Space Mutiny

(Leia and that Beefy Guy are walking away from the burning golf cart)
Crow: Leia, this could be the start of a beautiful 30-day bulk-up routine.

This is a little spin-off of Humphrey Bogart’s famous last line in Casablanca, in which he says to Claude Rains, “Louis, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Bogart’s Rick had just put his one true love Ilsa on a plane with her husband Lazlo and killed Major Strasser (all in five minutes), and Louis covered up for him. And so they run away together, in a non-romantic way of course, to fight the good fight, one supposes. The movie’s writers thought up that line after they had filmed the scene—Humphrey Bogart had to come back and do a voice-over in the studio.


(Leia and Beefy Guy are at the bar)
Tom: God, they’re like Nick and Nora Charles.

I think I’ve written about Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man already—well, they always had a glass of liquor in their hands, like those two were in that dance club scene, and always had a witty repartee going, which Leia and the Beefy Guy were trying to do, but couldn’t really manage it, poor dopes (probably had something to do with the fact that the writers of Space Mutiny couldn’t write the nutrition contents for a cereal box). Off the subject though, what were they thinking casting that woman as Leia? Jesus she was like fifty-years old! And she was playing a character who was supposed to be, what, twenty? Disgusting, I tell you.


(Handy-capable Guy is running away)
Crow: A horse, my kingdom for a horse!

I like how Crow says that line; reminds me of Eddie Izzard’s bit about upper-class British men playing Cockney soldiers. The line isn’t so much from a movie as it is from a play—William Shakespeare’s Richard III, to be exact. But, Richard III has been adapted for the screen, although I can only name two instances as such. There was Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard, which wasn’t so much an adaptation of the play as it was a documentary about the filming of the play (I always wondered, though, why his version of the play never came out). Then there’s Laurence Olivier’s 1954 version, and although it was unseen by me, the fact that Olivier made it instantly means it’s good. Actually, Richard III is one of Shakespeare’s plays that I haven’t read, but I can tell you that there’s a line when he’s just lost a battle, and the enemy troop is about to Beat Him Down, that goes, “My horse, my kingdom for a horse!” See. I know something. By the by, Olivier was married to…yeah…you know who…


(After Mike and the ‘bots notice that one of the female characters has what looks to be…uh…male, Crow remarks, “She’s got an armadillo down her trousers!”)

That’s more or less a line from This is Spinal Tap!, the classic mockumentary about the fictional rock group Spinal Tap. It was created by Rob Reiner and the king of mockumentaries Christopher Guest (who also starred), and featured not only the usual Guest Mockumentary cast (Michael McKean and Harry Shears), but also a slew of famous actors, including Anjelica Huston, Patrick Macnee, Billy Crystal, Dana Carvey, Ed Begley Jr., and Fran Drescher. The reference here is from a bit where the three main members of Spinal Tap (Guest, McKean, and Shears) go on and on about how big their packages are, and Guest remarks that they have armadillos down their trousers. Unfortunately for Shears, it’s later discovered that he stuffs his pants with a cucumber wrapped in tin foil. Don’t ask.