The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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TitanoGoji16
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by TitanoGoji16 »

Future War was a great episode, too, and that was filmed in 1997.
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Terasawa
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Terasawa »

I think at this point it's actually more appropriate for this iteration of MST to use more recent films than the (mostly) '50s thru '80s films featured on the original show.
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Major sssspielberg!
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Major sssspielberg! »

I would kill to see MST3K do Pottersville.
Kaltes-Herzeleid wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:44 am I love Final Wars. I praise Final Wars. Simple as.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by UltramanGoji »

NSZ wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 10:43 pm After a good decade of no new episodes being produced and turning to YouTube to watch the oldies, our brains likely think of the show as still being locked in the 90's, so of course any movie made after Y2K turning up feels like a breach or violation of this now false reality.

Of course, I could just be completely talking out of my ass with this, but eh.
No, that's pretty much it. MST3K was a capsule of 90s culture for me. I was born too late to watch it as it aired but discovered it through YT uploads and the DVDs at the library. When I think of MST3K I think of library-binded DVD rentals and crappy VHS quality rips in 10 parts on YouTube. There's a grime to it, even in the show itself. Things were hand-made, low-budget and quaint. It was a bunch of people playing with puppets and props in a warehouse in Minnesota. Now that the show is owned by a big company and has a more widespread release on major media platforms and is continuing into the modern day, it just doesn't have that same homegrown feeling to me anymore. Things are too polished, too clean, and too "faux-cheap". There's a budget behind things now and actual, real actors who've been in major media like Disney movies are part of the cast. I just kind of miss that pre-revival small community feeling that MST3K used to have where it wasn't necessarily "underground" but far from mainstream. And that's not to say that I don't want more people being exposed to the show or that I want to go back to when episodes were hard to acquire, far from it! I love that MST3K has a much bigger fanbase now and that people are getting into the show thanks to the Netflix revival. But the Netflix revival just isn't anything I want from the series. I never wanted it to be brought back. I'm fine with it continuing for those new fans but I don't think I'll ever give these new episodes a watch as they just aren't MST3K to me.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Legion1979 »

I was watching MST3K starting around 1995, at the tail end of the Comedy Central era, when the Godzilla and Gamera movies still ran often. I loved the low budget aesthetic. Props were made of junk and toys and the sets were found objects glued to the wall and spray painted white. Joel would stumble over lines, robots would fall apart on camera and everything felt like it was made in a garage.

Modern incarnations don't work for me. Patton Oswalt? Really? Even though they're still picking cheap movies, they're using high definition, wide-screen prints, which doesn't support the low budget appeal. All props seem to be done with professionally drawn, balsa wood cutouts. The robots have working arms. The riffing is edited together in a way that doesn't seem natural at all. The theme song insists upon itself obnoxiously.

The fact that they got so many classic seasons done with barely any budget at all but now Joel needs multiple kickstarters and millions of dollars to keep it going rubs me the wrong way.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Major sssspielberg! »

^Agreed with both of y'all. Joel has pushed MST into a commerical space that I resent frankly. Just for a giggle I checked out this "gizmoplex" thing and honestly I can't fathom shelling out like 80 bucks for streaming another season of Jonah Ray/Netflix chic MST.
Kaltes-Herzeleid wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:44 am I love Final Wars. I praise Final Wars. Simple as.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Legion1979 »

I really wish Joel would just let the show go. All episodes that can legally be released on physical media have been, and many episodes are streaming all over the place. Its easier to see it now than its ever been. It will always find new fans. Let's not taint it by dragging it on and on.

Personally, I think everyone was involved with MST3K needs to let the entire riffing concept go. I LOVED Rifftrax a decade ago. Now everyone has gotten so much older and the whole thing is so tired. I've gone to many of the live showings and it just isn't doing it for me anymore. I had a hard time staying awake during the last couple of pre-pandemic showings I went to.

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Terasawa
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Terasawa »

Two things really turn me off of most Rifftrax productions, and they're both kinda related:

1. The film selection of (primarily) current blockbusters or '80s-to-present direct-to-video trash just doesn't appeal to me at all. Sorry, but I'm not interested in wasting my free time on movies like Birdemic or Twilight or A Talking Cat!?! under any circumstances.

2. IMO Rifftrax frequently exhibits one of the worst qualities of latter-day MST3K: Too much expressed-contempt for the films. One reason why I'm a fan of the show to begin with is that the movies they generally riffed on were movies I could enjoy on their own -- their sense of humor (especially in the early days) and the camaraderie between the characters was the icing on top. While I can still enjoy most of the Sci-Fi Channel episodes of MST, that was the period where their riffing shifted too far into, essentially, "this movie sucks." Look, I'm not watching the show because I need to be told that Hobgoblins is a bad movie; I'm watching because I want to see how they humorously filter it through the lens of American pop culture. IMO, a lot of later MST and Rifftrax is just more interested in taking cheap shots at the films or, especially, the people who made them. The occasional joke to that effect can be funny (especially when they, ya'know, shape those comments into honest-to-goodness jokes), but they've been going overboard on that kind of thing since circa 1997.

And even if I didn't have some sort of interest in the movies themselves, it's just unappealing spending the better part of 90 minutes listening to three guys complain about having to watch a movie when *that's the whole show*. That's one more reason why I like seasons 1-3 so much: Although they were more-than-occasionally hard on the films, you also had instances like Crow admitting he "kinda liked" the movie, or Joel and Servo geek out about really nerdy things. To me, it just felt like three friends hanging out and having a laugh at a silly movie. I appreciate that Nu-MST3K has tried to lean into that again, but now the pop culture they're geeking out about are more frequently the ubiquitous and commercialized nerd properties like Star Wars, LotR, etc. I mean no offense to those who legitimately like those things, but that's just not as cool to me as Frank waxing rhapsodic about The Second Hundred Years or Joel and the Bots ripping on how lame Twiki was.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Angilasman »

When MST3K first came back I was petrified by the newness of it after a lifetime of enjoying the OG cast. It was like an allergic reaction.

... by the second season I had totally accepted it. Joel was right that it should be like Doctor Who; an eternally rotating cast sticking to the format. And as Teresawa mentioned, the revived series returns to the oddball whimsical nature of earlier MST, as opposed to the more straightforward sarcasm of later MST and (especially) Rifftrax.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Legion1979 »

You know, that may also have something to do with the casts. Trace's Crow and Joel had a child-like silliness to the way they played their characters whereas Mike's humor tended to be sarcastic and Bill's Crow was a bit of a grumpy asshole.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by John Pannozzi »

Legion1979 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:33 pm You know, that may also have something to do with the casts. Trace's Crow and Joel had a child-like silliness to the way they played their characters whereas Mike's humor tended to be sarcastic and Bill's Crow was a bit of a grumpy asshole.
FWIW, Kevin Murphy also strikes me having a more caustic outlook on bad/cheesy movies/pop culture. Interesting that he was around for almost the entire cable run of MST3K (barring its first season on what was then Comedy Channel).
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Angilasman »

The Sci-Fi era was my introduction to the show, so I'll always have a special place for it. There are also some all-time great episodes there, and in terms of laughs per minute you might judge it to be the best era of the show! As I've gotten older I appreciate the earlier seasons more because it was just kinda weirder, funkier... it had more of a unique identity along with just being funny.

It's kind of a shame they didn't do more with Mary Jo. The character of Pearl is such a stereotypical loudmouth bully, but her personal style is much weirder and her almost monotone delivery is very fun. I can easily see the alternate timeline where she became the host (Pearl's twin sister? Good Pearl from the mirror universe?).

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Terasawa
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Terasawa »

John Pannozzi wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 9:27 pm
Legion1979 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:33 pm You know, that may also have something to do with the casts. Trace's Crow and Joel had a child-like silliness to the way they played their characters whereas Mike's humor tended to be sarcastic and Bill's Crow was a bit of a grumpy asshole.
FWIW, Kevin Murphy also strikes me having a more caustic outlook on bad/cheesy movies/pop culture. Interesting that he was around for almost the entire cable run of MST3K (barring its first season on what was then Comedy Channel).
But even then he was still working on the show as a writer and cameraman before he replaced Weinstein as Servo. Joel, Jim Mallon, and Kevin are the only three people credited in every episode of MST3K from the first KTMA show to Diabolik; of those three, Kevin is the only one who actively participated in every episode (Mallon reportedly checked out in season 8 and began running the operations in a mostly hands-off manner until the show was cancelled).

And yes, I do think Kevin was a proponent for the more contemptuous attitude for the movies.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by o.supreme »

I'm currently watching a RiffTrax version of an older film "Invasion of the Animal People" Oddly enough, this follows a very similar format to the English dub/cut of Half Human. In fact I'd say, this is pretty much the Swedish equivalent of Half Human, John Carradine narration/intro and all
Last edited by o.supreme on Sat Jul 02, 2022 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by LegendZilla »

Is it true that the new voice actor for Crow went on paternity leave?

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by mikelcho »

o.supreme wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 6:36 pm I'm currently watching a RiffTrax version of an older film "Invasion of the Animal People" Oddly enough, this follows a very similar format to the English dub/cut of Half Human. In fact I'd say, this is pretty much the Swedish equivalent of Half Human, John Carradine narration/intro and all
Something Weird Video released that film and its original Swedish version, Terror in the Midnight Sun together on DVD.

From what I've heard, the Swedish version is much better and even makes sense. Leave it to director Jerry Warren to screw it up - again.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by o.supreme »

So... anyone watch or subscribe to any of the new episodes yet? I really want to see Gamera vs Jiger, but I don't want to pay just for streaming on a random service. I can only hope a physical release or an import to a more established streaming service isn't far off
Last edited by o.supreme on Fri Aug 05, 2022 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by gojiracentral »

o.supreme wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 9:56 pm So... anyone watch or subscribe to any of the new episodes yet? I really want to see Gamera vs Jiger, but I don't want to pay just for streaming on a random service. I can only hope a physical release or an import to a more established streaming service isn't far off
I haven't watched an MST3K episode in many years, and I haven't been keeping up with the revivals either, so take what I'm about to say with that in mind, but I bought this specific episode and I thought it was hilarious. I have the MST3K vs. Gamera set and wouldn't imagine not having this episode as well. I had a great time watching it.

For what it's worth, once you've bought the episode, you can download it as well so you don't have to rely on the streaming service. I believe there's a stipulation that you can't download it until x amount of time after it has been released, but I have already downloaded this episode so it can't be that long.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by StreamOfKaijuness »

o.supreme wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 9:56 pm I really want to see Gamera vs Jiger, but I don't want to pay just for streaming on a random service. I can only hope a physical release or an import to a more established streaming service isn't far off
I am also not interested in the Gizmoplex streaming service because I don't have a Roku device or a smart TV that could download the Gizmoplex app, which isn't available to download on video game consoles, and I don't like watching things on my computer.

But there are other options for watching the new season! You can pay to download all of the episodes and shorts individually or in cheaper bundles.

From the Gizmoplex website:
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  • STREAM all 13 new episodes + shorts when they premiere
  • DOWNLOAD everything, DRM-free, two weeks after premiere
Own the new season for just $7.99/episode and $1.99/short!
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Toby21 »

I’m usually more active on other threads here on TK. Mostly about Godzilla and other Tokusatsu films I’ve made HD reconstructions for the US dubs. I love these old US versions, but really want to watch them in HD. I actually made HD versions for all the Showa Godzilla and Gamera movies circa 2015. Then I got to thinking about the Godzilla and Gamera MST3K episodes that I also loved, but I wanted to experience those in HD too. I know some of the fun of those episodes is the poor quality film prints, but it didn’t hurt to experiment.

First I had to come up with some way to create a traveling matte technique to capture the original shawdowcast. Once that was done, it just became a matter of working out the best way to lay that over the HD movie. Honestly, I tried several things, but until they released the first Netflix season I struggled with finding the best option. Using the new HD era ‘seats’ as my template along the bottom of the screen and mapping the original matte to match I finally came up with a result that looked good to me. You can judge for yourself in the screencaps below.

The regular MST bits were just upscaled still in 4:3, but for the transitions in and out of the movie I decided to rebuild the green-screen door effect. This let me key in the HD film as the door opens, and crossfade from 4:3 to 16:9. Having a full 16:9 HD image meant less of the obvious pan-and-scan cuts, but of course, the films still had to conform to their original MST edits. The original Sandy Frank opening montages I captured from my laserdiscs for the best quality and upscaled them. The Godzilla credits were recreated in HD.

I’ve thought about doing other episodes, but recently I’ve spent more time on other Toho sci-fi films I enjoyed and wanted to have HD reconstructions of the US versions. And recently I did some new US reconstructions for a few of the new 2021 Godzilla restorations. I’m still amazed by how much detail is visible in these new 4K restorations, even when just watching in HD. Maybe someday I’ll get back to making more HD MST3K reconstructions. I’ve always wanted to upgrade Time of the Apes, and have the Japanese DVD set for Ape Army. Maybe someday, in the meantime here are some example screencaps. If anyone has any questions, PM me, or contact through my Twitter page below. Happy to talk about these.

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I also have posted some short videos over on my Twitter:
https://twitter.com/G_Aikosha/status/14 ... 4750069764
https://twitter.com/G_Aikosha/status/14 ... 2182564869
https://twitter.com/G_Aikosha/status/14 ... 6816130056
#PreserveTheDubs

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