K00-The Green Slime

Film Year:  1968
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  Kanji Fukasaku
Starring:  William Finger, Tom Rowe, Charles Sinclair
MST Season:  Unaired Pilot

The Movie

It’s hard to really tell what’s going on in the movie from the brief clips that are shown (we only get to see it about a minute at a time).  We see a lot of cheesy space ships and a few slime monsters, but the purpose of the pilot was to sell the concept of the show and not the plot of the movie, so making the executives at KTMA sit through a full bad movie probably would have been overkill.  Hey, it worked.

The Green Slime, however, was released on DVD and Blu-ray via Warner Archive, and the MSTie completist inside me urged to check it out.  So yes, I can safely say…

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Green Slime is an English language film co-produced by the Japanese company Toei.  Mystery Science Theater fans know the studio best for Legend of Dinosaurs, Prince of Space, and Invasion of the Neptune Men.  Tokusatsu fans know them best as the company behind Kamen Rider and Super Sentai/Power Rangers.  Or if you’re like me, you adore them for all that crap.  Imagine my joy when I saw English actors on colorful Japanese sets that are interiors to adorable models.  If there was one movie that should have been up my alley, this was it.

Unfortunately, I found Green Slime to be a bit of a bore.  The story tells of a group of military personnel on a space station that is invaded by monsters spawned from green ooze.  Wooden acting makes most of the human scenes a slog, but being a Japanese production the rubber suits and models are the star of the show.  And they are, but not entirely in a good way.  The special effects are enjoyable, colorful and fun like all these Japanese genre pictures should be, but they’re not filmed very well.  Very little effort is made to “hide the strings” both figuratively and literally, as models look like models, monsters look like rubber lumps, and space sequences lack any sort of effort to feel outside of a set.  This latter point in particular takes a toll on the climax which sees a space station blowing up, yet debris is clearly falling downward.  In the vacuum of space.

It’s kooky, goofy, and even a bit groovy (gotta love that theme song), but The Green Slime isn’t quite as entertaining as the best of its kin.  I wish that weren’t the case though, because being an English language production with Japanese special effects makes it fairly unique in its genre.

Of note:  This movie features a “Commander Riker” twenty years before Star Trek:  The Next Generation (hell, the original Star Trek was just airing at the time).  I thought that was neat.

The Episode

Joel Hodgson showed the pilot off at Archon 32 and some fans were lucky enough to tape it, making MSTies inches closer to obtaining the lost episodes of the series.

The “star” of the show usually is the riffing, but very little is said in the theater.  Joel shoots out a trivia comment every now and then and even applauds the movie at the end.  The idea at this point didn’t seem to be tearing the movie a new one, but a celebration of the B-movie, which is fine by me.  That’s what I’ve always considered the show to be anyway.  That said, Joel does get at least one good quip in, as “Speaking of a number two position…” as he leaves the theater is a genuine laugh.  Now, I’m not sure how “complete” these segments are, as some fans have pointed out that there seems to be footage missing from the Archon cut.  What I can deduce is that the full Green Slime movie most definitely was not shown in full, and it’s not entirely likely we missed many riffs in what was cut if anything.

There are six host segments that go through the rounds.  Half of them show Joel talking to the “people of Earth,” trying to make them understand the concept.  The problem with this is that the idea of the show doesn’t really come through.  Joel is on a satellite with a bunch of robots watching an old movie.  He never really explains why he’s in space or watching the movie, he just is.  The final three segments tell a mini-arc about a space virus as Joel and the bots get sick.  It seems to be an excuse to play with shaving cream, though.  Interesting to note:  Joel says the Satellite of Love is of his own design, Gypsy is a “he,” and Joel says there are around 25 robots on the ship.  Also of note is Josh’s Servo-prototype Beeper, which he seems to admit that was influenced by the Star Wars robot R2-D2.  He also admits that was a mistake, because it would be difficult to do comedy through a series of squeaks.  I can’t help but wonder, as a slender, golden robot, was Crow influenced by C-3P0?

It’s difficult to judge this as an actual episode, because it’s not an episode.  But I liked it.  I would have liked more movie, but it wasn’t made for me.  And so it begins…

Good