classicsoncall I'm a big fan of B grade sci-fi schlock like "This Island Earth" but have never actually seen that film yet, though it's been on my watch list for a while now. So imagine my surprise when this flick offers a two-fer, so to speak, with the Mystery Science Theater folks offering their hilarious send up of that movie. The only trouble is, I had a hard time focusing on the 'real' movie because of all the zany commentary offered by Mike Nelson and his robot cohorts, Servo (Kevin Murphy) and Crow (Trace Beaulieu). I can see how this might not appeal to a lot of movie watchers, but one of the things I enjoyed most about the spoof was the multitude of cultural references made regarding other celebrity figures and situations of the era, like Prince's bedroom, Salvador Dali, Baywatch, Ted Kennedy and the alien's resemblance to Leona Helmsley. The best was the Buddy Ebsen reference, I almost hit the floor with that one. The thing is, the movie is kind of hard to rate using IMDb's system because it's difficult to separate "This Island Earth" from the general mayhem afforded by Mike and his crew. If I were grading the original sci-fi classic itself, I'd probably go a '3' or a '4', while the added commentary makes it all the funnier, bringing my evaluation up to a '6'. So in the interest of averaging things out, I'll call it a '5' and leave it at that. With the understanding that I'll seek out "This Island Earth" to stand on it's own merits at some point down the road. I'll be ready to come up with my own one-liners by then.

gavin6942 Mike Nelson and his robot buddies are still trapped on the Satellite of Love, forced to watch bad movies for some sort of bizarre experiment to drive Nelson mad. This time, the film is "This Island Earth".This film is very funny, but there is really nothing I have to say about it. If you like the show, you will like the movie, because there is really no difference whatsoever. The budget is slightly greater, so the lobby jokes are nicer looking, but they are so minor that it hardly matters. The picture quality also seems slightly crisper. The bulk of the film has them in the theater, which would look the same no matter what.Sadly, the film does little more than make me miss the show. According to some unknown source, "The TV show's usual density of gags was reduced for theatrical audiences, so that a larger number of people laughing wouldn't cause too much dialogue to be missed." That makes sense, except when you are watching it sixteen years later on DVD. You do not need that much silence -- it then becomes almost like really watching "This Island Earth".Even more mysterious, the film comes in at a short 73 minutes, even shorter than the average episode of 90 minutes. So the movie is shorter than the TV show! And the disc has no special features (besides French language track), so the DVD is not that special -- you would be better off buying a DVD of them watching "Manos" or something, unless you really enjoyed this particular film.A good film, some funny gags, and a short run time for quick viewing... but really nothing worth making a movie about.

thesar-2 Growing up (and still watching the re-runs) of MST3k, I had to revisit the one I've only seen once – 'MST3k: The Movie' and I did see it in the theater. I remember then, (1996) thinking how great it was to see one of my favorites on the big screen, and then being disappointed to one of their weakest efforts. (Side note: they continued the downward lack of effort on the DVD – special features include closed captions and – wow – I can have it dubbed in French. That's it?) Sure, there were a few funny one-liners ("Well believe me, Mike, I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid... and I went ahead anyway" and "What's this 'and the rest' crap" referring to Russell 'Gilligan Island's Professor' Johnson) but overall, people need to watch any of the episodes, namely 'Manos: The Hands of Fate' and 'Eegah,' to really see the genius that was MST3k's approx 700 jokes per episode. This is a pretty good introduction to the man & robots vs B-movies series, but it gets a lot better on the smaller screen.(Never thought I would ever write that.)

RTheManF89 I have been a fan of MST3K for quite some time, since I was 9. I didn't even know there was a movie, but as of a couple years ago, I discoverd this. I like this movie. Okay, it's not as great as the show, but still it's pure genius. Mike Nelson's pretty funny, as is the 'bots and Dr. Forrester. There are some pretty funny jokes as well. The movie being watched is the 1955 classic, This Island Earth, which isn't actually a bad movie. It's just that Mike and the 'Bots make it funnier & easier to watch. Now onto the DVD. Just like the previous 1998 Image DVD, there's no extras, but whether there are extras or not, it's still worth the buy. However, I must admit that the widescreen presentation is good too. So if you can find this DVD, get it. Also, as for bonus features, I could probably assume that a special edition will come out eventually, but who knows? 9/10. Highly recommended.