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Weekend Discussion Thread: Some Season 12 Movie Titles Leaked?MSTie Twitter was on fire today with info from this web site.
If it’s true–and I hasten to note that this is not an official announcement–here are five of the six titles that will be on season 12: 1201: MAC AND ME Also notable: The name of the series is called “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet. Hmmm… What do you think? 153 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Some Season 12 Movie Titles Leaked?”Commenting at Satellite News
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Sounds like a winning lineup. I am curious as to what the mysterious episode 1205 will be. I know this much, Mac and Me is certainly an Mst3k worthy cheesefest.
How much O’Keefe in the upcoming season? Miles of it!
If the news about 1206 is correct–or if it’s anywhere in the season–does that mean the flashback in Cave Dwellers will make more sense?
And, if Mac And Me is really part of the season, then Marcy Levy will become part of MSTory. As a Clapton fan, I wholeheartedly approve.
Atlantic Rim – The Asylum’s ripoff of Pacific Rim with CGI that looks like a beginner on Blender.
The Day Time Ended – might make it almost watchable, but it still won’t have a plot.
Ator- sorry, no hang gliders
I think I can safely say, No. Nothing in Cave Dwellers will ever make sense. After you see Ator, less will make sense.
Mac and Me and Atlantic Rim seem more Rifftrax fodder than MST fodder. But we’ll see how they fit them in…
The other two look like a lot of fun.
As for episode 5, there was no epis- NO. I will not succumb.
All of these are newer and shinier so the kids today will say “Rad!” or “Boss!”, but the old folks sitting on their porch will say “What? Speak up!” And “Get off my lawn!”.
I am forecasting that The Gauntlet might involve a riffing duel in the last yet unnamed episode between a recaptured Jonah and a disgraced Max. The loser gets liquified into Kingachrome.
The Gauntlet sounds like the series of bad movies that the ‘Bots put Mike through off-screen.
I hope the rumors about Atlantic Rim are bogus. Please, no movies from the 21st century!
Also, I’d love to see some shorts this season.
Maybe it means they’re going to riff the 1977 bulletfest “The Gauntlet” directed by Clint Eastwood.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076070/
Nice to see a late ’70s one and some ’80s cheese, especially Ator, but no b&w 1950s scifi or horror? Sigh. I actually have no expectations that they’ll ever do b&w again, to be honest. Hope 1205 is some kind of poorly dubbed foreign disaster film, Japanese or Italian.
So Atlantic Rim is an Asylum knockoff of Pacific Rim. Poor Graham Greene, from Dances with Wolves to this. At least Longmire was just around the corner, man is he good in everything.
And regarding The Gauntlet, I’ll just say it: Wizard Needs Food, Badly.
It’s possible episode 5 is a Black & White 50s Movie. I’m hoping for Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,” it’s a more “known” film, and it’s widescreen, so it would fit with Joel’s desire to have the screen filled.
?
What didn’t make sense about the flashback in “Cave Dwellers”?
But never mind that, let’s go HERE:
Perusing a list of public domain films, I came across the title McLintock, a name that I recognized solely from when Crow inexplicably (well, it didn’t fit any pattern that I could perceive, anyway) added it to the list of (I’m presuming) otherwise made-up short films (“When He Wants It Rough,” “What’s That Down There?,” and so on) that the Brains concocted at the end of the Is This Love short.
McClintock is not, as one might reasonably guess, an action film of the “McBain” variety but a 1963 western, and while I’d love to see some set of Brains (there are three now, right? The Gauntlet, Rifftrax, and The Mads?) riff more westerns, it’s also a comedy, which it’s generally concurred is the wrong genre for riffing, because unlike “bad” films in other genres, “bad” comedies contain nothing that’s inherently though inadvertently funny. So that one’s out, anyway.
Mac & Me?!?
That’s amazing news. What a perfect pick!
Yes, possible, but unlikely. Apparently millennials are turned off by b&w films and don’t give them the chance they deserve. (And I’d love to be proved wrong, either about the film choice or millennials!)
I’m a millennial and so is my wife. We love b&w films.
I know people think millenials are teenagers, but we’re closing in on 40.
Thank you! I don’t think you’re teenagers; my grown kids are millennials and are in their mid 30s. And yes, we raised them right, to appreciate all kinds of movies and genres, and especially MST3K! Thanks again for proving this crabby old lady (“Get off my lawn!”) wrong. :-D
same with me.
anyway, Graham Greene is a good actor (been in a lot of good movies)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_nYT8WhFjk
I dunno, folks. I liked Season 11, a bunch. I liked seeing a lot of real range-extenders, “Christmas That Almost Wasn’t” being high on the list.
But the new series has two important jobs: 1) Bring a new flock of believers into the fold, because ‘way too much of the original series references fifty-year-old Saturday-morning kiddie shows, and 2) the new episodes REALLY REALLY need to hold up under repeated viewings.
Here, “Mac and Me,” “Lords of the Deep,” and “The Day Time Ended” look perfect. But “Ator”? Watched the Rifftrax last night, by sheer coincidence–sorry, “Ator, the Fighting Wossname” isn’t a patch on the loincloth of “Cave Dwellers.” Looong stretches of repeated jokes, driven into the ground, which tells me that the new crew is going to have a tough time finding anything to work with.
And “Atlantic Rim”?
“ATLANTIC RIM”?
Smirky, self-consciously bad, “We are playing a joke on you, are we not naughty?” Has that ever even been ATTEMPTED? If that list is authentic, I got a bad feeling about not just that movie, but the whole process. Please, guys, prove me wrong.
Now, The Day Time Ended isn’t exactly a BAD film; it’s just goofy, has no plot, doesn’t really have an ending, and Jock Ewing stars in it. Translation, I REALLY want to see it on MST.
As for the others, well, it’s about time an Asylum knockoff reached the Satellite of Love, and Mac and Me — the infamous “Go to McDonalds NOW!” film — is just BEGGING for a MSTing. Not so sure about Lord of the Deep — I don’t know much about that one, so we’ll see.
And for 1205, well, considering the special effects of The Day Time Ended LOOK like a video game, and we’re all familiar with the Gauntlet video game, I wonder if THAT’s the theme of the season.
So, maybe they’ll do Albert Pee-Yoo!’s Arcade. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106302/?ref_=nv_sr_1. Gotta have more Full Moon films riffed!
I am SO looking forward to the new season! MOVIE SIGN!
As a couple folks have mentioned, this list looks bad, and not in a Good Way.
But that’s all right — I hated the reboot (well, “hated” is a bit too strong a word. Let’s just say it was so-so) and this list doesn’t make me feel any better about it. They clearly want to appeal to the Rifftrax crowd, and I’ve parted ways with them as well.
It was a nice ride while it lasted but it’s still the old “you can’t go home again”. Luckily we have vintage MST3K to watch on Turkey Day.
It’s all worth it just for Mac and Me! Plus the return of Miles O Keefe? I’m all in :)
more Graham Greene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz_l_0oioxQ
Was really hoping for at least one of the Ferrigno Hercules movies, but still happy with everything but Atlantic Rim.
As an observation and not perceiving any legit hypocrisy: Avalanche had an entire host segment chastising these types of movies. Sure they focused more on the giant animal versions, but the thesis was still about the depicting Z-grade, self aware money grabs as charming B-movies. There’s a difference between earnestly made but poorly executed movies and the pieces of garbage Asylum churns out.
There’s a third Ator movie with Miles O’Keefe in it. The Iron Warrior.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093276/reference
And then there’s another movie with a main character named Ator, though not played by Miles. Quest for the Mighty Sword. It also reuses the troll mask from Troll 2. IMDB says it’s a sequel, but, Im skeptical of that being accurate.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100448/reference
Run times for movies per IMDB vs. length of MST3K episode (as seen on the British Board of Film Classification website where this list comes from):
Mac and Me: 95 minutes/81:47
Atlantic Rim: 85 minutes/80:15
Lords of the Deep: 77 minutes/78:48
The Day Time Ended: 79 minutes/82:28
Ator The Fighting Eagle: 98 minutes/82:51
There’s going to have to be some This Island Earth worthy editing on a few of those movies to fit them in, unless the new “bingeable” format also cuts out a host segment.
It’s risky doing another film that RiffTrax riffed successfully (YMMV). Too few people have seen the RiffTrax Wizards of the Lost Kingdom riff, which isn’t one of their best but yet stronger than the MST3K version, which relies way too heavily on goofy voices (one of which I find personally distastefully offensive) and that running hat gag for the bulk of the humor. Ator will invite direct comparison not only to classic MST3K but to RiffTrax, and that is full of pitfalls.
Agree that Graham Greene is good in everything, no matter how small the part. The Canadian comedy “Gunless” has lots of inside jokes re: Western tropes and Canadian stereotypes; I believe Greene’s character never gets off his horse. Because, you know, aren’t Native Americans and First Nations people always on horseback? (sarcasm) He was heartbreaking in “Skins.”
Finally I don’t think this list of titles can be classified as a “leak”. Netflix voluntarily submits their original content airing in Great Britain to the British Board of Film Classification for rating, and the BBFC publishes all titles that they rate on their website. It’s a legitimate process and entirely open and above board, and I hate to see it classified, as I have elsewhere, as a leak “against Joel’s wishes”. (I’m not going to even argue how silly I think Joel’s misguided secret-keeping is as far as building anticipation and an audience for the show.)
Off-topic, just something that I keep recalling when I’m not online and keep forgetting by the time I get online:
Was there any sort of significance to the fact that Joel wore different-colored jumpsuits in various episodes, while Mike and Jonah always wear jumpsuits that are the same color? It seems like something that might something but I can’t imagine what. Thanks.
Not exactly part of this discussion but Shout has indicated Vol. 9 of the reissues will be out
on January 15th of 2019.
Personally I’m thrilled since I don’t have the original release.
Either way, we pretty much got the edited highlights already, and know how it comes out. (“This is the part we like to call, ‘She Had to Ask’.”)
He said it, I didn’t–
That was my big complaint, that even leaving aside the desperation of only picking certain kinds of recent-widescreen-color movies, Joel seems to have lost a bit of his fire, and is acting more as Franchise Producer than upstart young comic, and seems to be looking toward SciFi and RT’s merchandised cult for what MST3K “should” be, since he won’t watch his own vintage CC episodes. As much as he can have fun with the riffing, the movie choices seem to be aiming more and more at the vintage-fan kissup titles that RT does every time they bring back one more live show for Manos.
So, we get a callback–TWO, if you want to count DtTE as a Laserblast “callback”–the most easily reputation-overblown “Worst movie of the 80’s”, and…an Asylum movie. If anyone picked an Asylum title-buster saying “Look, folks, ain’t it goofy?“, you know who it would be…And reminding us it was “From the geniuses who brought us Sharknado 2!”
And yes, I did look up to see whether RT had done Mac & Me already, because Conor wanted to do it.
I haven’t seen this one, but that was my example of how Producer Joel was starting to pick “Modern bad movies” on reputation.
Also because Asylum are as cheap and public-domain to get a hold of as MGM movies were for Mac & Me. They’re both just about EVERY damn where on streaming, now that Amazon Prime and Netflix have to show the cheap stuff.
(Unless you were referring to the title and meant “What the heck is the ‘Atlantic Rim’?? Oceanographically speaking, we have a Pacific Rim, and that’s what Del Toro made his movie about, but…”)
Exactly: It’s the same Jerry-Springer-esque “Hate us, folks, you know you love ta!” smugness that made Troma so obnoxious in the 80’s, and turned Uwe Boll into a starving cult attention-hound in the 00’s.
Again, I’ve accident-viewed a few of the more shameless Asylum titles on PlutoTV’s channel (only Japanese anime fans know why “Megashark vs. Titan” had to have its title changed), and they’re not just cheap and shameless, they’re ugly: Leaving aside the hideously low-grade CGI–don’t make me show you their attempted “Dreamworks’ Trolls” ripoff–everything is shot in backstreets and city warehouses, like the “Future War” cheap 90’s direct-video titles, and with a pale, washed-out, overlit digital-camera look to it, that doesn’t really seem to have heard of creative cinematography except that it watched Michael Bay films a few times.
It’s the same reason the Brains never did “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”, and why they laid into Hobgoblins director Rick Sloane’s rat-dropping brains at the end of that episode–Good bad movies have a naive earnestness to them, but smug-badness just ISN’T FUN. :(
Mike didn’t wear the same color in every episode. He wore what I would call forest green, a teal that was more on the green side, a bright blue (like the movie jumpsuit), and navy blue.
(And since the thread-tangent was off-topic anyway, thought it needed its own post: )
As that’s my own particular 60’s-warrior pet cause, I’ve blogged on that question frequently (https://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2017/09/september-11-2017-back-to-school.html )
The two things we seem to hear from Millennials most often is that A) any movie with B&W or old-school effects is somehow “broken”, from an earlier age when they pretended to make “real” films without technology (just get a kid to explain why Ray Harryhausen used stop-motion in “Clash of the Titans”), and B) any movie that older generations “tell” you you’re supposed to watch, like Forrest Gump, Shawshank Redemption, or (dun-dun-dunn!) Citizen Kane is somehow the snooty overblown academic criticism passed down over the years as cliche’, so what’s the big deal about ’em anyway?
But if you’ve started watching the videos on YouTube’s React channel–which tries to pick ageist Millennial fights both ways, with “Old People Try to Play Fortnite”–watching the “High School and College Kids try to identify Classic Movies” shorts are a HOOT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qA78BIXX9A
The reactions are always the same–First, stubborn decade-ist ridicule (“This looks like…way before the 80’s”), then baffled disorientation (“Wait…w-what are they…?”), then pleased bemusement (“This is…kinda cool, actually!”), then the burst of creative self-identity that they like it (“I know my friends haven’t seen it, but this is totally what I’m into”)…And then, finally, acting as if they’re the experts telling us about it (“This is one of the great classic films of its day”), lest we accuse them of not having known about it at the beginning.
Admit it, kiddos, you love this stuff, you’re just afraid to be seen liking it, because that means that your Evil Un-PC 20th-Century Parents actually did something right. >: )
—–
(Annnnd, back to the thread: )
Yeah, thought that if 21st-cty. MST3K wanted to recognize the Asylum plague as a “pop-culture joke” for the Netflix Era, the Avalanche segment pretty well covered it. The “easy” jokes are about the “Megapython vs. Angry Kittens” titles, and Jonah&tB certainly took that joke as far as it could go, but as for the quality of Asylum movies themselves, they’re just so cynically bad, they DEFY you to laugh at them, instead of just shaking your head sadly and taking a shower.
The company originally started out as one (very, very) cheap 90’s garage-CGI effects-house trying to make “Boa vs. Python” as its own demo-reel, and then once their title-swiping got cultural attention, lived to see what they could steal with public-domain dodges, but that didn’t mean the CGI improved all that much since the 90’s. And when producers make their own bad movies with no one to stop them, and get off on the thrill that no one wants them to make the next one, we’re squarely in Adam Sandler territory.
My advice to everyone is to not believe articles about how millenials are ruining everything.
So here’s a thought I had during my 5 hour drive today… what if episode 5 isn’t listed because it doesn’t exist yet? What if the plan is to record one of the live shows…?
I don’t know how likely that is, but it would be amazing. I saw The Brain in Portland, and it was great! I’m going to see Deathstalker II in NYC tomorrow.
Hearing you talk to Pete makes me think there is a pair of Hanes with one missing and two buttons that have vanished.
There are 3 old Gamera films that have never been riffed or MSTied… I think they should be a top priority. Especially given how popular those films have become in recent years and how wacky those films are.
It would please both those with Classic taste and newbies alike.
I’m old enough to remember when “MAC and Me” was released in theaters.
The reviews were lacerating of this blatant “E.T.” rip-off with flagrant product placement for McDonald’s, Coke, and Sears, although the disabled child actor received some positive mentions, most notably from Leonard Maltin.
“MAC and Me” won two Razzies, one for Worst Director and one for Worst New Star (not the kid actors).
It should be interesting what MST3K does with (or to) this movie.
Off topic, but I wanted to mention that Rifftrax released a DVD compilation of shorts yesterday.
“The Walking Shorts.”
https://www.rifftrax.com/the-walking-shorts#physical
Enjoy.
Meh……. never really liked Season 11 that much and now 12 doesn’t do much for me. I might watch Mac and Me and that’s about it. Looking at it now, I wished Joel gave the new series a different name and not tarnish the legacy of the cult classic that was our little secret, but I guess that’s just the ravings of a tail-end Boomer. Hope y’all enjoy the season as I’ll stick to MST3K “Classic”.
One title nobody’s mentioned so far: 1203 – Lords of the Deep
Given the other pandering callback episodes, I had to double-check IMDb to make sure this wasn’t “War-lords of the Deep”, the reasoning being, “Well, we have to do a Doug McClure episode this season, it’s our FAN TRADEMARK now! :) ”
But no, from all indications, seems to be just another ’88-’89 underwater-monster epic, from that brief flood we got trying to outguess James Cameron’s “The Abyss”. And Corman produced, at that: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjyne8
You, sir or madam, win whatever parts of the Internet I don’t have already. :)
As for actual guess, I’m thinking that the “gauntlet” is where Jonah&tB escape Moon 13 and end up caught in an endless chase, on the run from a gal who wants to rule the world (or at least market it), and…they basically try to scrap the S11 plot the way S9 tried to get away from the Apes and Romans.
That’s certainly the playbook that Joel’s been reading, when in doubt.
The McDonald’s plugs were a lot more than “blatant”–The movie had originally been produced in co-operation with McDonald’s, with its profits going to the Ronald McDonald charities.
(And just how much did charity see from all those Coke plugs in “Cry Wilderness”?)
Even so…wow, are those the cheapest-@$$ creatures you’ve ever seen in an 80’s E.T. knockoff.
This one knocks itself out so hard trying to be Instant-80’s-Spielberg, you find yourself wishing for the more naive simplicity of Tommy & Trumpy’s relationship. Potatoes, not Big Macs.
I thought Joel or Jonah said something about “The Gauntlet” earlier this year when they were doing the presale…
I was Not Thrilled about Atlantic Rim because I thought the two Sharknados were enough. But I watched the trailer and thought about Asylum, and I think it’ll work because it’s played straight, unlike the SyFy shlock. Asylum’s mockbusters are more rip-offs, rather than jokes. So. I still have faith.
I’m less excited by the shorter episodes. Part of that will be shorter credits (no Kickstarter backers to thank), but I really don’t want to lose a host segment.
Actually, while I’ve watched neither “Mac and Me” nor any other E.T. knockoff, based on what little I’ve read about them, “Mac and Me” occupies one of the higher rungs.
Evidently “Pod People” also qualifies as an E.T. knockoff. Does Trumpy compare favorably or unfavorably with Mac?
The 1983 TV movie/pilot “Wishman” features a genetic experiment creature, not an alien, but having in fact watched it (admittedly, all the way back in 1983), I can report that the E.T. influence is obvious.
International E.T. knockoffs include:
El E.T.E. y el Oto (1983) Spain
Badi (1983) Turkey
Los extraterrestres, aka Monguito: The Argentinian E.T. (1983) Argentina (!=~don’t phone home for me, Argentina~)
Nukie (1987) South Africa
Homoti (1987) Turkey
From what I understand, Nukie and Badi are competitors for the absolute worst of that lot. Evidently, the other three are theoretically comedies.
The Cinema Snob has also reviewed AT LEAST four porn film parodies of E.T.
E~3: The Extra Testicle (1985)
Aguenta Tesão (Quanto Mais Sexo Melhor) (1986)
Extra Terrestrian: Die Ausserirdische (1996)
E.T. XXX: A DreamZone Parody (2013)
I care so you don’t have to. ;-)
I doubt that any Brains will ever venture into porn film territory, whether parodies or not. What do concepts like “good movie” and “bad movie” even mean in that context?
:-)
Wow, I was recently trying to remember the name of this weird film I saw on TV ages ago about a family in some kind of ranch home that gets sucked into some kind of space warp where threatening things happen but it all turns out to be some nice aliens that take everyone away to some kind of space heaven that was way too cool for the effects budget so one of the cast that went missing shows up and tells everybody that are going to someplace so fantastic it’s beyond her ability to describe. It sound like the movie may be The Day Time Ended. What a treat!
And someone mentioned Warlords of the Deep. Another movie that I can never remember the name of even though I saw it a bunch of times circa 1980 when it was playing in heavy rotation on some HBO like service. I loved the giant octopus attacks at the beginning and end of the movie. Sounds like a good candidate for an episode to me.
**Looks at Episode 1**
I think I just heard Phelan’s head exploding.
Hold on! “Ator”? Isn’t that “Cave Dwellers” with a different name?
You’re correct, it’s the baby boomers.
No, Ator is the movie that came before Cave Dwellers. And provided the flashback scenes. (aka “She had to ask.”)
And yet another thread where I agree with everything EricJ is saying — yipes, has the universe imploded?
(I mention this because he was/is SUCH a Joel fanboy that he would hear nothing about how meh the reboot was — we’ve always been on solid ground together about Rifftrax).
Yeah, the more I read about the movie selections here the more I think I’m glad I kind of bailed on this reboot after the first few episodes (I *watched* the rest, but I think I laughed more watching the Jags play than anything Jonah and company have done).
My plan was to watch one of the new ones on Thanksgiving “just in case” but now I’m just going to pass. I’d rather not tarnish the MST3Kness of that day. For all you kids (I won’t categorize except — anyone younger than 40) enjoy. I’m really happy you’re happy (truly — nothing pleases me more than my own offspring and their offspring being happy). My time has passed.
The sad thing about Mac and Me is that it’s one of the few movies to portray late ‘80s suburban life actually, minus the aliens and dancing of course. The McDonald’s itself, the Sears store and the house the kid and his family move into just have a nice familiarity to them. It’s mundane, but it’s real. The movie E.T. still has the ‘70s bleed-over, where you can’t really say it’s all pure ‘80s. I always found it hard to relate to the kids in that movie too.
Ator the Fighting Eagle is a pretty good movie. I don’t know Cave Dwellers looks like in it’s normal format, but I’m guessing it’s not as good as the first movie.
It would be cool to have had a black and white movie, but what kind? I’m guessing it would have to be a movie that was in a widescreen format. Maybe not something that would be considered a “classic” sci-fi movie. I’d be open to a piece of cheese in the vein of I Accuse My Parents. Season 11 had some real snorers like that Christmas movie, so color doesn’t mean “better”.
Newer movies are fine to use on MST3K. That was one of my favorite things about the Sci-fi Channel years, I’ve always maintained the opinion that a cheap modern movie will always be worse than a cheap old movie, I wouldn’t worry about an Asylum movie being used. Those movies are always low-budget, often shameless rip-offs of some kind of blockbuster movie, but they’re made with sincerity. They would be good for MST3K.