Anyone else not as fond of wooden cutouts as they should be?
While I get laser cut wood stuff is a super easy way to make props, it looks cheap and kind of lame.
Or is it just me?
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I dunno, I am all about that scary scarecrow named Bubak.
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The scarecrow wasn’t bad. But it was a tad overplayed.
Props like “big head” would make a whole new generation of people shake their heads while silently judging us all.
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I really liked the wood cutouts in Reptilicus. I think they were great considering most of them were seen for a second or two.
And the earlier stuff is fine to me as well. It’s cheap in the right way. 
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I think the laser cut props are charming and distinctive. Makes it seem like Jonah really is on a ship with limited resources.
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It worked well in reptilicus but felt overused to me a few episodes in.
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Picasso had his Blue Period. It was a moment.
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I agree, I loved the Reptilicus cutouts, and then in Cry Wilderness I was like okay I guess this is going to be a thing, and after that I just started to feel like well we bought the damn machine and we’re damn well gonna use it! grumpy old man face 
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I’ll be honest. I didn’t really notice it like that, but back in Gamera vs. Gaos, they had those huge printers and I swear they did that intro just to justify the huge printers. I think they must have got a laser cutter and wanted to get some use out of it.
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I don’t see how it’s any different than the many, many drawings in the original run. We saw a lot of those, too.
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No, I like 'em, I actually think they look good, and yeah, it’s just another version of what they were doing in the past.
And as for looking cheap, that’s MST… they stuck props and clothing together with hot glue and tape; cobbled together robots using whatever they could find in a thrift store at the time; and the hand drawn art, looked like hand drawn art… and that was the charm of it.
Cheap, I like cheap for MST3K (if anything, the cutouts are slicker). Nope, whole heartily disagree, the lo-fi art and design of MST is one of the best things about the show.
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I feel like that’s kind of the problem? Like, anyone can draw on posterboard with markers, so that feels homemade. But most people don’t have a CNC machine so the cutouts are in a weird space where they’re not exactly big-budget Hollywood, but they don’t have the make-it-with-glue-and-string aesthetic either.
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Too monochromatic, and without any camera closeups, you couldn’t even see the printing on them to make out any detail. Way overused, too. Very much an updated version of those mostly horrible “artist renderings” skits in the Joel era.
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yeah, but the tools of the trade change, even do it yourself projects. When I was growing up, and in a band, being able to afford a trip to the recording studio was like a pipe dream. It was pricy and time consuming to produce (so you’d come up with homemade alternatives that sounded homemade).
Eventually, with the age of the home computer it became something any musician could do, it was quick, easy, cheaper… heck today if I have a song idea, I can record a demo in an hours’ time and post it to the world.
My nieces and nephews are always making stuff that astound my old brain, so you have access to this tool that makes these things? Wild.
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Without the artist’s renderings how would we know that Goliath spilled his guts to the House committee?
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Nope. Oh wait - I was NEVER fond of wooden cutouts…
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Nothing beat the goofy maker-before-maker-was-a-thing approach of classic series.
Does anyone else thing Time Travelers is watchable just for its “futuristic” technology?
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One person’s horrible is another’s homespun, I guess…? 
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Yeah, that’s fair… in fact you inspired me to go look up the cost for a CNC machine and it turns out they’re not nearly as expensive as I’d imagined (I mean I was also picturing something the size of a half-sheet of plywood). Turns out you can pick one up for less than $500. Still… seems awfully fancy to me 
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Sampo’s Theorem.
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