Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 12, 2021 14:34:14 GMT -5
I'm more in the camp of I don't care as long as I have fun. I had fun with Atlantic Rim, and considering I just watched that episode again yesterday (I told you those kids love that episode), I can confirm that I think the episode is pretty funny.
The Sharknado live show I'm indifferent to. I didn't hate it but I didn't really like it either. I remember enjoying the Sharknado 2 show more though, but I wouldn't call either Rifftrax Live classics.
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Post by demoniclambertobava on May 12, 2021 14:35:01 GMT -5
The Sci-Fi run came hot out the gate with a bunch of Universal International sci-fi flicks from the 50's, then they switched it up with a quartet of American International films. I don't know if there was ever a reason why, but Sci-Fi might have had cold feet about starting the show with movies that were "too bad" and just gave them a bunch of old movies they had the rights to. I Was a Teenage Werewolf was one of them, and other well-known movies like Revenge of the Creature, The Mole People, and The Deadly Mantis were as well. Quite a few MST movies were known, especially to film connoisseurs. The fact that a lot of these movies have DVD special features with film historians who have studied every facet of these films is proof of this. Films from American International like Earth vs. the Spider and Amazing Colossal Man were afternoon movie mainstays for anyone growing up in the late 20th century, and films like Revenge of the Creature were a part of the Shock Theater package. Even Gamera had more exposure than you would expect. American International had made a deal with Deiei for every Gamera sequel to be released straight to television. That's the main reason there are so many Gamera films, because they had guaranteed US distribution for every single movie, and kids definitely watched them. The only exception was Gamera vs. Zigra, because Deiei went bankrupt during production and was folded into a new company, and since American International didn't have a contract with that company, they didn't touch Zigra. Zigra only came to the US in the Sandy Frank package who redubbed the five films we saw on MST on a home video line targeted at children. But Gamera was pretty well known over here in the US. The series even closed out with Squirm and Diabolik, which were and are films with immense cult followings. Well-seen movies have always been a staple on MST. In fact season 12 is the only season of the show that doesn't feature a movie I've seen outside of the show (Ator on Rifftrax not withstanding). We'll have to agree to disagree. I was a kid and later a teen who was very keen on film from a young age, born in the early '80s, and the only movie I can clearly remember having heard of beforehand that were on MST in those days was Teenage Werewolf (as a punchline in a newspaper). I was not sitting around watching Amazing Colossal Man or Earth vs. the Spider in syndicated local television in the mid-late 80s or early 90s. I knew those kind of movies existed, of course (immortalized in films like Joe Dante's Matinee), but it was not standard fare for me as a young person. I knew Godzilla, I didn't know Gamera til I saw him on MST3K. So, I'm not talking about film connoisseurs, I'm talking about the general public. It was just a different culture back then, period, and stuff like Mac & Me, The Room, etc. is much more visible to a wider and more instantly-accessible audience now than it was back then. Adult film buffs in the '80s and '90s I'm sure harbored a knowledge and fondness for Bert I. Gordon, Universal International, Ed Wood films that weren't Plan 9 (the only one I knew of for many years until Bride of the Monster on MST and the Tim Burton film), etc. but I don't feel the mass audience did. The exposure to the knowledge base wasn't there, the connections weren't always easily visible and able to be wiki'ed or googled like they are now. And I only discovered the significance of Diabolik to Bava's filmography well after it showed on MST, and by then I was already getting into the Italian horror boom Bava had spawned after the fact - yet it missed me. So all our personal subjectivity is anecdotal, not universal.
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Post by demoniclambertobava on May 12, 2021 14:38:58 GMT -5
I'm more in the camp of I don't care as long as I have fun. I had fun with Atlantic Rim, and considering I just watched that episode again yesterday (I told you those kids love that episode), I can confirm that I think the episode is pretty funny. That I can agree with. I don't think it was some unforgivable sin to run Atlantic Rim bc it was fun and the movie plays itself pretty straight. If they'd done Sharknado I'd feel differently.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 12, 2021 14:52:47 GMT -5
So, I'm not talking about film connoisseurs, I'm talking about the general public. It was just a different culture back then, period, and stuff like Mac & Me, The Room, etc. is much more visible to a wider and more instantly-accessible audience now than it was back then. Adult film buffs in the '80s and '90s I'm sure harbored a knowledge and fondness for Bert I. Gordon, Universal International, Ed Wood films that weren't Plan 9 (the only one I knew of for many years until Bride of the Monster on MST and the Tim Burton film), etc. but I don't feel the mass audience did. The exposure to the knowledge base wasn't there, the connections weren't always easily visible and able to be wiki'ed or googled like they are now. And I only discovered the significance of Diabolik to Bava's filmography well after it showed on MST, and by then I was already getting into the Italian horror boom Bava had spawned after the fact - yet it missed me. So all our personal subjectivity is anecdotal, not universal. Disagree hard on this. Film buffs will remember Mac and Me, especially if they hound YouTube videos on film topics. General audience barely remembers that movie at all, unless they rented it when they were very young and had memories of that, like watching Gamera, It Conquered the World, or Earth vs. the Spider on an afternoon movie. So the topic of film knowledge is exceptionally relevant if we're talking about Mac and Me, because the only people who talk about it are the ones who go out of their way to talk about it. Film buffs get started out as general audience, then get fascinated by a certain topic and start studying it, that's how you get a book about Robert Lippert, though most people neither know nor care who he is. A majority of people saw Mac and Me, hated it, and moved on with their lives, and the topic only gets brought back up if they watch some Nostalgia Critic video. So if we're talking about general audience, almost none of these movies are relevant. And when we're in a culture of YouTube videos being made about literally anything, finding something unheard of is almost impossible.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 12, 2021 15:23:51 GMT -5
For the record, I had never heard of films like The Room or Birdemic before they hit Rifftrax. And while I had heard of Mac and Me, I had more recollections of seeing the VHS tape at rental outlets than any reflections on the film's quality.
So the idea that any of these movies are "too popular" to be riffed is very weird to me.
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Post by jadenh on May 12, 2021 15:39:02 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't necessarily think that a film can be "too" popular to be made fun of. I was more just saying that I prefer seeing films that I haven't heard of. And even then, while I had heard of Mac and Me before MST3K, I didn't actually see much of it until watching it on the show. So, a lot of it was still new to me. It really all comes down to personal experiences and what movies you grew up watching.
However, I still think that it was completely unnecessary for a certain user to try and pick fights with people, just because they didn't agree on something.
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Post by glowgirl004 on May 12, 2021 16:52:00 GMT -5
I feel like one of the very few who never heard of Mac and Me before I watched it on MST3K? I was two when it came out, so I had no childhood connection to it. Then again, I'm not a huge movie person so I'm not familiar with really any titles MST3K does. Even Rifftrax, I never heard of Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny before I saw people talking about it on here.
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 12, 2021 18:45:05 GMT -5
I find it odd when I read rules of riffing, rules on host segments, rules of what movies can or can not be featured - for me, it's not that complicated. What do I want when I watch a comedy? (to laugh, children, laugh)
Until y'all started discussing it here, I didn't know who Asylum was and I didn't care, still don't, I just cared about the laughter MST provided.
As for the movie selections... I'm turning 60 in a few weeks so I'm going back a spell -- but I just loved when they'd riff on a boyhood favorite, Gamera vs Gaos or Amazing Colossal Man, all these things they showed on the late show, or Saturday cinema that I have such fond memories of.
We didn't have instant access to movies back then, nor were we connected to the world the way we are today, but we knew what was out there. We had our fanzines and our letter pages, and we had a network of friends and family. it was slower, but things got around. I remember a school pal showing me a copy of Famous Monsters, and he and that was how I found about Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (though for a while we thought Godzilla vs Mecha was titled Godzilla vs the Bionic Monster and that one of Godzilla's allies was named King See-Saw - misinformation wasn't as quickly refuted). You didn't need to be a fanboy, just have friends with different tastes/likes (One was into Godzilla, another had all the Ramones records and turned me onto the New York punk scene. Me, I was into Marvel comics, I was the comic geek)
But new or obscure film discoveries are equally as great. Final Sacrifice will always be special, for the movie, for the riffing, and also the shared viewing experience (family members kept popping by my home as I watched, and before to long my small living room was packed with people who were laughing and having a good time)
I get that personal preference plays a part in all of this, and if you don't like certain flicks, etc I'm not gonna beat you over the head and try to bend you to my will, just saying, I think there's room for all types of movies, the low hanging fruit, the obscure, the old favorites, and all kinds of fans from different generations coming at it from different angles.
It makes for lively and interesting discussion at the very least.
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Post by Udvarnoky on May 12, 2021 19:01:24 GMT -5
The Sci-Fi run came hot out the gate with a bunch of Universal International sci-fi flicks from the 50's, then they switched it up with a quartet of American International films. I don't know if there was ever a reason why, but Sci-Fi might have had cold feet about starting the show with movies that were "too bad" and just gave them a bunch of old movies they had the rights to. I Was a Teenage Werewolf was one of them, and other well-known movies like Revenge of the Creature, The Mole People, and The Deadly Mantis were as well. I think "movies they had the rights to" was really the driving factor. It was a way for Sci-Fi to tip their toes in the water on the show before they started paying licensing fees.
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Post by Diet Kolos on May 12, 2021 19:06:00 GMT -5
I think people are just up in arms about film selection since episodes themselves seem to be at a premium. Back in the days of 22-24 episodes, 1 or 2 bad movie choices (Castle of Fu Manchu, Unearthly, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Radar Secret Service, Kitten With a Whip, Red Zone Cuba, Amazing Transparent Man, She Creature, Invasion of the Neptune Men, etc) per season were accepted because there were so many other good choices and who cares if 1 or 2 leave you cold?
In shorter seasons when episodes are at that premium, movie selection sticks out more. "You only had 13 episodes and you waste one of them on Hamlet?!?" "You only have 6 episodes and you waste one of them on Atlantic Rim!?!"
The longer the season the more the bad movie choice blends into the background. The shorter fee season the more the stinker is amplified.
That's just my theory on fan psychology when it comes to film choices, anyways
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Post by intonyeon on May 12, 2021 19:17:00 GMT -5
Invasion of the Neptune men is one of the top ten episodes of all time
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 12, 2021 19:23:18 GMT -5
Invasion of the Neptune Men is one of my top two episodes of all time.
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Post by slainmonkey on May 12, 2021 19:32:16 GMT -5
That was particularly the case with The Gauntlet, as it was an even shorter season than season 7, with only 6 episodes. With Atlantic Rim being IMO the worst episode ever made, if felt all the more painful because there were only 5 other episodes that season.......and that being made worse again with the fact that Killer Fish was pretty badly botched. Leaving only 4 episodes that I found to be relatively enjoyable. That’s why movie selections are very important, and while I can’t judge it as an episode yet, it’s part of why the choice of Demon Squad is a little worrying (though not as much as Atlantic Rim was)!
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Post by mylungswereaching on May 12, 2021 19:33:48 GMT -5
I like the Invasion of the Neptune Men as well. That's the thing. You'll never find two people with the same lists of favorites.
And the type movies I don't like on MST3k are movies that are intentionally bad. To me, the best are movies where they tried to make a great movie but just didn't have the talent, money or time. That's why I tend to like the movies from the 1950's and 60's the best. They just seem more earnestly bad back then. It seems like its more difficult to be totally incompetent but competent enough now because there are so many more resources to teach people now.
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Post by jadenh on May 12, 2021 19:49:31 GMT -5
Yeah, that's the thing. With Atlantic Rim, the movie was made bad on purpose. So, if someone tries to make fun of it, than they would just come off as stupid because the whole point of the film was to be stupid. It's basically like trying to riff on a comedy. It can work, but it would be very hard to do so without letting the movie laugh at the riffers, so to say. I think for a film like Atlantic Rim, the riffing needs to be angrier for it to work. And from what I remember of watching it, I don't think they really went all the way. But I probably need to rewatch all of season 12 anyway to get a better opinion on it.
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