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Post by intonyeon on May 12, 2021 1:03:18 GMT -5
What I’ll say is this: the worst MST3K episodes are nowhere near as bad as the worst Rifftrax ones. The big blockbuster ones especially have the issue with their riffs being drowned out by big bad action movie noises. Everyone badmouths twilight but nobody actually knows how to joke with it since it’s just a bland teenage girl movie.
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Post by slainmonkey on May 12, 2021 2:43:11 GMT -5
What I’ll say is this: the worst MST3K episodes are nowhere near as bad as the worst Rifftrax ones. The big blockbuster ones especially have the issue with their riffs being drowned out by big bad action movie noises. Everyone badmouths twilight but nobody actually knows how to joke with it since it’s just a bland teenage girl movie. I remember when watching Rifftrax’s riff of Sharknado (which I honestly found pretty garbage), and Mike made a riff that was so painfully bad I never forgot it. It was the scene that showed a shark being swept out of a storm drain, and Mike remarked “Weeeee, I’m a big poo”. As badly as I trash on Atlantic Rim a lot, no riff made me cringe like that one did. Still I really want MST3K season 13 to fare better than merely being better then the worst Netflix episodes!
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Post by intonyeon on May 12, 2021 7:29:17 GMT -5
Pretty much why I could never get into Rifftrax. I’m also particularly into the lore and world of MST3K, and I honestly could have gotten into Mike’s solo projects if he was able to do Film Crew, but the whole package is important. But the riffing quality of Rifftrax is *super* hit or miss, and I think MST3K reboot episodes usually fare far better than Rifftrax for that. Even still, I watch occasionally to support Bill and Kevin, I’m pretty sure Mike would hate me irl, but I still like him as a performer.
Actually, I remember buying those early Rifftrax DVDs that advertised themselves on having a “movie and a FUNNY COMMENTARY!” and it was stuff like.. Night of the Living Dead? A movie that’s particularly.... GOOD? The hell are you going to riff on that? That it’s in black and white?
Anyway, I may give Joel some criticism sometimes but I still gave him 1.5 thousand dollars for his streaming service, so!!!
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Post by jadenh on May 12, 2021 9:30:00 GMT -5
I had already watched all the gamera films before I knew MST3K featured them.. are those bad choices as well? stop making excuses for gatekeeping and 'nostalgia' snobbery. You are all pleased as punch for them to be doing Gamera vs Jiger.. do not dare tell me somehow that movie isn't low hanging fruit and mac and me is. People are happy because Gamera Vs. Jiger is another Gamera film, which is something that already has an established connection with the series. It's not because it's "low hanging fruit". I don't even hate that Mac and Me was chosen as a film, and I think it made for a decent episode. However, I had already heard of Mac and Me before the show. It was already infamous for how much critics slammed it and how much of a box office failure it was, not to mention the infamous clip that Paul Rudd would keep showing on Conan. Gamera was not so well known, unless you were part of the specific audience that grew up getting the Gamera films on tape back in the day. I really hate that you keep making assumptions that we're gatekeeping. I think that's totally uncalled for and unnecessary. Again, I don't care that Mac and Me was chosen to be made into an episode. In fact, I think the episode is fairly funny. I would just rather see more movies that I haven't already seen made fun of before. I first discovered Gamera thanks to MST3K. While I already known about Godzilla, I didn't know about the epic Godzilla tail slide until I watched MST3K. I would have never discovered stuff like the Russo-Finnish films or Moon Zero Two or Hellcats or any of the other really bizarre films that they covered if I didn't see them on the show first. So, please stop trying to generalize us as snobby for simply saying what are film preferences are. Thank you.
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Post by majorjoe23 on May 12, 2021 10:24:43 GMT -5
People are happy because Gamera Vs. Jiger is another Gamera film, which is something that already has an established connection with the series. It's not because it's "low hanging fruit". I don't even hate that Mac and Me was chosen as a film, and I think it made for a decent episode. However, I had already heard of Mac and Me before the show. It was already infamous for how much critics slammed it and how much of a box office failure it was, not to mention the infamous clip that Paul Rudd would keep showing on Conan. Gamera was not so well known, unless you were part of the specific audience that grew up getting the Gamera films on tape back in the day. I really hate that you keep making assumptions that we're gatekeeping. I think that's totally uncalled for and unnecessary. Again, I don't care that Mac and Me was chosen to be made into an episode. In fact, I think the episode is fairly funny. I would just rather see more movies that I haven't already seen made fun of before. I first discovered Gamera thanks to MST3K. While I already known about Godzilla, I didn't know about the epic Godzilla tail slide until I watched MST3K. I would have never discovered stuff like the Russo-Finnish films or Moon Zero Two or Hellcats or any of the other really bizarre films that they covered if I didn't see them on the show first. So, please stop trying to generalize us as snobby for simply saying what are film preferences are. Thank you. I'd be curious what people who were born in the 40s-early 60s thought of films that were ubiquitous in their youth, like I was a Teenage Werewolf, Robot Monster, This Island Earth, Revenge of the Creature and others thought about their inclusion in the show. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, because there weren't YouTube channels dedicated to film back then, but for MSTies of a certain age, a lot of the film choices would have been quite well known to them. I Was a Teenage Werewolf was probably an early example of a meme, with the "I was a Teenage ____" naming convention being utilized for comedy effect almost immediately. Mac & Me is interesting because I'm sure a lot of people like me watched it a lot as a kid (somewhere I have a tape with Mac & Me and episodes of MST3K recorded on it) then kind of forgot about it until Paul Rudd brought it back into comedy consciousness with his Conan bits. Mac & Me was the first MST3K episode with a film I was extremely familiar with. It was the first time nostalgia factored into my enjoyment of the show. It was a new experience for me, but I bet if I asked me dad he could point out a dozen or so times that happened to him.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 12, 2021 12:21:21 GMT -5
I Was a Teenage Werewolf was one of the top ten box office hits of its year, mostly due to Michael Landon starring in it while he had a hit show on TV with Bonanza. Just about everyone who was born in that era had seen that movie. And we do know for certain fans of This Island Earth were bitter about MST The Movie using that film, because it came out at press events.
I myself was intimately familiar with Godzilla vs. Megalon and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster before I saw the MST episodes, while also having seen films like The Crawling Eye, Gamera, The Land That Time Forgot, and many more before having seen their episodes.
I had never seen Mac and Me. I thought the episode was really funny. I got a positive experience out of it so it earned its place on the show.
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Post by intonyeon on May 12, 2021 13:09:07 GMT -5
Wasn’t one of the criticisms of the Sci-Fi early era was that they used movies that universal studios already had the rights to?
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Post by demoniclambertobava on May 12, 2021 13:22:38 GMT -5
MST showed Teenage Werewolf in an era without social media and the kind of inward-focused, easy-access pop culture sphere we have today; while the timeframe between IWATW's release and its airing on MST may roughly mirror Mac & Me's, they were individually remembered or forgotten in very different media ecosystems. IWATW had been all but totally forgotten in a pre-digital mainstream culture. Mac & Me has been invoked and had its ashes shoveled many times in the last 15 years minimum in a very different cultural critique cycle. That is the difference to me.
But this is all a silly semantics and subjectivity debate which doesn't require so much drama, IMO. Again: I don't think Mac & Me was horribly off-brand or a bad episode (I felt the riffing was so-so). I don't think it was a betrayal of the show's core tenets or values, and I think people who claim Season 12 or the Netflix revival in general was some sort of travesty of pure MST3K are spewing complete nonsense because I think the show has managed to modernize itself while staying largely excellent, and the seams frankly show far less than they did in, let's say, Season 8 and its endlessly tiresome storyline-based host segments which made it hard for me to fully appreciate the show for a while. I just don't think this particular kind of movie, which much of the modern general public have already had a go at, is the kind of thing they excel at. That's my personal take, it's not that serious.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 12, 2021 13:33:45 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).
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Post by slainmonkey on May 12, 2021 13:43:43 GMT -5
I’d seen most of the movies from season 12 unriffed before seeing those episodes, namely Mac and Me, Lords of the Deep, The Day Time Ended, and Ator, the Fighting Eagle!
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 12, 2021 13:53:09 GMT -5
Congratulations on knowing how Tom Weaver felt during MST's original run.
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Post by Diet Kolos on May 12, 2021 13:58:57 GMT -5
Now there's a name I haven't heard in awhile.
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Post by Diet Kolos on May 12, 2021 14:05:06 GMT -5
For me, it's not about if the movie is obscure or not, its about if its already been co-opted by the "so bad it's good" genre that's popped up over the last 15 years. And while Mac and Me has, it did have a life of its own before that. It was in every Blockbuster across America. It was shown at schools. That's one I'm fine with.
Now...stuff like Sharknado, that's made to be so bad it's good. Or Samurai Cop or Miami Connection, films that were TOTALLY forgotten before being resurrected by the so-bad-its-good crowd to the point where its hard for me to disconnect them, those I might object to being featured on the show.
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Post by slainmonkey on May 12, 2021 14:16:06 GMT -5
I had no real issue with them tackling Mac and Me, like I said it felt a little too obvious, but it’s certainly bad enough in the right kind of way to be fine MST3K fodder. Asylum movies are a completely different story, they’re just far too empty, sterile, and cynical of it’s own audience to ever feel like fertile ground of an MST3K episode!
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Post by dudehitscar on May 12, 2021 14:24:06 GMT -5
Samurai Cop or Miami Connection, films that were TOTALLY forgotten before being resurrected by the so-bad-its-good crowd to the point where its hard for me to disconnect them, those I might object to being featured on the show. who is the 'so bad it's good crowd'?
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