The MST3K Thread

[GoGo Yubari]

Here's the answer:

Quote

5. The FAQ says you’ve “invited” the cast back, what does that mean?

We’ve talked to the entire season 13 cast about the new campaign, and made sure everyone knows they’re welcome to return. However, we can’t officially confirm more than that at this time, because the SAG-AFTRA strike prevents us from starting negotiations or making offers right now. We are hopeful the strike resolves soon and we can get everyone “officially” on board.

Which I think is a little worrying! Not so much about who will or won't come back because I think most everyone they want probably would, but more about the fact that the people who would probably come back not being able to promote the campaign won't do it any favors.

[Hobo]

13 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

Here's the answer:

Which I think is a little worrying! Not so much about who will or won't come back because I think most everyone they want probably would, but more about the fact that the people who would probably come back not being able to promote the campaign won't do it any favors.

pretty much what I expected

What worries me is that they've not yet broken $ 1 million which the previous crowdfunding blitzed by. They seem to be getting picked up on the usual media outlets. But yeah, not having the cast be able to promote it is going to make this hard.

The FAQ (which must've been added more recently? unless I totally missed it) has confirmed physical sets and that the last Kickstarter only paid for the Gizmoplex to be built and produce the shows. I dunno if that was ever clearly put out there before.

[Hobo]

Spoiler

 

The first week of our #MakeMoreMST3K campaign for season 14 is on the books. Over the weekend we cracked $1 million, and as excited as we are with that news, we need to keep pushing to reach our $4.8m goal!

To that end, we are adding a few more ASSOCIATE PRODUCER rewards, since the first round sold out on the very first day of the campaign. At this level, you’ll get to join me for a series of production update meetings via Zoom, and you’ll also receive a signed script and an exclusive gift. Best of all, you’ll get to join us during production for an IN PERSON SET VISIT, as well as see your name in the credits as an Associate Producer for three episodes of the new season. 

As promised, today we are revealing the first movie of season 14, and I hope you didn’t read ahead and look at the picture below, as it’s a title many of you have asked for over the years… BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS .

This turkey boasts a star-studded cast (but those aren’t the stars we’ll be battling beyond). It features Robert Vaughn ( The Man from UNCLE ), George Peppard ( Breakfast at Tiffany’s ), Sybil Danning ( Chained Heat ), and an MST3K favorite, John Saxon ( Mitchell ). This film attempts an epic scope and just about pulls it off, resulting in one of the most dream-like of the Star Wars knock-offs.

Well, what do you think, backers? 

That’s all I’ve got for today. Please keep circulating the #MST3KShowmaker link amongst your friends and family – your shares mean so much to this campaign! And thank you so much for your suppo

Joel has announced the first movie for Season 14

[caucasianheat]

I didn't put up for S13 and ended up really enjoying the ones I saw, so this time I decided to kick in. Hopefully they can get it over the line, but so far it's about 30% of the way to the first goal.

Deathsport is the second movie announced!

[GoGo Yubari]

I dropped my $85 last Friday. As it stands I think they'll be lucky to get to the 6 episodes, and frankly I'd be perfectly OK with just getting those and some more shorts since my S13 watch total right now stands at the El Santo movie, Munchie, and about half of Robot Wars.

[caucasianheat]

We are a Gamera completist household over here, so Gamera Vs. Jiger was a must. Great riff of a very, very bad movie. The Mask was a flick I had never even heard of and it was a revelation. Words can't do it real justice. I think those two and Munchie were my favourites from the last season.

They're doing a watchalong of Million Eyes of Sumuru tomorrow night. I tapped out of an earlier attempted watch, so I may use this as my second chance to try getting into that one.

[Hobo]

1 hour ago, caucasianheat said:

They're doing a watchalong of Million Eyes of Sumuru tomorrow night. I tapped out of an earlier attempted watch, so I may use this as my second chance to try getting into that one.

Sumaru is worth it for the 5mins of Klaus Kinski.

Its the better of the movies based on Sax Rohmer books that have been featured on MST3K.

I enjoy Munchie so much that i own a t shirt with munchie on it. Its horrible and i love itm

 

[Hobo]

The SAG strike is over so, as I understand, the cast would be able to promote the new crowdfunding campaign after midnight UTC.

[Skummy]

even aside from the MST3K episode (and Rifftrax did a great episode on it too), Sumuru has one of my all-time favourite bits of bad movie dialogue - "what's new at the Dracula factory?". 

[GoGo Yubari]

So starting on Thanksgiving morning and running through Black Friday. Makes me wonder if they might have some sort of special deals in mind on merch/items that would go towards funding the new season.

 

[Hobo]

7 hours ago, Hobo said:

The SAG strike is over so, as I understand, the cast would be able to promote the new crowdfunding campaign after midnight UTC.

I was just on the forums and Tim Ryder (director/writer/one of the Boneheads from the Netflix show/Rebecca Hanson's husband/frequenter of official forms and Reddit) popped up for the first time in ages. He's one of the lesser-known figures in terms of the folk who were on strike but he was very involved in the community engagement stuff for Season 13.

[Hobo]

They have announced Plan 9 from Outer Space as a Season 14 episode.

Crowdfunding stands at 1.7million with 8 days left.

[TheWho87]

 

[caucasianheat]

PUT THE MASK ON NOW (or in roughly 90 minutes when it airs) 

[GoGo Yubari]

Final three movies if season 14 gets funded:

• Ballistica (2009 low-budget action movie. Only actor I recognize from it is Martin Kove, aka Sensei John Kreese)
• Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (sci-fi movie from 1991 starring Jesse "The Body, not yet The Mind" Ventura)
• BattleTruck (we have Mad Max at home, Johnny)

[Skummy]

Abraxas is another one that has been Rifftrax-ed a few years ago - it's a bad Terminator knock-off, but perfect MST3K material.

[Hobo]

4 hours ago, Skummy said:

Abraxas is another one that has been Rifftrax-ed a few years ago - it's a bad Terminator knock-off, but perfect MST3K material.

Im enjoying the additional line of grumpy blokes in comments that go "Rifftrax did it!" (Mainly for Plan 9) like that even matters.

They are at 1.9million now. It'll be a big ask to get double that in a few days.

Its a shame and I feel like if this fails its gonna be harder to go again. The small number out there who suddenly know how to produce 90mins of streaming television will feel satisfied though.

I really want Emily and her crew to get more episodes. They're really good. I honestly think Conor McGiffin's Tom Servo is only bettered by Kevin Murphy. Yvonne Freese is hilarious as Mega Synthia and Kelsey Brady deserves to do more too.

 

[Skummy]

I actually quite enjoy when Rifftrax and MST3K do the same film, because they find different jokes and different things to laugh at in the same films. Rifftrax's Manos isn't as good as MST3K's, but it's still fun. And then obviously Rifftrax has no host segments or anything like that, so there's another angle to it on MST3k.

[Hobo]

Quote

Greetings, MSTies!

 

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and I want to get a little serious for a minute.

 

We’ve done some intense talking and planning over the last few days around here. Despite our collective efforts, it's obvious that the current campaign – at the current goals – is struggling to succeed, and that while there is still demand for more MST3K, it is not currently strong enough to overcome some real challenges:

 

• We spent most of this campaign – the planning and the campaign itself – honoring the WGA and SAG strikes, which made it impossible to involve most of the people our backers would want to hear from: our cast and characters.

 

• For reasons we regret but accept responsibility for, we know that many backers of the former campaign were justifiably upset about the delays and unexpected additional costs of getting rewards from the last campaign.

 

Our original budget goal reflected our desire to take a specific approach to producing the show. But, as it has become clear to us that enough support isn't there right now, we've had a series of hard conversations and examined where we could cut every possible corner from the budget, while still being able to make a version of the show that you – and we – would find satisfying and entertaining.

 

We've reached a number of compromises that we’d hoped to avoid, but, if pushed to make a decision, we would rather make than abandon the show's future altogether.

 

There are two changes, in particular, that I want to outline for you:

 

First, while I had hoped to produce the entire season where I and the staff at Alternaversal live, in Pennsylvania, one of our producers has calculated that we can save a significant amount by shooting the show in Los Angeles, where most of our cast is based, and where there is a much larger (and more competitive) pool of creative talent to work with. Most assume that shooting in LA would be more expensive…but it turns out, that it’s less.

 

You all know how involved I like to be in the small details of costumes, props, etc, so I hope you understand that this is a significant compromise in how I'd hoped to make the show. I will still work with all of those teams remotely, but it will be a different experience than if we were able to do a lot of this work locally, as we did during the last 3 seasons.

 

But – I trust that our production designers are so good, and we'll find such good vendors to work with on the west coast, that I'm confident we can handle this approach.

 

Second, while our team at Alternaversal / Gizmonic Arts has benefited enormously from the chance to have a physical office space and workshop, and to be able to work together in person over the last few seasons, we recognize that if production is happening on the west coast, we can save a significant additional amount by giving up our offices and workshop, and having our entire team work remotely.

 

If we make these two changes, along with a few smaller ones, we are able to trim almost $800,000 from the budget, bringing the total cost of 6 episodes down to $4 million – a goal that might still be a challenge difficult to reach, but is far closer than $4.8m.

 

I want to emphasize that we are still committed to better compensating everyone involved, as described with a five percent pay increase to accommodate the cost of living for our vendors, and writers, and performers.

 

I also want to confirm that we remain committed to moving back to “in camera” physical sets for the host segments. (As you know, we used greenscreens for the backgrounds in Season 13 on account of COVID, and uncertainty of where we would be able to shoot the show.)

 

I imagine that some of you will wonder, if we're able to make these cuts and compromises now, why we didn't make them during our original discussions before launching this crowdfunding campaign. It's a fair question, and the answer is: we really hoped that these kinds of compromises wouldn't be necessary. Now that it's clear that they are, we've discussed them, and are prepared to make them for the good of the show.

 

I know this is a lot of news to digest, and I hope this adjustment can help us get to our goal.

Joel's latest backer email has an interesting start

[GoGo Yubari]

"Turns out we can't get this fundraising level we set for ourselves so let's move the goalposts closer" feels like an until-now unspoken reason for why they moved from Kickstarter to this new thing.

Turkey Day schedule:

Spoiler

Thursday 11/23

9AM ET/6AM PT: Bride Of The Monster

11AM ET/8AM PT: The Pumaman (Surgically Enhanced)

1PM ET/10AM PT: Escape 2000

3PM ET/12PM PT: Beyond Atlantis

5PM ET/2PM PT: The Beatniks

7PM ET/4PM PT: Viking Women and the Sea Serpent

9PM ET/6PM PT: The Giant Gila Monster

11PM ET/8PM PT: The Starfighters (Surgically Enhanced)

Friday 11/24

1AM ET/10PM PT: Munchie

3AM ET/12AM PT: Master Ninja II

5AM ET/2AM PT: Catalina Caper (Surgically Enhanced)

7AM ET/4AM PT: Operation Kid Brother

9AM ET/6AM PT: The Bubble

11AM ET/8AM PT: Time Chasers

1PM ET/10AM PT: Horror Of Party Beach (Surgically Enhanced)

3PM ET/12PM PT: Prince Of Space

5PM ET/2PM PT: Dr. Mordrid

7PM ET/4PM PT: Girl In Gold Boots

9PM ET/6PM PT: Stranded In Space

11PM ET/8PM PT: Gorgo

Saturday 11/25

1AM ET/10PM PT: Santo in the Treasure of Dracula

3AM ET/12AM PT: Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

5AM ET/2AM PT: Santa Claus

7AM ET/4AM PT: The Christmas Dragon

Apparently all the host segments were pretaped, which means that it's not going to have any of the cast members and not going to be live and that pretty much seals the deal to me that they're not gonna get to the goal and are going to just have to lick their wounds and figure something else out. Still, looking forward to seeing what the "Surgically Enhanced" versions look like.