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Post by travis on Sept 17, 2021 9:39:40 GMT -5
Editing the original movies down other than for content/cable TV slots changes the integrity (or lack thereof) of the original films themselves. Pre-altering some films will make them look like they had better editing than they actually had, others being pre-altered could look worse than they originally were. THIS ISLAND EARTH is a great example of this. The movie appears more incomprehensible than it actually is, simply because the studio demanded MST3k:TM be shorter. Why not use streaming as a way to finally keep the films [relatively] uncut?? Especially after all the trouble of securing movies in HD, etc.
Part of the fun of MST3k is suffering with them, watching them bravely riffing their way through. All of the episodes in Season 12 ran far too quick, it's really disappointing that it looks like they're going to continue the same trend.
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Post by travis on Sept 17, 2021 9:42:56 GMT -5
It also gets back to the idea that at a certain point, we're here to watch a movie and experience it, with the funny commentary on top. The commentary is enhanced by shared experience of watching the movie and understanding why its bad. Cutting the movies down the way they do reduces that viewer-riffer connection. Otherwise we're just watching endless stream of consciousness on top of disconnected goofy film snippets. Wow, perfectly put. I've said often times before that I watch MST3K as much for the cheesy movies as I do the riffing. I want to experience some old unknown B movie for the first time and react to it along with my funny riff friends. THIS x 1000
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Post by BoB3K on Sept 17, 2021 10:56:09 GMT -5
THIS ISLAND EARTH is a great example of this. The movie appears more incomprehensible than it actually is, simply because the studio demanded MST3k:TM be shorter. Yes, right, for years The Evil Studio Execs ruined MST3K:TM by forcing them to edit down the movie, and now here we are, it's Joel's 'great' idea to improve the show. I'm sure, almost word for word what those studio execs said when they suggested it... Oh, you mean Mighty Jack "I'm not afraid, I'll keep my eyes closed!"
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Post by kracker on Sept 18, 2021 5:07:32 GMT -5
and now here we are, it's Joel's 'great' idea to improve the show. I'm sure, almost word for word what those studio execs said when they suggested it... lol what? yeah, guys, i really don't think they are going to edit the movies so they can fit it inside a 80 min episode for the streaming service :b if it makes you feel better, one of those causalities of the 80 min product was Atlantic Rim. If they feel like the uncut version of a movie is way too long and they now have the executive decision to edit down scenes that are completely unnecessary, which as someone who has seen a bunch of these uncut movies I can confirm, they can do that in the interest of keeping the show moving and consistently funny. Trust me, scenes I've seen them cut out don't exactly change their "integrity". A lot of these bad movies, because they are bad movies, they 'shoot the rodeo' and I find it silly to have them desperately come up with jokes for a bunch of stale boring repetitive stock footage used to pad out a movie, essentially making the jokes themselves filler to pad out an episode when they don't need to, just on principle. I don't think any of us thought they needed to riff more bar talking scenes in Atlantic Rim just for the sake of it. side note: I love how that update was basically because they are likely getting that influx of all those people telling them what to riff and they have to talk to them like children concerning why they just can't riff what they tell them to.
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Post by monkeypretzel on Jan 11, 2022 12:39:12 GMT -5
Found this comment from Matt McGinnis on the official MST3K Forum about editing Mac and Me:
"There was actually a significant amount of McDonald’s nonsense we had to cut out of Mac & Me. There was an entire choreographed dance number that didn’t make it in mostly because of time, also because dancing is not easy or all that fun to riff."
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Post by Diet Kolos on Jan 11, 2022 14:42:45 GMT -5
*shakes head*
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Post by Diet Kolos on Jan 11, 2022 14:47:31 GMT -5
Its almost like these movies are BAD and it requires a decent amount of effort on the writers' part to make these movies watchable and fun.
If you wanted 1 quote to sum up what my main problems are with Netflix MST, there it is. My goodness.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Jan 11, 2022 17:24:13 GMT -5
"You know, we could've made funny comments, but the movie wasn't that good."
--TV's Frank, 323-Castle of Fu Manchu
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Post by kracker on Jan 14, 2022 3:36:56 GMT -5
"i know this dance number is boring, monotonous, and the same thing over and over for 10 minutes, but damn it, make funny somehow! NOW!" *cattle prod* *BZZZZT!!* "Who cares if it will be cut for time, do it anyway!* *cattle prod* *BZZZT!*
what you guys still have yet to grasp is that its not "Its almost like these movies are BAD" no, its almost as if these movies get BORING. Which is what Matt is referring to. Boring or Bland is quite different than being BAD. Bland is way worse than bad and is a whole different animal where some of these movies become a lifeless void where nothing exists inside it for you be able to comment on not to mention riff off of and when you try you come up with jokes that won't be nearly as good, you wonder why you put so much more work into writing stuff that you want to cut out anyway. Editing is big thing for a big reason if you ever tired producing a quality product yourself. If your main problem is that they aren't forcing a bunch of unfunny subpar mediocre material on their audience just for the sake of pumping out content, Rifftrax has you very well covered on that.
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Post by jadenh on Jan 14, 2022 7:17:17 GMT -5
Counterpoint: Manos is a boring movie and still made for a great episode.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Jan 14, 2022 8:26:41 GMT -5
Agree, boring can be made funny. Its been done before.
Oh, and have you SEEN that dance number in Mac and Me? The thing we're talking about? Its many things, but it is NOT boring. Its 4ish minutes long and as of writing has 1.2 million views on YouTube. Sure are a lot of people willing to sit through something so boring and mediocre unriffed.
Matt's point was that besides Season 12's ridiculous time constraints, its "hard to write for". Meaning it would've taken effort to come up with 4 minutes of material to say about dancing other than just repeating "pretty nice" ad nauseam.
Go watch it, its pretty damned riffable.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Jan 14, 2022 8:53:26 GMT -5
You know what's boring? Endless walking through the woods scenes. Cheap movies have used walking through the woods as a good way to pad out films for decades and decades and it's always boring when presented on film. You know what makes it not boring? Riffing. Go watch Pod People. Watch how many scenes of people walking through the woods there are. I'm sure the Brains thought it was boring too. But you know what they did? They wrote riffs (Chief? McCloud!).
Good writers find ways. Its their job. That's why they're writing for a show that makes bad boring movies funny.
And even if the movie is still boring, like say, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, where there are hundreds of walking scenes, they still write riffs for them and even if it's still boring they can still convey to the audience that they as the writers are bored. And it can still be funny, because it's a shared experience between the writers and the viewers that they are watching a boring movie.
Same with Manos. Manos is 80% filler and 20% unpleasant grease. The grease is what's remembered, but the filler adds to and is a part of the experience. The characters in the episode break down and cry because it's so boring. You the viewer can relate to them. It's funny and cathartic because you're watching what they're watching.
That's the point of the show, to "suffer" through a movie with the on-screen characters. Build camaraderie between the viewer and the show.
Editing down these movies to best-of highlight reels removes that vital viewer-riffer connection and turns the show into a long YouTube reaction video. But heaven forbid anyone gets a little bored.
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Post by jadenh on Jan 14, 2022 11:13:34 GMT -5
Exactly. Editing it down to just a "best of" seems somewhat disingenuous. If it's a show about making fun of movies, than show a movie. I think the quiet or boring parts of these films are actually kinda nice, as they act like a blank canvas for the boys to paint whatever riffs they want onto it. It's kinda like how an end credits scene shouldn't really be funny. It's just a bunch of text on a screen. But still, they make it funny. And if the movie featured is actually kinda decent, these lowkey moments are nice for setting the mood of the film.
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Post by kracker on Jan 14, 2022 11:31:01 GMT -5
Counterpoint: Manos is a boring movie and still made for a great episode. Yeah i was going to bring up Manos because of course you were going to bring up Manos because everyone brings up Manos and that's the thing, it's Manos. Manos is the instance of "going above and beyond" and then you making it the minimum bar. And they've said Manos was literally the hardest most painful thing they had to do. And now they need to do it every week. *cattle prod* *BZZZT!* It's basically having a gymnast do a once-in-lifetime never before achievable double-triple backflip and then saying 'ok now you are expected to do that everytime' 'and without repeating yourself' 'hey you did it before now move it'. Pshh you go watch Pod People. ive watched Pod People plenty of times, its one of my favorite episodes. One of the reasons why its because the movie itself has that great aesthetic with the whole "hearts of space" background and such. it's good bad schlock. So it's a poor example of painfully boring. They had to use "Chief? McCloud!" as filler but guess what, they can't Chief-McCloud every episode, its gets a bit old and they only have so many of those gimmicks in the bag. Btw all these movies were also edited :b Why not use "Lost Continent" as an example? Because it not's a great episode at all. Why? 'Rock climbing' Oh, I've watched enough Rifftrax to know that's not true. Writers only have so much material in any small period of time. Big stand-up comics typically only come up with an hour of good material a year. Its not their job to not put their best material forward, especially when things are being cut for time. Something isnt working like it should, you cut it instead of forcing it to work or spending months and months on something small that's not worth laboring over. This is how editing in EVERY scripted genre of film and TV is done. Except for Rifftrax, of course :b I don't MST3K to be like Rifftrax, otherwise id just watch Rifftrax. Rifftrax is already doing exactly what you are asking for and it aint that great. Are we really pissing and moaning because they cut out a couple of minutes of kids dancing (which turns it into a highlight reel apparently) and you cant trust anyone, let alone a team of writers, to make a first-hand creative decision? and under the strictest of time budgets they had to work with? heaven forbid indeed. Seriously, its not like you were exactly coming up with killer jokes while watching those kids dance.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Jan 14, 2022 11:41:58 GMT -5
I find it odd that you keep bringing up Riffrax. No one is discussing Rifftrax. Its an odd deflection.
But let's see if I can unpack this.
So classic MST can keep boring scenes in because they're the good kind of boring and the writers didn't use the same gimmicks to get through them every episode, so they wrote new material that made each episode tolerable and funny to the best of their ability.
But its ok for new MST to cut these scenes out because they're the wrong kind of boring and no writing team would spend the time and energy to put their best material on screen when they could just take the shortcut of removing it entirely.
And Rifftrax bad, of course. Gotta throw that in, randomly. Plus the pointless ad hominem at the end for good measure.
Yeah. Yeah...ok then. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
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