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Best of MST3K

Doctor Cringelord

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This is absolutely fascinating

- - - Updated - - -

I is going to find Paul
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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[MENTION]asynartetic [/MENTION]

I've seen four of the episodes so far.



I'd say the Asylum movie worked better than I expected, and the Charles Band less than I expected. I think the last thirty minutes are awesome, but it takes a hell of a lot of time for the movie to get there; it's much more slowly paced than Laserblast. I gotta say I love the hippy-trippy "aliens will expand our consciousness" vibe some of these movies have.

It's interesting comparing Mac and ET.... Mac is so much crappier. They shouldn't have bothered to show his home planet if they didn't have the budget to give us anything other than rocks and coca-colanuts. It's not a convincing alien society at all. I think maybe the creature design could have worked better if the mouths weren't stuck in an o-face all the time. I realize that probably makes it easier for them to drink from a straw, but it also means that they look drunk and confused all the time. E.T. is the right combination of ugly and cute; Mac just looks like someone left a Yoda puppet on the grill, and then upon coming to life, the puppet drink a bottle of vodka.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I really enjoyed Netflix season 2, with the exception of The Day Time Ended, which just felt slow and lethargic. Even the riffing couldn't save it. But otherwise I find myself wanting to rewatch these episodes more than I do with season 1 (or season 11 I guess is more accurate). I think the new cast has finally come into their own and established good pacing and chemistry. Some of these episodes are instant classics and I'd rank them up with the best of classic MST3k.


I think Lords of the Deep and Mac & Me are the standouts of this season, although Atlantic Rim is also pretty hilarious. I don't know, hard to pick a favorite because I also really loved Killer Fish, particularly toward the third act. Interesting to see how they adapt their riffing style to the faster pacing of Atlantic Rim. It reminds me of rifftrax's riffs on more recent blockbusters and mockbusters. The riffing on the male lead in Lords of the Deep was a constant source of amusement. Also the villain with his overly melodramatic performance, who was even an amusement without the riffing taken into consideration.


Initially I was upset this season would only feature 6 movies, but I think overall that worked out better. Emphasis on quality vs quantity. I also hope it means less time between new season release dates. Overall, this a leaner season. Far less emphasis on stuff like celebrity cameos in the host segments, which just felt pointless and gimmicky to me in the last season, and it crowded out the series regulars, whereas with season 2 I felt the main cast were able to just focus on being themselves and establishing a nice chemistry/dynamic. The one major 'celebrity' cameo this time was just an old cast member, which added to this series feeling more like a continuation or soft reboot than a remake or "hard reboot" of the original mst3k. I do hope other old cast members will be appearing in future seasons. I'd like to see Dr Forrester and TV's Frank make appearances. Also would be cool to see Joel and Mike show up appearing as their characters from the old series.

I had not seen Mac & Me since childhood, so at first I was skeptical and thought "why are they doing well known films like this". However, I didn't realize what a terrible film it really is (childhood nostalgia goggles I guess), so it was a great fit for the show. It really is pretty stupid, like how do the aliens get sucked into that satellite? Are they shrunken? how the hell do they all fit? How does what appears to be a fairly primitive race living in a rock world with no apparent structures or technology happen to have straw technology for drinking liquid from under the planet's surface? How was it that a film backed by a major studio and made in an age when prosthetics and practical effects were at their zenith featured such poorly made alien costumes and makeup?
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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I really enjoyed Netflix season 2, with the exception of The Day Time Ended, which just felt slow and lethargic. Even the riffing couldn't save it. But otherwise I find myself wanting to rewatch these episodes more than I do with season 1 (or season 11 I guess is more accurate). I think the new cast has finally come into their own and established good pacing and chemistry. Some of these episodes are instant classics and I'd rank them up with the best of classic MST3k.


I think Lords of the Deep and Mac & Me are the standouts of this season, although Atlantic Rim is also pretty hilarious. I don't know, hard to pick a favorite because I also really loved Killer Fish, particularly toward the third act. Interesting to see how they adapt their riffing style to the faster pacing of Atlantic Rim. It reminds me of rifftrax's riffs on more recent blockbusters and mockbusters. The riffing on the male lead in Lords of the Deep was a constant source of amusement. Also the villain with his overly melodramatic performance, who was even an amusement without the riffing taken into consideration.


Initially I was upset this season would only feature 6 movies, but I think overall that worked out better. Emphasis on quality vs quantity. I also hope it means less time between new season release dates. Overall, this a leaner season. Far less emphasis on stuff like celebrity cameos in the host segments, which just felt pointless and gimmicky to me in the last season, and it crowded out the series regulars, whereas with season 2 I felt the main cast were able to just focus on being themselves and establishing a nice chemistry/dynamic. The one major 'celebrity' cameo this time was just an old cast member, which added to this series feeling more like a continuation or soft reboot than a remake or "hard reboot" of the original mst3k. I do hope other old cast members will be appearing in future seasons. I'd like to see Dr Forrester and TV's Frank make appearances. Also would be cool to see Joel and Mike show up appearing as their characters from the old series.

I had not seen Mac & Me since childhood, so at first I was skeptical and thought "why are they doing well known films like this". However, I didn't realize what a terrible film it really is (childhood nostalgia goggles I guess), so it was a great fit for the show. It really is pretty stupid, like how do the aliens get sucked into that satellite? Are they shrunken? how the hell do they all fit? How does what appears to be a fairly primitive race living in a rock world with no apparent structures or technology happen to have straw technology for drinking liquid from under the planet's surface? How was it that a film backed by a major studio and made in an age when prosthetics and practical effects were at their zenith featured such poorly made alien costumes and makeup?

Everything about the aliens is so poorly thought out. They stumble around like drunkards all the time with those stupid O-faces (which I suspect were included because it was easier for them to drink Coke). Made for great riffs, though.

I said this earlier, but I guess it goes to show you how hard it is to make something "ugly cute" like E.T. or Yoda.

Evidently McDonald's was actually reluctant to get involved in this film and demanded that Ronald McDonald not appear it, even though he did anyway. Supposedly it was supposed to highlight or raise money for the RonaldMcDonald House charity. The kid was actually disabled, apparently.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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Everything about the aliens is so poorly thought out. They stumble around like drunkards all the time with those stupid O-faces (which I suspect were included because it was easier for them to drink Coke). Made for great riffs, though.

I said this earlier, but I guess it goes to show you how hard it is to make something "ugly cute" like E.T. or Yoda.

Evidently McDonald's was actually reluctant to get involved in this film and demanded that Ronald McDonald not appear it, even though he did anyway. Supposedly it was supposed to highlight or raise money for the RonaldMcDonald House charity. The kid was actually disabled, apparently.

I hadn't thought of that as the reason for the Oh faces but in retrospect it makes perfect sense.

Agreed on the ugly cute. It's like they just really screwed up that ratio with these alien designs.

It's perfectly understandable why McDonald's wouldn't want their reputation tarnished by this shit stain movie.

It is cool the kid was really disabled. I mean it sucks he's disabled, but it's cool he got to be in a movie. But it also kinda sucks that he had to be in this movie.



I was like 8 or 9 when I saw this and I just honestly don't remember it being quite so bad.

Also, Paul Rudd trolls Conan O'Brien with the clip of the kid rolling down the hill every time he goes on the show to plug a new movie. Paul Rudd is my spirit animal.

 

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The Christmas Dragon is the most incompetent Christmas movie I've ever seen. Not only do I not understand why you are trying to place Christmas against this Tolkeinesque backdrop, but they cared nothing about getting the seasons right. The characters say "it's a few more days till Christmas" and the foliage outside is bright vibrant green. It's like that for most of the movie until the enter the "north" which we mostly see through matte paintings. I could maybe give this a pass if it was Australian or from New Zealand (even though it's set in a faux-Medieval Europe), but this is an American movie.

I just can't believe the incompetence of shooting your Christmas movie in SUMMER. Seriously it looks like pleasant T-shirt weather. My guess is that they couldn't get permits for wherever they were filming in the winter or there was some other logistical region, but I think if you're going to make a Christmas movie and it looks more like June you should just pack it in.

The dragon was cute (if unconvincing), though.

Another stupid thing about this movie: There are monks and nuns, but most of the characters have not heard of Christmas at the beginning. This is in spite of the fact that they live in an orphanage run by monks and nuns. Christianity exists here but Christmas is something people don't know exists. Soooo stupid.

This one reminds me of Quest of the Delta Knights with the addition of CG dragons and some elf/goblin makeup that isn't half bad.

( I'm not really clear on what is going on with elves and goblins in this movie. We see an orc-looking individual in the beginning who calls himself an elf and says he "used to be beautiful once". Then later we see a hot female warrior with pointed ears and some veiny black makeup, and the lead character asks if she's a goblin. I don't think I've ever heard of hot goblins, My guess is that the elves turn into goblins when the magic fades [they talk a lot about this in this move], and the hot female warrior is an elf who is at a much earlier stage of transformation, hence the veiny black makeup on one side of her face. I guess this mirrors what is mentioned in Jackson's film about orcs being elves which I accept because Tolkien never found an origin of orcs he was happy with.)
 
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Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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You get a sneak peak of the second episode, which features a robot, the concept of which Ben Murphy seems to be introducing to everyone. The robot also is only slightly above Santa Claus Conquers the Martians levels of being convincing despite it being the mid 70s.

The most shocking thing is that Robert Denby proves so elusive in this version he isn't even mentioned. Which has me very worried for my own personal safety.

I wish they made more "movies" of this turd of a show for MST3K/Rifftrax to do, because that second episode looks perfect from the clip we get.
 
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Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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There is also an interesting ad for a toyline by Fischer Price with the extremely generic name of Adventure People. It's just a fascinating glimpse of what action figures were like before licensing would take over due to a little movie that would come out next year.

Also I think because of that movie nobody would need help understanding what a robot is.

Just two areas where the date of 1976 is interesting.


Also, I don't understand this ad for "Queensize" pantyhose when the three women featured appear to be different sizes. Excepting that, it appears to be truly bizarre. I'm sitting here trying to figure out this commercial, but I'm truly lost, perhaps because it's a product no one buys anymore, I remember seeing them sold everywhere as a kid, but now?
 
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