1107-The Land That Time Forgot

Film Year:  1975
Genre:  Adventure
Director:  Kevin Connor
Starring:  Doug McClure, John McEnery, Susan Penhaligon, Keith Barron
MST Season:  11

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Doug McClure survives being torpedoed by a German World War I sub, and he and fellow survivors succeed in taking the sub over.  They surface near an island inhabited by dinosaurs and primitive Neanderthals, struggle to survive, and must learn to work with their enemy.

Based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot offers some delightful fakey dinosaur thrills for those of us who like our giant thunderlizards to be puppets and nothing but rubber.  Land That Time Forgot compensates its somewhat lackluster special effects by having a mildly interesting character dilemma at its core, even though it loses track of what it’s about halfway through.  This might be that rare breed of creature feature that can be more interesting when the toothy monsters aren’t on screen providing cheap thrills.  And yet, perhaps if there weren’t dinosaurs in this movie there would be nowhere to go?

For the most part I like this movie quite a bit.  While some of the dino action can be crudely hilarious some of the scenarios are interesting and there’s some good model work for the submarines.  And as hokey as some of the special effects can get, the action is fairly exciting at times.  However the biggest weakness is that the film feels dated.  After all, the original King Kong had a similar plot structure and was made forty years prior, and this movie isn’t nearly as lively.

The film actually spawned a sequel, The People That Time Forgot, also based on a Burroughs novel (perhaps it is being saved for season 12)?  There is also a third novel titled Out of Time’s Abyss, which did not receive a film adaptation.  However Asylum remade Land in 2009 (perhaps for season 13?).

The Episode

One of the great things about MSTidom is that each episode is a truly unique experience and we might at times give episodes a second chance to see if maybe it might gel this time and/or wonder if we just weren’t in the mood earlier.  This is especially something I wonder with the (admittedly bingewatched the first time around) eleventh season as there are several that I hoped might air out from the rest of the pack over time and improve.  The Land That Time Forgot is one I wasn’t impressed with upon it’s initial release.  But in retrospect it was in the middle of the season and was pretty out of breath from laughing at above par episodes like Cry Wilderness, Avalanche, and Starcrash (and the final theater segment of Beast from Hollow Mountain too).  A lower key episode probably wasn’t going to play with me at this point in time.  I’ve been eager to give this episode a second chance broken out of context of the season and am pretty glad I did.  Pretty much off the bat the riff “The world’s worst paperboy.” gave me one of the biggest belly laughs I’ve had in awhile.

And yet, maybe while my initial assessment of Land That Time Forgot being one of the weakest of its season might have been overly exaggerated in retrospect, I still find it mostly an uneven experience.  There are more laughs in it than I had remembered, though I find they’re spread pretty thinly throughout the episode.  It’s not uncommon for long patches of Jonah and the Bots’ trademark lightning-speed-sometimes-riffing-before-the-scene-happens-because-we’re-just-that-good style to breeze by with comments that just sit there, often said just to be said.  When something works it almost seems glaring and it hits because some of the material surrounding it has been weak.

The host segments are a rousing bunch, with the Dinosaur BBQ advertisement jingle being a favorite of mine.  The segment runs a little long, but the slogans and sales pitches are so clever and constantly funny that I just let it do its thing.  Also featured is Crow wondering if he’ll ever turn human and the crew playing submarine.  The Invention Exchange includes one of my favorite inventions of the season, the magazine M. Night Shyamalan Living, which makes for some great verbal gags.  The Mads’ invention of the Elder Pump is mostly just to pay off a running gag that I had noticed and thought was weird through the season, where the Mads’ inventions were based on riffs from the previous episode.  The idea of the Mads’ ripping off ideas without giving credit is kind of funny; this segment...not so much.  But I’ll give them points for trying.

The Land That Time Forgot proves to be an episode that works better on its own outside of the Netflix trademark binge-style.  Maybe one day I’ll grow to love it on it's own.  For now it’s a patchy episode, with wonderful brilliance at it’s highs and dryness at its lows.  I had initially written this episode off as being one of the worst of the season, but now I’m not so sure.  Will the other unimpressive episodes step up as well?

Average

The DVD and Blu-Ray

The Land That Time Forgot was released by Shout Factory on DVD and blu-ray in a complete Season 11 collection, and also offered to Kickstarter backers in Shout Factory’s Season 11 (#WeBroughtBackMST3K Collector’s Edition) set.  My copy is the blu-ray collection, which has fabulous audio and video.  There are no special features, though the episode shares a disc with the following episode, The Loves of Hercules.