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Post by davidbeegah on Jul 28, 2023 13:09:15 GMT -5
I got lucky and was only charged $15.05 for the glasses and season 12 DVD's. I elected not to get anything else. Glad that I did. If there is another kick starter campaign, I will not contribute. Joel fumbled this one badly.
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Post by monkeypretzel on Jul 28, 2023 14:43:25 GMT -5
What I've learned from the past several years is that Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Original was absolutely a team effort, and that its success was due to that team and not any single person, creator or not. I also learned that Joel needs people to be able to tell him no, so that his less promising ideas don't get past his notebook and waste time, energy, and money.
I want to like current day Joel Hodgson. He's a likeable guy, and none of his mistakes are malicious, but things around him now just never seem to work out like he and his team tells us they will, and when you notice that and mention it, there's a whole lot of goalpost moving. It's hard for me to like someone or something when I feel like I can't quite trust them.
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Post by starschwar on Jul 28, 2023 20:53:55 GMT -5
If you had told me any time from 1999-2015 if we'd ever get more MST3K in any capacity - let alone 23 episodes over the course of six years - I would have laughed it off. While the new version of the show hasn't been without some serious problems (the production design on 13 is downright embarrassing), I still got a lot of good laughs in. At the bare minimum, I got to see almost two dozen new episodes of silhouetted characters cranking out some quality riffing. It's not the classic era of the show, but it's still working well enough where it matters most. I am grateful to have what we have, and am hopeful that we will get more yet.
I will always, always, always respect Joel as a creator, writer, riffer. But he is not a good businessman. The last season is offered for $130. Equivalent to about 8-16 months of a streaming platform nowadays, all with countless hours of quality entertainment. I watched it for free with ads on Pluto TV and still feel it was overpriced a little in that context?
I hope that the latest KS succeeds, I do want more. And to anybody who does contribute, I salute you. Unless I win the lottery, I'll be skipping it and waiting for a reasonably priced version of the season to roll out. Joel really does need somebody to help him understand that the funding he's gotten so far has not been allocated well. They accomplished much more, with much less back in the 90s.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Jul 28, 2023 21:35:55 GMT -5
I paid...50? 80? whatever the season package with no physical rewards was for Season 13. I didn't even watch the last 2 episodes. They fumbled the 2nd half of the season with movies that should have been a walk in the park to riff (Gamera vs Jiger, Sumaru, Shape of Things to Come & The Mask being GOOD movie choices, Batwoman was a dud all around.) and they mostly all turned out deathly dull. Gamera and The Mask in particular SHOULD have been home runs. But I swear I almost fell asleep trying to finish the latter. Whatever energy they started the season with absolutely evaporated. It doesn't help that they still don't know how to edit a movie down and still keep it comprehensible and somewhat entertaining to watch. I guess that was a skill that was lost with MST's original editors. But that's a different complaint.
No, Joel & Co. clearly have zero idea how to budget their money and time. For what that KS made it shouldn't have looked like crap, and they should've come to a solution regarding the rewards sooner.
And on THAT topic. The rewards fiasco may be a bigger deal that we think. The general KS audience seems to LOVE physical rewards. That almost seems like 50% of the incentive to back for a lot of people. That's how the tiers work. You pledge more for more physical junk. The massive delay this time is going to turn off A LOT of those people. I don't know how they go back to KS for a 3rd time and expect anyone to be chomping at the bit to wait 2 years for a snow globe or stickers or a shirt or 3D glasses. People want that tangible junk just as much as they want new episodes. In some cases the physical stuff is FOR the episodes (the glasses). If both of those products are lackluster and/or massively delayed...what's the point?
They're still going to hit and exceed whatever target they have. Maybe they juice things by calling this one BUILD THE PERMANENT MST3K RECORDING SOUNDSTAGE to give people a goal. But the diminishing returns on this one are going to be rough.
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Post by monkeypretzel on Jul 29, 2023 14:04:21 GMT -5
"Real Fans" During the Kickstarter: "Come on, raise your pledge so you get this new cool physical reward! I can't want to get all this sweet swag!"
"Real Fans" Two Years Later: "How dare you complain about not getting your physical rewards, or how much they cost to ship! It's sheer entitlement!" "You didn’t pay for items that existed two years ago. You used a platform that tells you, up front, the risks of backing an idea and making that idea come to life. You aren’t purchasing a product, you purchased an idea, and you risk that that idea could not come to completion in the estimated timeline. YOU made the decision to accept that risk."* "You backed to get a new season of MST3K, not to get merchandise. I don't care about the merch so much I've even forgotten what I'm supposed to get!"
The moral high horse that some fans have climbed upon to shame other fans for actually caring about the merchandise that they are supposed to get and wanting to get it bugs me. It really, really bugs me. Even if some people did pledge just for the swag, so what? Why is allegedly not caring about physical rewards the sign of being a better fan than someone who does? And don't get me started on the people who are blithely telling others, "Just decline the shipping charges if you think they're too high." It's great that you have money to throw away, but there are people who really, really wanted the merchandise that they aren't going to get now because they can't afford the shipping, and I have nothing but sympathy for them.
*Actual quote on the Forum today
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Post by BoB3K on Jul 29, 2023 17:55:04 GMT -5
Joel better hope when the dust settles that there's another $5 million of those "Real Fans" still around.
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Post by monkeypretzel on Jul 29, 2023 21:36:41 GMT -5
Let's not forget about inflation. He's going to need more money to put out the same level of product, which is why I bet the green screens aren't going to go away in favor of actual sets.
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Post by starschwar on Jul 30, 2023 2:50:38 GMT -5
Let's not forget about inflation. He's going to need more money to put out the same level of product, which is why I bet the green screens aren't going to go away in favor of actual sets.
Can they at least invest in some 1990 bluescreen technology so we can see through Servo's head again?
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