1110-Wizards of the Lost Kingdom

Film Year:  1985
Genre:  Fantasy, Adventure
Director:  Hector Olivera
Starring:  Bo Svenson, Vidal Peterson, Thom Christopher, Barbara Stock
MST Season:  11

The Movie

Okay.  I fucking love this movie.  This cheap, but fucking aim-for-the-stars fantasy is so bloody goofy that I can't even imagine not loving it.  How did I live so long without this movie in my life?

This movie has the somewhat generic fantasy movie premise of a bad guy wizard overthrowing a king and usurping the throne and taking the princess hostage.  A son of another wizard escapes and goes on a magical quest with a Rowsdower-like companion in hopes of battling the wizard and saving the princess.

While that might not sound too special on paper, what makes the movie special is it's glorious execution.  I mean, a smart production team would have recognized budget limitations and cut various things they couldn't afford.  This movie does the exact opposite and does everything.  Every special effect it wants, they create a shitty visual out of it.  Every creature it wants to portray, they create a shitty costume for it.  There's even a Chewbacca-style companion in this movie that I think is supposed to look like a large sheepdog but looks like an abstract, faceless Abominable Snowman.

All of this is not mentioning how much stock footage and stock music is in the film.  Apparently the film only ran 58 minutes in its original cut (which actually is still technically Academy length for a feature film) so it was decided to pad the film out with 20 minutes of battle footage.  The music is recycled tracks from James Horner and some arrangement by Christopher Young, both of which I doubt ever put this movie on their resumes.

But holy hell is this movie a good time for bad movie lovers like myself.  I simply can't get enough of this movie and I was sad to see it end.  I guess there's a sequel, but this kind of lightning in a bottle can't be easily replicated so I'm not sure I even want to see it try.

The Episode

Well this is a switch.  Normally Rifftrax makes a habit of re-riffing movies that were on MST for nostalgia sales.  This is the first time it's been done the other way around and Mystery Science Theater riffs a movie that was originally riffed by Rifftrax.  The one minor note about this is that Rifftrax only offered their version of Wizards of the Lost Kingdom for a single weekend and had to pull it abruptly, likely because of a problem with the film's copyright.  It seems Shout Factory went through more proper channels getting the license to this movie though.  In fact, they bought out New Horizons, who owned the film, which means they own it hook, line, and sinker now, so the license will never expire on this episode.

Maybe one day Shout can throw Rifftrax a bone and allow their version of the riff to return.  Just a thought.  But I digress.

"Oh no!  I lost the ring!'

"MY WHITE PRIVILEGE!"

Wizards of the Lost Kingdom is a MST goldmine of a movie.  It's so goddamn goofy and so goddamn earnest about it.  It's hard to imagine this episode not being funny, but the tone of this entire episode experience is so bloody perfect that it's somewhat mesmerizing.  The film's upbeat whimsicality and it's obvious lack of funding to make it anything worthwhile is so utterly hilarious and the commentary is just along for the ride, playing with it just enough to make each scene of this glorious little movie all the sweeter.  Riffing targets just about everything, from costumes to props to special effects to acting...really, I mean everything, because everything is so wrong with this movie.  This is symbiotic nature between film and riffing on full display, because the experience of the episode is so bloody fun that I personally feel this episode has a rewatch value up there with the all-time favorites of the original series.  I have a gut feeling I will wear this episode down about as badly as I did my old VHS of Space Mutiny.

That's my glowing endorsement.  "Wizards of the Lost Kingdom is the relaunch's Space Mutiny."  Just put that on the cover of any single disc release of this episode that might happen.

Though I'll admit the relaunch's imperfections do get in the way somewhat.  The rapid-fire riffing is full-on Tommy Gun here, while a more subdued delivery would have probably increased that synergy to make it just that much sweeter.  However at times having that little push against the movie at every waking second can also be charming as well.  Here it works for the most part because the movie is constantly doing something that demands attention, though I'm still not a huge fan of the delivery of the season overall.

As for the host segments, they're a mostly unmemorable bunch.  We have another song, "The Magic Inside of You," which is okay but no "So Close and Yet So Far" or "Every Country Has a Monster."  They constantly tease the film's pubescent protagonist and his alcohol loving companion as well in almost all of the segments.  Meanwhile Max finds a key to an odd mechanical creature, which is never brought up again in the episode and is completely forgotten about until later in the series.  Jonah's half of the Invention Exchange is good, as the Verbal Smoke Bombs offer up some delightful verbal humor.  The Mads' invention of the Sponsor Clock doesn't quite live up, as it's just an excuse for puns.

This is probably the episode I'd recommend showing someone who is hesitant about giving the new series a shot, as if they don't care for it then chances are they aren't going to care for the new direction of the show.  For those of us who are going with the flow, this episode is flat out fun.  I have fun watching it, and delight in reflecting on it, and I'm excited to watch it again.  It's an episode that has a joke as simple as someone with a daffy grin on their face resulting in the equally daffy joke "Remember when you fell...dat wuz funny..." that somehow made me laugh for days.  I'd daresay this is at war with Avalanche for my favorite of the season, but no matter which I like better it's one of the best episodes of the series.

Classic

The DVD and Blu-Ray

This amazing episode was released by Shout Factory on their Season 11 box set on both DVD and blu-ray, with special #WeBroughtBackMST3K Collector's Editions going out to certain Kickstarter level pledges.  Audio and video are both sensational, and there are no bonus features on the disc.  The episode shares disc-space with the preceding episode, Yongary, Monster from the Deep.