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Post by Shark on Apr 9, 2017 19:45:59 GMT -5
Let's talk about number three!
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Post by Diet Kolos on Apr 11, 2017 18:52:15 GMT -5
Thoughts (about this episode and in general):
-This film is classic MST material. I was concerned they were doing the 70's TV film of the same name.
-ThePre-Riffing is back. You know, beginning to riff something that's not on screen yet. It fluctuates throughout the episode. I've figured out that its caused by the way the riffing is done this season (voice actors record lines in advance), Jonah and puppeteers sit in front of screen and record the visuals. Then, the two are combined in editing. The pre-riff is caused by the audio track going out of sync ever-so-slightly. This can, of course, be fixed by recording the audio AT THE SAME TIME as the visuals. Revolutionary, I know. Just have Baron and Hampton sit under their puppets, pulling their strings and moving their heads as they talk (because the remote-controlled mouths DOES NOT WORK), and you can have as many puppeteers jammed under the rig as you can squeeze to work their arms or whatever other distraction you want to throw in. This would fix the Pre-Riffing AND the fact that the puppets hardly emote, react and move their jaws or heads at the appropriate times throughout the movie. Just a suggestion.
-Tom's flying across the screen actually makes sense this episode. The first time its actually been funny.
-The pacing of riffs is better overall, but there are bits where they TRY TO CRAM EVERY LINE WRITTEN into the space of a 6 second break in dialogue. This tells me 3 things: 1. They're not comfortable talking over dialogue yet. They need to be. Not all the time, but its do-able and necessary. Waiting for the pause to throw everything in is causing a joke traffic jam.
2. There are too many cooks in the kitchen. There are a slew of guest writers this season, in addition to whatever permanent writer's room Joel put together. EVERYONE wants to get a joke into that 6 second gap. EVERYONE has good jokes. Well...might as well say them all! NO! Choose the best 1 or 2. This is Elliott Kalan's job now as head writer. He needs to do a better job of whittling down what works best in the spot given. This should get better next season as most of the guest writers won't be contributing and the show's staff can gel as a writing team.
3. The writers don't yet seem to know how to write a "riff" versus a "joke". What I mean is, a "riff" is a short sentence that's funny. A joke has a set-up, exaggeration, metaphors, similes, clauses, punchlines, etc. that's funny. The old show DID use "jokes" in the theater, but only where they fit. Example from the next episode: "Mother always took her drinks on ice, believe me, that irony is not lost on me while reflecting on her untimely death." That's a joke. It took a whole 5 seconds to say and the delivery was rushed to make it fit the space. A riff version of that joke would have been: "Mom always did take her drinks on ice. Huh, ironic." See the difference? Same sentiment, same humor, but shorter, less awkward to say.
There are "riffs", lots of them. But the "jokes" seem to creep into spaces where they're not needed and cramp the spaces that they're comfortable talking. As they write more episodes and hear what they write sounds like in the context of the film, they'll adjust their writing style and pace.
-More Gypsy in the sketches. Her mouth doesn't quite work as well in this configuration, and its very distracting.
-The sketches are beginning to have more "completeness" to them. Beginning, middle and end.
-I still don't have a fix on Servo's voice yet. Its...just not...distinct. But he does do this one voice a lot, kind of a fay, "FABULOUS!" voice, in the theater. He leans on it quite a bit. I can recognize that. But not for any positive reason...
-For 200 episodes, they really don't actually do much.
A better episode than 1101 or 1102, honestly. Despite its faults. They're slowly finding themselves.
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Post by said43 on Apr 11, 2017 19:04:59 GMT -5
I personally thought overall 1102 was stronger, but to each his own. The film was classic MST3K cheese. My favorite part was near the end when the crew, as well as the audience, was asking who we were supposed to cheer for. It felt like things were slower paced in this episode, which is great as far as I'm concerned. It's equally possible that I'm starting to grow accustomed to the faster pacing.
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Post by travis on Apr 11, 2017 19:24:50 GMT -5
I've loved TIME TRAVELERS for quite some time, it was so great to see it (in HD/widescreen, no less!) getting the MST treatment. I really don't have any major complaints so far.. sure Servo's voice could be a bit lower-pitched, but it's not enough to bother me (he's channeling Josh's Servo and I'm totally cool with that). And I still feel the puppets would be best run by the voice actors.. but it's not enough to detract from my enjoyment so far. Random cool observation in the credits.. Gypsy is being run by Tim Blaney, the guy who did the voice of Johnny 5 from SHORT CIRCUIT. 3 episodes down, 11 to go!
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
-segment with Crow?
Posts: 15,420
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Post by Torgo on Apr 11, 2017 23:42:26 GMT -5
::shakes fist:: WHY'D THERE HAVE TO BE SO MANY DANS! I was THIS CLOSE to having my name in credits of the 200th episode of the series!
Oh well, on to the episode.
I don't know about anyone else, but THIS is one of the reasons I watch Mystery Science Theater: to see movies I probably never would have before and maybe I'll get something out of it. I hadn't heard of The Time Travellers, but after a while I was really getting into it. I actually restarted the episode after twenty minutes because I was paying too much attention to the movie and not enough to their riffs.
This flick really reminded me of those Irwin Allen shows I used to watch growing up, specifically The Time Tunnel and Lost in Space. incidentally when I looked the film up on Wikipedia I found out he claimed Allen used a lot of his ideas his ideas, and since this film predated both shows I'm guessing it was a large source of reference.
At any rate, it's settled. I'm totally going out of my way to get that four pack DVD so I can get a copy of this movie. Congratulations, Shout. You've convinced me to give you more of my money.
Riffing was mostly okayish. There were some great lines but mostly it was just adequate. I loved several of the host segments though, like Gypsy's time portal lesson and the closing segment with frozen time. Also in the segment with the new bots that Jonah "built," I n9tied the age old MST tradition of buying stuff at the store and altering it for the shop's needs. All of those robots were just repainted Power Rangers Megazord playsets! Invention Exchange was the best yet, though the Mads' invention of the "Afterlife Alert" was either inspired by a riff from the previous episode or that riff was an awkwardly placed reference to a segment that hadn't aired yet. Weird.
Speaking of weird...we saw Joel play a character that isn't...Joel. Now THAT'S weird.
The 200th episode of the series doesn't hold a candle to the 100th episode (which was Magic Voyage of Sinbad for those who didn't keep count), and so far it's the weakest of the season. It's worth a watch though, and features a pretty fun movie.
Now on to the next episode, which better have my name OR ELSE!
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Post by slainmonkey on Apr 12, 2017 12:20:25 GMT -5
I feel the riff pacing was better in this episode, but the jokes themselves never met the highs of the first two. Infact there were a few riffs that fell pretty flat this time, I also thought the host segment with Jonah's new bots was honestly pretty weak. One the upside I do think the screen interactions were pretty funny and and a real highlight in this episode. I still enjoyed it for the most part, though hardly one of the shows finest which is a little disappointing given that this was the 200th episode. Not a bad effort but maybe the least distinguished so far!
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Post by KrankorLaughs on Apr 12, 2017 14:59:42 GMT -5
I did enjoy this episode, but I'm mainly psyched that my name was in the 200th episode!!
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Post by Diet Kolos on Apr 13, 2017 11:58:22 GMT -5
Major bummer note: they completely skipped/edited out the full ending to the movie.
After everyone walks into the pony field, the film is supposed to start up again, with the characters repeating themselves faster and faster in a continual loop until the film suddenly ends.
Very disappointing this this was cut.
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Post by thebutcher on Apr 14, 2017 14:34:20 GMT -5
I thought everything worked better in this episode, from the host segments to the riffing. Maybe I'm just getting used to the changes, but either way, I liked it!
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Post by travis on Apr 14, 2017 16:41:37 GMT -5
Major bummer note: they completely skipped/edited out the full ending to the movie. After everyone walks into the pony field, the film is supposed to start up again, with the characters repeating themselves faster and faster in a continual loop until the film suddenly ends. Very disappointing this this was cut. Yeah I almost forgot about the repeating/looped ending. It doesn't bother me too much, as the vast majority of MSTied movies (w/o shorts) are edited to some degree.
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Post by Shep on Apr 16, 2017 3:30:53 GMT -5
Some of the riffs on Danny were hilarious. Also Tom Servo trying to get a peek at the naked woman LOL
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Post by slainmonkey on Apr 16, 2017 3:44:07 GMT -5
Some of the riffs on Danny were hilarious. Also Tom Servo trying to get a peek at the naked woman LOL Yeah even though this was my least favourite new episode so far, Danny was a source for a number of really good riffs. I actually found the Human Centipede joke to be hilarious aswell.
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Post by waxcylinder on Apr 21, 2017 17:38:59 GMT -5
This is the first MST3K movie where I had actually seen the movie before: many years ago, while home sick with an infection, took my prescribed tylenol w/ codeine, watched this on AMC and fell asleep immediately afterward. What I remembered most was the ending, which was cut from this version -- I was really looking forward to seeing it again, since it was the most interesting part of the story by far! Here it is from YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-YLczxeyGUI agree with slainmonkey above on this one: "riff pacing was better in this episode, but the jokes themselves never met the highs of the first two." Also found the "bumpers" more distracting this time, since they just interrupted the scenes they were inserted into. Not sure why these were kept... to keep the feel of the original? To make it more like an old creature feature airing where commercials were inserted awkwardly? I would be happy without them and keep the host segments as breaks from the movie. Definitely getting used to the new season, and still finding it MUCH better than I expected!
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Post by starsteam on Apr 22, 2017 9:26:30 GMT -5
Rewatched this one last night. This wasn't one of my favorites, but it's not a bad episode. The movie is dull, bleak, and confusing. The characters were typical 60's sci-fi cookies, but they made for some good riffing. I've seen Time Travelers once before but remember very little of it. I do remember the actual ending tho, and it's a shame they cut it out for the MST episode. The riffing is decent for the most part, but I didn't find it as strong as the first two episodes. The pacing between jokes is better. The host segments were standard for the most part. A bit disappointed by Joel's awkward silent cameo, but mostly because the sketch was pretty meh to me. I love the segment where the bots keep trashing Jonah's robots, but there's something familiar about the robot's framing. I want to say "Megazord".
I give this episode 6/10, not a strong one for me but has a few good laughs and notable moments.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
-segment with Crow?
Posts: 15,420
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Post by Torgo on Apr 22, 2017 12:39:32 GMT -5
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