Spaced Invaders
A 1990 comedy film in which the idiotic crew of a small Martian spaceship overhear a Halloween re-broadcast of Orson Welles' seminal War of the Worlds radio-play, leading them to "invade" the small Midwestern town of Big Bean. All very cheesy, but still Better Than It Sounds, if only just barely.
- Aliens Steal Cable
- Back From the Brink
- Badass Automaton: The Enforcer Drone aboard the Martians' ship. Vern also qualifies after he gets turned into a robotic slave by Captain Bipto.
- Badass Normal: Plural for Kathy, Brian (the kid in the duck costume), and Old Man Wrenchmuller.
- Captain Ersatz: Not necessarily in this movie, but you think maybe Jhonen Vasquez saw this movie?
- Chekhov's Gun: Wrenchmuller's box of TNT.
- Corrupt Bureaucrat: Steve W. Klembecker, for trying to throw folks off their farms BEFORE the crops and farm loans are due, including Old Man Wrenchmuller.
- Curb Stomp Battle: The rest of the invasion fleet ends up in the right system, then promptly gets their asses handed to them.
- Easily-Thwarted Alien Invasion: Well, "thwarted" is the wrong word, because for the most part, the clueless martians mess up and foil their own plan.
- For Halloween I Am Going as Myself
- Gadgeteer Genius: Under the influence of Captain Bipto's mind control device, Vern the gas station attendant turns a bunch of old tractor parts and windmills into a Humongous Mecha.
- Grumpy Old Man/Cool Old Guy: Old man Wrencmuller, who's also quite Genre Savvy.
- I Got a Rock
- Killer Robot: The Enforcer Drone.
- Jerkass: Klembecker for drinking, driving, womanizing, handing out cigarettes to kids on Halloween when they wanted candy (last year it was dead rats), stealing Vern's Zorro hat by rolling up the window and trapping it, and not paying for gasoline after intentionally parking on the wrong side of the pump with Vern having to pull the gas nozzle to the other side of the truck!
- Land Poor: Woe unto Old Man Wrenchmuller. He gets better, though.
- Laughably Evil: The aliens are trying to conquer the Earth and subjugate humanity, but in the long run, their attempts to do so only help the earthlings in more than one way.
- Little Green Men: Lampshaded.
- Look Both Ways: "If only Captain Bipto had known!"
- Meanwhile Back At The
- Possession Implies Mastery
- Puny Earthlings
- Prepare to Die: Used ad nauseum by Lieutenant Giggywig.
- Too Dumb to Live: Discussed between Doctor Ziplock and Corporal Pez:
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Doctor Ziplock: Perhaps if we ride in this transport, we can find their secret resistance headquarters. |
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- For all the enforcer drones' menacinq qualities, they're about as competent as a bag of bricks with the intelligence to match. One drone is defeated when Wrenchmuller poses as the ambassador of Earth and convinces the drone that it has won an award for being generally awesome and he presents it with a lit stick of dynamite.
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Enforcer Drone: I don't know what to say! |
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- Once the Enforcer Drones are introduced to handle command of the Martian fleet, they prove as incompetent as their Martian masters and command the entire battle fleet to its doom.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Except that the locals use shotguns instead.
- Villain Protagonist: But not the most competent of villains.
- You Have Failed Me...: Right off the bat from the Enforcer Drone when it performs a "disciplinary review" upon a Mook who complains about having an Enforcer Drone giving the orders, and plays it straight with the pilot, Blaznee.