816-Prince of Space

Film Year:  1959
Genre:  Superhero, Science Fiction
Director:  Eijiro Wakabayashi
Starring:  Tatsuo Umemiya, Joji Oda, Hiroko Mine
MST Season:  8

The Movie

The world (or just Japan really) is being invaded by the villainous aliens from the planet Krankor.  Japan’s response is to look droopy and mope around until they are rescued by a superhero named Prince of Space!  Impervious to Krankor’s offense, Prince of Space uses the power of bootblacking to send these invaders back where they came from.

This absolutely glorious piece of filmmaking hails from the land of the rising sun, and it’s a nuanced piece about life that influenced Kurosawa to up his game after spending half his career making garbage.  Prince of Space is the epitome of artistic filmmaking.

Lol.

Prince of Space is actually Japanese children’s entertainment at its strangest.  Kids over there eat this stuff up, be it Ultraman, Super Sentai, or MST’s favorite whipping boy Gamera.  What those shows and movies have that Prince of Space doesn’t is context.  Prince of Space is never given an origin of any kind, he’s just a plot contrivance to fend off the Krankor invasion.  What exactly makes him the “Prince” of Space, we don’t know, and why such royalty is laying low as a bootblack on Earth is anybody’s guess.

That said, I love the fucking hell out of this movie!  The costumes are goofy, the plot is bizarre, and the production design is kooky as all get out.  I could watch this movie outside the show and be just as entertained.  I never have, and that’s something I have to live with unfortunately.

The Episode

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is one of my favorite shows, but very few episodes still constantly engage me from beginning to end, especially as life becomes more complicated as time goes on.  It’s to be expected.  Each episode is much longer than your average television program.  It amazes me that I ever had enough time to watch every episode of this series.

I put on my Analytical Asshole Hat and sit down to watch my latest random episode, which came up as Prince of Space, to dissect what makes the episode tick.  The episode began and my analytical mind disappeared as I glued myself to the screen.  I’ve seen this episode dozens of times, and after ten years I laugh myself silly every time.  To me, this is the perfect dumbass movie, the perfect riffing style, and the perfect thrillride of a comedy machine.  You can keep your Pod Peoples, your Manoses, and your Mitchells, my favorite episode of the series is right here.

Analytical Asshole Hat asks the question:  Why does it work?  My response is “Who cares?  It does!”  But if I were to point out one thing about this episode that I love it’s that it’s a whirlwind of kooky surreal-reality, which begins at its less-than-Super-Sentai feature film bringing cheap Japanese children’s matinee thrills to our disbelieving eyes and it soaks straight into the way Mike and the bots watch the film.  They never take the movie seriously, and when they do they’re just kind of playing with it.  Take the aliens of Krankor and the run-on gag that they’re a race of chicken men, which is probably about the most perfect direction they could have taken these characters, and it gives them a bit of an added charisma that makes them more memorable than they would have been otherwise.  The movie and riffing style were made for each other.  I want them to get married, have kinky sex, and make babies.

Adding to this surreal tone is the host segments, which sees the Satellite of Love flying through a wormhole as they follow Pearl on a quest to find a lost Professor Bobo.  These are quite possibly the best host segments of the Sci-Fi era and among the greatest segments the series has ever produced.  The wormhole give the episode the opportunity to utilize clever writing (the time lag), new props (Mike as a robot), and a change of scenery (the sylvan glen).  You can’t ask for anything better.

Prince of Space forever has a place in my heart, both movie and the episode.  There isn’t a minute that goes by where I’m not laughing, which is an achievement indeed for an episode that I’ve been so exposed to for over fifteen years.  It’s the best episode of the series.  You can argue all you want, but it’s going to fall on deaf ears.  This episode just clicks together in the way that I treasure from the show.

Classic (I LIKE IT VERY MUCH!)

The DVD

Rhino released the episode in their Volume 7 collection with thankfully great video and audio presentation.  There were no special features.