Friday, May 24, 2013

Rifftrax Exterminates Doctor Who and the Daleks




The following takes place more or less after "Nightmare in Silver":

The Doctor stretched out inside the control room of the TARDIS. He thought back of his tangle with the Cybermen, and how he turned into Mr. Clever.
"I was definitely more interesting than Locutus of Borg", he said to himself, "but I'd rather be boring and save people.
"Oooooooooohh, I need a break from all this. I should take in a movie," the Doctor said. "But which movie?"

Suddenly, the TARDIS whooshed and whomped. It seemed to know where the Doctor had to be.....

It landed on a man-made asteroid called Netbox. It's billed as the biggest movie multiplex in the universe, where creatures can literally see any movie that's made anywhere.
The Doctor met one of the employees, a guy named Odeon Loews. He was literally born in a tuxedo, with his name embroidered on the front....at birth.

"Well, Odeon", the Doctor said, "what movies can you recommend?"

"Well, I don't know," Odeon said, "you probably saw the blockbusters we get from Earth by breaking every law of physics in the book. However, we do have a section where we show specialty movies."

"Is that so?", the Doctor wondered. "Do you have that Shakespeare movie made at some director's house? I have heard a lot of good things about it."

"No, that's still out in some film festival a couple of light years away. It'll be at Netbox next month. Actually, I do have a movie from what I call 'the Rifftrax series'"

"Rifftrax? Isn't that bad movies with justifiable commentary? They'll take on anybody, even Star Wars..or The Avengers. Understandable, considering who they used to be. I hear they're trying to riff on Twilight as part of their live shows."

"That's right," Odeon said. "but they couldn't pull it off. They'll take on Starship Troopers, which I say is more deserving of heckling because this movie is so cheesy it's asking for it."
"Well, I'll look forward to it. Let's see what Rifftrax movies you have."

The Doctor looked at the list of Rifftrax movies carefully. He saw titles that just scream "cheesy movies": Kingdom of the Spiders, The Apple, Voodoo Man, The Guy From Harlem, Doctor Who and the Daleks, Nightmare at Noon, Psycho II....
"DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEKS???", the Doctor roared.

Odeon was worried. He didn't like unsatisfied movie patrons. He still hadn't recovered from the Lindsay Lohan Film Festival.

"My apologies, Doctor," Odeon said. "I didn't..."

"On the contrary, I am surprised they took this long to target this movie. I know it well. Any resemblance between me and this movie's version of me is accidental at best. Peter Cushing was OK as me, but he acted too much like my original form. I liked him better when he was in cheesy but scary Hammer horror movies."

"Oh, that's a relief. How did they get away with making a movie about you? It's like trying to make a movie about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and forget to include Joss Whedon. I know someone tried."

"In 1965, I didn't talk too much about myself," the Doctor explained. "I didn't admit I was a Time Lord, or where I was from. So, they could make a movie about me, say I'm from Earth, and claim my last name is Who. They can also make my granddaughter Susan nine years old and a bit of a smart-aleck. I don't think it was a good idea giving me a granddaughter named Barbara who has a klutzy boyfriend named Ian. To me, Ian and Barbara are two very different people who would have made an more interesting movie.
"Then again, a lot of people wanted to see a movie that's almost about me, battling full-color Daleks on the big screen. A better story would have helped. That's why I want to see this movie riffed."

"Well, I'll just get that movie," Odeon said, "and we can see it attacked while sipping on Shush-O's and snacking on Smarties."

"Great idea," the Doctor said. "I need to relax."

So, Odeon and the Doctor saw what you'd get if you made a Doctor Who movie if the BBC wasn't involved.

The movie is actually a different version of the first Daleks story that aired on the show in late 1963. In it, the Doctor is involved in a battle between the Daleks, who are evil beings out to destroy and exterminate, and the Thals, who prefer to be peaceful.
Also, the reason the Doctor couldn't get the real Susan, Ian and Barbara back to Earth is that the Doctor had a tough time trying to get to where he wanted to go. That was especially true when the show began.
In this movie, the Daleks are ruthless, but the producers just couldn't let the Daleks use ray guns or flame throwers. That's why you see one Thal get killed by a deadly fire extinguisher. They also spend too much time standing around, especially one Dalek named Carl. At least, that's according to the Rifftrax crew. The Thals, meanwhile, look like a race of exotic Graham Chapmans with too much eyeliner.

As we begin we see Susan, the Buffy from Family Affair of the group, reading a book on physics. Barbara, the other granddaughter and a Lulu knockoff, reads a book on science. Doctor Who, which is his name because he's British in this movie, reads the comics. Actually, that's close to the Doc we have now. Ian, Barbara's boyfriend, stumbles into the movie literally as the comic relief. The Doctor eventually shows everyone TARDIS, which is the famous time machine disguised as a police box, bigger inside, etc. At least Susan gives some explanation of why it's bigger inside than outside (a better one comes in Robots of Death), but not about why the interior looks like the basement of Hewlett-Packard.
Thanks to Ian kissing Barbara and pushing the wrong lever, the group is sent to Skaro, where they are in the middle of the battle between the Daleks and Thals. Getting into the plot, such as it is, isn't the point. It's how Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy respond to it.

Right off the bat, Mike says "Regal Films" makes films about Queen and Queen-related things. Kevin is disappointed this movie has nothing to do with Freddie Mercury. Bill is even more shocked that the movie has nothing to do with the BBC Doctor Who. After being sedated, the movie begins.

We see Barbara and her science book...

Kevin: She can Jon my Pertwee anytime

Fake Ian Chesterton stumbles in

Bill: British Dick Van Dyke
Kevin: Oh, so he'll do an indescribably bad Brookyln acccent


TARDIS takes off, but without the familiar sound of it launching

Bill: Where's the noise like an old Edsel dying?

About ten minutes in, Bill and Mike act like two kinds of Doctor Who fans:

Bill as the post-2005 fan: He's not an alien, he's not young and dashing, he doesn't have a weird psycho-sexual yearning for his super-hot companion. I mean, what is Doctor Who all about if not that?

Mike as the old-school Who fan: It's about slow, silent group trudges through sound stages.

Then the Daleks show up, and we get the perfect riff:

Mike in Dalek voice: Welcome to the Island of Misfit Sex Toys.

You can also expect riffs about The Wire, Craig Ferguson, Kate Upton, Cirque Du Soleil, Millard Fillmore, TMZ, Legend of Zelda, the previous forms of the real Doctor, and Kevin complaining about a scene showing "a couple of stupid robots sitting in front of a dumb movie".
Just think about that riff.

Here's the link to the movie sample from Rifftrax. This may be the ultimate crossover of one famous sci-fi show heckling a movie sort of based on another famous sci-fi show. It makes me wish for the day Buffy the Vampire Slayer joins the Rifftrax crew to mock that  movie that also isn't about her.
At least in that case, the movie came before she got the job.

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