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Weekend Discussion Thread: Season 11 MoviesWell, the spoiler commands have been lifted, but before we begin discussing each of the episodes, I’m going to you another week to get some of these watched.
So, in the meantime, here is the official list of the movies that will be riffed in season 11: Thoughts? 180 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Season 11 Movies”Commenting at Satellite News
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All content posted on Satellite News is copyright © 2024 by Chris Cornell and Brian Henry, except where otherwise noted. This Date in MSTory is written and compiled by Steve Finley, Chris Cornell and Brian Henry. Copyright © 2024 All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce This Date in MSTory items in any form without express written permission from the authors. Items of MST3K news may be duplicated or reposted, as long as Satellite News is cited as the source. The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of Satellite of Love, LLC. No warranty is expressed or implied that the information given herein is completely accurate, and in fact this information can and will change at any time. So there. Mystery Science Theater 3000, its characters and situations are copyrights and trademarks of Satellite of Love, LLC. Banner image created by Larry Lee Moniz. |
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Absolutely. Browse this website as well, a great one.
Do you seriously believe that those exchanges weren’t completely scripted? Do you seriously believe that Joel was actually chiding them for pandering? Even you can’t be that deluded…
Nice message. A lot is similar to my experience (and my wife’s). We did, however, start watching at the end of Joel’s run and when CC was still showing reruns with him, so for a while we just thought they were co-hosts. I actually liked Mike better but you get comfortable with certain things. I always thought his sensibilities made the show what it was even during Joel’s run.
But a funny thing then happened — when the show ended Mike, Bill and Kevin did The Film Crew and that cemented in my mind they WERE MST3K. And then RT when we bought every short they did (and all their VOD stuff) and went to all their live events and my wife and I started rewatching all the MST3K shows, in sequence. We did this twice (and are now just about done with a third go-around) and by that time two things happened: I appreciated Joel’s hosting era a whole lot more AND RT became intolerable to me.
I still think, overall, Mike’s run is at least as good as Joel’s, but Joel’s is now something I can appreciate. And viewed through the lens of the disappointing RT, I can see that episodes of the sci-fi years were not *quite* as good as I had imagined.
All of this is just a long-winded way of saying we all need to relax and enjoy what we have. To me, the new stuff isn’t great, just good. I don’t know if it will ever approach, say the wonderfulness of the Gamera movies (I’m a sucker for any of the Japan stuff). But I’ve only seen two so far and I still always say even mediocre MST3K is better than most of the best of any other show (Oh, and I think Jonah holds his own with either Mike or Joel — with better writing he could be as good or better than either).
(And we watch the shows on Sunday morning with our breakfast — always WAFFLES, which makes more sense from a Joel-hosting standpoint :>).
Somebody mentioned the earlier Episode Guide book from 1996. If you think you need it, fine, but try to avoid any jacked-up prices. Part of the deal with Dark Horse Comics seemed to include an updated episode guide, which is sorely needed. I’m still trying to figure out how they will handle actual MST3K comic books. Riffing on some public domain comic stories could be fun but we’ll have to wait and see.
Secondly, there seem to be many complaining about the breaks in the show seemingly for commercial breaks. I mentioned before that it seems like they’re keeping their options available for other stations like Comet TV or Retro or whoever to sometime rerun these episodes in the future. Better to build in commercial breaks now than to have them imposed later with a rusty hatchet. Has anybody attempted to match the timing on these breaks compared to the original episodes? The host segments seem to fall into a pattern similar to the old shows and I bet the just plain breaks are a similar thing.
Watched “Starcrash” this morning. Trying to hold myself to one a day. Really frustrating to see all the trolls in this forum.
I think my main complaint was that the Mike era was more about the joke, whereas Joel was always more of the “the right people will get it” school. That’s not to say one era is better than the other, but I think you’ll get more out of the Joel era if you’re looking for more. After all, the writing staff in the Joel era was intact with their best writers. I think the real loss in the Mike era was when Frank left at the end of the 6th season, whom I always saw as the more inventive writer. He would sneak something in that was completely out of left field, but still fit with the flow of the movie. And, of course, Joel could make it sound more adlibbed (while appearing to not be paying attention at all, which only made the joke funnier). The worst thing for MST is for it to start sounding as if the show was written by committee. Which, of course, it always was, but the trick is to make it not SOUND that way.
But if the Mike era was more joke, joke, joke, that made it accessible to a wider audience, and it enabled the show to survive Joel’s departure by over five years. There’s still a little of this with Jonah, but Joel’s influence does come in every now and then. I would hate to say that the “written by committee” approach does seem a little more obvious, but when three people come up with three separate riffs one right after the other — in effect, trying to overshadow the others [MST the Movie did this a couple of times] — it’s a little hard to absorb. Rifftrax DOES sound like it was written by committee, which is why I think it doesn’t work as well as CT did.
So, while my personal choice for favorite host must remain with Joel, I don’t condemn the later years. And the style is still with Jonah to a major degree, even if it is true that the cast is recording their bits separately. It’s just that the riffs are simply not as substantive as they were during the Joel era.
I am still working my way through Season 11, though, (need to see Yongary, the two Wizards films, and At the Earth’s Core) so I’ll still holding my ultimate impression of the season. Have to say Carnival Magic is a very strange movie, but were we expecting anything else from Al Adamson?
And we still maintain that not even Mike and the ‘bots can make “The Incredibly Strange Creatures” watchable. :-)
You’re absolutely right. It just hasn’t clicked for me. But if people are enjoying it & having fun, who the hell am I to talk? As I believe I pointed out, I’m an old fart whose stuck in his ways. So that could be part of it.
In the end, I’m still gonna watch ’em all.
Welcome!
As one of the negative Nellys (#118) you may have been referring to, my apologies. Not for my opinion, just that you joined our merry band just as some dirty laundry was being aired. As I said above, if your loving it, great! Enjoy! As I said, I’ll be right there beside you (well, in spirit anyway) trying to wrap my head around the new paradigm.
Anytime a reboot or remake of anything with a strong fanbase comes along, you’ll get equally strong opinions. (If this were any other forum, I’d express my feelings about THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN remake).
Unless you were referring to EricJ specifically, in which case, he either loves the attention of having a lot of people dislike him intensely, or Mike kicked his dog once. Jury’s still out.
So, in honor of young Master Eric, I will also recommend two of my faves from the past: RIDING WITH DEATH & BOGGY CREEK II: THE LEGEND CONTINUES. Both Sci-Fi. Both Mike. Consume & enjoy.
PS: Don’t attempt THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU until you’re more experienced. And when you do, have a paramedic on standby with oxygen. I’m not sure why, but for me that one is a real hurt locker, even with the guys help.
Kali — the “more about the joke” comment is astute and perhaps that subtly was lost on me the first couple of times around.
The thing I’ve loved the most is the feeling that the Host and the Bots were seeing a movie for the first time and just bewildered by it. IOW, they were the audience surrogates, or at the very least on our side. This is clearly the case during most of the Joel era, and at the start of the Mike era, but in points (not always, but more times than Joel’s) it became more of a “Aren’t we smart and oh, yeah, this movie is just what we expected (and perhaps maybe have seen before)”. NOT an audience surrogate, but more of a “we know more than you do” sort.
It was tricky writing to accomplish the “we’ve never seen this before”, because you can’t just jump on the movie with both feet but let it slowly get to you more and more until you are just shaking your head. RT did this a bit in the early days, but then completely lost their way (although “Balloonland” was one that had them STH so much that it did seem like the old MST3K). I don’t WANT my guides to be confident because that spoils all the fun.
I get the sense (at least two episodes in) that The Return *could* get this sensibility, even though it’s not the style nowadays, and that might be due to Joel’s involvement. But I haven’t seen it so far. And I really miss it (luckily we always have the old shows, no matter what).
Well, halfway through now. As I hoped, the frenetic pacing of riffs in the first few episodes has been reduced, and the overall mix of “riff-types” was richer. The host segments, for me, were not all that strong (I agree with whoever has said Kinga could be more overtly evil and mean), but they did a very good job riffing “The Land That Time Forgot”. Hikeeba!
I am someone who also loves and appreciates every “era” of MST3K, especially the songs. From “Clay and Lar’s Flesh Barn” to “Creepy Girl”, “Sidehackers” to “I’m a Danger to Myself and Others”, “Tibby” to “Kathy, Oh Kathy”, “Patrick Swayze Christmas” to “Old Canada”, to the mash-up over the end credits of “Werewolf” (technically not a song, but hey….)
Just to illustrate, like music, viewing a show like MST3K is a very subjective experience, and what I like is not necessarily going to translate the same way to other people. Most of my family and friends don’t like the show, or don’t care, i.e. they “don’t get it”. I leave it like that and continue watching the show pretty much every day. ‘Nuff said. I’ll be back with further observations after watching a few more episodes of the latest incarnation.
I am now about 33% of the way through Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II, and still greatly enjoying having brand new MST to watch.
Random thoughts regarding the two Wizards movies:
The first is almost like a bizarre (and very, VERY cheap) mashup of Deathstalker III and The Final Sacrifice, with just the smallest smidgen of Star Wars thrown in. Our pal Thom Christopher from Deathstalker III plays the baddie in Wizards, again sporting strange costuming, although his line delivery is not so strangely stilted as it was in DS III. The teen kid hero and his “warrior” pal Bo Svenson kept making me think of Troy and Rowsdower. James Horner’s VERY threadbare score from (if I remember correctly) Battle Beyond the Stars is definitely the best part of this movie (and gee, now that I think about it, part of that score was reused in DS III, wasn’t it?).
Since I haven’t finished Wizards II, I probably shouldn’t talk about it now, but what the hey. If Wizards I is very, very cheap, then Wizards II is AWESOMELY cheap, and, seemingly, several times worse and more incompetent. WARNING: this is a David Carradine movie.
Just as an aside, I STILL have the Reptilicus rap in my head. Dang earworms!! :-)
Of course not (and no, I don’t believe the “Look familiar, Mike?”jokes in Laserblast and the BIll-Crow years were “unscripted” either)–BUT, it’s a running joke that found its way in, and poking the audience about it.
If you’ve been to the live CT shows, the fans come in MST3K cosplay, and treat it like a MSTieCon. That’s nice, but it’s like going to a Wings concert and insisting that Paul McCartney do all his old Beatles hits…There’s a time and a place when you have to move on, and then there are reunions when you don’t have to. Helps to know the difference.
When Hodgson was doing the pre-Kickstarter interviews to drum up the press, he basically said out loud exactly what I’VE been accused with driving everyone up the wall with for years:
“React, don’t Punish”, ie., the humor should be the embarrassment of hearing a sudden bit of appropriate, and intelligently immature silliness break up the painful earnestness of a bad movie trying to take itself seriously, and how that bit of anarchy breaks up the mood immediately–Sort of like if someone started singing the Flintstones theme during the North Korean national anthem.
When we had Denver’s post if “It’s boring, they’re just talking about geek stuff, I liked Mike’s cruel humor!”, that’s something we heard from the fans that now forever can’t be UN-said, and now that we’ve heard it, it can’t be UN-heard: The new fans, some who never grew up with anything else, wanted SciFi and RT to be “mean”. They didn’t want to heckle the movie like Trace, or break it up with embarrassing refs like Frank, they wanted to scream anger issues at it like Kevin, and use the jokes to pick on anything else that bothered them. If other fans think Mike was a “school bully”, there was a fandom watching the show BECAUSE of that, not in spite of it, and when they tried to take their Cult Quotes out into the world, they thought they had a “movement” with which to unite against their own personal enemies.
That’s what’s been the issue of determining the soul of the fandom for the last twenty years–and whether or not we still literally have one–and now we’re in a state of determining where it’ll be in the next twenty years.
FMM, I think Jonah’s got the right old idea, and cheap desperate fandom-pimping SciFi callbacks aside, producer/director/co-writer Joel’s still got a handle on what HIS show was supposed to be, after he spent twenty years trying to get it back from a bad internal takeover. Now it’s us that have to work out our own issues, and how the fandom divide was really more of a character issue for the fans as well as the different performers.
Thom Christopher played the bird-head alien in the second season of the Gil Gerard Buck Rogers series. Clearly he has no problem with unusual costuming.
Wow there is a lot of negativity here. After almost 20 years our show has returned! And if its not as good as you’d like, consider that this particular venture is just starting out. Give them some time to hit their stride maybe? And one of the great things about MST is the rewatching value. With hundreds of jokes in every episode there’s almost always something you didn’t notice or pay attention to or understand before no matter how many times you see an episode. So do some rewatching, get familiar with the new stuff. Let it seep in.
I’m having a lot of fun with the new material. I don’t know if it will ever equal the original show, but if it doesn’t get much better it will still be a fantastic show. I like the more mobile Gypsy and Servo. Servo pretending to lift the rocket in The Time Travelers felt like vintage Joel screen interaction humor. Patton Oswalt is great as TV’s Son of TV’s Frank. I like all the details in the new doorway sequence. I like the skeleton crew. Funny and cool looking visual pun and an appropriate gang of flunkies for a mad scientist.
I like the commercial break slots. Patton usually says something funny, we get to hear a little redone classic MST music, the commercial break without the commercial is a bit of joke itself (“We’ll be back. And we’re back.”), and it’s good planning for possible future rebroadcasts on a commercial station.
I’m watching Land that Time forgot now and laughing at the “screaming like King Diamond” riff. It was funny. It fit. And how cool for King Diamond to be referenced. There’s a “the right people will get it” riff for you.
I’m having a great time and was really taken aback by all the negativity and hostility in this thread. We’ve come to expect this from a certain member of our circle who apparently can’t help himself, but the rest of us should know better. So please try to just enjoy the show, and if watching the new episodes make you feel angry and depressed then don’t watch them. That is the way of the Cornjob.
I’m willing to bet that 99% of the fanbase, as well as every single member of Cinematic Titanic (including your God Emperor Joel), would disagree with this sort of condescending idiocy. CT got to hawk their books and other projects, and fans got to enjoy mini reunions that most of them would have missed out on otherwise. It was a win-win for everyone.
For the rest of your usual masturbatory and long winded garbage, I’m at least routinely impressed that you’re able to consistently find new and annoying ways to say the same things over and over again. The “soul” of the fandom? I’m pretty sure the fandom is just fine enjoying Joel, Mike, and Jonah and the different things they’ve brought to MST3K over the years without the constant presentation of your sh***y opinions as facts.
I am new here and it may be overstepping for me to observe that every time someone responds to a particular poster it becomes more and more about him and less and less about Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a good show. It is entertaining; simple but complex, biting but not mean, naive and yet sly. That is my view. Perhaps as a new convert it is easier for me to embrace the whole of the show without getting caught up in the minutiae. Let’s watch some, shall we?
You said it, brother.
As the theme song says, we should really just relax.
I’m now 1/2 way through Carnival Magic, and let me humbly (and perhaps rashly?) propose that this movie is a new classic for MSTdom. By my count, that makes at least three for this season so far (Cry Wilderness, Avalanche, and this movie). Gee, that’s really pretty amazing for a 14-episode season, don’t you think, sirs?
You’re not overstepping at all. I know I shouldn’t respond to that person, and that I’m just giving him exactly what he wants by doing so. That’s entirely on me, and I own that.
You’re not wrong. But I, and the mass majority of people apply that thinking to the entire show. Of course not everyone likes Mike, and not everyone likes Joel, and not everyone is going to end up liking Jonah. But there’s only one person on this entire site that believes that no one should be allowed to like or enjoy anything Mike has ever touched, and has to insert that view as fact in as many places as possible, in the most insufferable way.
If Sampo can make accounts a thing here, and offer the option to ignore certain users, I’ll be the first to utilize it though, trust me.
applauds and accolades cornjob! pays close attention and tries to learn from the sensei… :) couldn’t have put it better myself!
Well said Cornjob and Cerno, and as Lt. Ray Makonnen said: You know captain, every year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and the best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful. If you just take the time to look at it.
As for me I like the new season on the whole, I don’t much care for the theme and Oswalt’s character grates on my nerves, but I like Jonah, Baron, Felicia, and Hampton in their roles, the riffing is excellent, and the show is head and shoulders above much of the dreck on TV nowadays. We have a new MST season, Rifftrax is going strong, and although the episodes that can be released of seasons 1-10 are dwindling, the negotiations for these episodes are in the hands of a company that cares about us MSTies. It is a great time to be a fan of this wonderful series. There is enough ugliness in the world let’s not bring it in to the discussions of this wonderful series.
I figure it’s a nod to the UHF-channel origins, gimmicky station identification breaks and all that.
I was trying to figure out Patton’s “You’re watching Moon 13!” at the breaks, and realized that the joke of the show’s attempt to work broadcast-ready commercial breaks into the streaming shows is that we’re fictionally watching part of Kinga’s plan to syndicate “their” show to the world and make a fortune…With Max as cheery announcer, of course.
Nice way of working something “unnecessary” into the show when it might be necessary later, and it’s still nice to have breaking points if I only want to sit down and watch a taste rather than two hours.
EricJ makes a great case for school bullies. If only I could give you wedgies and swirlies every time I see one of your dumb posts polluting the page.
Re, the commercial breaks: I never thought about that – I was wondering why they felt necessary for the commercial breaks in the first place if they already knew they would be on Netflix when they made them. I just figured it was another in-joke for the fans, like when Max remarked that there are no ratings on Netflix.
Patton’s “MST: The Moon” reference still sounds weird though.
And I still say Patton is stealing all his scenes. :-)
As for the bots, yeah, it’s nice to finally get past the “the bots can’t move their arms” meme [like the old “run upstairs to avoid the Daleks!” joke that haunted Doctor Who for decades]. The bots can now make more physical jokes in the theater like Joel used to do in the early years. And it’s great that Gypsy is now mobile enough to slip in a riff or two every now and then. The puppets must weigh a lot less to allow for the marionette movements!
Wish the theater scenes had been filmed in a way the guys could take notice.
All in all, the new show is a fantastic effort [even if sometimes it is more in the style of the latter seasons rather than Joel’s era] – it works, it’s funny, and bring on Season 12!
I just finished 1102 – Cry Wilderness and I must say it was much better than 1101. The running “BANG” riff made me LOL every time. Looking forward to continued improvement the rest of the season. I am just glad we have new episodes. I can like the new, the old, and the old old stuff and enjoy them all. With all the success of comic book movies and the like it’s a great age to be a nerd. We are finally the cool kids take that jocks!!
Wait I played sports too so yeah you can be both. Yes America is great again!!!
I am the certified MST3K addict, and as I noted in an earlier post, my wife gently tolerates my obsession and will watch with me sometimes. Tonight we were watching “Loves of Hercules”, and I’m enjoying it…in a scene where Hercules is talking with other characters, and there is a pause, and I hear my wife, as a character talking to Hercules, say “I’d thought you’d be bigger” (AHHH, Patrick Swayze movie reference!). Then, in the host segment where Jonah and The Bots are dressed in Greek (female) period costumes, I’m watching, and my wife says “It looks like Tom Servo has a big old erection!” Shore nuff, I take a scan and yeah, it does! My, my, MST3K…channeling Prince’s “Dirty Mind?” I Love My Wife! (and the new show!)
Cerno,
Don’t let one troll ruin your fun or your mood.
I’ve been lurking on this site since it went live a long time ago. I only got the guts to post here a little over a year ago.
The only negative ninny here is Eric J.
Tell us which episodes of classic MST3K you’ve watched. :-)
Goodness will make the grouch go away.
Those bumpers remind me more of ones for vintage Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show. Maybe not a specific reference or callback, but more of an homage to that era of TV and/or its sensibilities. It also lets them (well, Patton Oswald) make comments about the movie that wouldn’t fit in a host segment or as riffs, which kind of hearkens back to Joe Bob Briggs, Elvira, and other movie hosts of another bygone age.
(The host segments, IMO, started out more like that, and then they kind of took a life of their own. So it’s nice to have the old and the new.)