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Big news for all fans of schlock satire and titanic tur­tles: Shout! Factory will be releas­ing a box set of Mystery Science Theater 3000’s leg­endary Gamera episodes in August!  It will con­tain all five Gamera-themed episodes that were tele­cast dur­ing the show’s third sea­son: Gamera, Gamera Vs. Barugon, Gamera Vs. Gaos, Gamera Vs. Guiron and Gamera Vs. Zigra.  Each episode will get its own disc and plen­ti­ful bonus fea­tures will also be included.  Read on for all the turtle-meat details…

MST3K VS. GAMERA:

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000,

VOL. XXI (DELUXE EDITION)

5-DVD SET TO BE RELEASED

FROM SHOUT! FACTORY

IN STORES AUGUST 2

Shout! Factory, in asso­ci­a­tion with Best Brains, Inc., is proud to announce MST3K vs. Gamera: Mystery Science Theater 3000, Vol. XXI (Deluxe Edition), will be released on August 2, 2011. The 5-DVD set is housed in a limited-edition tin, with 5 mini-posters, and includes the titles Gamera, Gamera Vs. Barugon, Gamera Vs. Gaos, Gamera Vs. Guiron, and Gamera Vs. Zigra SRP $64.99. Through a spe­cial offer only from Shout! Factory, fans who order the set at http://www.shoutfactorystore.com/prod.aspx?pfid=5257460#axzz1M5kMHWVk will receive a free Gamera post­card pack and MST3K Stress Ball while sup­plies last.

What could pos­si­bly be bet­ter suited to the always-quotable wise­cracks of beloved SoL cap­tive Joel Robinson and his faith­ful robot side­kicks, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, than a mon­ster movie about a giant fly­ing tur­tle? The answer is — four other movies about same fly­ing tur­tle! Behold the first-ever themed col­lec­tion of Mystery Science Theater 3000 clas­sics: all five Gamera episodes from the par­tic­u­larly fer­tile third sea­son of the long-running cult com­edy tele­vi­sion series … in their own shell!

In Gamera, East-West ten­sions lit­er­ally ignite an atomic explo­sion in the Arctic, and sci­en­tists must find a way to stop one very unex­pected fall­out: the ram­page of a giant, fly­ing tur­tle unearthed from its glacial tomb in the lost city of Atlantis . If ever there was an argu­ment for world peace, this would be it. On the Satellite of Love, a much more famil­iar ver­sion of the rep­tile is cel­e­brated in the now-legendary torch song trib­ute to Servo’s pet tur­tle, “Tibby, Oh Tibby!” Bonus fea­tures include the MST Hour host seg­ments, orig­i­nal Japanese trailer, and So Happy Together: A Look Back At MST3K & Gamera.

In Gamera Vs. Barugon, Gamera is back, only this time he’s play­ing for our team. In color! When a pri­vate expe­di­tion to retrieve a mys­te­ri­ous opal unwit­tingly unleashes a mon­ster lizard, Gamera returns to Earth for the ulti­mate rep­til­ian rum­ble. Climate change meets Theatre of the Absurd as our favorite fire-spewing tur­tle takes on a larger-than-life lizard with freez­ing breath. On the SoL, the jokes fly faster than an air­borne tur­tle, and Crow and Tom fan the flames of another bat­tle of the ages: PC vs. Mac. Like it’s even a ques­tion. Bonus fea­tures include the orig­i­nal Japanese trailer and Gamera Vs. The Chiodo Brothers, in which the acclaimed spe­cial effects team (Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Elf) waxes nos­tal­gic about Gamera, Japanese mon­ster movies and men in rub­ber suits.

Gamera solid­i­fies his new sta­tus as pro­tec­tor of human­ity in Gamera Vs. Gaos, when he’s called upon to defeat Gaos, an enor­mous bat with deadly spit-lasers. What Gaos is pre­pared to do with those lasers to sur­vive, you’ll have to watch and see — but feel free to make your own “I Kept My Eyes Open For 92 Minutes” T-shirt. Much like Gaos, the riffs are relent­less, strange and funny. And so is the SoL’s extremely short-lived pro­duc­tion of Gameradamerung. Bonus fea­tures include Gamera Obscura: A Brief History by August Ragone (author of “Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters), and the orig­i­nal Japanese trailer.

Gamera comes to the res­cue of two young boys abducted by alien women with a taste for grow­ing brains in Gamera Vs. Guiron. As if that doesn’t keep the heroic tur­tle busy enough, there’s Guiron (part mon­ster, part cut­lery) to con­tend with. Yes, it’s another heap­ing por­tion of giant mon­sters going at it and not “using their words” — for­ti­fied with essen­tial mes­sages about trust and kind­ness. Also, live from Deep 13 and the SoL: a very spe­cial evening of trib­utes to the Gamera theme song. The MST Hour host seg­ments and the orig­i­nal Japanese trailer of the film are included as a bonus features.

The final install­ment of the orig­i­nal Gamera series, Gamera Vs. Zigra, was com­pleted shortly before Daiei Studios went bank­rupt, and it’s not hard to see why. Gamera returns to save Earth from yet another alien with Earth envy. But lest you worry that it’s another por­tion of more of the same, this time the mon­ster can talk, and this time it looks like a fish. Zigra (it’s a ship and a mon­ster and a planet) blames our “Earth sci­ence” for ren­der­ing his home planet’s oceans unin­hab­it­able. Needless to say, we are all pun­ished for it. Invention exchanges, dio­ra­mas and two more wildly dif­fer­ent takes on Gamera’s theme song … the wait is over. The orig­i­nal Japanese trailer is included as a bonus feature.

MST3K vs. Gamera Bonus Features:

·        So Happy Together: A Look Back At MST3K & Gamera

·        Gamera Obscura: A History by August Ragone (author of “Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters)

·        Gamera Vs. The Chiodo Brothers

·        MST Hour host segments

·        Original Japanese Trailers

·        5 Exclusive Mini-Posters By Artist Steve Vance

MST3K VS Gamera Collection Tin, first time on home video, bonus fea­tures, free “stress ball”