Ice Pirates

23 April, 2022 toddrick 0 Comments 1 category

In the 1980’s on stolen cable premium channels I got to watch this movie *many* times. It’s like a weird adult space comedy. This movie is a symptom of what happens when you have trouble at a Production Company. If you read the production part of this Wikipedia page it explains the issues. It contains sentences like “so the producer had punched him!” and “I had to drink vodka to calm myself down” and my favorite “they brought in a new guy, who was eventually found out to be stealing money from the company”. So this is the kind of movie you get when that’s going on. The comedy isn’t.. uh.. it’s not the best. I’m sure it was good for what it was, and young Todd thought it was funny but I was probably 8. Anyhow, lets get going shall we?

Who didn’t think the Lion roaring in the MGM openings was cool as a kid?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_the_Lion_(MGM)

Title starts right away in this movie along with very pirate-y adventure music.

Basically water is the only thing value, Templars are the baddies and control all the water, Pirates fight for survival. Easy enough.

We open on the ship of our Pirate crew, they are targeting this Freighter and repairing some robots they have on board.

They position their ship onto the Freighter to cut into the hull..

And we start to see some of the crew, yeah That’s Angelica Houston as “Maida”.

And that’s Ron Perlman as “Zeno”. They aren’t even the main characters.

Here’s one. That’s Robert Urich as “Jason”

And I believe this guy with the laser is the other. This is Michael D Roberts, and he is playing “Roscoe”

So these guys make a big hole in the side of the freighter to break in..

Only to discover they’ve broken in to the bathroom.

After they evade a tiny robot..

And assault an old woman is a cheap maid costume..

They decide to hide in a room from our baddies and who also turn out to be the Templars

And the room contains a Princess in suspended animation. The maid tells them she’s Princess Karina. She’s played by Mary Crosby who is Bing Crosby’s daughter.

Jason (the guy on the left) wants to take her for ransom but the rest of the people remind him they are here for ice. He closes her back up in her sleep machine and tells the maid the she “missed out”.

We get a look at the Ice, and one of them tells the rest he’s going to retire, but they are spotted so have to attack the Templars.

So Buckles get Swashed, and there is rope swinging shenanigans as the Pirates fight the Templars guarding the Ice.

Zeno loses a hanD to a killer robot.

But they make sure to pick it up, because he wants to keep it.

And we get a Robot fight suring which a “bad robot” is defeated by the Pirates group of malfunctioning comedic Robots.

They reach the control room but one of the white haired slave guys does manage to hit the alarm so they have to make a break for it.

And they have to fight their way off the ship they fought to get onto.

Also Jason goes back and gets the Princess. The tiny robot from earlier protests but is unable to stop him.

He manages to use her to distract the inept robot guards into letting him pass and the Pirates get away in their ship, but with no ice (seemingly)

The authorities have been alerted to the kidnapping and theft and some leader of the Templars is upset the Captain (on the right) didn’t stop this before it started.

Everyone Templar has a very fake very thick British accent.

Anyhow there is a space fight..

And the pirate ship splits into 3 with our main team in the middle only they can’t steer the ship

And in an attempt at comedy they try to video game fight the baddies.

But Lose, predictably

So the Templars board and get their princess back who for the record was not happy about the situation.

And now they are all thrown in Space Jail on a Space Jail Ship to do hard Space Jail Time.

While they are in prison they meet this nice guy, his name is Kill Joy he tells them that as soon as the prison ship they are on arrives at the planet Mithra they will be “redesigned” into one of those slaves and by that he means they will be castrated and lobotomized but not to worry it’s a new process and is painless. He also tells them they will not castrate monks just in case there is a god.

Just then out a window they see Mithra and even though they know they will be redesigned they are in awe because the planet has water under it’s covered fields.

They’ve arrived on Planet Mithra, and as Jason looks down he can see the princess walking under them.

Another prisoner tells him that her father was killed looking for something called the 7th World, and that the Templars actually killed him but she doesn’t know anything about it.

When the prison crate they are in drops Kill Joy hops off in clergy robes he stole from another guy in the crate.

But they are not so lucky and they get loaded into an assembly line to get “redesigned”

They get their clothes removed with hedge clippers that aren’t on.

Then they get shaved by some mostly disinterested barbers.

Then straight into a machine that should be castrating them.

They aren’t having a great time of it but lucky for them….

It’s a ruse, and the princess has arranged to have them not be castrated but she tells them to play along.

They are both pretending to be lobotomized and castrated, and the Princess buys them as slaves.

Her assistant informs them the Princess will explain to them later, but if they don’t keep up the appearance they will get castrated.

Later that night there is a party and people are dancing like this

It’s actually the Princess’s party but we don’t know if she’s up to something yet.

Roscoe is told to check out the Robots for some reason and we find out that Kill Joy is pretending to be one of them like he was pretending to be clergy before.

She does tell them what’s up pretty quickly, she wants them to take her to a Pirate Moon, and she can get them out of this and back to their ship.

The templars are expecting her to do this so when she and the Pirates try to escape they give chase.

The group get separated and Roscoe and Kill Joy meet a Pimp Bot, and it’s implied he gets them to the ship.

Now they are all aboard the ship (including the assistant who wasn’t even with them I guess she was there already) They discuss that they are not being followed which seems too easy.

She asks Jason if he knows this guy

And his reply is it’s “Lanky Nibs” and that he does know him. She wants to meet him and wants Jason to arrange it. He is on the Pirate Moon they are headed to.

Back from the baddies POV we see they did indeed expect her to go and they more or less let her. The guy from before that’s the antagonist is now identified as “Zorn” and the guy in the chair is dying and tells him he’s been alive for “eons” but he can still feel his body.

Our heroes finally arrive at Zagora.

Whie Jason talks to the Moon Pirates over the radio, a mysterious egg starts to hatch that no one noticed before.

The little creature that hops out bites Roscoe then it bites Jason..

Then it runs away. so they look at the manifest to find out what it is.

Ahh yes, 80’s humor.

Killjoy shows up to tell them that the Princess will give them “a third of the water” for helping them. I don’t know where she’s getting that from but ok.

On the pirate Moon in an effort to show you how rough the streets are, you see a lot of fighting and crazed water drinking.

This guy in the fun glasses drops the n-word when talking about Roscoe. But then he tells his companion “uh sorry I meant Black Gentlemen” I don’t remember that in my childhood.

They find the Rest of the Crew that split off earlier. Ron Perlman grew his hand back but he keeps the old one to be a dick to his friends

Angelica Houston is also back and is criminally underused in every scene she’s in.

While drinking and building up the next journey which will be across land to find Lanky Nibs she tells Jason that he knows where her father is. Earlier we were told her Father was dead so she might be in for a surprise if that’s the case.

They discover that Nibs is nearby in at Sweetwater which they will have to travel over land to get. But they can convince this nearby Frog Man to give them a ride. After he sends the Princess to seduce the Frog Man for a ride, it’s discovered it’s actually a Frog-Lady and she’s interested in Jason, so he has to do it.

Also there is a little fight where Angelica Houston cuts off racist cool glasses wearing guys head but it’s still satisfying even if the effect looks this bad.

It’s the next day and presumably Jason did canoodle with that Frog-lady because they are travelling to Lanky Nibs. Why they don’t use the ship I couldn’t tell you.

Frog Lady is super handsy on Jason on the ride.

They do arrive in Sweetwater and Run into Lanky Nibs. Jason is shocked by his sudden age.

Nibbs dumps a lot of info: Her father and the crew Nibbs was with found the “7th World” and it’s just full of water, but since it is in the center of the galaxy they aged 20 years in 20 Seconds.

They eventually left the planet and the Templars caught up with them and killed everyone, but not her dad, he managed to leave the crew before that happened.

So they need to get to the Tri System because he might be there. But First.. bad guys show up

He actually uses the phrase “I can’t believe they found me” when Jason had no trouble finding him.

They steam towards them and the Frog Lady who is just waiting for them is in the way.

Guess what she gets? Death that’s what.

Jason fights and all the baddies end up dead.

But Nibbs doesn’t make it, and he asks them to find the world and the water before he dies.

And they walk all the way back to the ship.

When they are back to the ship we finally get a history lesson. 10,000 years ago there was a galactic war. And there were 6 water planets, and they all got destroyed.

But some people believe a 7th planet was spun(?) out of orbit and it’s now near the galactic center but there is a problem.

When you go to the center Time speeds up, so you just get old and die. (which is what happened to Nibs)

On the way to the Tri System they make a Turkey and the space herpe pops out.. and the Princess is mad they didn’t disclose the herpe, and they argue about it, and it’s a really really dumb joke. They don’t manage to kill the herpe .

They finally arrive on the Tri System and it’s almost entirely covered in fog machines. It’s Jason, Roscoe, The Princess, and a couple of Robot Red Shirts.

Some ladies in leather bikinis riding unicorns appear (what you didn’t see that coming?) and they kill the robots, and grab Jason and the Princess, they don’t manage to get Roscoe.

Jason and Princess get brought to.. a hotel? and the Bikini ladies are showing off for them as they take them to their boss.

Who is this sexy man. His name is Wendon. He has been expecting the princess to arrive and tells her that his father is there and has given up.

But he’s not interested in giving the father to her and tries to kill them.

Roscoe swings in to save the day by swining in and kicking the guy and revealing his secret…

Wendon is actually only a head. So they tickle his nose with a feather after he tells them he can’t be tortured, and he quickly reveals in the Father is in the “Oval Room”.

But after getting to the room they quickly discover it’s actually a Robot.. so they examine it, it tells them to use a ring..

which Wendon has hidden in his mouth..

And when paired with her ring shows a hologram message that gives them the coordinates to get back to the 7th World. So they head that way.

And on the way Jason and the Princess have Smexy Time in the ships holodeck.

After the smexy time they start noticing the time affects, and they also see a Templar ship is now following them.

Zorn tells them they’ve been following them this whole time and this was their plan all along to find the 7th World and take the water for themselves.

So the Templars board the Pirate ship to fight it out and someone mentions it’s been 3 months already

Wendon has a Robot body now, and he tells Jason, the Princess is now pregnant and wants to see him.

By the time he gets to her she’s already got a baby.

And pretty quickly every one gets very old as they fight the bad robots..

And that baby comes to save the day as a full grown ass Jason clone while many of the pirates are dead.

Suddenly things are back the way they were before they got into the time loop. Everyone dead is alive again, and there is no baby. They figure they made it through, the bad guys are no where to be seen and they surmise because they were slightly misaligned they must have all died.