The Official and Very Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thread

[Trekker4747]

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.

Reptilicus was ROUGH, but fun in the "B-Grade Monster Movie" sort of way, that second one I've still not gone back to try and rewatch, some movies like those don't grab as much as they do others. "Pod People" has never worked for me, though it's often considered one of the "classics." "Avalanche" for me is this versions first "classic" episode where it seems like everything clicked.

 

[Mudd]

Yeah, "Pod People" is one of my least favorites as well.

Only the many changes that the MST3K crew were able to ring from Torgo himself really saves "Manos" for me, for that matter. The movies that were poorly made - not just cheesy, but lacking basic technical competence - are just plain hard to watch even with the 'bots.

 

[cooleddie74]

I just rewatched "City Limits" the other day. That one never gets old for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is Crow's sweet and hilarious obsession with Kim Cattrall that developed into a real life friendship between her and Trace. One of my favorite exchanges in the film ends with Crow's anguished response that always makes me laugh.

Tom: Why does Kim get such a boring wardrobe?
Joel: Because Kim's so boring?
Crow: NOOOOOOOO!!!

 

[Mudd]

"Catalina Caper" remains my favorite, both because of outstanding riffing ("White folks voted best on the planet!...Maybe he's so hopped up he thinks this is the Apollo.") and Tom Servo's rendition of "Creepy Girl."

 

[cooleddie74]

That episode might be the genesis of both my knowledge and use of the phrase "hopped up on goofballs."

 

[Trekker4747]

Tom's obsession with "Creepy Girl" in CC is fun stuff.

There's plenty of very poorly made movies out there that MST3K, as well as their offspring, were able to get a lot out of. "Manos" is completely unwatchable on almost every level but MST3K more than manages to make it watchable and Rifftrax is able to take that ball, reuse it, and totally make it work.

I'd almost argue movies like "Birdemic" and "The Room" are unwatchable without RT but they kind of both exist in the zone of bad movies that are fun to watch simply because they're bad. Hell, my friends and I watched "The Room" without RT first and made many of the same jokes the RT guys did when we watched it.

I often float between several selections when I try and think of my favorite MST3K episode because there's so many across all of the "periods" of the show. But, usually I point to "Time Chasers" as my favorite episode and probably the best use of the host segments in the Sci-Fi era.

I really do need to sit down and watch MST3K "straight through" sometime, maybe skipping the episodes I've watched enough to fully know I feel about them, maybe even include some of the KTMA episodes but, man, those episodes and a good part of Season 1 are rough.

 

[cooleddie74]

Ever try watching the unriffed "Monster A-Go Go"? I tried once. What little of my soul which was still alive beforehand died that day.

 

[Mudd]

The Time Travelers is an interesting watch on its own, certainly on a rainy weekend afternoon. It fits very neatly into the era of media sf that produced Star Trek.

 

[Redfern]

I completed my watch of the new season last night, "At the Earth's Core". I remember first reading about that movie in an early issue of StarLog, but I never saw it until last year upon the MGM Movies premium channel, nearly 40 years later. I thought, "Mercy, this would make for prime MST3K 'ham'!" Little did I know! I liked that it kinda' "dovetailed" two earlier movies by pairing Doug McClure with Caroline Munro. That could not have been coincidence on the part of Joel and staff.

Now comes the "dry spell" until we (hopefully) get a 12th season, the debatable downside of "binge watching".

 

[Trekker4747]

The Time Travelers is an interesting watch on its own, certainly on a rainy weekend afternoon. It fits very neatly into the era of media sf that produced Star Trek.

Yeah, I really liked Time Travelers too.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I completed my watch of the new season last night, "At the Earth's Core". I remember first reading about that movie in an early issue of StarLog, but I never saw it until last year upon the MGM Movies premium channel, nearly 40 years later. I thought, "Mercy, this would make for prime MST3K 'ham'!" Little did I know! I liked that it kinda' "dovetailed" two earlier movies by pairing Doug McClure with Caroline Munro. That could not have been coincidence on the part of Joel and staff.

Now comes the "dry spell" until we (hopefully) get a 12th season, the debatable downside of "binge watching".

I was a big Burroughs fan, so I saw it at the theater. I might have even liked it.

 

[Trekker4747]

Been a while since I watched Marooned, may watch it tonight. But. Yeah Gene Hackman, an Oscar movie, it's pretty good.

 

[Mudd]

Hackman's good in everything he does.

 

[Noname Given]

To this day, with all the other 'American International' released 'japanese Live Action' series compilation films they managed to get, I'm really surprised they never did "Voyage Into Space":

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I mean between a 30 year old guy shadowing a 12 year old kid on a ship; and then after said kid joins the Unicorn Squad; his parents letting him go on weekend Train trips with said 30 year old man; and enemy soldiers that look like 1950ies era Beatniks (including goatees)...
^^^
This one is tailor made for MST3K

 

[Trekker4747]

I watched "Marooned" (Actually "Space Travelers" via the version on MST3K as it was bought/distributed by some secondary distributor who also distributed a few other movies in MST3K's run) last night. One of those "okay episodes" for me, some good riffing and stuff in it but the movie itself is just dull. Our three astronauts spend most of the movie sitting in their cockpit looking kind-of constipated the entire time. While the people on Earth at NASA, impractically, build, test and launch a rescue ship inside a couple of days. I did like the ending though with the somewhat positive encounter with the Russian cosmonaut, quite the thing to show for the time period the movie was made in.

It's interesting to note the movie itself came out before the Apollo 13 incident and was watched by the Lovells before the fateful mission. I can just picture Lovell nitpicking and griping about all of the things the movie showed/did wrong.

 

[cooleddie74]

^
And it won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects of 1969.

Go figure. It may be the only Oscar winner that's ever been riffed in any era of MST3K.

 

[Mudd]

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[cooleddie74]

"James Franciscus was the Finder of Lost Loves!"

"No, that was TONY FRANCIOSA!!!"

 

[Redfern]

In a way, I kinda' wish the new episodes were released periodically. There was a flurry a initial discussion and now the thread is all but comatose. If they had been released one or even two a week, there might have been some more "steady" discourse, like in the Doctor Who sub-forum.

But I realize that's not the way a lot of streaming entertainment works nowadays.

So, has anyone performed their own "host segments" with either authentic" or custom 'Bot puppets?

 

[Gepard]

We've got renewal sign! Season 12 is a go.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MST3K/comments/7f4yrg/season_12_is_a_go/