In 1984, Stewart Raffill wrote and directed "The Ice Pirates." He would later direct "Mac and Me" and "Mannequin 2: On the Move."
If that doesn't clue you in, I don't know what will.
The One Man Band, already in enough of a pickle having to watch the movie in the first place, is in double trouble when he wakes up to find the rocket containing the film he tried to stop has been drifting through space for 3 million years, and the only companion for light-years is the PPD-3200, a "terminally cheerful" computer program. With friends like these, who wouldn't prefer an hour and a half of pure torture?
As for the movie itself, TV stars Robert Urich and Mary Crosby lead a (nearly) all-star cast, several of whom not only survived the film itself, but surprisingly had long careers afterwards...and if there's hope for Ron Perlman, there's hope for ALL of us! Princess Karina lost her Daddy years ago when he went searching for the 7th World (and when he'd rather be on another planet than with you, he might be telling you something), a planet rich with the scarce resource of water. Naturally, what better way to find him than to join up with a scruffy crew of pirates, led by the mostly incompetent Jason, all the while dodging the evil Space Templars bent on keeping anyone from finding the planet and screwing their monopoly on drinkable substances (apparently no one has heard of desalinization plants). On the way, they'll nearly lose their naughty bits, tempt frog alien-women, experience racial slurs, do the time warp (again), and, of course, fight Amazons riding unicorns. What, doesn't every space epic have unicorns?
And as an added bonus, this iRiff comes in two distinct flavors: the first is the traditional iRiff we've all come to know and love, and a special "Stupend-O" edition, complete with skits built right in! Just pause the movie when the audio prompts you, and you'll hear a short skit between the One Man Band and the PPD-3200. And don't worry about pausing and unpausing perfectly...each skit occurs right near a sync line, so you'll have no trouble lining back up!
The Ice Pirates! Just when you thought Episode II was the worst space epic ever!
NOTE FOR PAL USERS: The PAL edition of the film is difficult to come by; if you cannot play NTSC imports, this edition may definitely be found on Amazon.de (though in German, it contains the English language track as well), although other vendors may carry it.
Poster art by Piobman.
Comments
Horrible movie, awesome riff. MST3K-caliber jokes (with host segments to boot!). Top notch audio quality and delivery. Get it now.
Funny stuff on a bad movie. Your stupend-O version was very easy to work with and it added a unique touch to the riffing. As always, superb audio quality and in my opinion you struck that perfect ratio of jokes to movie. Not too busy, but never sparse either. Tons of quality jokes with no filler. Keep up the great work!
I'm not a fan of solo riffing, but this movie is so terribly entertaining I had to give it a try.
I have to admit, this is a top notch riff. Great jokes, great pacing and a style that delivers the jokes right in the flow of the movie. Special tip of the cap for the Phantom of the Paradise reference.
Looks like I need to rethink my lone riffer bias.
A delightfully fun track for a bizarre acid trip of a movie. You truly have to see Ice Pirates to really understand it, the top notch audio quality and great joke references (Logan's Run, Westworld, etc) made it all worth while.
First off, I understand a fair amount of folks don’t care much for solo riffers. But seriously, please don’t let the fact that this is a solo riff dissuade you from checking this out. I myself prefer multiple riffers but I don’t mind solo riffs at all, especially when they are done this well. What it boils down to is that whether it’s one person or five people, funny is funny…and this guy is funny. The jokes are very clever and convey a real sense of intelligence. I was surprised at how consistently funny the riffing was. It’s not easy to do, especially when you consider that this is one person doing everything.
Like I said, the jokes are quality, but what really impressed me was the performance. The whole solo-riffer thing never entered my mind because from start to finish there is a great energy to the delivery. The riffer uses varied styles of delivery, from a great deadpan to more emotional outbursts. There are some hilarious impressions of the characters in the movie as well. Like a good stand-up comic, the riffer creates a really fun and cool atmosphere that carries you through the entire movie. I really enjoyed the self-referential moments, especially when the riffer bemoans the fact he has already used up his one allowed reference to a particular film. As for the movie itself, I had forgotten how ridiculous this was. This thing is up there with Xanadu in terms of weirdness. It’s quite the experience going back and watching some of these movies you most likely haven’t seen in many years. Oh, I forgot to mention the sound quality…it’s excellent. You're just not gonna find more quality entertainment for $1.49.
Favorite laugh-out-loud moments (out of many):
Vilanch credit riff
Amontillado in-the-closet riff
Summerstock riff
Magic of reading riff – outstanding!
Blazing Saddles riff
Zapruder film riff – I'm laughing now just thinking about it
For what it's worth, I highly recommend this iRiff. One Man Band has a new fan. I will definitely be checking out more of his stuff. I also need to go back and listen to the extended skit version. The intro and outtro on the regular track are very entertaining.
Thanks to everybody who not only bought, but left the nice comments as well. I knew Ice Pirates needed riffing, but I never knew how many people agreed with me! It's made the Top 50, and for that and a host of other things, thank you, thank you, thank you!
I haven't updated it in awhile, but if you want to keep tabs on any new stuff I do (or catch old stuff you may not know about) I do have an RSS feed through Rifftrax that should keep you up to date. You should be able to leave replies on there as well.
And feel free to let me know if you'd like to see more "Stupend-O" editions in the future. They do take a little extra time to finish, but if you think they're worth the effort, they may show up in future products (which future products those are MAY vary, though).