Movie: (2013): When giant monsters crawl out of the Atlantic Ocean and attack the Eastern Seaboard, the U.S. government is forced to trust a trio of mischievous soldiers who specialize in piloting gigantic robots, to defend America.
Opening: Intruder alert at Gizmonic Institute! Meanwhile, in the invention exchange, Growler helps out as J&tB show off their inflatable air dancer organ. Max demonstrates “supposi-stories.”
Segment 1: With the bots dressed in mech suits, the Mads demand a new song in the spirit of “Every Country Has a Monster.” Growler and M. Waverly and Gypsy help with “Get in Your Mech.”
Segment 2: Dressed like they are at an awards dinner, J&tB explain how they got their medals.
Close: Jonah wants to do some day drinking, but the bots suggest they pour out a little — actually kind of a lot.
Stinger: Red tells his tale. Buh-boom!
The New Normal: Growler and M. Waverly, once considered one-hit wonders, are now fixtures, including making regular appearances in the theater.
In pretty much every episode this season, M. Waverly is brought in in Gypsy’s bucket (which the never-explained ‘payload’ was in in season 11). Then he gets out in front of the theater seats, gives a riff and leaves. Growler comes in, riffs and leaves. Near the end, Waverly comes back, does a riff, then gets in the bucket and is taken out of the theater by Gypsy.
(24 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)
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Thoughts:
• I cruised through the comments from the “rough draft” and I want to compliment everybody on their observations and opinions. There was some very thoughtful and even insightful commentary and not a lot of cross-talk and personal back and forth. Kudos.
• I know a bit about old bad movies but I don’t really keep close track of the new bad ones, so while I had heard of “Pacific Rim” and that it was bad (some commenters took issue with that view, but I can’t weigh in because I’ve never seen it), I had not heard of Asylum. But apparently others had, because I recall the announcement that one of theirs was going to be riffed filled some MSTies with trepidation.
• In the rough draft I asked what that “intruder alert” was about? A helpful commenter explained that it was Dr. Erhardt liberating Dr F. and Frank’s ashes? Oh. I should have figured that out. Duh.
• A bonehead (Deanna Rooney, Jonah’s wife btw) helps out Max with invention exchange.
• A bit of self-referencing going on in this episode: At movie sign, J&tB are sining “Patrick Swayze Christmas.” Later Max says: “It stinks! And not in the joke way.” Still later, in the theater, they say a minor character in the movie looks like “Joel Hodgson.”
• The song was another gem from Paul & Storm.
• Callback: “Packers!” (Giant Spider Invasion.)
• Catchphrases: “Bull butter!” and “Buh-boom!”
• Cast and crew roundup (very few this time): Writer Thunder Levin was the still photographer on “Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II.” That’s it.
• Fave riff: “This one’s more of a landscaping issue.” “What with the streets clogged with corpses and all…”
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Not as good as Macc & Me but I have a soft spot for this ep because I got an onscreen credit at the end. All that hard work finally paid off (okay no hard work but I did click a few mouse buttons to get it). I don’t have Netflix so taking in one ep a night with my pledge dvd set.
Meanwhile, it’s smart to have the season end with the film that Cave Dwellers, the MST3K episode that could be considered the start of the series “growing the beard”, is a sequel to.
As a long time attendee of Otakon since its days in Baltimore, that line was definitely a hoot (especially given the 2002 Mystery Anime Theater 3000 show, which had a couple of references to the exploding manhole cover incident that happened at the con the previous year).
While on the subject, it’s was a fun surprise that the series would actually make a reference to Evangelion.
Reporting for du- oh boy…
I think this might be Jonah’s “Castle of Fu Manchu” for me. Sure, I laughed but after a certain point I just kind of zoned out and let the episode become background noise. However, I am enjoying the host segments even if there is one fewer of them now.
I noted that the first tune played on the Air Dancer Organ was the ‘Wild Rebels Cereal’ jingle.
Otherwise, give me a cheap move that isn’t 90% computer generated…
Fave riffs
“I’ve been with Project Armada since its inception…”
… last Tuesday!
We’re being chased by a GoPro!
Baywatch Beyond Thunderdome
“You broke every rule today…”
… every rule of cinematic storytelling.
“Do we know where the other egg is?”
You’re sitting on it!
Phase 2? Oh yes, something I totally know about and am ready for!
Sweet binoculuars, he can see New York from Pensacola, Florida!
That day, eight brave soliders evacuated New York by word of mouth alone.
This show open was really pretty compact.
First, we have the intruder alert at Gizmonics and Gizmonics itself is in flames. I do hope this goes somewhere.
Then the invention exchange is solid but necessarily outstanding. I did just buy a car a couple months ago. The dealer I used didn’t even have air dancers. This invention probably would have helped. But the Patrick Swayze Christmas cameo was welcome. The suposi-stories was interesting. I could see Clayton presenting it but it did fall flat for me. I’ve always said Patton is outstanding at channeling Frank. I guess he can’t channel Clayton though.
I like the premise of the on-demand song of the first host segment. It has its moments, particularly “we built a deck with Alex TrebeK.” But in the end, I have to agree with Max. It stinks.
Of the hundreds of implausibly stupid things in this film I think the crown goes to the attempts to break Red out of the brig. Now keep in mind this brig is locked with the cheapest of Schlage entry level locks. First, they go around begging someone for a key. Then they heroically search the lumber wagon for a hammer to bust the lock. Isn’t this some sort of military base? Do the thing Scott Evil wanted to in Austin Powers. Instead of the stupidity, go back to their room and get a gun. Problem solved.
This movie was bad. The situations were absurdly nonsensical. The casting was terrible. The acting was worse. And don’t even get me started on the cheapest of the cheap clichés. This movie was bad. It made me want to go on a rant like the one in the wrap up of Rocket Attack USA bad. Or as Max said in during the on-demand song. It stinks.
Favorite Riffs
An establishing shot of the oil rig is shown. Jonah “This movie is rigged.”
Panicked people on the beach flee the sea creature. Tom “Baywatch beyond Thunderdome.”
Green Pilot “You alright Red?” Tom “Please say no.”
Green Pilot is trying to find missing girl. “Oh, good thinking. Put the gun away when you are looking for a missing child.”
Voice of naval recon individual “Stand by, we are now confirming a large mass rising from the ocean floor.” Crow “The Great Pumpkin. It’s finally happening!”
An MP goes to let Red out of the brig. Crow “Oh so this guy is the hero of the movie.” And the MP is crushed under foot of the monster.
Is that a Quantum Leap-based riff? ;-)
Uh… buh-boom?
When I first heard that MST3K would be tackling Atlantic Rim, I was both excited and cautious. On the one hand, as a giant monster aficionado, seeing a Kaiju flick riffed on the show is always a treat. Plus, not only am I a big fan of 2013’s Pacific Rim, but it’s director, Guillermo del Toro, is my favorite director working today, and a personal hero of mine. Any attempt to rip off del Toro SHOULD be a hilarious disaster… right?
Well, that brings me to the other hand: the crap factory that is The Asylum. While many of their films are fun to laugh at (or laugh along with), some of their output is too painful to be funny. Unfortunately, at least for me, Atlantic Rim falls into this category. As per The Asylum’s MO, no attempt was made to make this movie anything resembling “good”. The result is a truly joyless experience. It’s not intentionally goofy, or charming in its earnest attempt to be something more than the sum of its parts. It just… exists, like a big, dumb rock crushing the air out of your chest.
This is where I think the decision to riff this particular movie backfires. On paper, a big, dumb, ripoff monster movie sounds like the perfect riffing material. In practice, however, the lack of anything remotely engaging in the film makes watching it a chore, even with the riffing. That said, Jonah and the Bots do a pretty fantastic job at injecting a modicum of fun into the proceedings, and there are some genuinely funny riffs and some great host segments. But, despite its strengths, this will probably be the Season 12 episode I revisit the least. I didn’t hate it by any stretch of the imagination, but the overwhelming joylessness of the movie gets the better of me every time I see it. However, I’ve noticed that I’ve enjoyed the episode more with each viewing, so maybe it’ll become more endearing as time goes on. Fingers crossed!
Some thoughts:
-The cold open at Gizmonics Institute is a series first: an episode has never started anywhere but on the SOL or in the Mads’ lair. The mysterious break-in goes unmentioned and unsolved until the fourth episode, and woah… what a reveal it is!
-The Inflatable Organ is one of my favorite inventions of the revival series. Growler is back at it, jammin’ away to an organ rendition of the “Wild Rebels” song. It’s nice to see him back!
-Supposistories… yeah, this didn’t gross me out as much as it did family and friends who saw the episode with me on Thanksgiving, but it’s still pretty gross. Also, I’m not ashamed to admit that Ethan Frome messed me up as a teenager. I usually loved the books that we were assigned to read for Literature class, but Ethan Frome was a rare exception. Only read it if you want to be sad and angry. You’ve been warned.
-Growler is playing “Patrick Swayze Christmas” when Movie Sign sounds. How did Jonah know the words? I know, it’s just a show…
-Take it from one who knows… you don’t put a guy with an eye patch into a giant monster movie unless you want to evoke the ire of less forgiving Godzilla fans. If you know, you know. *wink*
-This episode’s “Swing and a miss” sighting: pilot guy gets blown off by pilot girl.
-Nice Evangelion reference. It seems like you can’t make a giant robot flick in a post-Eva world without someone making a comparison. Even Pacific Rim itself got compared, despite Guillermo del Toro’s insistence that it wasn’t an influence.
-And hey, a Robot Jox reference?! Well played. As much as I love that movie, it’d make a great episode of the show.
-Man, it’s odd seeing CGI in an MSTied movie. After more than 200 episodes of rubber creature suits, hand puppets, makeup/masks, guys waddling under carpets, animatronics, and even stop motion, seeing computer generated characters is downright jarring. The perk? It’s AWFUL CGI. It’s basically the digital equivalent of the Creeping Terror. So it all feels somehow appropriate.
-Segment 1 might be the single most meta host segment in MST3K history. Max even produces the limited edition vinyl release of Season 11’s soundtrack for the camera to see. The dialogue might as well be coming from the actors/writers themselves, and while such humor might not be to everyone’s taste, I found it pretty funny. “Every Country Has A Monster” was pretty wonderful, so it feels only natural that they take a little pride in their accomplishment while simultaneously poking fun at themselves. The new song that results from this segment, “Get in Your Mech”, is complete, stream-of consciousness nonsense, and I love it.
-Another instant catchphrase: Buh-BOOM!
-Another interesting side effect of riffing such a modern movie is the fact that, due to modern recording technology, there are moments where the riffer’s voices sound like they’re coming from the movie, and vise versa. Did anyone else experience this, or is it just me?
-I’m fairly confident there’s not a single moment in this film without the soundtrack playing. Seriously, it never stops. NEVER.
-Another film observation: there appears to be stock footage of actual disasters sprinkled throughout. That… MIGHT not be in good taste.
-Also, the lack of chemistry between our lead and his lady friend is painful. She looks like she’s in physical agony whenever she gets close to him. Maybe she’s allergic to smug a**wipes. (Can’t remember if the site censors naughty words, so I censored myself!)
-The guys try to push “on the horn” and “bull butter” as catchphrases, but they emerge as minor running jokes at best. I wouldn’t be expecting bumper stickers of these lines anytime soon.
-Speaking of meta, Servo notes a pilot looks like “Joel Hodgson”. Reminds me of the KTMA episode where one of the bots thinks he spots “Frank Conniff”.
-Segment 2 is a hoot, bro! This is a bit where the brevity works in its favor, and it’s a pretty funny one! I love their giant medals.
-Amazing how the makers of Atlantic Rim managed to take the visually and conceptually complex concept of “Drifting” introduced in Pacific Rim (involving massive cockpits, overhead rigs, syncing with a co-pilot, and getting strapped into machines that allow you to control your robot) and reduce it to a single, cheap-looking headband.
-During the establishing shot of Manhattan, a tiny, silhouetted sailboat cruises across the screen, and is revealed to be Waverly with a boat on his head. He makes it about halfway across the theater before his head pops up and he scoots back out of frame. It took me three or four viewings of the episode to spot it happening. Makes me wonder how many other gags I’ve missed because I wasn’t paying attention to the tiny silhouettes.
-Speaking of Waverly, he sneaks into the theater at least one more time towards the end of the film, makes a riff, and then rides out of the theater in Gypsy’s payload. This will become a regular occurrence for the rest of the season.
-Isn’t it hysterical how no CG effect shot lasts longer than four or five seconds? Once you notice it, it’s hard to ignore.
-The melee weapon deployment scene IS rather similar to Pacific Rim: Uprising. Coincidence? Or influence… Oh, and speaking of sequels, Atlantic Rim II is a thing. The less said, the better.
Callbacks: In Segment 1, Max responds to J&TB’s song with a hardy, “It stinks! And not in the joke way!”; “Packers!” (The Giant Spider Invasion); “Bang!” (Cry Wilderness).
Favorite Riff: “Go Go Dour Rangers!”
Out of the 196 episodes from Season 1-12, this one is now my least favorite of the entire series. I thought Season 11’s The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t was bad, and I still think it ranks among the bottom, but I find it downright pleasant compared to Atlantic Rim. When dull host segments meet a movie that has no business being on MST3K, imo, the result is… not great.
Rewatching this one, it just seems so wrong to me. There’s a few laughs, as with any episode, but it feels so manufactured. The movie was practically made yesterday. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the movie itself wasn’t so “bad on purpose,” as if the show is making it’s own new movies to plug into itself, and the result is almost pure teflon. The attempts at riffs (when it’s not just talking*) just slide right off. I could maybe see Rifftrax having a much more effective time with this one, but it’s hardly worth the effort. I mean, would you riff Airplane? I mean, Atlantic Rim is certainly no Airplane, and it’s not even a comedy really. But it’s a non-effort piece of cynical marketing. Which I guess fits Season 12, unfortunately. Maybe that’s the joke?
I have to agree. Although no film I’ve ever seen has the ability to hypnotically confuse a viewer like Castle of Fu Manchu does, Atlantic Rim is it’s counterpoint in so much as “we could have made funny riffs, but the movie wasn’t very good.”
*More on the what I’m starting to call “that’s not riffing, that’s talking.” Okay, I just came up with that. But anyway, the whole thing is starting to remind me of that early episode where a viewer wrote a letter to Crow telling him that sometimes it’s seems that Crow talks just to hear himself, or some such rant. Pretty funny.
This is the episode that broke me. I watched what I watched of Season 12 out of order – Mac and Me, then Ator, then Killer Fish, and then…this. I will never watch another NuMST episode again.
I’ve watched every episode of classic MST3K, including all the KTMA except the lost 3rd episode.
I’ve watched every Cinematic Titanic, including the bootlegged Astral Factor with just the audio.
I’ve seen every Film Crew.
I’ve seen damn near every RiffTrax – all the VODs, all the shorts, all the specials, all the live shows or mp3 riffs of them, and almost all of the just-the-jokes releases of the major Hollywood films except a very few horror films I can’t stomach.
I’ve seen Trace and Frank riff as The Mads four times live.
I’ve seen every episode of MST3K Season 11.
But never before have I felt, as a audience member, as a viewer, as a MSTie, mocked. I’ve never before felt like the riffers and the show makers were laughing at the fans, not with the fans, until I watched Season 12, Episode 2, Atlantic Rim. I can accept the movie choice, even though I think it’s beneath MST3K standards. What is unacceptable is the cynical self-awareness and self-congratulation for being the “right people” making the show, the hubris of throwing every piece of nostalgia possible at the wall while winking at the camera about how meta it all is, and pretending that the showmakers don’t really condone this, it’s a comment on the disposability of binge watching, here-today gone tomorrow pop culture, and aren’t we clever for embracing it while we’re really mocking it, and you’re in on it too, dear fans, we love you, don’t we? Ignore the nagging feeling that you’ve been very deliberately marketed to, that the show is somehow talking down to you, in a way you can’t quite put your finger on, mocking you for taking it too seriously, for not relaxing since it’s just a show, at least until it asks you to take it seriously, to give it your money, your time, and your emotional labor. This is not the MST3K I want to be a fan of, and I can only hope that The Creator(s) come(s) to his(their) senses soon and realize that although the old show was made by people who were amusing themselves, they ended up making a show that amused the fans as well. This version of MST3K is made by The Creator(s) for The Creator(s), and whether the audience has fun or not is secondary to pushing all the correct buttons to make them feel 13 again.
I mean, it’s a pretty bad episode, but wow, MonkeyPretzel. That seems a bit harsh. It IS afterall, just a show, and you really SHOULD just relax.
It was Avalanche, actually.
As I commented in May, I couldn’t finish this one. I haven’t done so since, and I have no interest in ever doing so. This episode will remain unwatched for all time. It’s not just that the movie is intentionally bad (What’s the point of riffing when the filmmakers aren’t in earnest?), it’s also that the movie is constant NOISE, constant ACTION, constant SPECIAL EFFECTS, constant IN YOUR FACE without a single moment of rest. This movie is an assault on the senses, and after five minutes I find it so wearying that I have to turn it off. It’s physically nauseating.
So, yeah, I’m not watching this one. I’m glad some people liked it, but it’s not for me.
I believe the “payload” was explained during one of the live tours. They’re merely snacks and food for Jonah and the robots.
I’ve seen a lot of people claim that an episode like this where the movie is only five years old is too quick of a turnaround for MST3K. I think these people forget that at the time movies like Robot Holocaust, Alien From LA, Outlaw, Quest Of The Delta Knights, Time Chasers, Werewolf, Merlin’s Shop Of Mystical Wonders, and Future War were all pretty recent by that standard. I think it’s just a side effect of the fact that 2013 doesn’t seem like that long ago by comparison.
I loved the skit in Season 11 about rejecting the “bad on purpose” movies like Sharknado, where they try to use up all the ridiculous names so they can’t make any more of these movies. Then they turn around and use this piece of garbage which is THE SAME THING they were ranting about.. Really made me angry. Don’t encourage this crap by paying to use it in your show.
Good point, the original MST ended in 1999 and they did a lot of movies from the 90s, especially the later Sci-Fi era.
As for them tackling a “bad on purpose” movie, that’s sort of a gray area. I mean, RiffTrax has done movies like Birdemic and I’m pretty damn sure no-one involved in making that movie took it seriously at all, and yet the riffing is hilarious (as is the movie). I enjoyed this episode well enough.
We have to accept the fact that this isn’t the exact same show we grew up with from the 90s. It’s a new cast, it’s a new crew, and believe it or, it’s a new audience. That’s going some people off no matter what.
I’ve seen interviews with the director of Birdemic and read quite a bit about him. He definitely thought he was making a good movie, and probably stands by Birdemic’s cinematic worth to this day. He’s worth looking up if you enjoy colorfully delusional characters in the mold of Tommy Wiseau.
At the end of the day, a bad movie is a bad movie. I hardly matters whether the movie was made in earnest or was just a cynical cash-grab. Even something like Catalina Caper, which Best Brains themselves said was a mistake to riff, wasn’t very good at all. Sure, it was *trying* to be funny but it also failed spectacularly and thus still counts as being a bad movie.
And on the subject of RiffTrax, there’s also the “Just The Jokes” riffs which tackle movies generally considered to be good, like Jurassic Park or the Harry Potter films.
I don’t understand the notion that movies have be a certain age to be worth riffing. As long as the movie is riffable*, it should be fair game, and it’s not like there aren’t any bad movies anymore. On the other hand I don’t think they should stop riffing older movies just because they’re B&W or a different aspect ratio.
* By “riffable” I mean that the movie provides plenty of opportunities for good riffs, and enough “space” to fit the riffs into so that the riffers aren’t constantly talking over the dialog or being drowned out by the action.
Atlantic Rim was a whole new level of bad. There weren’t even the usual things a low-budget filmmaker might do try make the movie look better. Even the cardboard TV news camera from Future War implied that some kind of care went into making that movie.
another issue is that we keep referring to the Netflix series as “season 11” and “season 12” when that’s not really the case at all
it’s more like “MST3K: The Next Generation”. even official sources don’t go by 11 & 12, they refer to it as “The Revival” and “The Gauntlet” resptectively
I think the flaw with using Asylum films is that when the films are INTENDED to be bad, they simply make poor riff fodder. When the filmmakers KNOW it’s bad, what’s the point?
I remember being bored with Atlantic Rim; the film’s dumb — which isn’t uncommon — but I think the guys were just at a loss on this one. IMO, of course.
That said, I still wish the guys would do Zontar….
The IMDB refers to Season 0 (KTMA) as Season 1. JUST to be silly…