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Post by RedTom on Dec 30, 2023 10:53:01 GMT -5
Well, Diet Kolos, you have been proven the wiser of the two. You saw what I did not in the first of the new seasons and now it has manifested and festered into something far worse that has basically killed the show from its very core. I wish I could have seen it sooner but I guess that wouldn't have mattered because they were going to do what they were going to do, regardless of what I say or do. Still, I am not letting a sleeping dog lie. We have been lied to and we have been squandered out of our own show by politics and midiocre production while also giving the fans the cold shoulder. I cannot believe Joel let it go this far and I am not happy with the results. I am very glad I did not even attempt to pledge money to this, the disease that plagued this show seems to have finally killed it and us giving it more money would have only made it worse.
I am going to research into this and I am going to hold Joel and the others responsible for what has been done. The fact that we were going to give this "entity" money is a little sickening.
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Post by kracker on Dec 30, 2023 12:22:40 GMT -5
Will Joel ever pay for his war crimes? Stay tuned to this forum to find out.
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Post by slainmonkey on Dec 31, 2023 13:18:17 GMT -5
I feel like if (this is a big if) MST3k does get another go, it should be with another network. I feel the biggest issue is that Joel fails at being his own boss, sometimes you need someone to step in and say “no, that’s not going to work”. It’s no doubt a big part of why the show worked better in the Comedy Central and Sci-fi Channel days.
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Post by RedTom on Dec 31, 2023 23:53:38 GMT -5
I can pretty much tell you that's probably not going to happen if he can help it. After everything that happened with Jim Mallon, I can't say I blame him on that front. But yes, you are very correct. A few "no" voices is a good thing at times.
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Post by slainmonkey on Jan 1, 2024 14:25:02 GMT -5
Thing is, sometimes you need to deal with some jerks if you wanna turn out a quality product. If Joel wants MST3K to survive, he needs to leans that. A big reason third crowdfunder failed as hard as it did, is because season 13 was already a vastly diminished product than we got after the first Kickstarter with season 11. The reality is, we wanna see the show thrive, not just become a crude shadow of its former self.
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Post by RedTom on Jan 1, 2024 16:45:11 GMT -5
Yeah that's another very good point as well. The fact that the show should have been floating on its own hoverskirt is a very large reason people stopped pledging. Financial times are hard and we can't keep spending 50 - 100 each time someone wants to offer us things for new shows. I checked the "prizes" for these pledges and they were giving away absolute garbage with the "promise" of MAYBE what... 6 episodes? I definitely wasn't going to meet any stretch goals, even if it was funded. So this whole "Oh, let me check some networks" sounds like he's going to come back with "Oh if we reach 3 million in pledges, this network will pick us up" and it will more than likely sound sketchier and shadier than ever.
Yeah, I think the more things unfold, the more we're going to come to the conclusion that Classic MST3K and Rifftrax will be our future watches. I can't see myself watching much of any Season 13 episodes at all. It had 2 or 3 episodes that I'd consider "good" and one that I genuinely liked. Out of that many episodes, that really should tell us how bad its gotten because I don't really find myself a picky MSTie at all. I have my preferences but if a WHOLE SEASON is that low? Yeah, something's wrong.
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Post by slainmonkey on Jan 1, 2024 17:10:36 GMT -5
It’s like, I don’t wanna say I felt season 13 was horrible, because there were certainly moments, but it felt hollow. It always felt like a compromised product, with some truely baffling creative choices. Even taking away the excellent hallway sequences from season 11 and 12, only to redo it with paper cutouts…..very lame. It’s a reminder of why maybe leaving Joel entirely to his own devices isn’t a good idea, and a crowdfunded 14th season would likely sink further into that abyss.
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Post by RedTom on Jan 1, 2024 17:46:11 GMT -5
3 Hosts in one episode. You can't get much more jarring than half of these creative choices. The Cringeworthy writing and dialogue, ESPECIALLY when they were rhyming in order to speak a "different language" than the mads. I mean, it felt like they were retconning the entire last show just to make excuses for these decisions and making the lore much much worse. I'm not saying the lore is solid or that important to begin with, but this was just making up stuff on the spot, TRYING to make it clever, but in the end it just went against all of comedy and logic because it tried too hard to play it all safe. There was no grit, there were no insults to each other. Even Season 11, the bots were mildly not interested in Jonah and had no problem insulting him. It felt like if you did that with Emily, she'd break down crying because you hurt her poor wittle feewings.
Hollow, yeah, because they did remote locations to save a buck with the excuse of the non-existent pandemic that was all but finished. It made the show look horrible, the dialogue clunky and basically everything looked, more than hollow, EXTRA fake. Seems how the SOL was made out of Garage Sale products and Hungry Hungry Hippos, this shouldn't be an issue, but it REALLY is! Where it was a workhouse of creativity in the past, it feels so processed and over-produced now, and GOD FORBID they insult or offend anyone.
You could pick through the layers of problems with this show and it all basically culminated into a show that no one was going to enjoy, activists were going to defend like a security blanket, and Joel basically showing us that his loyalties can be bought or bullied out of him, whatever the case may be. Either way, it's really sad to look at.
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Post by intonyeon on Jan 1, 2024 17:55:26 GMT -5
Non existent pandemic is a really funny thing to say lol
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Post by RedTom on Jan 1, 2024 18:00:23 GMT -5
Okay okay, exaggerated, yes. I'm simply saying they were remote locationing when it was at its very last limb and not any real threat. Shooting themselves in the foot for basically no reason.
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Post by ds_36 on Jan 1, 2024 18:13:57 GMT -5
Not that I ever thought the remote filming idea was good but I think the decision was already made and planned for before the pandemic calmed down enough or Hollywood instituted its COVID plan. I do think they should have held off until they could have done the season more traditionally but I don't think faulting them for trying to make it work with what they had is fair.
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Post by Lukin on Jan 1, 2024 21:17:09 GMT -5
Man, some people have some weeeeeird things to say about this.
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Post by slainmonkey on Jan 1, 2024 21:37:56 GMT -5
I had come to expect some compromises, but the loss of the season 11 and 12 tunnel sequences, only to redo it in paper cutouts was bad. Actually the whole paper cut out aesthetic felt like a massive down grade in general. I was kinda hoping they would at least make models of the backgrounds to make them at least feel a little more tangible. I perfectly understood that compromises for the pandemic were a necessity, it’s more how they implemented those compromises I find particularly baffling.
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Post by RedTom on Jan 2, 2024 7:55:25 GMT -5
From what I've seen, it was all just a whole massive compromise in cutting costs that they got a little too giddy with. I've heard things like he wanted to clear hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep from commuting to work in Los Angeles. I'm not sure in the validity of that statement, but looking at all of this other stuff they did to keep from working any harder or spending any more money just kept grating. Then the paperthin plot-threads that they tried to play seriously tongue-in-cheek just made things awkward. I really would not have liked to have been in that writer's room when any of these decisions were being made.
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Post by slainmonkey on Jan 2, 2024 8:35:53 GMT -5
Why replace the tunnel sequence though? Literally that just spent more money to remake it, but looking worse. I don’t wanna be harsh on the show, I really don’t, but I feel that Joel’s weird creative decisions are killing the show…..if they haven’t killed it already. If I wasn’t as big a fan, I likely wouldn’t be as critical, I would have just moved on. The failure of the season 14 crowdfunder shows that if the show does come back in any form, Joel will need to reflect on these mistakes.
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