The situation could’ve been far more practical than that, in that the original film wasn’t available for licensing, but this one was. Keep in mind that they were churning out 24 episodes a year at that time, so likely had to pick usable films that they could actually license regardless of continuity.
Also, it replicated the TV experience back in the day, when you were likely to turn on the TV and start watching the sequel to a film you never saw, just because it was on. This is likely why the movie starts with a recap of the previous film, because the producers knew there was a strong chance a lot of the viewers wouldn’t have watched it.
MST3K had done other sequels before the original, as in the KTMA season they did the Figutive Alien moves in reverse order, and during the CC years did Hercules Unchained and two other Hercules sequels a season before doing the original Hercules.
It may how the film was sold to them, or possibly a requirement for the TV listings, likely so not to cause confusion with the Howard Hughes classic film Outlaw.
The film seems to have a bit of an identity crises, as in some markets it was titled Gor II, while others just called it Outlaw. I guess it depended on how whether the distributor thought it being a sequel to Gor was an asset or liability. When packaging up the film for syndication, they likely had to come up with a title to list that would make it clear which “Outlaw” film they were selling.
This is addressed more in the first movie but Cabot is a nerdy professor who obsesses over imaginary worlds, bores his students and gets swiftly dumped by his girlfriend. Given that level of unpopularity, he can’t be too picky with his choice of friends.
Every time I see that sequence my brain insists that any minute they’re going to break into song. It’s just the run-up to a musical number they didn’t have the budget to produce so they just kept the intro and said the hell with it.
If you ignore that fact that there’s no woman, even among the extras, who looks older than maybe her mid-30s. I’m guessing there’s some kind of Logan’s Run-for-women-only type explanation for this in the original script. (Yeah, right. )
Well, you get a supposedly ancient queen, witch or sorceress from time to time. Like in The Undead or The Magic Sword. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but kudos to COR-Man for almost giving us an interesting and morally ambiguous “old lady” character in the former.
When a woman reaches a certain age… she dies in childbirth. Except for the rare woman who didn’t and must be a witch and and therefore hide herself away.
I just enjoy how “Shamelessly 80s” it is. Gor is a supposedly this “harsh world of harsh people”, but most the fashions and hairstyles just scream “EIGHTIES!”. It’s such an easy riffing target.
Plus, my all-time favorite Stinger: “Get outta here, you disgusting WOOOOOOOOORM!”
It’s always been super weird to me when you fire up a movie like Gor (or Conan or Ator or…) and all the extras are sort of soft white folks with visible tan lines.
The genre is the Sword and Planet genre. It was started by Edgar Rice Burroughs and then got tropified in the 60’s, 70’s, and a little in the early 80’s. You don’t often see them much anymore, but I’m sure they still get written and published.
I think some of my favorites are the groups of extras who got me to think ‘oh, this is what the Solid Gold Dancers got up to’; almost as bad as Khan’s crew from ST II.
Indeed. The Gor books started off as a passable rip-off of the John Carter stories, but the writer decided to double down on turning them into soft-core porn based on his philosophy of How Things Ought To Be.
The cast was all the same from the first movie since they shot them back to back. This is why the first technically has two Academy Award winning actors in it. Jack appears literally at the very end in his Jiffy Top hat and is looking for a woman to seduce the king. Basically he got tagged in by Reed after his character was killed. For exactly one scene.
As to complaints about hair, is there such a thing as an Italian film in another time/world in which the cast doesn’t have perfect hair, I ask you?
And yes, I saw the original long before Outlaw of Gor. Arnold ‘The Mummy’ Vosloo and The Beast Rabban from Dune were in it as well.
As to the riff, it’s my favorite MST3k of all time. The genre provides one of the best for riffing fodder, and this was the most spot on. Not a dull moment for me. Not a joke that missed the mark. Also my favorite skit of all time with Toobular Boobular.