TITLE & REVIEW
This starts with the orchestral theme to
Battlestar Galactica
, and a parody of the expository screen crawl from
Star Wars
. Yes, it sets the comedic tone at the very start.
The story starts at a US airport, where everything is done for laughs. This is the site where the new space shuttle is about to launch, taking passengers to the moon. Elaine ( Julie Hagerty ) is on the flight crew, under the Captain (Peter Graves - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century ) and co-pilot (Kent McCord - Galactica 1980 ).
Ted, hero of the original Airplane movie, was the original test-pilot of the new shuttle. He discovered that the contractors had cut costs and used sub-standard wiring. As a reward, he was framed and locked in a mental asylum. Now he breaks out and gets aboard the shuttle as a passenger, in the hope of saving it when something eventually goes wrong.
The computer guidance system sends the shuttle towards the sun, and deploys its lethal counter-measures against anyone who tries to shut it down. Also, there is a suicidal passenger (Sonny Bono - ) who has brought a bomb on board.
The ground controllers desperately try to give advice. McCroskey (Lloyd Bridges - Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea ) has a great team, including Richard Jaeckel ( ) and Frank Ashmore ( V: The Series ).
Ted redirects the shuttle to the moon. Commander Murdock (William Shatner - Star Trek: The Motion Picture ) is in charge of the Moonbase, with Sandahl Bergman as the female officer who assists him. Shatner's standout performance makes him this movie's Leslie Nielsen.
Milton (Ben Kingsley -
Our Robot Overlords
) is a borderline-senile old man who lives in smalltown USA.
He spends his days complaining to the local town council
about typical small-town matters.
One day a UFO crashes in his back yard.
Unfortunately nobody believes him,
so he is left to deal with the situation himself.
A little grey man emerges from the spaceship, and tries to repair it. The neighbour, Joyce ( Jane Curtin ), gets involved too.
This is a touching story of elderly people and the troubles they face. Perhaps the closest comparison would be Robot and Frank , which had a robot companion instead of an alien.
The best-known of this subgenre,
Spaceballs
, famously parodied
Star Wars
. This particular Sci-Fi extravaganza parodies
Flash Gordon (1980)
, and does quite a good job of it.
So why did this fall down the memory hole?
It came out the same year as
Terminator 2
, which itself blew away its closest competition -
The Rocketeer
. Small wonder that this comedy effort was easily eclipsed.
The movie starts with King Raff (Eric Idle - Life of Brian ) narrating exposition over a hand-drawn interstellar star-chart, perhaps a reference to Time Bandits . We learn that the Evil Overlord, Todd Spengo (Jon Lovitz - ), has usurped the alien planet's throne and now plans to destroy the Earth with his Death Ray. However, he becomes obsessed with an Earth woman so he first has to abduct and marry her before he can destroy her world.
The object of his obsession, Marge Nelson ( Teri Garr ), goes on a road trip with her husband Dick (Jeffrey Jones - Howard the Duck ). Spengo abducts them, and flies them off to his planet. Marge is prepared for marriage, while Dick is left to be tortured by Sibor (Wallace Shawn - The Princess Bride ).
Dick escapes, and makes contact with the Hawk People. They are not ruled by Brian Blessed, but at least Semage ( Kathy Ireland ) is around. Thanks to Dick, they are inspired to rise up in rebellion. After all, he is the smartest person they have met. The planet's population are idiots, like in Idiocracy , so an average American male can really shine there. And he cannot be lambasted as a White Saviour when the majority of the cast are also white.
In the year 2049, a billionaire (Zach Braff -
Oz the Great and Powerful
) has established a human colony on Mars.
The protagonist (Cole Sprouse - Lisa Frankenstein ) is in a long-distance with his girlfriend on Mars. When he misses his chance to get on the next flight, he instead stows away instead so he can join her.
A space podule crash-lands in England.
The occupants are three aliens from the planet Blob - Desmond (Jimmy Nail -
), Sandra (
Joanne Pearce
) and Julian (Paul Brown -
). They are the title characters.
Like Kaleds in
Dr Who and the Daleks
, they may have had a parallel evolution.
However, that does not explain how they all speak English.
The American government sends in a CIA officer (James B. Sikking - ), who turns out to be a mother-fixated psychopath. Rather than risk an alien invasion, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers , he tries to kill the Blob people. Luckily they are saved by Graham Sweetley (Griff Rhys Jones - ), a journalist who becomes the aliens' manager. Since this is the Thatcher era, the aliens get lots of commercial endorsements and become pop stars.
The fourth alien, Bernard (Mel Smith - ), has been left lost in space. He decides to hitch a lift, like in Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy . This leads to some gender confusion with a non-human alien, mildly reminiscent of a scene in Farscape that is now regarded as transphobic because it challenges traditional gender roles.
This is a little-known film that has fallen down the memory hole. Smith and Jones, best known for their long-running TV show, went on to make more comedy movies such as Wilt. Based on a best-selling book, it was better received by both critics and audience ... and more importantly, it was funnier.
A bickering couple of hipsters go to stay at a
Cabin in the Woods
. Unfortunately, while they are out of contact with the outside world
a strange alien invasion occurs.
Yes, this is a strange invasion by strange aliens.
The aliens are inhuman creatures that look like fluffy soccer-balls, and kill with their elasticated whip-like tongues.
Mel Brooks delivers a parody of Star Wars . Unfortunately, as Barry NOrman pointed out, he did it five years too late.
As the title suggests,
this is set on a Space Station where everyone dresses as if they were in 1976.
It is a soap opera with a light-hearted approach.
Captain Patrick Wilson ( Watchmen ) is estranged from his boyfriend Matthew Morrison (Glee).
The other crew members include:
