The Official and Very Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thread

[Trekker4747]

I never found Wesley that annoying, well after the first season. And Wil Wheaton is a hell of guy, seen him at cons and totally enjoy him there.

I watched "Avalanche" better feeling episode, the jokes felt less rushed but the "manufactured" nature of it all is still there as opposed to "guys sitting in front of crummy movie and making jokes" the process they used is hard to not "see" now.

But I think more of the jokes landed for me, less-fast of a pace and the host segments, notably the one between Day and N.P. Harris, worked for me more.

I might say it's a "turning point" for the new season where the elements snapped together better.

 

[cultcross]

Wheaton is a fantastic guest at any convention, he has an energy and genuine interest in it all that keeps even the dullest panel alive.

 

[cooleddie74]

Wil Wheaton could make a hostage video entertaining and more fun.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I'm slowly watching the new season because I didn't want to binge it. I'm glad they didn't go for the obvious stuff like The Room or Troll 2, instead finding weird obscure stuff like Cry Wilderness. If I had any complaints it's that the host segments feel too short.

 

[Gepard]

I'm glad they didn't go for the obvious stuff like The Room or Troll 2, instead finding weird obscure stuff like Cry Wilderness.

Wait until you get to Carnival Magic. Oh my god, it's one of those movies where you wonder how in the hell Joel even found it.

Sometimes MST movies feel like weird personal passion projects by a handful of people, the sort of thing that was made to prove it could be done and then dumped in a bin somewhere with no hope of finding an audience. The new season is full of movies like that.

 

[Mudd]

An observant and nearly perfectly accurate review:

First things first. The new Mystery Science Theater 3000, that basic-cable and UHF puppet show that was above all else a treatise about what it was like to grow up on basic cable and UHF, is a cheery, companionable continuation, an almost business-as-usual new season Kickstarted and Netflixed that Febreezes away the stink of the last Gen-X TV nostalgia-revival, The X-Files. Despite tech upgrades and a new veneer of comedy professionalism, MST3Kremains at heart just what it always was: a simulation of watching last century's creature-feature leftovers with your funniest friends (who mostly come from the Midwest).

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I'm not as crazy about it as the old show but I'm not 100% sure that it's the show isn't up to snuff or if it's one of those cases of "you can't go home again". It does seem a bit more artificial than the old days, more of an obvious production and perhaps a bit too knowing and meta about itself. I'd have to watch some classic episodes to judge that better.

People talk about Jonah vs Joel/Mike but I never really appreciated what the villains brought to it. Dr. Forrester and Frank were great and I liked the chemistry with them. Pearl felt more remote and separate from the boys on the SOL and Kinga/Son of Frank even more so despite that I like Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt. Those segments just feel perfunctory now.

Not to say it isn't without merit and I liked it more as it went on. I've kind of skipped around but I liked the Wizards of the Lost Kingdom riffs especially the first one. And there are still those "deep cut" jokes where you wonder how many people actually get the references which have always been fun.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'll go on record saying that I think I like the Sci-Fi era "Mads" more than Forrester/TV's Frank. Forrester/Frank were a lot of fun but, much like the rest of the Joel years, just came across as way too goofy. Trace and Frank do good and are funny and everything but Pearl just seemed more "wicked" and "evil." It was easier to "buy" her wanting to take over the world/torture Mike.

Plus it was fun seeing Murphy and Corbett in costume as the henchmen mads because more of either them is always good and, really, Pearl has grown on me. (More so I'd say just in the last year due to Mary Jo Pehl's riffing with Bridgette Jones-Nelson on Rifftrax.) They both played the absurd characters they were supposed to be well between the PotA-like Bobo and the B-Grade Sci-Fi Movie-esque Brain Guy with the illogical explanation of why he is the way he is. It played just as a nice poke at Sci-Fi, but more-so '50s B-Films that he's a greatly evolved, omnipotent, being without the need for a body, yet has a corporeal body and has to carry his own brain around in a tray rather than in his head. The episode where we meat the "Brain Guys" is a lot of fun as it pokes more fun at certain Sci-Fi tropes of the "eating a pill a day" for nutrition, but the Brain Guys seem to need to eat the pills as much as we need to eat food making the pill-meal diet illogical.

Kinga and TV's Son of TV's Frank seem to more-or-less be a bit of both, Kinga's got a lot of Pearl's "wickedness" and malevolence to her while TV's Son of TV's Frank is, well, TV's Frank. I think the mads on the Netfflix series work nicely, though it is hard to beat either set of Mads from the original series. (I will say, I didn't like Pearl as the co-host replacement in MST3K's final season on CC.)

I'm not sure where I'd rank Jonah with the rest of the hosts, it feels like he's already at a huge disadvantage coming into the competition. I *might* like him more than Joel because he's not quite as sleepy-eyed, laid-back, Saturday Morning Kids' Show like, but it's hard to say that since I really like Joel's MST3K years. But, for me, Mike is the best of the hosts again owing to his more harsh tone towards the movies and The Mads and the more "brotherly" relationship he had with the 'bots as opposed to fatherly/mentor one Joel had.

Jonah seems to be somewhere in the middle, being the "brother" in the shenanigans and such but also being "fatherly" in teachinh the 'bots "lessons" and so forth.

I've yet to watch another episode, Rifftrax's "Grizzly" took precedent las-night, good laughs there. But will take to a MST3K:2.0 tonight or tomorrow. I did really enjoy "Avalanche."

 

[Mudd]

The loss of Clayton and Frank was a greater one in some ways than Joel - I was bored by that peculiar and underthought group that replaced them.

 

[cooleddie74]

I never liked Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy anywhere near as much as Dr. Forrester and Frank. Not even close. They said and did funny things and I'm always a fan of Mary Jo Pehl's Pearl Forrester, but she wasn't as entertaining nor as sharply or wittily-written as her son was. Knowing that Kevin was underneath the Professor Bobo makeup made the character more fun to watch and Bill nailed Brain Guy's detached sense of superiority and smugness, but once the series moved from Comedy Central to Sci-Fi the host segments began to suffer pretty badly.

 

[Mudd]

Day's character is rather affecting. 1104.

 

[Trekker4747]

I dunno, I liked the host segments more in the Sci-Fi Era, I think most of my favorite host segments come from then. Even the Mike CC host segments don't do a whole lot for me. I don't mean to Malign Trace's Forrester and Frank's Frank, but in a "if I had to choose a winner" sort of scenario, the Sci-Fi Era does it more for me.

 

[cooleddie74]

SCIENCE ALL UP IN THIS BITCH.

 

[Mudd]

One reason I probably like the new version so much is that I vastly prefer everything about the Joel Robinson era.

The movies themselves were more interesting before SciFi interfered.

 

[cooleddie74]

There are undeniable classics in the Sci-Fi era. For example I laugh my ass off every time I watch "Space Mutiny," "The Final Sacrifice" and "Soultaker," the last of which might arguably be the single funniest episode of the entire series between the end of its Comedy Central run and "Cry Wilderness." That said - there should have been more movies about motorcycle gangs with hot old ladies, lousy cop films with bloated, greasy slobs and random Tommy Kirk movies.

 

[Trekker4747]

The Sci-Fi era's "requirement" that all of the subject movies have some Sci-Fi element to them was a bit of restraint and I think the series only managed to violate it a few times (of the top: The Girl in Gold Boots, Final Justice, Agent from H.A.R.M.). I mean, come on Sci-Fi, weren't you showing Professional Wrestling on your channel?

But, again, most of my more favorite episodes come from that Sci-Fi Era. Space Mutiny, Time Chasers, Final Sacrifice, Soultaker, Squirm, The Girl in Gold Boots, The Legend of the Boggy Creek Creature 2 (actually 3). So I don't think it was *that* much of a handicap for them only to do Sci-Fi-centric movies because there's a lot of terrible sci-fi movies out there and Rifftrac, CT, and the new version of MST3K prove that. And even going back into the Joel times the better movies for me were the ones with a Sci-Fi bent. "Teenagers from Outerspace" was the first MST3K episode I ever watched and is what got me hooked.

The movies aren't the thing for me, I think some of my least favorite episodes come from the Mike era (The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Gives a Fuck What the Rest of This Movie's Title Is?) and for the life of me I've never been able to sit all the way through Hamlet. It's more the "attitude" our host had towards the movie and Joel was too "kind" even admonishing the bots whenever they got too cynical or dark, Mike had much more bite to him towards the movies and it felt more like what I do when I watch a terrible movie. I don't make sleepy eyed smarmy pokes at it, I tear the bitch to shreds.

The subject movie is irrelevant, Rifftrax has proven this by riffing on good movies with their audio-only riffs (granted riffing on good movies is harder.) But they've riffed on Jaws, Inception and freakin' Casablanca! All of which are pretty damn funny.

So, for me, it's just more about the attitude and treatment of the movie.

Jonah seems to be somewhere mostly in the middle so far.

 

[Gepard]

This got me in the feels.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[cooleddie74]

That was beautiful. Thanks for posting it!

 

[JasonJ]

So I just finished the first two episodes on Netflix.... I like it. It's still MST3k. But my God were those first two movies horrible. I like Jonah, he's harsh on the films as he should be, the jokes are good... I just want more Kinga and Max.

 

[Mudd]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies