Review of Space Mutiny (1988) by Peter H — 18 Dec 2004

Were I in any other posistion to flame and insult "Space Mutiny" to the point of exhaustion, I would, but you see, it is so perfectly flawed in it's approach to delicate story telling and continunity, and falls through so many beutiful trap doors, I find such a posistion uneccersary.

Dave Ryder is the hero of the "Southern Sun", a peaceful colonial vessel that looks...EXACTLY like the Battlestar Galactica, most of the earlier fight scenes also use fotoage from the classic series as well to make up for the fact the producers could'nt afford to use original efforts from ILM...and even to pay ILM for the footage at all.

The Southern Sun comes under attack from mutionius forces led by Kalgon, who wants to settle on a real world in Space Pirate Terrirotry, using stock footage of previous explosions and a trecherous security officer who looks ackwardly like Robbie Robertson, he hopes to acheive this (did I mention his.

Ryder rallies troops to stop Kalgon's plans, along the way falling in love with the seemingly elderly daughter of the ship's Captain, who is apparently Santa Claus in all but actions.

The continunity gaps are large and noticable, and only serve to make the film a g[color=transparent][color=transparent]em [/color][/color]to watch, thrill as a woman is shot dead in one scene, only to appear alive the next, MARVEL at the fac someone dies from a railing fall and becomes seprated from his glasses on impact, only for them to miracuiously show ujp on his face again after a quick camera switch, did he have enough energy to put them back on and go out as a dignified office nerd? We will never know.

The most charming of all scenes is of course, the Golf Buggy chase across the futrutsitc space ship, disguised as space carts, the buggys engage in a "tight", snail paced "thrill ride" across two jey scenes, with the latter producing a bigger explosion than anything seen in the film before or after.

It's hard not to graps the fact that the Captain looks like Santa Claus, Dave Ryder stops acting after every line (and even appears to skip some, although the key word is "APPEARS") and that Cissie Cameron could POSSIBLY pull off the role of a gracious attraction that could turn Ryder on, but that's exactly what "Space Mutiny" demands that you grab, whislt I would recommend the MST3K version of the film, the original should'nt be looked over as blatantly as it has, it's a history lesson in pacing a film in multi layers, and a prime example of how not to handle the most delicate, most heavily criticised genre in film history.