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Post by jadenh on Apr 6, 2022 1:40:46 GMT -5
1202 - Atlantic Rim
I think I finally figured out why I don't like this episode. It's not that they chose the wrong movie. I actually think that the first third of this episode is really good. It might be some of the best riffing of the entire season. That Smash Mouth riff especially is on point. However, after that first third and that nice host segment taking a jab at record companies, the episode really loses steam. And I think it's because, and this might sound weird, but the film is too noisy. There are almost no quiet moments in this film. There is always a piece of stock music playing or a bunch of characters talking or a fight scene happening. There is no chance for the riffers to take a break. So, they keep trying to follow the chaotic nature of the film, but it just doesn't work. I think if this was a 20 minute short, it would be one of the best shorts of the entire series. However, there are some really bad riffs later on. One that really irritated me was when Servo said "Joel Hodgson?" to two characters, neither of which look even somewhat close to Joel. But earlier in the film, they could have made a great Doors riff on that one drug addict guy who totally looks like Jim Morrison. Missed opportunity. And then there are the forced catchphrases "baboom!" and "bull butter." Once or twice as a cute reference, it's fine. But they really drove it into the ground. Although to be fair, most of the show's running jokes aren't very funny to me. Again, I think that the episode has some good stuff in it, and I was laughing quite a bit during that first third. However, the rest just didn't live up to it.
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Post by dudehitscar on Apr 26, 2022 17:36:22 GMT -5
1202 - Atlantic Rim I think I finally figured out why I don't like this episode. It's not that they chose the wrong movie. I actually think that the first third of this episode is really good. It might be some of the best riffing of the entire season. That Smash Mouth riff especially is on point. However, after that first third and that nice host segment taking a jab at record companies, the episode really loses steam. And I think it's because, and this might sound weird, but the film is too noisy. There are almost no quiet moments in this film. There is always a piece of stock music playing or a bunch of characters talking or a fight scene happening. There is no chance for the riffers to take a break. So, they keep trying to follow the chaotic nature of the film, but it just doesn't work. I think if this was a 20 minute short, it would be one of the best shorts of the entire series. However, there are some really bad riffs later on. One that really irritated me was when Servo said "Joel Hodgson?" to two characters, neither of which look even somewhat close to Joel. But earlier in the film, they could have made a great Doors riff on that one drug addict guy who totally looks like Jim Morrison. Missed opportunity. And then there are the forced catchphrases "baboom!" and "bull butter." Once or twice as a cute reference, it's fine. But they really drove it into the ground. Although to be fair, most of the show's running jokes aren't very funny to me. Again, I think that the episode has some good stuff in it, and I was laughing quite a bit during that first third. However, the rest just didn't live up to it. If anything that episode could have used more bull butter.. lol. Glad you enjoyed it a bit more this time.
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Post by dudehitscar on Apr 26, 2022 17:37:23 GMT -5
Tonight's episode was Samson Vs. The Vampire Women, in preparation for Santo in The Treasure of Dracula. And I gotta say, this episode is actually better than I remember it being. It had me laughing and smiling quite a few times. The vampires themselves stole the show for me. Not only are the vampire women hot, but they have a lot of good jokes thrown at them too. I love it when the riffs expose a more human and mundane side to the film. Like when the first vampire wakes up, there's a riff about her having to make breakfast because she woke up earlier. There's lots of great jokes like that here. And of course, the episode is a good finale for TV's Frank. He even gets a nice song in dedication to him. So, it's definitely a good episode overall. Not one of my favorites, but I enjoyed it more than I thought. So, from now on, I might post these little reviews somewhere else. Maybe I could take that old season review thread and turn in into a more general thread for MST3K reviews. But I’ll figure that all out later. Anyway, I'm excited for the season 13 premiere, and I hope that this season will be a good one. See you then! Samson Vs. The Vampire Women is my pick for most underrated episode. It's in my top 20 easily. I love it.. which is strange cause I am generally pretty down on Season 6.. but they sure finished strong with that episode.
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Post by cavedweller on May 1, 2022 1:12:17 GMT -5
Tonight I watched "The Creeping Terror." It gets better every time I watch it. Mike and the bots are spot on in this and the riffs are one home run after the other. It is a fun-filled riff-fest. I watch MST3K in chronological order every Saturday night. It takes about five years to watch from KTMA to the new episodes. I find watching it in order is the best way because they bring back classic riffs for example "McCloud," or "Watch out for snakes." It was enjoyable from start to finish.
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Post by hike'em'up on Jun 1, 2022 16:16:04 GMT -5
420 - The Human Duplicators
this was the third time watching it since the show's original run and liked it better than i remembered. always a treat seeing Richard Kiel and was in the mood for some '65 Sci-Fi so that table was set. plenty of funny little stuff in it but nothing especially memorable. tough to believe Hugh Beaumont as anything other than Ward Clever. anyway, enjoyed the outing of robots segment to play on the movie's 'android or human' mystery.
movie got a little dull but the riffing did enough to keep the episode afloat. had been ranked 73rd and gave it a little recency bias bump up to 70th.
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Post by cavedweller on Jul 1, 2022 16:17:15 GMT -5
614 - San Francisco International
98% of the riffs are hilarious. One of the best episodes included seeing Clayton with his shirt off. The only shame about this episode is that if you don't have it on DVD and bought it when it came out on disc you will not be able to see it. It's one of those episodes that is not allowed to be aired due to copyright issues. I think MST3K needs to work on getting these episodes back. Many MSTies that did not get the chance will never see these great episodes. Simply a great riff fest.
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Post by cavedweller on Jul 6, 2022 16:14:52 GMT -5
615 - Kitten With A Whip
This film is actually a good movie and not sure why they riffed it, but it works. Another classic MST3K entry, but not accessible to new fans who didn't get the DVD when it was first released.
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Post by jadenh on Sept 15, 2022 9:47:39 GMT -5
Finally watched some MST3K episodes for the first time... oh god, nearly five months??? It's been a hot minute, but I'm ready to get back into the funny movie robot show! Here are two episodes I watched recently, and I paired them together because they're both very similar.
204 - Catalina Caper It's another decent season 2 episode. Not bad, but not spectacular. Really, the highlights for this episode are the host segments. I love the invention exchange where Forrester and Frank are showing their "tank tops." The Creepy Girl song is of course classic, as well as Joel's speech about the 60's (which woulD not have been accuRate withoUt some subliminal messaGeS). I also enjoyed Frank's presentation. It gave me so many flashbacks to the awkward school presentations I've done and watched, but it is thankfully much funnier than those. I'd say the riffing is decent enough. They latch onto the comedic relief guy pretty heavily. However, a lot of the jokes made about him are just fake laughing at him. Other than that, nothing else really sticks out in my head. It's just... a season 2 episode. That's the best way to describe it.
1205 - Killer Fish Honestly, this episode was actually a lot more watchable than I remember it being. It has a similar "plot" to Catalina Caper, as both of them involve stealing treasure in locations based around water. However, Killer Fish adds a pinch of Jaws into the mix, with a bunch of... well, killer fish munching on the cast. This movie makes no sense, and the editing does not help it at all. However, some of the riffs were actually fairly decent. Nothing laugh out loud funny, but some of it's okay. The Below the Dam song has really grown on me. I wish that it could have been a host segment, but it's still a fun song with some good jokes cracked during it. Host segments are nothing special here. The one where they hypothesize what kind of fish the killer fish are is kinda cute. But other than that, there's not much here worth writing about. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it was. I still don't think the episode is good, but it was better than I remembered.
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Post by jadenh on Oct 2, 2022 16:55:08 GMT -5
Gonna copy paste this from Twitter, as I posted my thoughts on this particular episode earlier today.
1303 - Beyond Atlantis
It's not bad! I actually liked quite a bit about it. While having a new cast is always going to ruffle some feathers, I got used to them pretty fast. What matters most are the jokes, and there are definitely some good ones here. Some good references too, including one to Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy that actually got a good chuckle out of me. As for host segments, I quite like Crow's demented game show. And the rap at the end is kinda embarrassing, but it's still good fun. It has that vibe of something your friends would make to entertain themselves with. It's dumb, but fun. The movie is really bizarre. It's kinda like Killer Fish, only slightly easier to understand (and I mean slightly). The main characters here are really unlikable. Even if one of them's a cute redhead, that doesn't stop them from being total garbage. I would have liked to see more from the perspectives of the natives on the island. I wish I could have seen more of their history or why there are pearls near their island in particular... Or maybe this was all explained in the movie but I missed it? I don't know, man. It's a weird movie, but it definitely fits for MST3K. Definitely feels like they could have shown this during the Comedy Central Joel era. Overall, decent episode! I like.
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Post by CrowTrobotfan92 on Apr 16, 2023 16:17:15 GMT -5
Robot vs the Aztec Mummy (ONLY because there was a February 1992 upload of it with commercials).
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. For me, this is the absolute worst episode of the original national series (not counting KTMA). Horrible movie, okay host segments about demon dogs, bland riffing. This is one I avoid at all costs and this may honestly just be the last time I’ll ever watch it again.
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Post by thegoodones on May 7, 2023 19:01:32 GMT -5
Season 2 Episode 13 - Ebirah, Horror From The Deep (or Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. Either one works).
Now, having seen the original film (with subtitles) on Tubi TV before, I didn't know what the Film Ventures International version was like. So, after finding it on Internet Archive and downloading it a couple days ago and watching it today on my PC, I was surprised to find out when watching this episode, FVI actually stayed very true to Toho's original script when dubbing this Godzilla movie! The only changes were in the dub's script, and even those were relatively minor, much like the dubs for Son of Godzilla & Godzilla vs. Hedorah to name some examples - Ebirah's name was changed (much like Kumonga's & Hedorah's - again, to name a couple examples), and some lines were altered, but only to the point where the characters were basically saying the same thing they did in the Japanese version. So yeah, rather enjoyable dub of Ebirah, Horror From The Deep. Now if only modern dubs of Japanese media would take notes (not that making your own script for a dub is a bad thing, but when the script is as good as it is with Ebirah, Horror From The Deep, why miss out on such a good opportunity)...
As for the episode itself, Joel, Trace & Kevin's riffs were all top-notch during the theater segments. When Crow brought up a Moby Dick reference ("I feel the presence of the Great White!"), I knew I was in for one heck of a ride. Bonus points for the Sea Hunt reference too ("I threw a rock, and by this time my lungs were aching for air!"). Of course, Joel & Tom brought in some good riffs too, but Crow's stood out to me more. As for the host segments, they were all very hilarious. The guitar-themed invention exchange, the Godzilla Genealogy Bop, and the Bots summoning Mothra when they were just imitating the Mothra Twins for fun are some of the best host segments in the series. XD
For continuity purposes, however, this episode actually serves us with a lot. Aside from the aforementioned return of the Sea Hunt running gag, this episode also references Lost Continent, as the gang mentions The Mads' "Rock Climbing" experiment when they see four of the five male leads climbing up a cliff. It also introduces Crow's motion-sickness, which would later come back with a vengeance in The Beginning of the End. Not only that, there's even a callback to Women of the Prehistoric Planet ("Linda!").
So overall? Yeah, this is a great episode. The movie itself is true to it's original Japanese version, and the episode was a joy from beginning to end in both it's host segments & theater segments. As a result, I would definitely recommend this episode to both veterans of the show or those who are looking to get into MST3K. While it might not be as good as Cave Dwellers, Pod People, or Quest of the Delta Knights are in terms of popularity, Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster is - dare I say - one of the good ones nonetheless.
Also, before I hit "Post Quick Reply," a little fun fact to newcomers of the show: this episode (which is the Season 2 finale) was featured in Turkey Day '91, being the 10th episode to be featured on that marathon.
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Post by geordiegirl on Jul 1, 2023 15:00:22 GMT -5
113 THE BLACK SCORPION I've just realized that when Crow and Servo are talking about Joel "lying horizontally and closing his eyes at the same time every day", they are implying that he's having sex dreams! (Saying "oh" and "don't stop, don't stop) or maybe it's because I'm a Joel fangirl (I'm also a Mike fangirl) and it's my brain totally going to places it shouldn't go As for the film, the kid was annoying, as was the woman and the romance part was about as romantic as going to the dentist, but I actually did enjoy the film.
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Post by CrowTrobotfan92 on Aug 3, 2023 16:51:06 GMT -5
Lost Continent.
Honestly this one has some good riffing and funny host segments. The problem is the absolute ridiculous padding of rock climbing is just absolutely painful to sit through, even with Joel and the bots’s riffing. Easily the worst of the season 2 Lippert films.
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Post by glowgirl004 on Nov 16, 2023 13:18:40 GMT -5
Thanks to the broadcast editions on YouTube, I watched Attack of the Giant Leeches for the first time. The movie and short were both really dull and the riffing was ok but not amazing. I don't know what it is with Roger Corman films where I end up not being a huge fan of those episodes!
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Post by CrowTrobotfan92 on Nov 16, 2023 14:31:15 GMT -5
Which one did you watch out of curiousness? The recent one Kolos uploaded came from my collection.
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