SATURDAY B-MOVIE CRAPFEST: “Space Truckers” (1996)

“Verisome Fido-S Tech support. How can we help you?”
“My TV….uhm…stopped working.”
“We can help you with that. Can you verify the name and address on the account?”
“Republibot 3.0, out of St. Grissom”
“Very good, mister 3.0, what seems to be the trouble today?”
“Well, my TV isn’t working.”
“It what way isn’t it working?”
“Well, you know the part where you sit down and watch pictures on it, and listen to sounds?”
“Yes.”
“That aspect of it isn’t really working.”
“Ok, can you be a bit more specific?”
“No, I’m sorry, I really can’t. I’m sort of an idiot.”
“Ok…hm, yes, looking at your file I see we’ve had a number of calls with you stringently proclaiming your idiocy first thing, and then breaking down crying.”
“To my shame, yes.”
“Ok, then, first things first: is there smoke or flame coming out of your TV?”
“No.”
“Good. Good. Is it on?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, why don’t you tell me what you were trying to do when it all went wrong.”
“Great! Ok, I decided to watch ‘Space Truckers,’ staring Dennis Hopper and a scantily-clad-yet-strangely-sexless Debi Mazar, to review for my website. Unfortunately, the only copy I have is on VHS, so I had to, you know, turn the VCR on and…uhm…put the tape in and stuff, right? If this is too detailed…”
“No, no, I can follow it. Do go on.”
“Well, anyway, I haven’t used the VCR in like 18 months or more, so I’ve kind of forgotten how it works, but then it started giving me onscreen options to reset the clock and stuff that I don’t care about…and then…[voice quivers]…gimmie a minute…..”
“What did you do?”
“I hit a button on the remote - one button - and now nothing will work.”
“Huh.”
“So since then, I can’t watch the tape *OR* the TV. I’ve been running around for 35 minutes, trying to get it to run, alternately plugging and unplugging things, using various kinds of profanity, but nothing’s working. I even turned it over to my son to fix - he’s twelve - but he couldn’t figure it out either. I just don’t understand how I could have broken it so bad by simply touching one button.”
“Can you describe…”
“Tee Vee no workee.”
“Right. What channel is it on?”
“I don’t know….uhm…two?”
“Put it on three.”
“Oh, yes, there we go. Perfect picture. Debi Mazar in her purple spangly bra. Yup, yup, yup. That’s it right there. I’m an idiot. Thank you.”
“No problem.”

PLAY BY PLAY

We start out with some surprisingly nice space footage zooming in on Triton, largest moon of Neptune. On the surface, we’re in a somewhat badly lit and fake-looking lab, where everyone’s favorite Science Fiction prop, Shane Rimmer, is talking to an English dude about their new project, which is, at that moment, running amok. A bunch of space marines seal off the lab, while higgledy piggeldy breaks loose, and various fighters and tank-things outside are destroyed by the whatever-it-is. The Whatever then gets through the big, impressive door, revealing itself to be a disappointing-looking Rubbersuit Monster. It disintegrates the space marines, and kills everyone in the room. It’s just about to kill Shane Rimmer when the English guy hits a button on his car alarm fob, and the thing deactivates. Turns out it’s a new bioweapon they’ve been developing for “The Company.” Shane Rimmer compliments the English guy on his brilliance, and says that with a hundred of these dealies, his people