The MST3K Thread

[Josh]

The thing that makes it off-putting for me is that I’d much rather watch on my TV, not my computer. And I don’t want to go to the trouble of hooking one up to the other.

[Hobo]

I'm sure there are ways to do it without hooking up a laptop to a TV? tbh I so rarely use a TV anymore that I don't really know how those things work.

[GhostMachine]

21 hours ago, Hobo said:

Yeah, I remember the "too old to riff" tweets.  There's still the odd interaction between Frank and Joel on twitter and the Mads have worked with Jonah. I'd not be totally shocked if Trace and Frank popped up in future episodes. I have a sort of feeling that the way the Gauntlet's Dr Erhart story went was maybe lining up something with them. But that could be my wishful thinking.

Kevin, Bill and Mary Jo and J Elvis Weinstein have seemed to be most happy to get involved with the revived MST. J Elvis is slated to make an appearance in Season 13 as Dr Erhart. So I'd not be surprised he's in the Joel epsiodes. Maybe he'll play Servo for them too.

Mike just seems happy to be do Mike things. Which is fine. I'm certain he's said he makes way more from Rifftrax than he ever did from MST3k. It would be nice if he did pop up in a new MST3k show just for a cameo or something.

My girlfriend is the one with the gizmoplex pass so I haven't really looked into it much. We've watched the backer premiere shows as they've come out and enjoyed them.  I'll be interested to know what the finished shows look like since the backer premieres have been essentially unfinished. There's been some really strong host segments in the episodes I've seen thus far.

Although I feel like the more stripped down aesthetic doesn't really help The Mads. They need to have a less confined space to occupy with more props and stuff going on. Maybe bring back the way they shot the mads scenes on wide angle lenses in the old show. At the moment their stuff feels more like a cameo in a youtube video.

I'll be happy if they can keep the Gizmoplex going in the long term. I'm enjoying getting brand new MST3k every-so-often. As well as the odd free Rifftrax release and Mads short.

Mike has stated in the past that he's not interested in doing MST3K again, and has turned down offers to do reunions or appear.

I'd love to see Trace and Frank return. They could do something involving time travel to explain it, while riffing on a movie involving time travel.

 

[Hobo]

I kind of expected the whole thing with Frank and Dr Fs ashes to lead to some kind of search for spock regeneration thing

[Hobo]

https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/mst3k/mst3k-emily-marsh-connor-interview-name-episodes-tom-crow-voices/

Emily comes across pretty well in all the stuff ive seen her in.

It looks like the switch from Nate Beagle to Kelsey Brady happened before filming took place. Whatever happened I doubt we'll find out

[Hobo]

Ive been watching some of the Q and As from the gizmoplex live streams and really enjoying them.

The one following Beyond Atlantis was particularly fun. It ended the whole of Emily's crew and Jonah and producer Matt McGinnis did simultaneous Joel impressions (in response to a question about doing impersonations of fellow cast).

The stream for their Manos tribute with Jackie Neyman (Debbie) was really interesting. In particular learning that her father (Tom Neyman, The Master) was watching MST3K when the Manos episode aired. She seemed to impy he was a fan before that and she became a fan from then on.

[Hobo]

The Muchie episode dropped. I feel like these episodes are getting stronger as they go on. Munchie kinda hits the spot of the kind of MST3k movies I like best. Weird movies featuring a notable performer in a very obvious work for hire situation. (Although tbf to Dom DeLuise he delivered the exact kind of performance you expect from him)

They're really doing some great host segments. There were a couple of really good Emily host segments during the live event.

I'm not sure we've mentioned it in this thread but Rifftrax have been uploading free full movies and shorts for a while now as well on their YouTube. (The Mads also upload the odd free short from time to time on their channel). The other day Rifftrax uploaded To Catch a Yeti which, like Munchie, is a weird low budget kids movie. With a surprisingly good Meat Loaf performance. 

[Hobo]

Dr Mordrid was pretty great. I really like Emily's cast they have really good chemistry.

The movie is also just fun in and of itself.

They released a teaser for the next episode

Spoiler

Joel is back!

 

[Hobo]

 

This thread is just me posting about the new season now but anyway...

Not only is this the first movie they announced for season 13 (IIRC) but it is also the newest movie ever featured on MST3k as it was released in 2019.

Big fan of Joel's body warmer. Big dad vibes.

[Hobo]

Watched Demon Squad last night and

Spoiler

It was pretty good. The movie has to be the lowest budget one they've done for the new shows. It was a sort of low rent Buffy meets generic film noir. It was released in 2019 but it wouldn't surprise me if it was shot even earlier than that. (I have yet to watch the Q and A so know little about it other than the makers of it were really happy to be on MST3K)

Probably not the funniest episode of the season but there was some fun fan servicey sketches. (Also Joel's hallway! It actually made me forget it was a new episode for a second because the reconstruction of it looked so good)

Joel and Dr Erhart got to interact and later Pearl contacts Joel to ask Dr Forrester ever mentioned her. It felt like a really good episode for the characters on the show. We got a lot of Synthia and it was great.

And midway through the episode Joel reset Servo to "factory settings" and J Elvis took over voicing him.

The Mads invention exchange was hilarious.

EDIT: I have since watched the Q and A - and the couple who wrote and directed Demon Squad seemed very lovely. Joel was super giddy and really enjoying himself. As was Emily. It was really quite fun to watch. 

There's a little bit of a vibe I get that some people don't really enjoy MST3k doing new films but I think Demon Squad worked. It's a fairly OK-ish shot movie (cheaply and quickly shot) with low budget that seemed to mostly go on some quite good special effects. It's makers were actually trying as opposed to an Atlantic Rim that isn't very good and was a comparitably more expensive but still cheap cash grab.

 

[Hobo]

 

[Hobo]

Spoiler

We watched Gamera vs Jiger last night. It is the only movie they're riffing this season that is completely uncut (because Toei requested it air unedited). It really could've benefited from cutting some random scenes of Gamera and/or Jiger meandering about awkwardly.

It's been a while since I watched the other Gamera movies but this feels like it was probably the worst one? Jiger is kinda lame.

It does have Cornjob though (sporting a toothbrush moustache)! I think he's playing a different character but Jonah and the Bots still call him Cornjob. (While watching the episode my girlfriend looked up the actor. He's still alive and apparently has an Instagram?)

It is pretty standard Gamera stuff. Except when Gamera is impaled with darts or spikes or something through all his limbs. Then starts to die? But the humans discover that Jiger's spike thingys ... impregnated Gamera? So the kids go inside him in a little submarine built by Cornjob for the 1970 World's Fair to kill the baby Jiger inside Gamera.

It's another strong riff. Crow gets some of the best ones ("Triceratops/Tricerabottom", "Gamera is crowning!" they're all perfect for Hampton Yount). They sing an entire song during a scene of Gamara just meandering after he's been wounded. They have great fun with the little girl who has been dubbed by a middle-aged woman doing a stuffy British accent. This leads to a sketch about learning how to do terrible accents.

I've really enjoyed all the host segments this season. This and Santo have probably Jonah's two best opening host segments of the season. Just because the jokes are very silly. In this one they're reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book and every option ends in death. The Polygraph for telling whether someone has watched a popular TV show or not is also pretty fun.

I've found it funny that in the last 2 episodes they've name dropped Mike. They also seem to be setting up more time travel stuff with Kinga and Pearl. Not that I'd expect a hitherto unexpected Mike Nelson cameo. Although with the way Pearl's character has been all season it would make perfect sense for Trace to show up.  But Dr Forrester and Frank showing up at some point in the revived show would make a whole lot of sense given the way Pearl has been so fixated on family the whole time. Her character has been constantly looking to spend time with Kinga, went out of her way to ask Joel about Clayton. They even kinda teased the idea of Crow wanting to get his old voice back after Tom got factory reset. Again probably just all wishful thinking on my part.

If I had any complaints about the season it's that I think they need to do something different with the Mads set up. It can get a bit flat. The feel a bit too rigid.

In this episode  Pearl was weirdly standing side profile to the camera looking right at Kinga which ... I don't know why you'd have Mary Jo stand like that? I can only imagine that COVID has impacted a lot of how they shot this stuff so the human actors are kinda stiff and not really interacting as much as they might.  They'd really benefit from a physical set a lot more than the SOL actors.

I don't mind the greenscreen overall. (there's totally a few complaints online about the show looking "cheap" because of the lack of physical sets which I don't agree with).

Also I think while it's a much more relaxed pace of riffing than they had on Netflix (which does make it a little harder to watch those). Sometimes it is seems they've over corrected a bit too much. It's probably more comparable to earlier seasons of MST3k.

 

 

[Hobo]

A mexican batman knockoff featuring professional wreslting!?

[GhostMachine]

On 24/07/2022 at 08:24, Hobo said:

Spoiler

  Hide contents

We watched Gamera vs Jiger last night. It is the only movie they're riffing this season that is completely uncut (because Toei requested it air unedited). It really could've benefited from cutting some random scenes of Gamera and/or Jiger meandering about awkwardly.

It's been a while since I watched the other Gamera movies but this feels like it was probably the worst one? Jiger is kinda lame.

It does have Cornjob though (sporting a toothbrush moustache)! I think he's playing a different character but Jonah and the Bots still call him Cornjob. (While watching the episode my girlfriend looked up the actor. He's still alive and apparently has an Instagram?)

It is pretty standard Gamera stuff. Except when Gamera is impaled with darts or spikes or something through all his limbs. Then starts to die? But the humans discover that Jiger's spike thingys ... impregnated Gamera? So the kids go inside him in a little submarine built by Cornjob for the 1970 World's Fair to kill the baby Jiger inside Gamera.

It's another strong riff. Crow gets some of the best ones ("Triceratops/Tricerabottom", "Gamera is crowning!" they're all perfect for Hampton Yount). They sing an entire song during a scene of Gamara just meandering after he's been wounded. They have great fun with the little girl who has been dubbed by a middle-aged woman doing a stuffy British accent. This leads to a sketch about learning how to do terrible accents.

I've really enjoyed all the host segments this season. This and Santo have probably Jonah's two best opening host segments of the season. Just because the jokes are very silly. In this one they're reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book and every option ends in death. The Polygraph for telling whether someone has watched a popular TV show or not is also pretty fun.

I've found it funny that in the last 2 episodes they've name dropped Mike. They also seem to be setting up more time travel stuff with Kinga and Pearl. Not that I'd expect a hitherto unexpected Mike Nelson cameo. Although with the way Pearl's character has been all season it would make perfect sense for Trace to show up.  But Dr Forrester and Frank showing up at some point in the revived show would make a whole lot of sense given the way Pearl has been so fixated on family the whole time. Her character has been constantly looking to spend time with Kinga, went out of her way to ask Joel about Clayton. They even kinda teased the idea of Crow wanting to get his old voice back after Tom got factory reset. Again probably just all wishful thinking on my part.

If I had any complaints about the season it's that I think they need to do something different with the Mads set up. It can get a bit flat. The feel a bit too rigid.

In this episode  Pearl was weirdly standing side profile to the camera looking right at Kinga which ... I don't know why you'd have Mary Jo stand like that? I can only imagine that COVID has impacted a lot of how they shot this stuff so the human actors are kinda stiff and not really interacting as much as they might.  They'd really benefit from a physical set a lot more than the SOL actors.

I don't mind the greenscreen overall. (there's totally a few complaints online about the show looking "cheap" because of the lack of physical sets which I don't agree with).

Also I think while it's a much more relaxed pace of riffing than they had on Netflix (which does make it a little harder to watch those). Sometimes it is seems they've over corrected a bit too much. It's probably more comparable to earlier seasons of MST3k.

 

Spoiler

I can't afford to rent or buy episodes at the moment, but if they do bring back Dr. F, I may have to come up with the money quick....

One question about Gamera vs. Jiger: Did they bust out the old "Gamera is really neat. He is made of turtle meat." song?

 

 

[Hobo]

8 minutes ago, GhostMachine said:

 

Spoiler

No, they didn't. Cornjob was the only running gag from the older episodes they kept

 

[Hobo]

We watched The Batwoman last night

 

Spoiler

It was fine? I don't think it's my favourite of the season (which is a shame cause I really like Emily and her bots). There were a few great jokes in it (the villain's boat is called Reptillicus and this leads to Emily and co singing the chorus of the Repticillius rap in Spanish, "a whale tampon", a reference to those GI Joe PSA dubs and a BDSM joke which all stuck out to me - generally anything Conor did as Servo in the whole ep, he's just great) but I also think it might be the worst movie they've riffed for this season so far. It's full of padding. Underwater diving sequences, driving sequences, wrestling training sequences.

The host segments remain really good. They finally got to do more with Synthia and Mega Syntha thanks to the conceit of Pearl and Kinga going off on a trip together. They were really funny. Although they did kinda set up Max being completely overwhelmed by being left in charge and unless I missed it he was just back at the end and everything was on fire.  Oh, and the invention exchange was funny too. I never really laughed at those in the classic series but the new MST3k ones have tended to really get me.

September 2nd's episode is Jonah's crew doing The Million Eyes of Sumaru.

[Hobo]

 

[Hobo]

Million Eyes of Sumuru

Spoiler

Spoiler

Is a very odd movie. This felt very much like a Joel episode to me. Which makes sense given it was a KTMA-era movie I suppose. I didn't know until a few hours prior to watching it that KLAUS KINSKI and his performance is bonkers. I enjoyed his little wig that he wore for about a minute.

I thought The Batwoman was one of the worst movies featured this season but Sumuru is also terrible. With lots of scantily clad people in general. Men and women in revealing outfits - doing things ... for reasons. Why I am still not totally sure.

It was a fun riff and as ever the host segments were great. Oh, and Magic Voice is back!

Also
 

 

[Hobo]

 

[Hobo]

The Shape of Things to come was a blast.  Easily one of the best episodes of the season.

I mean, this happens:

And its even sillier when seen in motion