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Movie: Future War:
From the future traveled a master race of cyborgs. They made
abductions from Earth's past. The dinosaurs were trained as
trackers. The humans were bred as slaves. Now a runaway slave
escapes to a place his people call heaven... we know it as
Earth.
At least this is what the filmmakers claim at the beginning of
Future War. I figure if anyone knows what their movie's about,
it would be the filmmakers, and that's good enough for me.
"Runaway" is a human bred by cyborgs and played by Daniel
Bernhardt, a B-squad Jean-Claude Van Damme. Runaway escapes his
captors aboard a high orbiting spaceship, and drifts ashore to a
beach in southern California. As he wanders the mean streets of
Orange County, he gets struck by a car driven by a noviate nun
who is also a former hooker and drug dealer. Sister Anne takes
the injured Runaway to her former half-way house, which is
manned by the very large men who helped her quit dopin' and
whorin'.
Meanwhile, killer dinosaurs from the future are
tracking down Runaway. The dinosaurs are actually dinosaur
puppets shot in forced perspective, creating the illusion of
somewhat larger forced perspective dinosaur puppets. These
dinosaurs are also fitted with special collars which cause the
dinosaurs to explode and disintegrate if they are harmed. The
reason for this isn't clear, but I'm sure the filmmakers knew
what they were doing.
Sister Ann helps Runaway elude the tracker
dinosaurs. While they run from redressed parking ramp set to
redressed parking ramp set, the two form a special bond. While
Sister Ann is questioning her faith and her purpose in life,
Runaway quotes the Bible to her which really gets her where she
lives. Sister Ann has a flashback while she looks at a scrapbook
which contains photos of her when she was a streetwalker. I can
only guess that her prostitute co-workers were very sentimental
and gave her the scrapbook at her good-bye party at Applebee's.
While dinosaurs are after Runaway and Sister Bland, their cyborg
masters are after them; and a brusque, poofy-haired police
detective is after all of them. The detective jails Runaway and
in his cell, Runaway practices Tae Bo and has flashbacks to
parts of the movie we've just seen.
Then Sister Innocuous meets
with gang members she used to hang with and asks for their help.
They ask why, and when she says very seriously "monsters in the
hood," they don't laugh or beat her up. Runaway escapes and
battles Cyborg Master Robert "Bob" Z'Dar and they kickbox the
hell out of each other. (There was a fight consultant in this
movie so I'm sure the filmmakers knew what they were doing.)
Runaway then meets up with Sister Non-threatening and the gang,
and they all go after the dinosaur monsters, who, Runaway
informs them, tend to gather near water. The group goes to the
reservoir and sets a bomb near the entrance. The group circles
the catacombs of the reservoir... and they circle... and
circle.... and circle... and circle some more... and circle...
Finally they find the dinosaurs and set off the bomb, killing
them all. (The dinosaurs, I mean. Unfortunately, the group just
barely escapes unscathed.)
If the movie led you to believe that
Runaway had killed Master Cyborg, hang on. In the last of many
denouements, Sister Average is pledging her final vows on the
parking ramp cum chapel set. Suddenly Master Cyborg Robert
"Chip" Z'Dar comes crashing through the stained glass window,
and in a rare scene without background boxes, Cyborg and Runaway
fight some more. Runaway's shirt accidentally falls off him and
although topless, he is able to give Robert "Bud" Z'Dar a good
licking. Runaway and Sister Anne then become counselors at the
halfway house, which Sister Ann also has a scrapbook of. The
filmmakers knew what they were doing, I tell you.
— Mary Jo Pehl
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Prologue:
Using a computer spreadsheet program and Diane Feinstein as a
baseline, Crow tries to calculate if Gypsy is once, twice, three
times a lady. Gypsy is disappointed that she is only 2.7 times a
lady; turns out Mike is eight times a lady.
Segment 1:
Pearl is conducting LSD tests on the robots and monitors their
hallucinations. To augment the effect, Bobo and Brain Guy have
formed an acid rock band called Narcotic Casserole. Servo has
his usual delirium; Crow has a harrowing experience in which he
sees a Mike eating a Snickers candy bar, not a Milky Way. Crow
is also somewhat surprised to learn that Mike is not a clown.
Segment 2:
Tom has made some lumpy, leaden legs for himself and desperately
wants to kick-box someone. He challenges Gypsy to a fight, but
Gypsy has a singular, misshapen leg of her own and instantly
takes out Servo.
Segment 3:
Mike, Crow and Servo realize they've never really thanked Pearl
for not killing them. They take a moment to thank Pearl,
interrupting her attempt to kill them.
Segment 4:
Crow is Droppy, The Water Droplet, an emissary from the National
Water Council who has come to share just a few thousand of the
many uses for water.
Segment 5:
Mike has a giant Robert Z'Dar-esque chin. Servo and Crow chide
him for insulting the many people with giant prosthetic chins.
Down in the castle, Bobo and Brain Guy inform Pearl that
Narcotic Casserole is leaving to tour with Moby Grape. Pearl
gives them each exploding tracking collars. You can guess the
rest.
Stinger:
Robert Z'Dar and Daniel Bernhardt kick-box and Bernhardt's shirt
somehow slips off.
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There's a moment in this movie which is
kind of heartbreaking. There's a brief scene where a television
news reporter is doing a live remote stand- up. His cameraman is
using a pretend card-board camera; its a taped-up box with a
lens apparatus taped to it. That made us sad.
Not since Change of Habit has a single film reawakened my dream
of someday becoming a nun. I think that every Catholic girl
entertains notions of nundom at least once in her life, even if
its only during a commercial break. I considered it a couple of
times when I was in second grade, probably because Sister Ann
Patrick, my teacher at the time, seemed so darn cool. She could
play that "Dominique-nique-nique" song on the guitar. Then I saw
Lilies of the Valley: there was glamorous nunhood depicted on
the big screen but then there was also Sidney Poitier and he was
just so darn... well... grrrrrrrrr! The nun thing never really
panned out for me.
When we wrote this last fall, we had no way of knowing that the
SciFi Channel wouldn't renew MST3K come March. We quipped away
in blissful naivetè. We wrapped production on April 9, and just
as I find myself at a career crossroads, I happen to watch
Future War over the weekend. And there's that nun lady in Future
War. Maybe someone's trying to tell me something...
— Mary Jo Pehl
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