Outlaw (Of Gor) - revisited

MST3K Central
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With the advent of the Gizmoplex and the premier of the new season, I’ve decided to make it a goal to watch every episode offered in the Vault Picks to revisit and refresh my memory on classic episodes and…gasp…catch the few I’ve somehow either missed or simply forgotten.

I also decided, for fun, to offer my random thoughts on each one after watching.

I started with Outlaw (Of Gor) the other night.

You know you’re in trouble when the film begins with flashbacks to a previous movie I’m not even sure actually exists.

“World building? What’s that?” - the writer, director and producers of this film.

Seriously, was there a film before this one, or did they just shoot random scenes to explain the “back story?”

Watney: Has there ever been a more annoying Wormy Guy? Whiny, sexist, doughy, smarmy, and DEAR GOD STOP SAYING CABOT!!!

Jack Palance: it’s pretty obvious early on Jack knows exactly what a piece of crap film he’s in, and decided “screw it, if I have to be here, I may as well drink.”

Still, he often seems to be having fun with it. Or maybe he’s just laughing at the other “actors” in his scenes trying to out act him and failing miserably.

Also: he never phones it in. Gotta respect that.

Tubular Boobular: every time I see that skit I’m blown away that they managed to get through it all in a continuous take. And make it look EASY. Easily one of the Top 5 MST3K original songs.

The outfits in this movie are so ridiculous and revealing, I’d be willing to bet money that if you scoured it long enough and freeze framed it shot by shot you would spot body parts never meant to be revealed.

And I do feel sorry for Cabot and the little guy trudging through the desert. The amount of sand they had to scrub out of their regional areas at the end of the day must have been incredible.

The riffs are all on point in this episode, and the closing with Frank and Dr. Forrester dancing is hysterical.

A+ episode.

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Shoeboogie, from R.O.T.O.R. (as done by RiffTrax) makes Watney look like a dignified demiod.

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Since the topic is in MST3K Central, I think the discussion is about MST3K.

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Wormy guys are everywhere, as you can see from the current state of the world.

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I personally have no problems including Rifftrax episodes into the equation.

I love all things riff related and all the various casts and crews.

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Yes, there was a previous movie, called Gor. They’re based on a pulp sci-fi series from the '30s written by a college history professor, which is now notorious for being outrageously sexist even for the time. So at least the movie was accurate to that. I’d guess that like Cave Dwellers, the first movie was considered way too risky to put on TV back in the '90s so they skipped to the less problematic sequel.

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Really? My first search didn’t turn that up, but i haven’t really dug that deep.

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That movie always reminds me of a particular subgenre of fantasy paperbacks that my mom liked to read in the 80s that were all variations on “regular present-day person (usually from California) is transported to a fantastic world to do some heroing and kick some butts and then has to go back to their real life where only they know what happened.”

(The Kathy Ireland one with the underground Atlantis kinda fits this description too, as does the RiffTrax Prisoners of the Lost Planet.)

Those stories still pop up sometimes today, but it seems like this was kind of a particularly strong theme running through fantasy authors back in the day.

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The original Gor movie had Oliver Reed as the bad guy, with Jack Palance only coming to the fore towards the end.
Rebecca “Playboy Playmate of the Month, June 1986” Ferratti is in both movies. Which is nice.

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The Number One reason I find it difficult to watch this one. Even the Dalai Lama would want to bludgeon that twerp to death.

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The Cabot sequence is especially weird because it’s not like it’s a crowd of people chanting his name or a group talking about him or named characters doing it or anything, it’s a rapid fire series of cuts to individual extras that never show up again.

The chain of decisions that led to it is totally incomprehensible.

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I suppose the intent is to tell us, the audience, how renowned and revered our Hero is in this world. Because they couldn’t actually afford to SHOW us how he earned this reputation.

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Watney is my pick for most disgusting WORM, but there’s a whole thread of contenders for that particular throne of poopie:

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I thank my lucky stars that it, in fact, wasn’t that accurate. The recurring theme of Norman-land is that women enjoy being made sexual slaves even if they insist that they do not, so it’s only proper for “heroes” to force that on them. Never before (or since) have I been as grateful for bowdlerization as I am here.

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Out of curiosity, I read a book from the “Gor” series, years ago. It was a load of rotten old nonsense, even before you got to the sexual politics, which appeared to be the work of an emotionally backward 14-year-old boy with hairy palms and an extremely muscular wrist.

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Heh. I’ll leave the level of inclusion wanted up to the thread author. (Also, did Shoeboogie actually grope or butt-swat that woman he was hounding? If the answer is “No,” then I still have to say that Watney retains the title.)

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For those who don’t know, or just haven’t suffered enough…

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These kind of stories have gotten super popular in anime lately (though often without the “returning home afterwards” part). Usually the protagonist gets sent to a fantastic world (either by being hit by a truck or by being trapped in a virtual reality game world) where all of a sudden they have fantastic powers or are the chosen one etc.

Fortunately, that’s about all they have in common with Outlaw of Gor

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Question: The title card in the episode proper simply says “Outlaw”, while everything else lists the experiment as Outlaw (of Gor). I wonder why they have to include that extra part?

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  1. I don’t think the, uh, frank sexuality of Gor would’ve been mainstream-able prior to the '50s. (In fact, I don’t think his books really took off until the '70s and '80s.)

I believe he was a philosophy professor not a history professor. (He’s still with us by the way!) And he has a sex guide! (Laaaaadies!)

Yeah. The movie is goofy boobular camp. Thank God!

Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Harem animé, anyone?

I think there’s a whole bunch of legal wrangling about what they call the movies. That’s why there are so many re-titled films.

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