I dig the username there, CalMeacham. I’m wondering if there was a period in your life when you were inclined to say “Ruth” repeatedly.
So what major differences were there between the book and movie? And what was cut out of the MST3K’d one?
No. Everyone agrees that I’m quite Ruthless.
It used to be hard to get hold of the book, but it’s been republished in paperback at long last, and you can read it yourself.
The differences are pretty huge, but here’s a start:
1.) There’s no “plane gets grabbed by a mysterios green ray” opening. Cal Meacham is no jet pilot.
2.) Like the movie, the book begins with Cal receiving some mysterious condenser parts from an unknown agency, along with a catalog. They have enormous capabilities, so Cal orders a lot of parts. He gets them. Unlike the movie, though, the parts don’t come with a plan – it’s not a galactic Heathkit that he just has to solder together – that wouldn’t be much of a test. Cal has to figure out how these parts go together. He also has to repair some that aren’t working right. Considering that these are 'way ahead of Earth technology, that’s a pretty good test right there. We als get to see some of the tests other scientists get, which is pretty cool. Just as in the movie, Cal builds his interociter (alone – the sidekick is only there in the film to give Cal someone to talk to.) and contacts the aliens, and gets an invite.
3.) the alien leader is named “Jorgasnovara”, which sounds like a weird Scandinavian/Indian hybrid, rather than the English-sounding “Exeter”. They are gathering together scientists, but not for the purposes given in the movie. The post-Hiroshima movie is obsessed with atomic weaponry, so they stressed this and how our brave and clever scientists are trying to come up with atomic weapkns/uranium supplies/whatever for the Metalunans (I don’t think that name is ever given in the book, by the way, but I’m not certain. It sounds WAY too hokey for Jones to have used, though.) This makes sense – the aliens have super-capacitors and Interociters and FTL space ships (Not a flying saucer in the book, BTW, but egg-shaped) – what the hell do they need backward Earth Scuientists to do R&D for them for? That’s be like going back in time to kidnap monks copying manuscripts to do C++ programming for you.
4.) It turns out that the aliens regard us the way the Allied troops regarded Pacific Islanders during WWII – we were friendly and eager to help, but we we’re technologically backward. So they put us to work (as they put the islanders to work building airstrips and the like) doing what we can – building Interociters. Interociters really ARE weapons, as shown in the movie. But they’re used against the alien Bad Guys (not called the hokey “Zaygons” they are in the film), not to blow up the German Scientist and Russell Johnson in the woody station wagon. That scene made no sense – why would the Metalunans start killing off the scientists? By the way, the above explanation of the book’s plot explains the title “This Island Earth”, something the film never did.
5.) None of the"Thermal Barrier", Conditioning Tubes, Near-Collisions with Meteors, Delta-winged Zaygon Craft, Metalunan Mutants, Mindwipes, Ruined Cities with monorails and the like, or Exeter/Jorgasnovara sacrificing himself appear in the book. Everything after the saucer lifts off seems to come from the fertile, febrile minds of the screenwriters, and is a complete departure from the book.
They cut out
1.) Some of tyhe stuff that goes on at the house, before the get on the plane, including the Metalunan Flying Saucer taking off behind the house. I think they cut out the German Professor getting blown up, too.
2.) They cut out the attack of the Delta-winged Zaygon Ships on the Metalunan Saucer. Kind of surprising, because it’s clearly a glitzy special effects shot. Two Zaygon ships approach, towing glowing meteors, which they release and they swoop up in a ludicrously non-zero-g way. The Metalunan ship uses rays to zap the meteors and the Zaygons.
3.) Part of the landing sequence of the saucer got deep-sixed.
4.) A lot of stuff between the saucer and the Throne Room (heh!) dusappears, including the green “elevator”, and the monorail ride, where exeter points out where all the Neat Stuff used to be that got zapped by Zaygon meteors.
5.) as they escape Metaluna, they’re attacked by Zaygons again.
I’m still a big fan of MST. You have to understand that I have a very high tolerance for bad movies; my dad and I love to watch 'em with or without the jokes. I have been known to (unintentionally) tune out the riffing to pay attention to the movie, and then I miss the jokes.
I like the riffing since they’re funnier than I am. As above, comedy is for an audience–I can make a few of my own jokes, but not like they can.
We now have the entire library of MST on DVD files–from the horrific season 0 to all the specials. This gives me great joy. Anytime I want, I can sit down with my husband and watch the Wild World of Batwoman or something, yay! 
Thanks for the help, Bosstone. I didn’t realize that so much of it was available. That Space Mutiny/Overdrawn at the Memory Bank set is extremely tempting, and I’d love to see Prince of Space again (and Space Chief!).
The other MST3K thread is reminding me just how many lines from the show have become imbedded in my memory, and how many I still use. To this day, my favorite way to describe a bad movie is taken from Overdrawn at the Memory Bank:
“I bet nobody ever scrolls up this cinema.”
I bought “Godzilla vs Megalon” MST3K, and got rather bored watching it. It seemed to be the same jokes 1) Make fun of the SPFX and 2) Make gay jokes.
My buddy and I used to be big fans, but thought back and wondered why our memories were so fond:
- We were usually drunk or in a group setting (everything is funny then).
- We are remembering the best 2-3 lines from each episode and getting a little too nostalgic as time went by.
I had heard everyone rave about MST3K. So when (as an adult) I finally did watch an episode, I was astonished. How could everyone praise these lame jokes? And the jokes were SCRIPTED!
Exactly. And you were both in junior high school.
Nope, I’ve never liked it. It seemed like a good idea in theory, but the actuality was just stupid.
My buddies and I used to sit around and watch bad movies and make fun of them almost every weekend. (Actually, we still do that on occasion.)
My friends are much, much funnier than the lame-oids on MST3K.
Unfortunately, that is the case with a lot of the MST3K episodes as well as Rifftrax. I suspect it’s a trait of Mike Nelson’s writing. If the pickings are lean for jokes, he’ll find one or two things to hang the riffs on and just beat them into the ground.
Are you seriously suggesting that a single episode of that show includes a shot of the three leaving the theatre in the middle of a sentence and then a shot of them returning to the theatre in the middle of the exact same sentence? Because I’ve never seen one.
No – I suggest that you maybe lose a second or two at the end of a scene as they close the door because they don’t want to have every last moment of the movie on screemn – they want to close the door on something running. You pick it up at the next scene.
I hate when old movies I decide to watch end up being one with the MST3K crap added on. I don’t want the crappy attempt at humor, because it doesn’t improve the show.
Now when Elvira Mistress of the Dark hosts a show there a couple good things to watch in every show.
Well, you can easily get them without the MST3K. In fact, now that the show’s off the air you can’t even get MST3K without working at it (unless you catch the MST3K Movie on a cable channel).
I’ve seen a few episodes. It would be better if they didn’t block so much of the “screen”.
Down in front! Down in front!
Of course, de gustibus non disputandum, or whatever. You either find something funny, or you don’t. So if MST3K doesn’t float your boat, that doesn’t make you a bad person.
Personally, I love it. I own about 70 episodes or so, and pop one in regularly.
(Line that I use often in real life: “Look…Dead Raccoon of Tomorrow.”)
I will freely admit that the quality varies; some episodes are just dead And it doesn’t really have much to do with the quality of the film; my personal picks for funniest riffs come from Space Mutiny (a truly awful movie) and LOTR:FOTR (one of the better films of recent years.)
I submit that a version of the film that does not include every last moment of the film is an edited film. I’m not saying they chopped vast chunks of scenes out but the films were edited.
Another example of editing/censorship was from Devil Fish, when they slapped an MST3K logo over that one guy’s buffalo.
I’m fairly sure (though secondhand) there were edits in Werewolf, such as a steamy sex scene between the two completely unappealing and heavily accented leads, and several more pans between the moon and the slowly adding-makeup-after-each-pan… er, I mean, transforming werewolf in the hospital.
You’re wrong about this, Cal. I know for a fact that they edited Eegah, because the DVD of it I have also includes the un-MSTied, un-edited version of the film. How much they cut, I can’t say, because there’s no way in hell I’m watching that piece of crap without Joel and the bots.
Thinking about it logically, it doesn’t make sense for the films to never be edited. An episode of MST3K runs about 90-95 minutes. 10 to 15 of that is going to be taken up by host segments, titles, etc. If they never, ever edited their movies, they could only ever riff on movies that were between 75 and 85 minutes long - a good 20 minutes shorter than the average running length of a feature film. If they’re looking for a really good turkey for the show, and they find one that runs 100 minutes, they’re not going to pass it up just because they’d need to cut out some material to make it fit in the show’s format and timeslot.
I would venture to say that the majority of MST’s movies were heavily edited for time, if not content.
I’m sure they had to cut that German version of “Hamlet” down quite a bit. Not a typical type of movie for them, but still. Also, I seem to remember hearing (not sure where) that the interminable battle at the end of “Invasion of the Neptune Men” was even longer in the original. It’s painful even to think about.
This is just an absurd definition.
As for the rest of you, I’m still unaware of any cuts to the original movies. I look forward to your specific examples.