Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie

Plot

The film opens with mad scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester, working from an underground laboratory, explaining the premise of the film (and associated TV series). Mike Nelson and the robots Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, along with Gypsy, are aboard the Satellite of Love high in Earth's orbit, when Forrester forces them to watch the film This Island Earth to break their wills; as in the television show, Mike, Crow, and Tom riff the film as it plays.

The film-riffing scenes are book-ended and interspersed with short, unrelated sketches:

Cast

Production

A film deal with Paramount Pictures fell through when the studio wanted to explore the characters' back stories instead of heckling on movies. Universal Studios still picked the rights up after studio executives attended the show's "ConventioCon ExpoFest-O-Rama" in 1994, where the cast performed a live riff on This Island Earth, a Universal production. The film was shot away from the Best Brains corporate headquarters and studio in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, at Energy Park Studios in St. Paul.

Box office

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie was released on April 19, 1996 in only 26 cinemas. Still, in its opening weekend, the film grossed $206,328, a $7,935 per theater average. It went on to gross $1,007,306.

Critical reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 80% rating, based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's consensus states: "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie may be thin and uneven, but it's hilarious in enough of the right spots to do the show's big-screen transition justice."

Home media

The film was released on VHS by MCA/Universal Home Video to rental outlets on October 1, 1996. The film was released for retail sales on April 8, 1997 on both VHS and Laserdisc formats. MST3K: The Movie was released on DVD in 1998 by Image Entertainment, as a discount title with an MSRP of $14.99.

Universal re-released the DVD on May 6, 2008 through their Rogue Pictures subsidiary. The film is in anamorphic widescreen, and includes an upgraded Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, with English subtitles, a first for an MST3K DVD, and an alternate French language that is noticeably different from the original English one as many of the pop culture references that the show was famous for did not translate well overseas and had to be replaced.

It was announced on June 7, 2013 that Shout! Factory would be releasing The Movie on a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack Collector's Edition. This release included, for the first time, the deleted scenes from the film.

Besides being released on VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD, in recent years, the film has also been shown on the Starz and HBO television channels in the USA, and the film has been aired frequently in Europe on the Sky Movies channels.