Customer Reviews
A Strike, Two Hits, and a Home Run 
2008-09-19
This is a rather lukewarm collection. Two of the episodes are average, one of them is painful, and the final one is stellar. If you're a fan, you can't go wrong by buying this set, but this should probably be one of the final ones you get.
The Rebel Set is all right. It's certainly not the first episode I leap to when I need my MST3k high, but it's serviceable. It's a tale of three downtrodden individuals taking place in a bank robbery for a criminal mastermind... and of course, things don't go as they should. For the most part, it's a torpid turd, trudging along until the final third of the movie. It's also one of those movies that ALMOST works, and you'll find yourself watching it and forgetting to listen to the boys every now and then. Because it has its own presence and almost functions properly, it shadows the riffing and is almost impossible for the guys to lift. That said, check out the short, "Johnny Goes to the Fair." It's a fabulous short, definitely one of my favorites. I laugh until I cry every time I watch it.
Secret Agent Super Dragon is average as far as eps go. It's a James Bond ripoff, which is all you need to know. Although the premise sounds hilarious, the movie itself is just not very engaging. Yeah, it's super lame; that's the problem. It fails at being a humorously poor film in and of itself -- a quality that always makes for the best episodes. That said, the constant jabs at the "white-trash Q" and rude protagonist make for a pretty good time. Just don't expect too much from this one.
The Starfighters is horribly, horribly boring. This is basically airforce propaganda masquerading as a documentary masquerading as a movie. Refueling scenes take up roughly a fourth of the movie, and there's only so much Mike and the bots can say before you're taking a nap. Furthermore, here's a case of poor product; I popped this pristine, brand-spanking-new DVD into my player and the darn thing skipped a total of 5-6 times. Really, shame on you, Rhino!
Parts: The Clonus Horror is my favorite in this set. The premise is that humans are cloned as organ donors for the wealthy. It's downright hilarious! The movie is just interesting enough to keep you engaged while the guys pop out one-line wonders. This episode is a must-have!
All in all, I can only really recommend this set to the hardcore fan. New MSTies are better off with Volume 2.
are you mad at me, clone daddy? 
2008-09-14
Typical formula for the box sets - one must-have, one solid episode, and two fairly good ones.
The Clonus Horror is the reason to buy the set. Hilarious riffs, and a stupid-bad movie. Peter Graves just going though the motions is 10 times better than anything else in this Rockford Files-quality clunker about everyone's favorite bogeyman - the rich and powerful. I wonder how they justify all that money for henchmen to the stockholders?
Super Dragon is a cheesy low-budget completely unoriginal secret agent flick, including several meaningless plot twists just pulled out of the woodwork, that make you say 'what?!'
Starfighters is a valentine to the US Air Force that makes the Green Berets look like a documentary. I'm not anti-military at all, but this is embarrassing, and probably deserves worse than it got. Lots of in-air refueling. Like the guys said about 'Skydivers,' this is one of those movies where they forgot to actually have things happen.
The Rebel Set is a heist-and-double-cross flick, with not-bad production values and not un-watchable, if somewhat impressive for its complete lack of suspense. Gritty 50s realism.
Outside Clonus, which is great, the other selections are basically solid, if not top-flight classic funny, which seem to be doled out one per box set. Grr.
Action, adventure, bad movies... 
2008-05-28
This set has four movies - let us break them down now...
"Picture, Picture, Show Us Holland."
Secret Agent Super Dragon is a mixture of James Bond and Get Smart. Think James West, think Flint, think Holland. Lots and lots of Holland!
"Thank You For Holding."
The Starfighters is about the US Air force, who do more refueling before noon than any other air force. Lots of refueling. Lots of jets refueling. And ladders, bombs and wheels. But mostly refueling.
"A Priest beating the hell out of a guy in a factory."
The Rebel Set, with the short Johnny at the Fair, is one of those gems of movie history which many an actor would have burned if they could. You will KNOW some of the stars and even enjoy the plot. Yes, under all the beatnicks and beards and bars there is a plot. And lots of Train Movie jokes. A lot happens on a train. If you don't like trains, don't watch this movie.
"Peter Graves' Dad"
parts: the clonus horror is a movie that had a mixture of major stars and some major money, yet still had that feel that somebody was making a home movie. There is a joke about a smoking crotch and the skits are pretty funny, yet it seems the weakest of the four films.
This set is wonderful, a real find. Get it used or new.
MST3K To The Rescue 2008-05-22
Tired of watching bad movies? Well, you won't be anymore. Bad movies have never been so good thanks to Mike, Joel, Tom Servo and Crow. Sit back, relax and enjoy some of the worst movies ever made.
Caution: lasting side effect of making sarcastic comments throughout every movie you see can lead to breakups, divorce, butt kickings and other mishaps.
"The Starfighters" was the only weak link in the chain 2008-04-18
The other three films here were a lot of fun to watch (although I really think PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR is a good film on it's own and deserves a bit more respect. In fact I highly recomend getting the regular DVD of PARTS and watching it with the flimmaker's commentary.) But STARFIGHTERS...ugh.
Here is perfect proof that there are some films that even MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER shouldn't have touched. I never knew that until now. No matter how much Mike and the 'bots wisecracked and tried to keep things interesting, the sheer dullness of the film overwhelmed their efforts to keep it entertaining. I guess the filmmaker must've found the image of planes refueling in midair endlessly facinating and just couldn't imagine anyone else not feeling the same way, because roughly two thirds of the film is just scenes of planes refueling in midair. Seriously, this film made the worst Uwe Boll films actually look pretty damn good. (I mean, at least stuff actually HAPPENS in an Uwe Boll movie.)
Buy the collection for the other three films, but don't bother with STARFIGHTERS.
Simply GREAT MST3K 2008-03-30
This volume collects four episodes from the cult favorite TV show. In each episode a guy and his robot friends--who are stranded in space--scrape the bottom of the cinematic barrel watching and making fun of a different bad movie in each program. This collection includes the episodes "The Rebel Set" "Secret Agent Super Dragon" "The Starfighters" and "Parts: The Clonus Horror."Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 603497990221 Manufacturer No: 990221
"Remember the world before this film? Before refueling?" 2008-03-30
Opening Credits (Beginning Remarks):
This apparently is the final box set of MST3k DVDs from Rhino (not counting the re-release of Volume 10) before they hand over the reigns to "Shout! Factory". And for their last offering, they've given us a very solid set, splitting its four episodes evenly between Joel-hosted episodes and Mike-hosted episodes.
THE REBEL SET
This film is about Edward Platt (Maxwell Smart's Chief) as the head of a gang of thieves. With his superior intelligence, he has concocted a brilliant heist and has assembled a bunch of bad guys to enact his bidding. His bidding involves a fairly convoluted plan with multiple train journeys, fake police disguises, armored car hold-ups, etc.
For me, one of the funniest running gags was the in-theater argument over whether one of the characters is portrayed by Merritt Stone (by the way, Tom Servo is right: the conductor is played by Gene Roth of ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES fame, not Merritt Stone). The discussion spills out into the final moments where the episode ends with a stupefied TV's Frank franticly flipping back and forth through multiple stacks of film guides trying to figure out which B-movie actor is which. Ah, how difficult it was in those days before the Internet Movie Database.
SECRET AGENT SUPER DRAGON
SASD is one of those kinds of films that was made for MST3k. It's an Italian spy film that's not totally unlike a cheaply made James Bond rip-off. It's the story of a secret government agent who's pulled out of retirement for one final mission. Not only has one of his former colleagues been murdered by an international crime ring, but there's a plot to poison untold millions with tainted chewing gum. By the time the final reel has finished the evil schemes have expanded to include a smuggling operation which features Ming vases and mind-altering drugs. I've seen this film multiple times, and I'm still not sure what all the different plot-threads have to do with each other.
As I indicated, this is the style of film that MST3k handles very well. The story is ludicrous, the dubbing poor and the dialog silly. The jokes from Joel and the bots make a funny situation even better.
THE STARFIGHTERS
This has to be one of the most boring films the MST3k gang ever did. I'd be willing to wager that a good third of the movie is simply made up of US Air Force stock footage (almost entirely long passages of planes refueling in mid-flight). And what isn't actual stock footage is as tedious as stock footage: dull-speaking talking heads intoning boring dialog at each other.
Usually extremely drab and dreary films like this are my least favorite MST3k episodes. However, this time the jokes were energetic enough that I never actually got fed up with the movie. What also helped was the mental leaps I had to go through to figure out how the producers possibly thought that an audience would be interested in extremely minor plot-points. For example, the most exciting thing that happens in the film is a storm that blows several fighter planes off course. That's it for excitement. And it all happens off-camera anyway.
I hadn't seen this episode before, so I finally learned that the piece of music that the bots would hum in later episodes during extremely boring sections was actually some of the incidental music from this film. (Well, I think that's a fun thing to know, even if no one else does.)
PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR
PARTS is an interesting film. One gets the impression that underneath the bad acting from the leads and the low production values there was a decent movie to be made. (Apparently I'm not alone in that thought; the producers of PARTS sued and settled with the makers of THE ISLAND, which starred Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson.) There are also some good and accomplished actors in secondary roles: Dick Sargent, Peter Graves and Keenan Wynn. But despite the film's strengths, the overall production is just too silly for words.
I hadn't seen PARTS since the initial broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel and I had completely forgotten how funny this episode is. I got a little tired with all the Peter Graves and Biography jokes, but everything else was absolutely spot on. (The MST3k people had done a lot of Peter Graves movies over the years and I think they finally ran out of jokes.)
Stinger (closing thoughts):
Rhino's DVD collections of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 episodes is going out on a high note. This is a great cross-section of genres and styles which I'll be happy rewatching.
Flat out funny 2008-03-06
This is without a doubt one of the funniest MST3K sets there is. All four of the movies stand up to repeated viewings, with the Rebel Set and Secret Agent Super Dragon carrying the bulk of the laughs. The Starfighters is made up of about 50% Air Force (Navy? Royal Air Dragoon?) stock footage, but the riffs on cold war military activity are strikingly amusing and the double entendres on in flight refueling methods (you know, sticking the fuel line into the other plane's fuel line) are downright hilarious, and, the scene is shown twice! (You can never have too much refueling footage, you know?) And coincidentally enough, I saw The Island (which rips off the Clonus Horror) about a week before this set arrived. The Clonus Horror is actually not too terrible by MST3K standards, but after seeing The Island and then watching it, well, the comedy effect is greatly multiplied. I don't recommend this set to newcomers to the MST3K fold, but if you are a fan of any kind and have had some past experience with these compendiums, I think this one is certainly worth adding to your collection.
A true find for MST3K lovers 2008-03-06
As a true lover of MST3K this was a find for me. I love the B movies with the commentary by Crow,Mike or Joel and the gang. There are references to events and people of that time period (90's and 2000's). I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for commedy with a silly,quirky edge.
Can I watch Lion King again clone daddy 2007-12-28
This box set is made up of one lame MST- The Rebel Set. I can't hardly sit through it the movie is so stupid, but make sure you watch the short before it Johnny at the Fair for more than a few chuckles.
Now on to the other episodes. Both Secret Agent Super Dragon and The Starfighters are very good episodes both are more than funny enough for some good riffing. Starfighters has some especially great lines in it. Poopy suits anyone?
Last but certainly not least is Clonus. In my opinion one of the best of the Mike Nelson era. This movie is a colossal mess. Whimpy main character, a super mario look alike, idiot female clone, and Peter Graves phoning it in. There are some great lines in this that my buddies and I still quote regularly. This one episode is worth the price of the whole box set.
All in all I highly recommend this set. Three out of four ain't bad plus there are some pretty good extras as well.
