to a sobbing mess when the meteor shower messed with his hash) save Mike from dying by restoring oxygen to the satellite. Needless to say, the crew was not happy about this scene being cut.
• Awesome Music: Both Dave Alvin's swaggering rockabilly version of the main theme, which was left out of formal releases for decades, and the even longer instrumental version over the credits (which has never received a separate release, period). Even Billy Barber's more formal, restrained score has a great cue with the "Movie Sign" theme — which, like the original credits theme, was meant to sound bombastic to the point to silliness, but actually works on its own.
• Better on DVD: The special edition released by Shout! Factory finally includes the deleted scenes, plus an interview with the Brains discussing the making of the film and their thoughts, and even a documentary on the film within the film!
• Cant Unhear It: Good luck watching This Island Earth afterwards without thinking of some riffs!
• Fan Myopia: The cult popularity of This Island Earth is Older Than They Think. It even made an appearance in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
• Gateway Series: The Movie has often been said by fans to be a good gateway to the actual show itself.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!:
  • Some sci-fi fans were upset when this classic of the genre was subjected to riffing...though they should keep in mind it's just a show, and really just relax.
  • Chris Cornell (no, not the lead singer of Soundgarden, the site owner of the main MST3K fan site, Satellite News) relates talking to Kevin Murphy about how This Island Earth was too good.
    Chris "Sampo" Cornell: I told Kevin, during a break on the set, about the people who were saying TIE was “too good to riff.” His response was very simple: He threw his head back and laughed uproariously. Then he began to tick off the fundamental flaws in the movie. First of all, he said, Cal, our hero, goes on a mind-bending journey across the universe — and yet he returns utterly unchanged in any way. Secondly, Cal is supposed to be the hero, but his most heroic act is to yell, “Run, Ruth, run!” at one point. Third, it’s fairly clear that both Rex Reason and Jeff Morrow thought THEY were the hero of the movie, and that jumbles everything up. Fourth, the chemistry between Faith Domergue and Rex Reason was tepid at best, and on and on. He hadn’t even gotten to all the criticisms before he was called back to the set.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • During a scene where Brack communicates via interocitor, Tom sings a fictional theme song that goes, "It's the Brack show, starring me — I'm Brack! It's the Brack show, and I've got lots of good guests..." Four years later, The Brak Show would come into existence (which was preceded by two specials, both entitled Brak Presents the Brak Show Starring Brak, the second of which was a variety show that — indeed — had guests).
  • One of the earliest jokes in the movie is a Take That! at the constantly losing Chicago Cubs. Now they’ll have to eat their words when the Cubs finally won a World Series in 2016.
  • One of the host segments is Mike wrecking the Hubble Telescope. In 2009, astronaut Mike Massimino had to rip a handle off of the Hubble when a screw refused to come off. So, yeah, another Mike broke the Hubble.
• Ho Yay: The crew make Joe have a serious crush on Cal.
• Memetic Mutation: Normal View... normal view... normal view... normal viiiiieew!
• Mis-blamed: Joe Dante complains on the This Island Earth documentary about the film being unfairly edited down by The Brains to make the film look more like a weak film, and not make sense to moviegoers. The problem with this complaint is it wasn't The Brains' decision to edit the film down! It was Gramercy's decision to cut the film down (plus remove a couple host segments), because focus groups complained about the movie being too long.
• Nightmare Fuel: From Dr. Forrester of all people. This movie shows why Mike and the Bots bow to his whims and watch his movies when he cuts off Mike's air supply and forces him and the bots to bow lest they suffocate to death, and it's unusually tense for the show's standards. When he later pulls an Auntie Em and orders Mike and the Bots to get back in the theater during the second host segment, there's a reason they haul ass back into the theater.
• Older Than They Think: This Island Earth was no stranger to being riffed on by the MST3K crew, as it had already been mocked during the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Conventio-Con Expo-Fest-A-Rama. That had the benefit of being explicitly written for the fans, though.^note Still, most of the riffs from the live version ended up in the movie
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While the basic premise of making fun of cheesy movies is the same, The Movie differed from the show it's based on in a number of ways that many in the fan base didn't care for (granted, most of this was due to Executive Meddling):
  • It's roughly 20 minutes shorter than an actual episode.
  • The host segments were weaker than an average episode of the show.
  • The riffs weren't as esoteric overall, removing one of the charms of the show. One example: A character was said to look like "Bootsy Collins", which was changed to "Leona Helmsley".
  • The iconic theme tune was not present, unless you count the remix during the end credits, which is talked over anyway.
  • No sidekick/foil for Dr. Forrester to play off of. Somewhat justified in that the movie was produced between seasons 6 and 7, after TV's Frank left but before Pearl moved in. Still disappointing.
• Woolseyism: The Brazilian dubbing, with three Large Ham dubbers letting it loose, has developed a cult following in the country. For instance, once a Metalunian appears, in the original Crow goes "Leona Helmsley!" The dubbing has him saying "It's Tina Turner!" and singing "We don't need another heeeeeroooo..."

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