MST3K: 110 - Robot Holocaust

Joel Robinson is trapped in space and forced to watch bad movies by a pair of mad scientists.  His only companions are the robots he made from some of the spare parts.  A cult classic of the 90's, this is Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Original air date: January 23, 1990

Nobody expects the Robot Holocaust!

This episode begins with Joel stating the premise of the show.  He then goes into The Hu-Man blues, with Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot on harmonica.  Joel can't really dance.  Or sing.

The Mads are not impressed with Joel's invention, the "nitro-burning funny pipe", a combination of a monster truck and tobacco pipe, because apparently Joel thinks it's a great injustice that you can't smoke in a stadium.  Yeah, um, OK.  The Mads show off their invention, the Stocking Mask of the Future, with articulated eyebrows.  This one is a little funny, but not much.

This week's experiment starts with another Radar Men from the Moon short:  "Chapter Nine:  Battle in the Stratosphere".  Instead of going through the whole credits, Joel and the Bots enter during the episode title card.    Cody and Ted escape from the moon men that were chasing them.  They take the Lumarium they stole and put it on their ship.  The group of them begin to take off and then...the film breaks.

You can tell Larry did it.

OK, that's weird.  We don't see that again in the series.  Apparently Robot Holocaust is too short for a full episode, but long enough that they can't watch all of a Commando Cody short, so Best Brains decides the best way to deal with it is to just cut it short.  Strange.  Joel walks back to Cambot to check what's going on.  Hey, look!  Joel's wearing glasses!

That is the last we will see of Radar Men from the Moon.  The Mads never subject Joel to the rest of the serial.

After the commercial, Joel has the film fixed and it's set for the start of the movie.  Robot Holocaust is a 1986 sci-fi movie set on New Terra, a planet controlled by evil robots.  It is the first color movie shown in the nationally televised series.  The film was released in theaters in Italy, but was a direct-to-video release in the United States.  This is the edited for television version, since the original contains nudity.  As you read the plot, you might notice it seems a little familiar.

The inhabitants of New Terra have been decimated by a robot uprising.  Those that remain live around the outskirts of the one surviving city on the planet or as slaves to the robots.  Neo (Norris Culf), a drifter and outcast, enters the ruins of a building to investigate what appears to be some kind of fight.  Through narration, we learn that the surviving humans are split into two groups -- the Air Slaves, slaves of their robot overlords, and outsiders who live in the wastelands and are resistant to the poisonous air.  As Neo watches, the fight continues.  A pickpocketing robot,  Klyton (J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner), works his way through the crowd.

Neo catches Klyton, shuts it off, and communicates with it telepathically (...err?).  The robot is used to tell the basic premise -- the Air Slaves work in a factory to feed power to the Dark One, who is the evil overlord of New Terra.  The Dark One keeps the Air Slaves in check by having the strong ones fight to the death.  The winner is taken to see the Dark One as a reward, and is quietly killed.  So, yeah: post-apocalyptic future, humans used to give energy to robots, a protagonist named Neo; boy, this sounds familiar.

The movie cuts to The Dark One's right hand woman, Valaria (Angelika Jager).  Valaria is upset, and the Dark One (which is just a disembodied voice) wants to know why.  Valaria explains "something is wrong".

I have to take a second to talk about this actress.  Angelika Jager never appears in another film, and why is obvious.  Her acting is atrocious.  She makes no sense.  She does not convey any kind of emotion at all throughout this movie.  This is the worst acting we have seen so far in this show.

But I digress.  Back at the fight, we learn that it is at a stalemate,  "No winner, no winner!" shouts the onlookers.  Torque, the crawdad robot controlling the fight, orders one of the fighters to kill the other.  This upsets Deeja (Nadine Hartstein) and her father Jorn (Michael Downend).  Apparently they didn't know these were fights to the death.  Maybe they should have tried to telepathically communicate with Klyton, too.

The crowd continues to protest and Deeja pulls a knife.  Apparently Deeja isn't aware that robots are made of metal.  Torque prepares to blast Deeja's head off, but Valaria uses a control panel to remove the air from the room.  Everyone begins to choke except for Jorn and Deeja, but Jorn tells her daughter to fake it.  Torque is confused and demands Jorn to identify himself.  He refuses, unless the air can be restored, and the easily manipulated robot gives in.  Torque kills both of the gladiators, and Jorn orders Deeja to hide among the masses to protect herself.

The first (rather lackluster) host segment has Servo and Crow dressed as humans from the movie.  Joel enters and is told that he is in the "We Zone", where everything that is done is to entertain Crow and Servo.  They demand Joel do his disappearing coin trick, and he complies (poorly).  Joel makes faces and does a fake handstand, and then goes down to the galley for some lunch.

Jorn refuses to say anything of value, and is taken to the power plant by Torque.  Deeja tries to follow, but is stopped by Neo and his new best buddy, Jar-Jar Binks Klyton.  Deeja shows everyone that she is wearing a device which helps her breathe...I guess.  Neo tells her that she was sent here by the "Rebel Society" (Ro Epsilon Beta!) from the Wastelands.  (The boys of R.E.B are forming an army to destroy the Dark One.  Bobby thought of it while watching The Wall last night.  He was so high!)  Neo informs Deeja that he is on the way to the power plant to meet someone, so they can destroy the Dark One and regain control of New Terra.

New Terra is obviously Earth, because all of a sudden we are greeted with Central Park, complete with the Chrysler Building in background.  As our plucky band of misfits walk casually through Central Park, they are confronted by a group of savage women (hey there, baby).  Nyla, the leader, confronts the group, calling the place the "She Zone" (now host segment one makes sense).  Nyla explains that her tribe are warrior women that capture men, cut out their tongues, use them for reproduction, and then have them killed.  And hey, look, there's a visual aid over in the trees:  Kai (Andrew Howarth), their last mate.  Kai looks slightly like 1980's ega Ted Nugent, and Joel and the Bots start calling him The Nuge.

One of the Air Slaves draws his sword to attack.  Neo suggests a fair fight, and so a traditional Amazonian knife fight ensues between Nyla and one of the Air Slaves.  The Air Slave easily out grapples Nyla, but Neo stops the fight before the death blow.  Nyla becomes the property of the Neo based on the rules of her tribe, which seems rather odd since they hate men so much.  Nyla promises to help ghdm go to the power station, but then swears to kill them when her debt is paid.  Neo also convinces her to let Kai, the boy toy, come along.

Speaking of toys, Valaria sneaks down into the basement of the power station for a quick session in the Pleasure Machine, which is basically an Orgasmatron.  We cut to commercial, because this is basic cable.  When we return, the naughty bits (with bare breasts and dancing) have been cut, and Valaria is being scolded by the Dark One for using the Pleasure Machine without permission -- it's supposed to be a reward.  Jorn is brought to Valaria to be interrogated, which appears to involve asking him some questions in a bad accent.  Jorn is taken to "The Crystal" where he is shown that the Dark One is able to see what Neo and his band of misfits are up to.  There is no explanation how this is accomplished, and we don't see evidence of this monitoring ourselves, but we are assured by everyone on the screen that the Dark One know about Neo and Deeja.

Neo somehow is able to sense they are being watched, and so he takes his warrior, cleric, mage, and paladin into the Kobold tunnels... I mean into the caverns.  In the tunnels, Nyla warns them of the sewage worms -- pink sock puppets that make you laugh yourself to death.  Neo's team-o-rebels carve their way through the deadly worms, but not without taking wounds.  They make it to the other side of the caverns only to be attacked by a group of mutants,  One of the Air Slaves dies, but the others are able to escape after the lamest battle scene that was ever shot on film.

In the second host segment, Servo and Crow are pretending they are in a sitcom.  Unfortunately, Cambot's sitcom simulator goes haywire and starts adding a laugh track for just about every thing that happens.  It's like I'm watching an episode of Two and a Half Men.  The horror!

As the movie continues, the Scooby Gang reach the power station.  Valaria continues to question Jorn and reveals the Dark One to him.  Up to this point, I assumed the Dark One was a computer, but apparent he's a monster or something.  Of course, the audience doesn't get to see, we only hear labored breathing.  So... Darth Vader?

Jason and his Argonauts find an entrance to the subway, which somehow takes them to some kind of basement that will lead them to the power station.  At this point we are only halfway through the movie.  Seriously?  Ugh.  C3P0 Klyton informs the group that that are in the Vault of Beasts, and that there are traps for intruders.  Meanwhile, some of the Air Slaves decide it's a good idea to start a revolt.  How convenient.  They decide to bring sand instead of fuel to the furnaces that power the plant.

The gang try to make their way through the Vault of Beasts.  A trap door opens, dropping an Air Slave about 4 feet.  They encounter spider webs and are attacked by the leg of a giant spider.  We never see the spider, just one leg.  The rag-tag group of misfits continue to explore the same basement set over...and over... and over while Valaria ineffectively questions Jorn.  Finally, the Dark One decides that Jorn should become "one with him" (ewwww).

he troop moves on to the Chamber of Dispair.  One of the slaves is killed (ala John Hurt in Alien) by a surveillance drone, Klyton short circuits an electrified gate, and Kai defuses a bomb.   Klyton uses some explosives he happened to have with him to get them through the Iron Wall, and our Band of Brothers is finally in the power station.  Valaria discovers that the Dark One's power supply is low (due to the lack of fuel), and the Dark One gets unhappy and threatens Valaria.  She promises to bring Deeja to the Dark One.

The third host segment has Crow, Servo, and Joel playing "Robot Holocaust".  Crow and Joel decide they don't want to play along when Servo does the narration and makes himself to be the hero.  Crow also has a problem with wearing real fur.

As the movie slowly starts coming to some kind of resolution, Torque and two guardbots incompetently attack Luke and the Rebel Alliance.  Valaria appears, kidnaps Deeja, and takes her to the Dark One.  The Dark One is pleases, but decides to kill Valaria anyway.  A machine explodes in her face and Valaria, now revealed to be a robot, turns on the Dark One.  She throws a switch that will do...something... to destroy the power station in five minutes. Kai is killed. The Dark One questions Deeja while Joel oggles her.  The Dark One wants to know how she and her father are able to breathe the poison air.

In the script, his last name is Hass.

Nyla sacrifices herself to save Neo.  Unfortunately, while she does so, she accidentally flips the switch that Valaria had previously turned on.  That's got to be the lamest way to extend a movie plot ever.  Valaria changes her mind again and returns to help the Dark One.  She suggests that they show what has happened to Deeja's father.  It is revealed that Jorn has been "engulfed by the dark one".  We can see his head sticking out of some fleshy egg like sack; it's not exactly clear what gives here.

Torque attacks Neo again.  Neo thinks it's a bright idea to try to use a sword, or worse, his hands, to defeat a robot.  After failing to dispose of the monster, our hero decides to make a run for it.  Valaria some how comes to the determination that now that Jorn has been absorbed by the Dark One and has given the Dark One all his knowledge (why did they need Deeja then?), the Air Slaves could all be eliminated.  Why is never explained.

Klyton kills Valaria with his ray gun (why wasn't this used more often?).  Neo kills Torque with a sword (um..what?).  Jorn begs Deeja to kill him, but she refuses.  Neo, not at all adverse to killing the father of a hot chick, uses Klyton's laser to kill both the Dark One and Jorn.  Klyton restores the atmosphere, saving the Air Slaves.  So ends the sad tale of Avocado Boy.

Joel and the Bots ask viewers to write in with ideas for giving Jord a new name.  The winners are read during Women of the Prehistoric Planet.  They read a letter from a father and his son.

I'm a little torn about this episode.  The riffs were great, especially when they harass Valaria for her horrible diction.  However, the movie was very tedious.  It was laughable, but there were some sections were I found my mind wandering.  The riffs do save the movie, and in the end I do think it's one of the better episodes of the first season.

Favorite Riffs:   "Actually, it's more telepatheticly", "And over here we did 'Shakespeare in the Slagheap', it was very nice.", "Look, it's the Bengals!", "Where is the room of questions?", "This whole movie is just socks and violence.", "If you were a twee, what kind of twee would you be?", "How did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get in this film?", "That, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the liberators of Earth.", "You know, I kind of miss Earth, you guys.", "Hey, get me:  I'm a appetizer.  I'm giving out spores!"

This episode is available on Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, and the Digital Archive Project.