Re: MST3K, Rifftrax, & sundry
Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 1:31 pm
Eegah's a beloved classic episode, but it's one of those where I think people forget just how much of the movie is spent on nothing happening in-between the good parts.
Mothra wrote:Finished the new series - overall it was okay, but not amazing. Glad it's back, and the team has potential, but yeah, way too rapid-fire and forced, with not enough recurring bits that span across the movie. Would be interested to hear what a newcomer to the series would think.
Movie selection, at least, was awesome.
zaratustra wrote:I've seen, maybe, three episodes of the original series? Does it count?
It has its ups and downs. Cry Wilderness, Starcrash, Yongary, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom I and At the Earth's Core are great. Stuff like The Christmas That Almost Wasn't is bad in a way that's not really entertaining, just lame.
Don't really care about running gags - the one in Earth's Core about the protagonist being constantly hungry is just "eh".
Most of the intermission stuff is forgettable except for the final song number of Yongary.
Mothra wrote:That's not really Joel's style, which is cool, but I tend to find it a lot less funny than embracing the shlock and pushing forward that "these people are being tortured by this shitty movie" angle:
Mothra wrote:So, the latest season has a ton of writers per ep. Maybe too many? It definitely has a "too many cooks in the kitchen" feel, which would be solved by cutting down the number of writers. But, if you cut out the wrong side - the Patton Oswalts, for example - that could be awful.
Brentai wrote:Honestly the original series, as Thad sorta noted above, benefits a lot from rose-tinted glasses. It had as many problems as the new series but you probably only remember the really good bits, and forget that this was something you literally watched late at night to help you fall asleep.
Brentai wrote:I'm hopeful that this apparent thing of changing hosts every season will bring a lot of freshness to the formula.
And man, movie selection really makes or breaks this show, doesn't it? You can see it perfectly in the new season too, with Wizards of the Lost Kingdom being probably the best ep (a grand fantasy epic that somebody clearly envisioned perfectly in their head but only had a shoestring budget and a passing knowledge of filmmaking to turn it into reality with) and Avalanche being by far the worst (a movie with no real quality or craftmanship issues that was just boring to the very furthest degree). With more and more media history being mined for irony, I wonder sometimes how reliably they'll be able to dredge up the "right" kind of cheesy to keep going with.
Joel wrote:I know everyone's number one questions are, "Joel, what's happening with Netflix? Are they going to make more new episodes? And when?" Those questions came up a bunch during the live tour, so I know they're on everyone’s mind.
The short answer is, we're still working on it! I wish I could tell you more, but I have a whole phalanx of lawyers parked in my living room waving their hands and mouthing the words, "Not yet," so I guess I'd better not say anything. But of course, I promise that when I'm able to, you will be the first to know.
zaratustra wrote:Notably, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom I is a great episode, and Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II is fucking terrible.