104 – Women of the
Prehistoric Planet
ééé
Things I liked about the movie:
The plot twist at the end where we learn how Earth got its name.
The monkey.
Tang’s adorable, tiny crossbow. That’s what she said!
Impressions
This is the worst movie panned by the crew yet! Disclaimer. Oh, wait. Scratch that. There’s a monkey in it, so it can’t be the worst. The name of the movie is Women of the Prehistoric Planet. I’ll admit there were a couple of women in minor roles, and there was a planet with a close-up of an iguana on it, but a better title would have been The Chinese are the Bad Guys, or Star Trek: The Intentionally Lost Pilot. The riffs were spread out pretty far and for the most part, they were only fair. The host segments were mildly amusing. Overall, I’d save this one for after you’ve watched all the good ones.
Synopsis
A chrome spaceship, Cosmos I, bearing Elvis Presley and Annette Funicello go back to rescue survivors of a sister another ship, Cosmos III. When some of the Chinese crew members tried to mutiny, Cosmos III gets sucked into one of the planets in the MST3K intro segment. The admiral of the fleet of three ships who is on Cosmos I ignores command headquarters orders and decides to attempt the rescue. I think he got this idea from watching Star Trek.
Once the would-be rescuers reach the planet’s surface, they get down to business. First order of business? A long, condescending explanation of why 18 years passed on the planet’s surface while they took 3 months to turn around. This is interrupted by some stock footage of an iguana.
Linda, the most promising and best-looking Centaurian (e.g. Chinese) woman, leaves the ship and wanders into the jungle. She is scared by a snake and faints. A native Chinese guy kills the snake with a tiny crossbow and carries her off. They fall in love and frolic for a while.
The main search party finds the Cosmos III and one of the disposable characters is attacked by a Beanie Babies™ octopus, which we later learn is a tarantula. After patiently waiting for it to kill him, Mr. Scott shoots it with a laser apparently set on stuffed.
Tang and Linda continue to frolic about and revel in their Blue Lagoon type arrangement. The only thing this movie is missing now is a monkey. A monkey appears! After that, it’s all anticlimax. Some cavemen extras attack them incompetently and Tang beats them, but the white search party hears the fracas and shoots Tang and sedates Linda when she objects. They carry her back to the Cosmos I.
Back on the ship, we have a double conflict. There is a volcano erupting and they are trying to find the wounded Tang (apparently Linda explained what happened). They decide to give up on Tang and take off. Linda escapes and runs into the jungle. Here we go again! Two officers go after her, one punches the other in the face and brings him back. Whew! Then we see almost an entire documentary on the Hawaiian volcano chain.
Finally, the ship gives up and takes off. This causes the volcano to stop and allows Tang and Linda to live happily ever after and try to populate the planet. The Admiral takes this historical moment to name the planet “Earth.” The planet shrinks on the viewscreen and we can see that indeed, it is Earth. Brilliant!
Host Segments
Prologue: Joel explains he’s still in space, but he redecorated the SOL. He’s added a couch so he can host a talk show. That way if he gets down, he can use that experience to get his own talk show. The Mads have started a chain of really fast food restaurants called Clay and Lar’s Flesh Barn. They rip the flesh and put it right on your plate. Larry sings a song about it. They kill the animal right at your table while you watch. Yum! Joel invented a roll of toilet paper in a 2-liter bottle. The Mads don’t want to hurt his feelings, but whoa!
Segment 2: This is Your Life with host Tom Servo. Joel is the guest. Crow appears and announces they’re going to run into another satellite. Joel captures the satellite and brings it into the SOL. Somehow he activated its self-destruct mechanism and they have one hour and 37 minutes to disarm it.
Segment 3: Joel is trying to deactivate the satellite. They refer to it as a doomsday machine. Crow produces a large paperback. Isaac Azimov’s Literary Doomsday Machine. Tom, “Literary Doomsday? Isn’t that when your library fines exceed the value of the book?” The instructions are translated from Korean. One sample instruction: Carefully disregard and do not do the very wrong thing or much confusion will result, with sparks, flowers and loud report on some models. Joel clips the wrong wire and gets squirted.
Segment 4: Joel is still working on deactivating the doomsday machine. Tom and Crow argue over whether they’ll experience experiential oblivion or phenomenological oblivion. Joel somehow causes the satellite to inform him that he has 5 seconds to deactivate it. He types in I, Robot (it’s an Azimov Literary Satellite, after all) and that doesn’t work. The satellite informs him he now has 6.5 seconds to realize the consequences. There’s a flash, smoke, and they all have Azimov glasses and sideburns.
Final: Joel and the ‘Bots discover the sideburns and glasses can just come right off. Joel dubs it a “dorksday machine” and Tom says he’s glad it’s not a Doris Day machine. They read a letter about episode 110 Robot Holocaust. Another letter refers to 105 The Corspe (Joel said Bride) Vanishes and 109 Project Moonbase. Larry sings a song to Clayton about how he likes working for him.
No stinger.
Funny Riffs
During credits:
Joel: Women of the Prehistoric Planet? My sister saw this in junior high. All the boys had to go into the gym.
The chrome ship moves toward the camera by means of a jerky zoom.
Tom Servo: Pigs . . . in . . . Spaaaaace!
Space officer: Magnetic field, cosmic clouds . . .
Joel as officer: Yellow moons, pink hearts . . . all that stuff.
During a scene where a button-covered panel is visible, Joel gets up from his seat, walks over to the panel and starts punching the buttons.
Joel: I’m resetting the controls so they crash into the prehistoric planet!
A woman delivers a printout to the bridge. She gives it to an officer, who delivers it to the Admiral.
Officer: Communication headquarters, Admiral.
The Admiral reads it.
Joel as Admiral: Looks like your agent’s not gonna get you out of this one.
Admiral: All the passengers and crewmen on these ships are my responsibility as long as we’re in deep space. We are still in space.
Crow: They’re in deep something.
Officer: Stand by to reverse course. Horizontal maneuver.
Joel: That’s how he got that job.
Admiral: You can’t trust young planets.
Woman: What do you mean, Admiral?
Joel as Admiral: They’re lazy and they listen to loud music.
A young man introduces himself.
Man: I am Tang.
Tom: I’m not just for breakfast any more.
One of the officers named “Chief” is panicking. Another officer slaps him but obviously misses even though the foley sound makes a big smack.
Officer: You alright now, Chief?
Tom: Yeah. Thanks for not hitting me.
Officer: Are the dead worth more alive than the living? (sic!)
Tom: What’s a dead man other than a live man without any life?
Woman: Bradley just reported in. They’ve lost the trail. It stopped suddenly at the edge of a cliff.
Crow: There was a note. It said, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”
We see a volcano erupting.
Tom: More stock footage! Hit the deck!
Women of the Prehistoric Planet IMDB Page