When this film started out, I was expecting one of those films that is trying to depict space travel in a sort of realistic way. Or as realistic as a film of this type can be. However, this film was just completely more strange than I envisioned it to be as I watched it via the cult television show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. This film just did so many things differently and into totally unexpected directions, which is why I gave the film a two rather than one. Because, in the end, it was still rather bad and not every unexpected turn is a good one. The budget for this one seems rather high too, for a film from 1960 at 150,000 dollars, and so when you are using lawn chairs as seats on your super high tech rocket, I cannot give you a pass. Just another in a long run of space films that MST3K has riffed and I do have to say it was one of the funnier space movies they did. Watching it though, this film along with nearly every space travel movie they have done has one thing in common, but I shall get to that later.
The story has a group of twelve people setting out on an expedition to the moon. It is a joint expedition with many countries involved, though the captain is an American, heck ya! Their goal, to land a space craft on the moon and to study it. And what a spacecraft it is! It is nicer and larger than the one in First Spaceship on Venus! Multiple floors and they even get to bring along a doggy, a couple of kitties, some birds and monkeys! This trip will be a riot! That is, until the deadly meteorites come close to striking the ship, and this is what nearly all the space travel films that MST3K have in common. A scene where meteorites come close to hitting or in some case do hit the ship and place it in peril! Then they finally get to the moon where things seem banal to start, but then you have two crew members going off from the others to make out, you have one of the twelve getting sucked to his doom in kitty litter and yet another burning his hands because he just had to touch the strange running liquid! Turns out there are moon people on this planet and they say leave the cats and get off! Of course, the two lovebirds are still on the planet and literally now prisoners so what does our crew do? They promptly run the cats out and haul butt out of there. How heroic is that? More meteorites and then the earth is freezing and self sacrifices are made as well as traitors revealed and in the end they spend probably less than 25 percent of the film actually on the moon.
This film made for a very funny episode of MST3K as it was much funnier than a couple of the other space films they have done. I was just not expecting the whole moon people thing in the film as that made this film totally crazy. I also do not recall heroes that fail this badly except maybe Adam Chance from the film, Agent from H.A.R.M! I think that it does benefit from this being a Mike hosted show, for me anyways as I always thought he was a better host. Joel seemed very hit and miss to me, while Mike always seemed more on point; however, this is jut an opinion and a personal preference. I always laugh out loud more often in Mike episodes and I laughed out loud during this one a lot!
So, the film did some things that were sort of interesting, but they also did some pretty lame stuff. The budget seems way too big for them to say they have invisible shields over their face rather than just have them wear helmets with glass in them. Yes, they actual say that they have an invisible shield over their face instead of just having a glass plate. It did go where I was not expecting, but they just did not stay on the moon long enough...if you're going to mention moon people and insinuate that they are there, show them. The whole last part of the film was rather idiotic as the earth starts freezing and I kept expecting them to go back to the moon, but no, the moon really was not in this film all that much considering it was in the title.
The story has a group of twelve people setting out on an expedition to the moon. It is a joint expedition with many countries involved, though the captain is an American, heck ya! Their goal, to land a space craft on the moon and to study it. And what a spacecraft it is! It is nicer and larger than the one in First Spaceship on Venus! Multiple floors and they even get to bring along a doggy, a couple of kitties, some birds and monkeys! This trip will be a riot! That is, until the deadly meteorites come close to striking the ship, and this is what nearly all the space travel films that MST3K have in common. A scene where meteorites come close to hitting or in some case do hit the ship and place it in peril! Then they finally get to the moon where things seem banal to start, but then you have two crew members going off from the others to make out, you have one of the twelve getting sucked to his doom in kitty litter and yet another burning his hands because he just had to touch the strange running liquid! Turns out there are moon people on this planet and they say leave the cats and get off! Of course, the two lovebirds are still on the planet and literally now prisoners so what does our crew do? They promptly run the cats out and haul butt out of there. How heroic is that? More meteorites and then the earth is freezing and self sacrifices are made as well as traitors revealed and in the end they spend probably less than 25 percent of the film actually on the moon.
This film made for a very funny episode of MST3K as it was much funnier than a couple of the other space films they have done. I was just not expecting the whole moon people thing in the film as that made this film totally crazy. I also do not recall heroes that fail this badly except maybe Adam Chance from the film, Agent from H.A.R.M! I think that it does benefit from this being a Mike hosted show, for me anyways as I always thought he was a better host. Joel seemed very hit and miss to me, while Mike always seemed more on point; however, this is jut an opinion and a personal preference. I always laugh out loud more often in Mike episodes and I laughed out loud during this one a lot!
So, the film did some things that were sort of interesting, but they also did some pretty lame stuff. The budget seems way too big for them to say they have invisible shields over their face rather than just have them wear helmets with glass in them. Yes, they actual say that they have an invisible shield over their face instead of just having a glass plate. It did go where I was not expecting, but they just did not stay on the moon long enough...if you're going to mention moon people and insinuate that they are there, show them. The whole last part of the film was rather idiotic as the earth starts freezing and I kept expecting them to go back to the moon, but no, the moon really was not in this film all that much considering it was in the title.