Plot
- For the plot of the film-within-the-film, see This Island Earth
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 Dr. Forrester forces them to watch the film This Island Earth to break their wills; as per the television show, Mike, Crow, and Tom make fun of the movie as it airs.
The movie riffing scenes are bookended and interspersed with short sketches. Prior to the movie, Crow attempts to dig through the ship's hull to return to Earth. After the filmstrip breaks and Dr. Forrester reloads it, Crow and Tom dare Mike to drive the Satellite himself, but ends up crashing into the Hubble Space Telescope; Mike then tries to repair the Hubble using the Satellite's manipulator arms, MANOS, but instead further damages the unit before Gypsy takes over. Some time into the film, Tom reveals that he has an interocitor like that used in This Island Earth. The gang tries to use Tom's device to return to Earth, but instead contact a Metalunan (the alien race from the film) who is unable to help them to figure out how to use it correctly but does accidentally repeatedly zap Tom's head with a laser beam. The contact is broken by Dr. Forrester, who also has an interocitor, and he zaps the group to encourage them back to the movie theater.
After the movie, Mike, Crow, and Tom are far from broken, celebrating in various Metaluna ways. Dr. Forrester, furious at his failure, attempts to use his own interocitor to harm Mike and the others, but only succeeds in transporting himself into the shower of the Metalunan previously seen. Mike and the robots briefly celebrate Dr. Forrester's disappearance before they realize they no longer have a way back to Earth without him. Mike says "Hey, wait a minute!" and the crew head back to the theater in time for the movie's ending credits.
Read more about this topic: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)