Skip to main content

Sigourney Weaver is PISSED. (Spacehunter)

I'm pretty sure that cyborgy-suit Michael Ironsides is wearing has something hard and sandpapery viciously shoved up his va-jay-jay. I mean seriously!
Here, she's just looking smug & smarmy, but.... 

I actually watched this a while back and've been saving it up for a time like this--when I felt bad for neglecting the blog for a few days yet had nothing much to say. Mhm. I'm a strategerist, that I am.

Anyway, I'll say this much before I forget: despite everything pining for the contrary, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone actually isn't that bad of a movie. In fact I'd say it's rather good. Still fucking hilarious to riff à la MST3k :) Which was where the title for this post came from. The first time this "Overdog" character is shown s/he does this haughty spin around to see who approaches and has this mean ole frown on his/her face. So of course, quite naturally, "Sigourney Weaver is PISSED" just tumbled outta my mouth. Easy as that.

It's got a pubescent Molly Ringwald (in a Sci Fi! I know! wtf!!), a vaguely ephebophilic/elektra-complex engendering Peter Strauss, a veeeery greasy haird Kate Moss-alike android that gets dead'd then melted early on (SPOILER, whoops...cuz nobody will ever see it coming; right.), and some black guy. Hey! I watched this like 2 months ago! Give me a break if they all look the same to me after that much time!

I'll make quick reference to the all-around bible of my newfound religion (Bad Movie Ology) by linking to the badmovies.org review; def watch that movie clip lower down. It's kinda priceless. I think it was, at least.


Meanwhile, I've been trying to figure out what makes this movie so much fun. See, it's not exactly due to terribleness (as with Star Crystal, another movie I've 'reviewed' here) or goofiness exactly (again, as with Star Crystal).

Hm. Well, I guess it is a little goofy. With all those adult adiposes (Doctor Who; ignore me) running around; what badmovies.org quite rightly observes are amphibious Amazons; that Germanny, mutant Morrissey with an external...spleen?; 3 earth sluts in shiny suits; an army of creepily cooing, molotov-tossing children; that bizarre death-game; and the cyborgial Sigourney who talks like The Claw from Inspector Gadget; I guess it kinda does qualify as "goofy".

Still, though, what's interesting (for probably nobody else but me) is that it's actually altogether fairly well put together. Despite all those weird little diversions, the plot flowed remarkably well. They actually worked--if in a "We are venturing through a weird, hostile, alien planet that is full of weird, hostile, alien things that'll surely hinder our progress--but of course we'll persevere and proceed and save the day!" kind of way. So yeah, it is a bit goofy but without feeling particularly cheesy. That's the thing.


I was also amazed to discover Molly Ringwald was apparently built for buddy flicks. She's got that perfect mix of obnoxious and adorable so that she grows on you over the course of the movie. She's also only barely got tits--hey, let's pretend she's a 12-year-old boy! XD Apparently she was fifteen--you know, according to maffs--but I'm not convinced.

What a terrible time to get your menarche....

Lastly, I will admit this movie probably has bad replay value. You know, like video games--good replay value means that you want to replay the game/enjoy or would enjoy replaying it. I feel like the fakey, made-uppy language Molly Ringwald spews (because it's The Future!) would become even more grating, even if I've stolen "brainworking" from it. Apparently it means "to think or figure out". Apparently.

(Speaking of brainworking, I'm still baffled by the opening. Big ole fugly-ish starliner gets zapped by some nebula/accretion disk and 'splodes. Lulz. But you'd think that some mondo-space-cruise-ship intending to 'splore something that zappy and dangerous would have been designed for it. Like, not liable to splode upon first zap. :\ Apparently there's no Consumer Product Safety Commission in the future....)

As a parting gift:
Pissed. End of story.

Comments

Post a Comment

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Or just tell me what you think.

Other things that might interest you...

On aging, and fear.

To begin with, I’m not sure you’re aware of it, but I’m middle aged. Oh? What gave it away? Using a blog as my primary literary medium?¹ Hm. But in fact, the APA defines 35 years as the end of “young adulthood.” Yeah. I found out via some shitpost on twitter when I was already 35, so it didn’t sit well with me then either. But my worries about aging began much sooner than that. See, even in my 20s, I feared I’d been wasting my life. I’d struggled with school and life and everything since graduating high school, arguably sooner, and nothing seemed to be going anywhere meaningful . I felt I had a limited social life, a dead-end job, no money, no great travels, a limping love life; I was, generally, a loser, wasting away... There were none of the usual hallmarks of success or happiness. And that scared me. Would my life have been worth it if I continued in this direction? Would it have been a “life well lived” by the end? So, this is my existential struggle. Even now, as I lurch ever nea...

Changing lanes.

I was driving home in some traffic last night when I drifted, in my mind, a long way back (about 20 years) to high school. I was caught in one of those periodic traffic slowdowns as I floated back; you know, those waves of congestion that seem to pass backward through the columns of cars in each lane. (I've heard they start because someone switches lanes, and in response, a rippling emergent slowness travels backward and outward as the cars behind it accommodate the change, one by one.) What drew me back to those younger days was that, back in high school, similar phenomena of congestion took place in the halls between classes, when eddies of young humans would get caught in and around those clumps of those chatting by lockers or retrieving books. Occasionally, backups would occur when groups of people got caught in these eddies, or collided with other groups by the lockers, and slowdowns would ripple back from there. Maybe it's not exactly the same, but as I drove it seemed si...

Oatmeal is tasty.

{slurps up berry-oatmeal-deliciousness} Indeed. I need to work on rebuilding a morning schedule. I can be zombie-like enough that I'll waste a perfectly good morning, and have often slept through many. And, really, it's such a useful time of day.