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Post by cahvaydweller on Oct 4, 2015 20:02:15 GMT -5
For me the key to fully enjoying a MST3K episode is that the film has to be easy to follow. So what MSTd films do you find impossible to follow? For me, it's This Island Earth, Atomic Brain, and Castle of Fu Manchu.
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Post by Mike Flugennock on Oct 7, 2015 20:40:16 GMT -5
For me the key to fully enjoying a MST3K episode is that the film has to be easy to follow. So what MSTd films do you find impossible to follow? For me, it's This Island Earth, Atomic Brain, and Castle of Fu Manchu. Well, I had a really hard time following Mighty Jack, but once I realized I didn't need to worry about the plot and just kick back and enjoy the ride, it became one of my favorite episodes. Same with Cavé Dwellers. Not even Tolkien could follow that plot, and yet it's one my all-time MST3K faves. I've never worried too much about whether or not the movie was easy to follow or not, as long as Joike'n'the Bots kept the riffage coming. Hell, the fact that Monster A Go-Go is damn' near impossible to follow is one of the things that makes that episode so great. Castle Of Fu Manchu was just too damn' dull for me. I couldn't really get motivated to follow the plot, because the deep-down dullness of the movie itself was crushing my will to live. |
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Post by continosbuckle on Oct 7, 2015 21:22:52 GMT -5
I'd think that most hard-to-follow movies would have something like a misleading title, or something else that leads you to think it's about something other than it actually is, or perhaps one where a main character just flat out vanishes in the middle, where you were assuming that said character still would have a major role to play.
I had an impossible time following Red Zone Cuba at first, so much so that it just flat out pissed me off.
Future War was bad for me, because I had no idea what the deal was with Jean Claude Van Gosh-darn, and why dinosaurs were chasing him. It wasn't helped when Captain Polaris, who seemed to be shaping into a major character, was unceremoniously dumped right in the middle of the film, to be replaced by laughable FBI agents who were killed immediately. I also have to admit that Future War's premiere was the only MST3k episode I ever watched where I had no idea what the movie was going to be, so I didn't have the usual capsule summary to help me along.
Hellcats was also impossible to follow, but I'm pretty sure that's because it was just simply incoherent. Turns out it had a plot, but most of the scenes had absolutely nothing to do with it.
I'll echo your Fu Manchu mention. I've said before that it seemed to me that every second reel had been removed from that film. I was constantly thinking I had missed something, and had to remind myself that I had actually watched the entire episode and that I hadn't missed any context whatsoever.
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Post by nondescript spice on Oct 7, 2015 21:49:50 GMT -5
i definitely agree on future war. that was so pointless.
another one for me was werewolf. i think crow summed it up best after natalie told paul that he might be their last hope when he said something about how he was sure one day she'd explain that. it was just random characters bumping into each other in tight shirts. at least paul's character. why was he there?
i remember it took me several viewings of the undead to figure out what the hell was going on. but because of that, it became one of my favorite experiments.
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Post by CrowTrobotfan92 on Oct 8, 2015 9:29:31 GMT -5
I try to enjoy more of the commentary than the movie, but movies I've had problems with were Mighty Jack, Red Zone Cuba, Manos and Eegah.
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Post by crispyglennmanning on Oct 8, 2015 18:08:38 GMT -5
Hercules and the Captive Women jumps all over the place, but that's because they had to cut out a chunk of the movie to make it fit the 90 minute format. I imagine that's why some mst'd films are so incoherent.
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Post by pablum on Oct 9, 2015 20:39:11 GMT -5
The most nonsensical MST3K-ed movie is Monster a-Go-Go by a wide margin. Its a great episode as a result.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Oct 11, 2015 21:39:34 GMT -5
Red Zone Cuba and Skydivers both lost me more than once. To this day I couldn't tell you what Skydivers was about apart from "coffee" and "sabotaging a parachute for some reason maybe" and I'm not even positive that those things happened. ...Then again, it's probably been over half a decade since I watched that one. Time to pop it in and see if it's aged well!
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Post by brandonakaxerxes on Oct 11, 2015 23:03:04 GMT -5
I still, to this day, have no freaking clue what the plot to "Incredibly Strange Creatures...." actually is.
Um...... a guy gets a curse put on him? He has nightmares? There's weird dance numbers.... um.... then zombies come out? I don't know, I'm usually looking for some Tylenol by this point.
Regarding "This Island Earth", due to Gramercy cutting the film down, yeah that film doesn't make a whole lot of sense. When you see the uncut version of the film, some things are made clearer, like Exeter's motives, why he went to Earth to look for scientists, why his home planet is in disarray, etc.
But even when you watch the uncut version, there's still some plot oddities that stick out. Like, why did Exeter pick Earth to look for scientists? Couldn't he have found a planet closer by? Why does Cal spend 5 minutes arguing with Exeter's boss (in a scene that's truncated in the MST3K version) about how unethical invading Earth is WHEN IT'S CLEAR THEIR PLANET"S ABOUT TO BLOW THE HELL UP! Or, why Cal and Exeter need to wear Metaluna-style clothes while on Metaluna (probably just an excuse to put Ruth's actress in a tight jumpsuit). Or why the Mute-Ant doesn't follow Exeter's orders, and all kinds of crap like that.
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