Space Mutiny

Space Mutiny
Directed by	David Winters Neal Sundstrom (co-director)
Produced by	David Winters
Written by	Maria Danté Ian Yule (Uncredited)
Starring	Reb Brown Cissy Cameron Cameron Mitchell James Ryan John Phillip Law Graham Clark Billy Second Rufus Swart
Music by	Tim James Mark Mancina Steve McClintock
Cinematography	Vincent G. Cox Andrew Parke
Editing by	Bill Asher Charlotte Konrad Catherine Meyburon
Distributed by	Action International Pictures
Release date(s)	1988 (United States) January 20, 1990 (Japan)
Running time	93 mins.
Country	South Africa
Language	English

Space Mutiny (also known as Mutiny in Space) is a 1988 South African science-fiction action film about a mutiny aboard the spaceship known as the Southern Sun.

Plot

The Southern Sun is a seedship, or a spacefaring vessel that contains large amounts of people, whose mission is to colonize a new world. Its voyage has lasted generations, so many of its inhabitants have been born and will die without ever setting foot on solid ground. This does not please the antagonist, Elijah Kalgan, who conspires with the pirates infesting the nearby Corona Borealis system and the ship’s Chief Engineer MacPhearson. Kalgan hatches a plot to disrupt the Southern Sun’s navigation systems and use the Enforcers, the ship’s police force, to hijack the ship and direct it towards this system. At this point, the inhabitants of the Southern Sun will have no choice but to accept his "generosity".

Kalgan sabotages a key part of the ship just as an important professor's shuttle is on a landing trajectory. The loss of guidance control causes the ship to explode. The ship's pilot, Dave Ryder, is able to escape, but the professor dies in the explosion. This sabotage seals off the flight deck for a number of weeks, which gives Kalgan the opportunity to attempt to wrest control. With the Enforcers in his hand, and with the flight deck out of commission, he holds the entire population of the Southern Sun hostage. Commander Jansen and Captain Devers enlist Ryder’s assistance, aided begrudgingly by Jansen’s daughter Dr. Lea Jansen, to regain control of the ship.

Cast

• Reb Brown as Dave Ryder
• John Phillip Law as Flight Commander Elijah Kalgan
• Cameron Mitchell as Commander Alex Jansen
• Cisse Cameron as Dr. Lea Jansen
• James Ryan as Chief Engineer MacPhearson
• Graham Clark as Captain Scott Devers
• Billy Second as Lieutenant Lemont
• Gary D. Sweeney as Ranger

Production

“

Quite possibly the worst science fiction/space adventure film made in English ... Even the horrendously bad Shape of Things to Come (1979) can't aspire to such depths of total putrescence. I speak of the notorious Made-In-South Africa Space Mutiny --Eccentric Cinema

”

Space Mutiny stars Reb Brown, Cisse Cameron, Cameron Mitchell and John Phillip Law. The spaceship effects were lifted wholly from the original Battlestar Galactica TV series.

The director of Space Mutiny has stated on his website that he was called away from set due to a death in the family before filming began, and delegated directing duties to the assistant director. Contractually he was apparently unable to get an Allen Smithee credit. Some commentators began to compile rather large lists of continuity errors. The engineering areas of the ship were filmed in an industrial building with un-futuristic brick walls, windows and concrete floors, while the bridge looks remarkably like a vintage-1980s corporate office (non-shag, neutral carpeting; white particleboard desks; computers with 16-color ANSI displays, including one with a 5¼ inch floppy disk drive as an ID card reader). Kalgan’s “torture chamber” set features contemporary computer keyboards inexplicably mounted on the walls. The characters tend to wear the silver or white lamé outfits that were common to science fiction/futurist productions of the time, while many of the female characters wear spandex leotards.

The film's notable flaws provided substantial material for later spoofing on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (see below). The engineering deck interiors include several shots of windows, which show sky beyond. In one scene, the camera passes by a bridge officer, Lt. Lemont, working at her computer console as an extra despite having been killed in the previous scene. ("I think it's very nice of you to give that dead woman another chance.") One chase scene involves slow-moving Enforcer vehicles (inspiring the MST3K comment, "Put your helmet on! We'll be reaching speeds of three!"), strongly resembling bowling-alley floor polishers, and the collision of two of these vehicles produces an extraordinary explosion for such small craft. The scene is further undermined by the intense sunlight streaming into the corridor — far more sunlight than one would see on a space ship traveling between the stars.

John Phillip Law, who appeared in this movie as the villain Elijah Kalgan, also starred in the 1968 Italian film Diabolik, which coincidentally was used for MST3K's final episode in 1999. Cameron Mitchell played Commander Jansen, along with his daughter Camille Mitchell, who provided the voice for Jennara, the lead Bellarian; and his son Chip Mitchell played Blake, a mustachioed member of Kalgan’s crew (in an early scene he is shown apologizing because "the information's so scanty").

The song that plays over the end credits, "Edge of a Dream", is performed by Steven McClintock. The song is also lampooned by Mike and the Bots, who compare it to other 1980s songs before a fight breaks out between them as they blame Mike's 1980s generation for producing this movie.

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Nine years after its initial release, Space Mutiny was lampooned in a November 1997 episode of movie-mocking television comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K). The movie’s editing flaws, stilted dialog, and poor production lent itself well to the MST3K treatment, and it has repeatedly proved to be one of the most popular episodes, released as part of the MST3K DVD Collection, Vol. 4 from Rhino Entertainment.

On watching Space Mutiny, MST3k character Crow admits that it's better than Days of Thunder, and Mike points out that the characters seem to distrust each other's ability to move forward, as evidenced by repeated orders to "Move!"

Many of the scenes involving characters being thrown to their deaths over guardrails in the interior were coined as "railing kills" by Mike and the Bots. In a host segment, Tom Servo installs a bunch of railings in the Satellite of Love, causing Mike to trip over them and fall into a large pit (Which Tom also created in order to justify the existence of the railings). In a later scene, when a stock character succumbs to a railing kill, Servo says that the movie is good at "tossing Canadians around" and then adds "It's just rife with the smell of back-bacon." However, Space Mutiny was not made in Canada, but in South Africa during the Apartheid era.

Some ten minutes of footage were cut from Space Mutiny for its use on MST3K. Much of the edited footage featured space battle scenes taken from the original television series of Battlestar Galactica. The version of the film featured in the episode was, in essence, consistent with the full version; the discontinuities apparent in the episode were all present in the 1988 film. MST3K viewers found it odd that Mike Nelson and the 'bots did not comment on the reused Battlestar Galactica footage. Best Brains writer Paul Chaplin acknowledged the omission, but did not provide an explanation. Notably, the episode featuring the film Future War included a joke related to Battlestar Galactica, indicating that the writers had some knowledge of the show.

Mike and the Bots also mock the fact that a character killed on screen shows up prominently as an extra in later scenes (see above).

The credits for the film go on for so long that Mike and the 'Bots turn on each other, fighting over the legitimacy of the 1980s.

Best Brains, Inc, the producers of MST3k, market a "Space Mutiny" T-shirt, commemorating this film on their website.

External links

• Space Mutiny at the Internet Movie Database
• Space Mutiny at AllRovi
• Space Mutiny at Rotten Tomatoes
• "Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt" on Space Mutiny
• MST3K Space Mutiny episode at Google Videos (Adobe Flash video)