The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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Terasawa
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Terasawa »

Good riddance, the reboot was too far removed from the classic show's style and, most unfortunately, just not very funny. It felt too forced, too in-your-face, and too inorganic. There was a real lack of chemistry between any of the performers in the reboot. They also needed better writers, or at least a head writer who knew how to hone the riffs so they fit neatly with the movies. At least in season 12 they realized it was OK to talk over parts of the movie, instead of fitting a 30-word joke into a small gap in dialogue, but the riffs were still too wordy and not well-told by the performers.

I'd be (conditionally) interested in any future iteration that returns to what made the show great in the first place: underground comedians, writing with a Midwestern voice, working together against bad movies in real time. The only thing the reboot proved was that the show doesn't work when handled by Hollywood types.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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Terasawa wrote:Good riddance, the reboot was too far removed from the classic show's style and, most unfortunately, just not very funny. It felt too forced, too in-your-face, and too inorganic. There was a real lack of chemistry between any of the performers in the reboot. They also needed better writers, or at least a head writer who knew how to hone the riffs so they fit neatly with the movies. At least in season 12 they realized it was OK to talk over parts of the movie, instead of fitting a 30-word joke into a small gap in dialogue, but the riffs were still too wordy and not well-told by the performers.

I'd be (conditionally) interested in any future iteration that returns to what made the show great in the first place: underground comedians, writing with a Midwestern voice, working together against bad movies in real time. The only thing the reboot proved was that the show doesn't work when handled by Hollywood types.
My thoughts exactly. I've never cared for this corporate, polished-and-shiny reboot of MST3K and I can't say I'm upset to see it not renewed. I doubt they'll be able to capture the true feeling of what made MST3K special nowadays with how the show is owned by a big name corporation now. I'd rather the show stay as a time capsule of the late 80's/90's.

It's alright though, Rifftrax is still going strong and is a pretty decent substitute in my eyes.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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MST3K found its culture. The new one tried to pander to a culture. Very different animals. Glad it failed.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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MST3K.org
As announced at the MST3K San Diego comic-con “Panel-in-Place” with Joel Hodgson, J. Elvis Weinstein, and Bill Corbet, MST3K is planning a fundraiser for MIGIZI.

MIGIZI is a Native American nonprofit organization whose main facility was heavily damaged during the fires that coincided with the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis. The MST3K fundraising committee’s goal is to help MIGIZI secure funds to begin rebuilding.

If the first fundraising goal of $10,000 is met, Joel, J Elvis, and Bill will reprise their original roles in the show as Joel Robinson, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot and riff a short film, with a doorway sequence, silhouettes and all!

If you donate, you’ll receive a password to be a part of the VIP premier of the short with riffs from Joel and Tom and Crow. Later, the short film will have a world-wide premiere here at MST3K.org – in an effort to raise awareness for MIGIZI and, of course, accept more donations. We will update you periodically on our progress here on the blog, so check back to see how things go.

We hope you’ll be able to help us out in getting this needed and valued Minneapolis organization back on its feet, and getting yourselves a little new MST3K at the same time!

Visit the MIGIZI fundraiser >>
Their Comic-Con @ Home panel is Thursday 7/23 at 6 pm PT.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by edgaguirus »

I've been watching some of the reboot lately, and I agree on the jokes. It doesn't feel the same; There's a lack of good one liners. That was the best part of the mocking for me, but the reboot lacks that. I will admit that I find Kinga cute, but her face alone is not enough to get me to commit.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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Terasawa wrote:Good riddance, the reboot was too far removed from the classic show's style and, most unfortunately, just not very funny. It felt too forced, too in-your-face, and too inorganic. There was a real lack of chemistry between any of the performers in the reboot. They also needed better writers, or at least a head writer who knew how to hone the riffs so they fit neatly with the movies. At least in season 12 they realized it was OK to talk over parts of the movie, instead of fitting a 30-word joke into a small gap in dialogue, but the riffs were still too wordy and not well-told by the performers.

I'd be (conditionally) interested in any future iteration that returns to what made the show great in the first place: underground comedians, writing with a Midwestern voice, working together against bad movies in real time. The only thing the reboot proved was that the show doesn't work when handled by Hollywood types.
That's actually quite sad to hear. I remember how optimistic and happy everyone in this thread was when the kickstarter was announced and succeeded. I didn't really care for the remake myself when I was able to see clips on youtube, it felt very "glossy" the kind of glossy things go for to hide whatever they are lacking
Their Comic-Con @ Home panel is Thursday 7/23 at 6 pm PT.[/quote]
Oh sweet that sounds awesome. The kickstarter is halfway towards its goal as well and its only been up for a day or two
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by UltramanGoji »

ROMG4 wrote: That's actually quite sad to hear. I remember how optimistic and happy everyone in this thread was when the kickstarter was announced and succeeded. I didn't really care for the remake myself when I was able to see clips on youtube, it felt very "glossy" the kind of glossy things go for to hide whatever they are lacking
I think it's the show that really made realize "It's okay to let cancelled things stay dead".
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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I laugh when people cry the show got canceled too soon - it had a ten year, ten season run across two channels, surviving cancellation once thanks to fan efforts. A pretty good run for a "cult" show of its type.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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UltramanGoji wrote:
ROMG4 wrote: That's actually quite sad to hear. I remember how optimistic and happy everyone in this thread was when the kickstarter was announced and succeeded. I didn't really care for the remake myself when I was able to see clips on youtube, it felt very "glossy" the kind of glossy things go for to hide whatever they are lacking
I think it's the show that really made realize "It's okay to let cancelled things stay dead".
I agree. If a series can't be brought back with an equal or superior quality and a writing team that understands the soul of the series and knows how to continue it. A series should absolutely stay on vacation

But really the poor state of a lot of these shows is indicative of how bad the state of writing and movie making culture is nowadays. If MST3K's remake barely had a soul and was only enjoyable because of the name

Imagine how a completely unattached "spiritual successor" could have been. That's the true problem, old franchises are brought back not only to cash in on a prebuilt audience. But so the skeleton of the series can carry whatever poor writing is attached to it
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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They’ve raised over $20K. Joel, Josh, and Bill will officially reprise their classic roles for two new shorts. I’m more excited about this than I was for any of the Netflix-era stuff.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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"The Netflix seasons weren't as good as the original show!"

Guys, Season 1 of the original MST3K was borderline awful and Season 2 was fairly meh with the exception of a few episodes. MST didn't start getting good until Season 3 and especially Season 4. The new version of the show didn't have the chance to find its footing. Sure, there were some things it did that I wasn't a fan of, but I'm sure if given enough time they would've gotten into the swing of things, ironed out all the kinks, and delivered a fairly solid MST revival. I mean it's not like it was just revived by a bunch of corporate jerks who'd never heard of the series before. Joel was in charge and Bill, Kevin, Mary Jo, Josh, and Paul were all involved. The revival just never had a chance to blossom and ripen.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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Humor is subjective but I would much rather watch season 1 of MST3K (from the Comedy Channel) than any of the Netflix episodes. No question. It’s rough, but at least there’s a sense of inventiveness in those shows. The Netflix eps feel so perfunctory, like “we need a joke here” or “this is where we need to call back an old episode”. Season 1 was the epitome of the home made approach that endeared the show to its fans; the Netflix stuff is slickly produced but soulless, like all the effort went into hiring the celebrity cameo guests and all that 3D printing hooey.

And man, Season 2 is terrific. “Fairly meh”? Maybe the first two or three episodes... Otherwise I think it’s just as good as anything they did during the Comedy Central and Sci-Fi Channel years.

It doesn’t matter what the Netflix series could’ve been. What we got was resoundingly awful. When Star Trek: The Next Generation was new, someone compared it to watching kids put on their parents’ clothes and playing ‘grown up’. That is my reaction to the two Netflix years of MST: sure they may have seen it done before but they didn’t have a clue how to replicate it, and they were honestly naive to try.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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Terasawa wrote:The Netflix eps feel so perfunctory, like “we need a joke here” or “this is where we need to call back an old episode”. ... the Netflix stuff is slickly produced but soulless, like all the effort went into hiring the celebrity cameo guests and all that 3D printing hooey.
Like I said, there was definitely stuff in MST3K: The Return that needed tweaking or axing altogether, for example:

- All the unnecessary shadow shenanigans in the theater during the movie.
- The pacing of the riffs (which got noticeably better in Season 2, so they were clearly working on it).
- The celebrity cameos felt off, but probably could have worked if they were reworked into appearing in the Hexfield so they could actually 'interact' with Jonah and the Bots (as people in the Hexfield did in the original show) instead of being off in a completely different set.
- The "expensive trying to appear cheap" aesthetic (which frequently reminded me of Robot Chicken) instead of actually just being cheap bothered me as well.

But just because a show is still wonky in its first or second season is no reason to give it the axe. How many amazing, classic shows would we have missed out on if they'd followed this mentality?
Terasawa wrote:When Star Trek: The Next Generation was new, someone compared it to watching kids put on their parents’ clothes and playing ‘grown up’. That is my reaction to the two Netflix years of MST
I feel like this really badly damages your argument because The Next Generation was given the chance to become not-new and now it's considered top tier Star Trek/television/science fiction to the point where some even like it more than the original. Maybe had The Return been allowed to grow past Season 2 people would come to love it more than the original MST3K.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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The main problems I've have with The Return, are blatant product placement(I'm shocked that no one has brought that up), it having too many characters, the pace was way too fast and it was self aware.

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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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Terasawa wrote:When Star Trek: The Next Generation was new, someone compared it to watching kids put on their parents’ clothes and playing ‘grown up’. That is my reaction to the two Netflix years of MST: sure they may have seen it done before but they didn’t have a clue how to replicate it, and they were honestly naive to try.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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I hope the show goes on in some form. I am a long time fan of the original, and I actually liked the reboot. The movie choices do help also. many of the first season films are ones I actually like, and love to make fun of. The 2nd season (6 episode gauntlett), was not as good I'll admit, but I'm still saddened a bit we didnt get more. Of the first season, I've probably watched them all 2-3 times, some like Yonngary & Land that time forgot, At the earth's Core, i've probably seen more than that.

Of the 2nd season, I've probably seen them all 2 times, and don't really need to watch them again. When either Rifftrax or MST takes on Asylum films (Sharknado, Atlantic Rim etc...) its just not fun to make fun of movies that are intentionally bad hack jobs IMHO. To me, there is just something more fun about riffing on films, and shortgs from the 50's-70's (some 80's is ok)...but when you get into the newer stuff, even if it is *so bad its funny* it just doesn't feel like MST/Rifftrax for some reason.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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Nu-MST had some ok riffs but what killed it for me was the host segments. I could sometimes buy Jonah in the theater but not so much on the bridge.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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The official MST3K Twitch channel is showing 913 Quest of the Delta Knights, one of the however-many episodes that has never been legally released on DVD. Unfortunately they only alerted fans to this suddenly on Facebook (about 15 minutes before the stream began) but hopefully it's not a one-time thing. It's not clear if a DVD release is in the immediate future.

Added in 1 month 4 days 18 hours 14 minutes 40 seconds:
Volume XXI: MST3K vs. Gamera is back in print on DVD after something like five years.
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

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I'm really interested to see what this new MST3K project will be like. I really hope it successfully continues the series without making the same mistakes as the last two new seasons did
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Re: The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Topic

Post by Angilasman »

The whole style of the show it's something that I think the performers have to settle into. In the first Netflix season it was all a bit stilted and off, but by the second I felt everyone had gelled and it felt proper. Of course, the distributor mandated cutting of the movies to a short length perturbed me in the second, but that was the network and not the people making the show's fault.

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