MST3K: The Return: The Review



  • Ok, I just finished bingeing all 14 MST3K: The Return episodes, and here's my review.

    Host segments/skits:

    • The songs are good. Jonah's ok as host. (I swear he's almost genetically-engineered to split the difference between Joel and Mike. It's weird.)
    • The Mads are... not as good, frankly. (No complaints with the casting, but the writing just isn't there.) The Mads from the last season (Pearl, Bobo, Observer) are almost the polar opposite of funny.
    • The guest stars are more distracting than funny. (MST3K never needed guest stars before, dammit.)
    • The Invention Exchange is lame. Seriously. It feels like they're doing it just because they feel obligated to. The Sci-Fi episodes didn't have Invention Exchange and it was fine, guys.

    Riffing:

    • Generally very good. Far better than recent RiffTrax releases have been. (I stopped buying those a few years ago because every movie was the same 5 jokes recycled over and over.)
    • Sometimes the jokes are too dense. You can just spend a few seconds watching the movies, guys. It's ok.
    • I'm sure people will disagree, but I like the bits where Tom Servo uses his hoverskirt to fly into the picture and do a visual gag.

    Films:

    • Generally a good selection, none of the films picked are too entertaining on their own to distract from the riffing. (A problem with the original-- guys, Double 007 is already a comedy, it's almost funnier on its own than the MST3K riffing was!) None of them are so awful that they're unwatchable.
    • Reptilicus and Yongary simply do not have the star-power of Godzilla or Gamera, sorry guys. They're barely even a Gorgo.
    • The Doug Maclure selections are great, as a person who's enjoyed those awful movies I liked watching those. (Although I wish they hadn't recycled the Simpsons "you may know me from such films as..." joke. Write your own material!)
    • For some reason they cut-out the ending to The Time Travelers and used some crappy "good" ending. (In the original ending their using the time travel portal while already time traveled caused the universe to implode. At least that's how I interpreted that ending.)
    • Of the 14 movies, I (as a crap movie fan) had already seen 9 of them. So I give them "finding crap movie" props.
    • All the movies are in color. I really hope they don't feel they have to use only color movies. Many of the best episodes of the original MST3K were black-and-white films.

    Misc:

    • I like that Gypsy gets a little theater time, and I like her new voice but... what the hell's in the box she drops in the theater in the first few minutes of the movie and picks back up in the last few minutes? Am I crazy or is that never explained? What's in the box!
    • I like the Skeleton Crew, I thought that was a pretty clever concept.
    • I didn't give the Kickstarter a damned cent and I can still watch it for free at the same time they could. Haha, suckers.

    Summary:

    Generally the feeling is just that it's overproduced and way too many people were involved in the creation. Feels like it was designed-by-committee, which is a stark comparison to the original which, even while Sci-Fi was putting some real budget behind it, felt like a couple amateurs goofing around. It's really disturbing when they use CGI to simulate the puppeteer-powered special effects of the old series.

    That all said, I really enjoyed the 14 episodes and I hope that Netflix springs for a second season. I wouldn't bat an eye if they cut the budget in half because, frankly, a budget cut is exactly what the show needs.



  • Bad entertainment is its own reward, I dislike riffers.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Crap, I hope @blakeyrat is back. I kind of ignored the new MST3K thing, but now I think I'll have to look at it... I loved the original, mostly liked the second. But if @blakeyrat mentions it I'll pay attention.


  • Banned

    I have no idea what MST3K is, but after reading your post I still have zero incentive to find out.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @Gąska It was a TV show from the 90s about a guy and some robots trapped in a space station, watching bad movies and making fun of them. They just came out with a new version with Felicia Day and Agent Koenig (can't remember the actor's name) as the villains and some d00d I don't know as the helpless protagonist. And yeah, it feels like they're trying too hard.


  • BINNED

    @masonwheeler sounds interesting enough


  • 🚽 Regular

    I've only seen two episodes so far, so I can only go comment on that.

    I feel like Tom Servo lost a lot of his personality and is... well, to put it ironically, robotic. The old Servo had a ton of personality and character, no doubt due to Kevin Murphy's voice acting abilities. He's become a shadow of his former self. This might have improved over the course of the 14 episodes, so I'll hold off too much judgement until I've seen them all. I'm not a fan of his floating. I felt like his dependence on Mike or Joel to carry him in and out of the theater was adorable, but that's the least of my issues with him.

    I was wondering the same thing about Gypsy. At first I thought it was a food bag, but realized it can't be that because they didn't use it as such. Although in Reptilicus they did use it as a prop to "catch" the slime. Personally, I could go without Gypsy in the show. Although I held that opinion in the original 10, anyways.

    I also have no idea how Reptilicus ever survived not getting featured in their original 10 seasons. As a MST3K movie I think it is perfect, and an excellent choice for the debut of the return.

    I think, overall, though, they kept the spirit of the show in tact for the most part. Considering it's been friggen 20 years, I think that's a fantastic achievement. I agree there are some technical elements that can be improved, but those are the easy parts. If the show felt like it lost its charm completely, that'd be near impossible to fix.

    I've only seen two invention exchanges. The first one (bubble fan) was lame, but I actually laughed at the turkey carving invention in the second episode.

    I also feel like the host segments are a little rushed. Part of it is probably because there's no commercial breaks, but I feel as though the originals were at least 4 minutes, while these are, at most, 2. I agree about the songs, though. The few I've seen so far are hilarious.



  • So far I've only watched the first installment, but I'm sticking with it because I want my Felicia Day fix (and I think it's great that she's playing a villain for what may be the first time in her life). Liked the song about monsters from every country, and the fact that they included Moon 13 in the list (with its monster being Felicia).

    Choice of movies: Reptilicus has always been one of my guilty pleasures (how can you go wrong with your monster being a fossilized tail dug out of an oil well, fer cryin' out loud). But I would have preferred a different Sidney Pink/Ib Melchior collaboration instead, that being Journey to the Seventh Planet, because, y'know, Uranus jokes.



  • @The_Quiet_One said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Personally, I could go without Gypsy in the show.

    Without Gypsy it's a complete sausage-fest.

    The Sci-Fi episodes had Pearl at least, but in the original 7 seasons there were zero regular female characters other than Magic Voice (gone in the new show) and Gypsy. That's frankly unacceptable. (Also ironic in the show that later on made fun of the film Gorgo for having basically zero female characters, when the bots committed to making a "Girls of Gorgo" calendar before finding out the movie had no women at all in it.)

    There's also no minorities. The original was filmed in Minnesota and had basically zero budget, so it's kind of understandable, but this new version has no excuse. Seriously? You have like 6-7 celeb guest stars, and none of them could be a person of color? (EDIT: the new voice of Servo is black. Huh.)

    That said, I liked the running joke about her strange attraction to Richard Basehart. It was kind of a dumb joke, but they really committed. (If you're new to the series, anytime they make a joke referencing some movie or TV show Richard Basehart was in, Gypsy would duck into the theater and exclaim, "Richard Basehart!?" Also when Croooooow wanted to hurt her feelings, he'd tell her about acting roles Basehart didn't manage to land. And when Gypsy is talking about her ideal family, "Richard Basehart looks over us all!")



  • @da-Doctah said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Choice of movies: Reptilicus has always been one of my guilty pleasures (how can you go wrong with your monster being a fossilized tail dug out of an oil well, fer cryin' out loud). But I would have preferred a different Sidney Pink/Ib Melchior collaboration instead, that being Journey to the Seventh Planet, because, y'know, Uranus jokes.

    I like how the "star power" of that movie was a famous local comedian who's in maybe 10 minutes of the film's run time.

    The two Ib Melchoir movies are Reptilicus and The Time Travelers. Reptilicus is absolute garbage, but frankly The Time Travelers is not a bad film. It's not going to blow you away, but it's pretty entertaining for what it is. They'd have been better off deleting Time Travelers and replacing it with either Angry Red Planet or Journey to the Seventh Planet, as you mention.

    This monster in Angry Red Planet is worth like a million riffs on its own:

    0_1492756796465_The-Angry-Red-Planet.jpg

    (Then again, that horrible red filter they used for the "Mars" scenes renders the film almost unwatchable. So.)

    If they have the budget, and we're sticking to the Ib Melchoir theme, he also wrote the US adaptation of Godzilla Raids Again. It'd be great if they could get the rights to do another Godzilla flick. (But being in black-and-white means they'd probably pass. Sigh.)


  • kills Dumbledore

    Having not seen any of the originals, should I start with them or go straight to the return?



  • @Jaloopa Depends on what you have access to.

    If you're on Netflix, they have an excellent "sampler pack" of the original series: https://www.netflix.com/watch/70003577?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C0%2C346a98b9929dd4e8054e05f68221d877f1c7f099%3A1ef186f84ffa310fdad27c50337fab59a58b427c

    It's more or less the "top 20" episodes voted by fans. Unfortunately they picked Manos: The Hands of Fate to go first, which is both a horrible movie and a pretty dire MST3K episode. (I think people have it in their head that the "worst" movie MST3K did must logically be the funniest? But even then, Monster A-Go-Go is both a worse movie and a better MST3K episode and it's not on this list at all.)

    If you want just a few samples, try these more modern episodes from Netflix's collection: Future War, Pumaman, Time Chasers, Space Mutiny, Werewolf.

    The official MST3K YouTube channel has a playlist of full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYy4ZargUluf-iyr4vFpe-xaJ46GEDpBI

    A lot of them don't overlap with the Netflix one, so between YouTube and Netflix you can watch probably 35-40 original MST3K episodes "officially". (Almost every episode is on YouTube on "unofficial" channels. Protip.) My favorite episodes on the YouTube channel is Moon Zero Two and The Brain That Wouldn't Die. Also The Final Sacrifice is almost required watching. Rowsdower! Mitchell is solid, too.

    Please DO NOT watch Manos: The Hands of Fate first, as you'll think the show is unfunny garbage.

    You can also just skip straight to the return. It re-explains the premise pretty well, not that it's very complicated. It's not like the show ever really had a plot line or any continuity, so, not much else matters. (In the words of its own theme song, if you're concerned about stuff like that "you should probably just relax.")

    Note that MST3K: The Return starts with one of those dire guest star bits which was an unfortunate decision. If you're a huge fan of the 1980s Buck Rogers, it might be fun to see Erin Gray again. But ain't nobody needs to see any more Wil Wheaton than they've already seen.



  • Oh also. If you have access to MST3K: The Movie (it's hard to find-- the studio kind of tried to bury it, the DVD's almost always out-of-print, and it's not licensed the same way as the TV show), it's actually really, really good and I'd recommend it. (They're riffing on This Island Earth, which is actually a classic, not at all a bad movie. But it works.)


  • kills Dumbledore

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Please DO NOT watch Manos: The Hands of Fate first, as you'll think the show is unfunny garbage.

    I started watching the first Netflix one a while back, but didn't know about the puppets and space station bit, so was a bit confused expecting maybe a short intro and then a film being riffed on. I didn't actually make it to the movie part. Maybe I'll try again with a different episode


  • 🚽 Regular

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    @The_Quiet_One said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Personally, I could go without Gypsy in the show.

    Without Gypsy it's a complete sausage-fest.

    I get that, although even in the show, she was always put in the background anyways. To me she's always been this forgotten character who gets awkwardly included in some of the skits, as though the writers remembered last minute that they have her in the show. I don't know, perhaps if she was a little more involved it'd be better. It's almost the textbook definition of "token girl."

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    There's also no minorities. The original was filmed in Minnesota and had basically zero budget, so it's kind of understandable, but this new version has no excuse. Seriously? You have like 6-7 celeb guest stars, and none of them could be a person of color? (EDIT: the new voice of Servo is black. Huh.)

    Yeah, there's no excuse in the new version, especially if they're cycling in and out guest stars. Of course, if they ever have a black actor on the villain's side, we'll never hear the end of it.

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Unfortunately they picked Manos: The Hands of Fate to go first, which is both a horrible movie and a pretty dire MST3K episode. (I think people have it in their head that the "worst" movie MST3K did must logically be the funniest? But even then, Monster A-Go-Go is both a worse movie and a better MST3K episode and it's not on this list at all.) [...] Please DO NOT watch Manos: The Hands of Fate first, as you'll think the show is unfunny garbage.

    Manos is a bad introduction to new watchers, but to be honest, I loved it as an episode. Monster A-Go-Go was definitely better, though.

    For new watchers, I'd rank a lot of the episodes not just on their quality, but in their place for inside jokes and catchphrases which are referenced in the new season. The Final Sacrifice is definitely required watching (they even reference it in one of the new episodes). I'd include Eegah, Squirm (only for the Spring Fever short), The Prince of Space, Wild World of Batwoman, and The Pumaman in that list, too. I know this will get some mixed reactions, but I also liked the Joe Don Baker movies, plus Hobgoblins. I know a lot of people loved this episode, and maybe I should give it another try, but I didn't like I Accuse My Parents at all. I thought it was a yawn fest, but maybe I was just in a bad mood that day.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    MST3K: The Return: The Review: The Reply

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Ok, I just finished bingeing all 14 MST3K: The Return episodes, and here's my review.

    And here's me saying things to it.

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    • The songs are good. Jonah's ok as host. (I swear he's almost genetically-engineered to split the difference between Joel and Mike. It's weird.)

    I haven't thought about Belize this much since Carmen Sandiago.

    • The Mads are... not as good, frankly. (No complaints with the casting, but the writing just isn't there.) The Mads from the last season (Pearl, Bobo, Observer) are almost the polar opposite of funny.

    I've always found all the Mads of every flavor to be pretty much painfully unfunny. But that's the point of them, I suppose. They make the main attraction funnier, like a warm up comedian.

    • The Invention Exchange is lame. Seriously. It feels like they're doing it just because they feel obligated to. The Sci-Fi episodes didn't have Invention Exchange and it was fine, guys.

    Given that every one of those inventions probably has at least three or four iterations on Kickstarter already-- yeah-- the Internet has already taken care of "make fun of stupid inventions".

    Riffing:

    • Generally very good. Far better than recent RiffTrax releases have been. (I stopped buying those a few years ago because every movie was the same 5 jokes recycled over and over.)

    Knock Knock
    who is there?
    Running gag
    running gag who?
    Knock Knock
    who is there?
    Running gag
    running gag who?
    Knock Knock
    who is there?
    Running gag
    running gag who?
    Knock Knock
    who is there?
    Running gag
    running gag who?
    Knock Knock
    who is there?
    Running gag
    running gag who?
    Knock Knock
    who is there?
    Orange
    Orange who?
    RUNNING GAG YOU GLAD I DIDN'T SAY ORANGE?

    • Sometimes the jokes are too dense. You can just spend a few seconds watching the movies, guys. It's ok.

    Too many gags/second is a bad idea. It works well if they're all playing off each other, but when they're all making different jokes, it's whiplash. I don't have time to process the first joke by the time the second one hits-- and not enough time to know if the second joke is an extension of the first before the third one hits, and so forth.

    Moreso since all three voices are still "new" to me, and I don't even know if it's the same person (inb4 ROBOT NOT PEEPLES) saying a second part of their joke, or someone else starting a new one.

    • I'm sure people will disagree, but I like the bits where Tom Servo uses his hoverskirt to fly into the picture and do a visual gag.

    I just love the "but only in the theatre" line right off the bat. "You should really just relax-- but even if you can't WE STILL HAVE THAT NITPICK OF YOURS COVERED YOU PENDANTIC DICKWEED"

    Misc:

    • I like that Gypsy gets a little theater time, and I like her new voice but...

    I assume Gypsy always had a DERP voice because it was some rushed voice they gave her at the last minute, and intertia just took over.

    what the hell's in the box she drops in the theater in the first few minutes of the movie and picks back up in the last few minutes? Am I crazy or is that never explained? What's in the box!

    The box is full of three seashells.

    • I didn't give the Kickstarter a damned cent and I can still watch it for free at the same time they could. Haha, suckers.

    But you wouldn't be able to watch it for free without Kickstarters paying first. 🚎 But really, tho, it still boggles me that they need over half-a-million dollars per episode (and presumably more, since the Kickstarter was probably just used as seed funding and to prove interest in the show to network execs). I get that you have to pay for equipment and editors and marketing and everything-- but the idea that you need $500k to make a single episode of a riff show in today's day and age. Give me USD$500k, and I can take 5 years off of work and produce, like 150 episodes. And that includes the time I'll take to masturbate with $100 bills JUST FOR FUN.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @Lorne-Kates said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    and I can take 5 years off of work and produce, like 150 episodes

    I am available to reprise my role as a space station captain if you wish ;)



  • @Yamikuronue
    But only for "unfrosted" hundreds?


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @izzion My husband's the one who has to take the cash to the bank so, eh, it's all the same to me ;P



  • @Yamikuronue said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    @izzion My husband's the one who has to take the cash to the bank so, eh, it's all the same to me ;P

    Because you're busy making people put their pants on, right?

    http://www.homestarrunner.com/2manyknives.html



  • @Lorne-Kates I assume some of that $500k was for licensing rights to the films and that the actual production costs other than that are actually somewhat lower.



  • @Arantor They paid some dude to add a CGI smoke effect to Jonah's prop comedy cannon bit.

    They paid some dude to add CGI to a prop comedy bit.

    They paid him.

    They're paying WAY too many people. They'd have a better and simultaneously cheaper show if they had the same number of production staff of the original in the Sci-Fi years, maybe 20-25 people max. Even ignoring the Kickstarter bullshit credits, the new show has closer to 200 people involved per-episode.

    Less is more when it comes to MST3K.



  • @masonwheeler said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    @Gąska It was a TV show from the 90s about a guy and some robots trapped in a space station, watching bad movies and making fun of them. They just came out with a new version with Felicia Day and Agent Koenig (can't remember the actor's name) as the villains and some d00d I don't know as the helpless protagonist. And yeah, it feels like they're trying too hard.

    Patton Oswalt


  • 🚽 Regular

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    They're paying WAY too many people. They'd have a better and simultaneously cheaper show if they had the same number of production staff of the original in the Sci-Fi years, maybe 20-25 people max. Even ignoring the Kickstarter bullshit credits, the new show has closer to 200 people involved per-episode.

    Less is more when it comes to MST3K.

    Joel seemed really adamant about keeping the "low budget" feel genuine in the first seasons he was actively involved with. I mean, the show started out as public access cable with props he made out of his garage. That's what the show's all about. They are a low budget TV show making fun of low budget movies. As a result, they had ending credits that fit the length of the end theme.

    This season it seems they're trying to keep that feel, but it's not as genuine. They're faking low-budget, and as a result, it looks bad.



  • @The_Quiet_One That's in the show's DNA. Probably the most expensive prop they had EVER was that VW Microbus they painted red and glued garbage cans to to make "warp nacelles".


  • BINNED

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Space Mutiny

    Worth it for Reb Brown alone ❤


  • 🚽 Regular

    Alright. I finally got through all 14 episodes. I'm not much of a binge watcher, and like to savor my shows, so sue me.

    Here's my final thoughts:

    The Good:

    The riffing was generally great. I didn't get the same vibe other people got that they were too dense. The thing that has always held true for me with MST3K is the riffs can't always hit the target all the time. I don't consider a riff that doesn't make me laugh to be a failure. In fact, some of the riffs that I laugh at the most are the ones that reference some obscurity. So, some of their more obscure riffs that I don't get probably hit someone who knew the reference very well.

    I liked some of the homages to the original seasons. As much as I hated the wedding arc, I did laugh out loud at the "When Loving Lovers Love" reference Pearl did at the end. As I kinda expected would happen, they overdid "Watch out for snakes" though.

    There's just something heartwarming about the end of the opening theme when they take a shot at the robots and human smiling at the camera. I don't know, it's so subtle, but it's just nostalgic to me, almost like "Chewie, we're home."

    The first couple episodes when I saw Gypsy hang down and give riffs, I was really, really pissed, since it just seemed so random. Now that I know the pattern, it's grown on me a little bit. Still, her jokes really aren't noteworthy.

    They kept a lot of the subtle charm in the right places. The theme song, the ending credits reprise, the stinger after the 15 friggen minutes of credits.

    I disagree with the OP on the invention exchanges. I found a few of them to be clever.

    Needs Improvement:

    A lot of the host segments just seem so horribly rushed. They seem to do their skits kinda half-assed and then it's movie sign. I read somewhere that the reason for this was because they did all the segments all at once, so there wasn't much time to rehearse, plus it lacked the personal coherence that the original seasons had. I think as the actors get to know eachother better and perhaps they have more time to actually produce them, I think this will just naturally get better. Assuming they have a next season that isn't funded by Kickstarter, maybe they can use the 15 minutes they save from omitting the Kickstarter funders in the credits in the host segments, too.

    The robots need personalities, dammit. I did notice as the episodes went on they started showing up. I think this is also a problem with the rushed production of the episodes, and hopefully they'll improve it.

    Can do without

    As stated above, I didn't need the wedding arc and love triangle. I mean, seriously, love triangle arcs should be reserved for poorly written crime dramas and soap operas.

    As @blakeyrat already mentioned, the guest stars are really out-of-place and forced. I almost barfed at Jerry Seinfeld's cameo particularly.

    Episodes ranked from worst to best

    14.) Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II: This was one of the three episodes I really didn't get into much. It was too much of a bore for me.

    13.) Avalanche: There's really only so much you can riff about a movie whose title disaster doesn't even come until the final 5 minutes of the it.

    12.) The Beast of Hollow Mountain: Similar to Avalanche, it just dragged, and the climax didn't make up for the wait. Again, bad movies are only good MST3K material if they are riffable.

    11.) The Christmas That Almost Wasn't: The worst of the "good" episodes, IMO. Of course, with some fourth-wall breaking of the idiocy of having a Christmas special on a Netflix series that began on April was a nice touch.

    10.) Carnival Magic: An absurd movie that they did a pretty good job of riffing.

    9.) * The Loves of Hercules*: MST3K has had a great history with movies about Hercules, and this is no exception.

    8.) * The Land That Time Forgot*: Dinosaurs in the antarctic bring together Axis and Allied soldiers together? What's not to love?

    7.) The Time Travelers: Despite the alternate ending, I found the episode to be enjoyable.

    6.) Yongary: Monster from the Deep: Par for the course of a MST3K monster movie. The only reason I didn't move this up was because Reptillicus came first, and Yongary is really just Reptillicus in Korea. It does show how formulaic these monster movies really are, for the most part.

    5.) * Wizards of the Lost Kingdom*: Unlike the sequel, this was a solid episode for me. Nonsensical movie that has a theme of cringe with old people seducing teens that would make Chris Hanson lose his shit.

    4.) At the Earth's Core: What I liked about this one was how it reminded me of an updated version of "Le Voyage dans la Lune" and the ridiculous Doug McClure macho-man. The only thing I wish the robots would point out is how much Doc resembles Cuthbert Calculus from Tintin.

    3.) Cry Wilderness: This movie had some flashbacks to moments from Boggy Creek II, The Last Sacrifice, and The Indian in the Cupboard. That last one never made it to MST3K but it should have.

    2.) Reptillicus: Such a perfect first episode in a revival series. It is so true to MST3K's original concept.

    1.) Starcrash: I really thought Reptillicus would hold first place until I saw Starcrash. As classic as Reptillicus was, Starcrash had more funny moments. As the robots said, it resembles a community theater production of Guardians of the Galaxy, and that awful Elle character was a great source of material.



  • @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    There's just something heartwarming about the end of the opening theme when they take a shot at the robots and human smiling at the camera. I don't know, it's so subtle, but it's just nostalgic to me, almost like "Chewie, we're home."

    You mean giant monopoly media corporation paying over-the-hill actors millions to sucker in nostalgic idiots?

    Say what you want about MST3K, but let's hope it's NEVER anything like "Chewie, we're home". Fuck Disney.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    The riffing was generally great. I didn't get the same vibe other people got that they were too dense.

    Sometimes they were so dense that they'd riff on movie moments that hadn't even happened on screen yet, because it's the only way they could cram it into their scripts. Way too dense.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    I don't consider a riff that doesn't make me laugh to be a failure.

    I don't get what that has to do with the density.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    As I kinda expected would happen, they overdid "Watch out for snakes" though.

    That didn't annoy me until the one movie where they actually did a riff "did we say watch out for snakes yet?" and as an audience I was screaming "YEAH ABOUT 50 TIMES CHRIST!"

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    14.) Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II: This was one of the three episodes I really didn't get into much. It was too much of a bore for me.

    The film itself is great. I kind of wish I'd discovered it before watching the MST3K version.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    9.) * The Loves of Hercules*: MST3K has had a great history with movies about Hercules, and this is no exception.

    BTW, I've watched that twice and I still don't understand what the deal was with forcing Hercules to throw knives at the queen. Did they edit something out or am I just an idiot?

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    8.) * The Land That Time Forgot*: Dinosaurs in the antarctic bring together Axis and Allied soldiers together? What's not to love?

    It's a WWI movie. It brings Central Powers and Allied Powers together. Pfft. People who don't read long boring histories about WWI.

    Still bugs me how much they stole the Simpsons, "Hi I'm Doug McClure, you may remember me from..."

    Yes we all saw the Simpsons, thanks. You're just stealing their joke. It's not funny the second time around. Then to make things worse, they segue into making Joe Don Baker jokes about McClure, which were totally inappropriate. (Say what you want about Doug McClure, but his career was a million times better than Joe Don Baker's.) Just lazy riffing.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    1.) Starcrash: I really thought Reptillicus would hold first place until I saw Starcrash. As classic as Reptillicus was, Starcrash had more funny moments. As the robots said, it resembles a community theater production of Guardians of the Galaxy, and that awful Elle character was a great source of material.

    The problem with Starcrash is that everybody who's a fan of cheesy movies has already seen it 500 times. But other than that, yeah, it was a pretty good episode.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    There's just something heartwarming about the end of the opening theme when they take a shot at the robots and human smiling at the camera. I don't know, it's so subtle, but it's just nostalgic to me, almost like "Chewie, we're home."

    You mean giant monopoly media corporation paying over-the-hill actors millions to sucker in nostalgic idiots?

    Say what you want about MST3K, but let's hope it's NEVER anything like "Chewie, we're home". Fuck Disney.

    Yeah, speak for yourself.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    The riffing was generally great. I didn't get the same vibe other people got that they were too dense.

    Sometimes they were so dense that they'd riff on movie moments that hadn't even happened on screen yet, because it's the only way they could cram it into their scripts. Way too dense.

    Heh, maybe that's why I didn't get some of the riffs, then. I didn't notice that, but perhaps I should watch again.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    I don't consider a riff that doesn't make me laugh to be a failure.

    I don't get what that has to do with the density.

    Well, like I said, I didn't get the vibe that they were too dense to begin with, for the most part.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    9.) * The Loves of Hercules*: MST3K has had a great history with movies about Hercules, and this is no exception.

    BTW, I've watched that twice and I still don't understand what the deal was with forcing Hercules to throw knives at the queen. Did they edit something out or am I just an idiot?

    I was confused myself, but I just assumed it was based on a story from the mythology I never learned about or something. If not, then I guess it was the writers that were idiots. Or maybe something got lost in translation during the dub.

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    1.) Starcrash: I really thought Reptillicus would hold first place until I saw Starcrash. As classic as Reptillicus was, Starcrash had more funny moments. As the robots said, it resembles a community theater production of Guardians of the Galaxy, and that awful Elle character was a great source of material.

    The problem with Starcrash is that everybody who's a fan of cheesy movies has already seen it 500 times. But other than that, yeah, it was a pretty good episode.

    Yeah, I have a different perspective with these movies. All the movies I've watched on MST3K I came in fresh, so I'm watching both the episode and the movie they're riffing for the first time. So, while you're anticipating the guys' reactions to that lead guy's secret superpower that he inexplicably introduces halfway through the movie, I'm not even knowing what's going to happen next.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Please DO NOT watch Manos: The Hands of Fate first, as you'll think the show is unfunny garbage.

    I wish I'd seen this earlier. That was the first one I tried to watch when I got it in some bundle or another. It was so boring I stopped it in the middle and never even thought about going back to finish it, nor did I watch any of the others after that.



  • @dreikin I really honestly truly have no idea why people think it's the "best" MST3K episode. It's not even remotely close.

    It's not even the worst movie they ever did, like I posted above Monster A-Go-Go is far worse. I'd argue The Creeping Terror is worse, also. Compared to either of those, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a technical masterpiece.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    It's not even the worst movie they ever did, like I posted above Monster A-Go-Go is far worse. I'd argue The Creeping Terror is worse, also. Compared to either of those, Manos: The Hands of Fate is a technical masterpiece.

    It's hard to compare Manos to Monster A-Go-Go. For sure, both are absolutely horrible, and each are one of the few movies that Joel and the bots literally booed at in the end. Manos was a movie that was legitimately made by amateurs. Criticizing it is like criticizing a kindergartener's crayon drawing as sub-par compared to Renoir. It's almost not even fair. The director was a fertilizer salesman for fuck's sake. You know those YouTube videos where people uncreatively ask if the video was shot with a potato? I'm convinced potatoes were somehow used somewhere in the production of Manos, even if it was to prop up the tripod because one of its legs wouldn't extend all the way.

    Monster A-Go-Go, on the other hand, actually had a legitimate production company behind it. It just was made under one of the stupidest production decisions ever made: Running out of money, so let's glue on a different movie as act II with different actors, even, and then when we paint ourselves into a corner with the plot going nowhere, just give up, have the narrator say a few words about how they gave up on finishing the movie, and then ship it. On that end, Monster A-Go-Go is definitely worse.

    To put in computer game terms, Manos is like one of those crappy flash games some 6th grader made on a weekend that was distributed for free. Monster A-Go-Go is more like Big Rigs. They knew they were making a bad game with an insufficient budget, they just didn't give a fuck.

    As much as I enjoyed Manos as an episode, it's not on my top list. Unlike other episodes where I can be found quoting the riffs and other parts of the movie, the only riff that I remember with Manos is Joel screaming in desperation, "DO SOMETHING! GAH!" which I could tell had to be legitimate frustration at the movie that was before him. There are a couple other riffs, like the ones regarding Torgo's fate towards the end, that I remember, just not as vividly.

    Monster A-Go-Go was more well-rounded and consistently funny. And to have it all fall apart at the end was the cherry on top.


  • FoxDev

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    Fuck Disney

    meh. They can't have killed it deader for me than the prequels did.

    i did not need midichlorians, i was happy to have them be space wizards, now you want me to treat this as scifi?! and you couldn't be assed to even attempt to put more than the absolute bare minimum sci in your fi?!

    cause now i need to know:

    • How does the force actually work? how can a force user force push an AT-AT over and not launch themselves into the next gountry thanks to Sir Issac Newton?
    • Ion Drives for spaceships, how could a star destroyer get anything approaching half way decent acceleration on ion drives and where does it get the reaction mass from? cause i've seen the schematics of them, there's no way they've got enough reaction mass on board to do even half the things they're shown to on film.
    • The Death Star, how the fuck does that mega lazor work? because delivering enough energy to a planet to overcome its gravataional binding energy is fucking unbelievable! Look, there is no official mass figures for Alderaan, but we can run the numbers for Earth and that will give us a rough estimate. the gravitational binding energy of Earth is approximately 2x1032 Joules. That's a two followed by thirty two zeroes, then a decimal point. That's approximately the ENTIRE energy output of THE FREAKING SUN over the course of twelve ENTIRE days! There's no fucking way a 60 kilometer sphere would be able to hold that much energy, Even generating that much energy would cook anyone on the station to ashes, and that's before you take away enough of that volume to make the lazor!
    • Blasters and turbo lasers. Not only are these things visible off axis, unlike actual lazors, and they have a clearly defined start, middle, and end of their "bullet", unlike actual lazors, but they also move slower than a bullet from a 9mm Berretta. so what's up with that? Like that's not even physically possible, at least given that these things are canonically based on actual freaking lazors.
    • Jedi lightsaber blaster deflection, how the fuck can the jedi move their lightsaber fast enough to deal with all those storm troopers? it's like the only way that would work is if most of the troopers are actually trying to miss the jedi, ebcause otherwise you get a whole squad of storm troopers, who were trained to be the best shots in the galaxy canonically even ben kenobi commented on that when they found the sand crawler,... oh right, sorry, because otherwise even a small squad of storm troopers should end up turning that jedi into swiss cheese, no matter how fast he can whip that saber around.

    YOU CAN'T TURN THIS FROM SPACE OPERA TO SCIFI AND IGNORE THESE ISSUES! IT DOESN'T WORK!

    I'm willing to hand wave away hyperspace because you need FTL in your story world and at least you explain that you need this weird manifold thing to make it work, Star Trek did the same sort of thing so i was willing to work with that. BUT YOU CAN'T IGNORE THESE OTHER ISSUES! YOU CAN HANDWAVE AWAY ACTUAL ISSUES WITH PHYSICS!

    so yeah. the series was ruined before we even got to disney.

    AND DON'T GER ME STARTED ON THE ABSURDITY OF THIS GUY:

    0_1502195006805_d37b791c-d074-4cdc-9014-c425fb4e41f2-image.png

    THIS GUY HOWEVER.... this guy is not an abomination to the series, but he is fucking annoying.

    0_1502195048165_9dea4119-f0e4-4907-a4c3-2a33930d01f4-image.png



  • @accalia said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    How does the force actually work? how can a force user force push an AT-AT over and not launch themselves into the next gountry thanks to Sir Issac Newton?

    The movement doesn't come directly from the Jedi, he just commands the force behind the AT-AT to pull it. No problems with conservation of movement here.

    Ion Drives for spaceships, how could a star destroyer get anything approaching half way decent acceleration on ion drives and where does it get the reaction mass from? cause i've seen the schematics of them, there's no way they've got enough reaction mass on board to do even half the things they're shown to on film.

    It converts energy to mass, obviously

    The Death Star, how the fuck does that mega lazor work? because delivering enough energy to a planet to overcome its gravataional binding energy is fucking unbelievable! Look, there is no official mass figures for Alderaan, but we can run the numbers for Earth and that will give us a rough estimate. the gravitational binding energy of Earth is approximately 2x1032 Joules. That's a two followed by thirty two zeroes, then a decimal point. That's approximately the ENTIRE energy output of THE FREAKING SUN over the course of twelve ENTIRE days! There's no fucking way a 60 kilometer sphere would be able to hold that much energy, Even generating that much energy would cook anyone on the station to ashes, and that's before you take away enough of that volume to make the lazor!

    It's powered by kyber crystals, they have lots of energy.

    Blasters and turbo lasers. Not only are these things visible off axis, unlike actual lazors, and they have a clearly defined start, middle, and end of their "bullet", unlike actual lazors, but they also move slower than a bullet from a 9mm Berretta. so what's up with that? Like that's not even physically possible, at least given that these things are canonically based on actual freaking lazors.

    It's plasma

    Jedi lightsaber blaster deflection, how the fuck can the jedi move their lightsaber fast enough to deal with all those storm troopers? it's like the only way that would work is if most of the troopers are actually trying to miss the jedi, ebcause otherwise you get a whole squad of storm troopers, who were trained to be the best shots in the galaxy canonically even ben kenobi commented on that when they found the sand crawler,... oh right, sorry, because otherwise even a small squad of storm troopers should end up turning that jedi into swiss cheese, no matter how fast he can whip that saber around.

    Jedi have a sort of short-range prescience. They know where the blaster will hit before they're fired.



  • @accalia Of course the biggest question is, "how come George Lucas made three movies when the events of the first two could be summed-up in like 3 sentences and only the third one is even slightly relevant to the story?"

    Thing is I kind of like the Phantom Menace-- yeah it's stupid, but it's good sci-fi stupid-- but nothing of consequence happens in it. Nothing. The second movie was utter garbage, though.

    For awhile I used the name "Roos Tarpals" on social media. Look him up. He's the only gungan who isn't a comic relief moron in the entire Star Wars universe. He only gets a couple shots in the film, but his gag is genuinely hilarious. He spends the entire film glaring and facepalming at the other gungans.


  • :belt_onion:

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    @accalia Of course the biggest question is, "how come George Lucas made three movies when the events of the first two could be summed-up in like 3 sentences and only the third one is even slightly relevant to the story?"

    That can only be a rhetorical question. Money. Merchandise. :P



  • @heterodox said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    That can only be a rhetorical question. Money. Merchandise.

    Yeah but keep in mind according to his own words, it was being planned as early as 1982 or so. All that time and he couldn't figure out how to stretch his 3-movie prequel series to actually fill 3 movies?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    I would like to see MST3K do this movie:

    I watched it a few weeks ago. It is definitely a bad movie, but it's a good one, with a fun premise. They actually left you with a few things to think about.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @boomzilla I watched that a year or so back. Quite enjoyed it


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @accalia said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    The Death Star, how the fuck does that mega lazor work? because delivering enough energy to a planet to overcome its gravataional binding energy is fucking unbelievable! Look, there is no official mass figures for Alderaan, but we can run the numbers for Earth and that will give us a rough estimate. the gravitational binding energy of Earth is approximately 2x10<super>32</super> Joules. That's a two followed by thirty two zeroes, then a decimal point. That's approximately the ENTIRE energy output of THE FREAKING SUN over the course of twelve ENTIRE days! There's no fucking way a 60 kilometer sphere would be able to hold that much energy, Even generating that much energy would cook anyone on the station to ashes, and that's before you take away enough of that volume to make the lazor!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @the_quiet_one said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    I was confused myself, but I just assumed it was based on a story from the mythology I never learned about or something. If not, then I guess it was the writers that were idiots. Or maybe something got lost in translation during the dub.

    I assume it's one of those "If the ropes are cut and she lives, the Gods willed it and she's innocent. If she dies, the Gods willed it and she was guilty so fuck her".

    The catch being that of course if you whip a knife at someone and are untrained, ain't no goddamn God going to matter shit. So Hercules had to actually free her legit. Though ironically he is part God so it is partly his will. Though one can argue that Hercules being present is a will of one of the Gods.



  • @lorne-kates Ok but what prevented Hercules from just walking up and untying the ropes?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said in MST3K: The Return: The Review:

    @lorne-kates Ok but what prevented Hercules from just walking up and untying the ropes?

    Nothing, but then she wouldn't have passed the trial of the knives, and would have been guilty.


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