If that’s the case, then, I agree no cuts. They’re not airing on TV, no need to worry about time constraints.
So do they riff on Berlin Alexanderplatz, then? 
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Rifftrax doesn’t have any time limits for their VODs, but they still edit most of them to 75-80 minutes. Some of that is due to content, but they’ve also said they cut out things that aren’t easy to riff, or repetitive.
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If a sequence doesn’t lend itself to good riffing, and can be cut without messing up the story, why not? Some of the worst movies barely have plots, anyway.
I don’t want to hear my favourite riffers trudge through a scene that isn’t fun for me or them.
Bad movies usually have plenty of filler. Modern, award-hungry movies, often even more so.
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My only gripe (for lack of a better word) is one mentioned a few times above: if the edit is what creates the problem mocked in the riff, not cool.
Past that, edit as needed. I’m here for the finished product—I can see the unriffed thing elsewhere if I want.
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That last season, the episodes were an hour and 20 mins, and everything felt pretty rushed to me, especially the movies, but even the host segments. I think it’s possible to overcut things.
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I’ve never seen Wizards Of The Lost Kingdom II in its uncut form but if it used the same fight footage from The Warrior And The Sorceress, it might have been cut because David Carradine encounters a naked Maria Socas being held prisoner when he fights the Protector.
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This brings up an interesting point: what if we’re talking about edited releases from an official source following a film’s original official release, whether said release is theatrical, direct to streaming, or direct to video media (tape, DVD, Blu-ray, etc.)? That is, things like the “Director’s Cut,” the “Unrated Cut,” the “Extended Cut,” the “Final Cut,” the “Ultimate Cut,” the “Special Edition,” the “Blu-ray Edition”? Yes, some of them are purely money grabs by the studios, but think of all the official edits that have been made over the years to the Star Wars: Episodes IV-VI films alone, the various releases of Blade Runner, and the three different edits of The Abyss that are in broadcast circulation? Some of the edits in later releases of those films are rather significant, e.g., “HAN SHOT FIRST!” or “Where’s Harrison Ford’s voiceover?” or “Wait! Were the aliens about to retailiate with tsunamis or not‽"
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Plenty of scenes get recycled in Corman flicks - Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 1 & 2, plus the Deathstalker & Barbarian Queen movies.
It’s like the buxom spaceship that turns up in Battle Beyond the Stars, Space Raiders and probably other Corman sci-fi titles too.
But, for some reason, a naked Maria Socas is not deemed worthy of using more than once. Odd.
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As far as the original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy is concerned, try and find (by fair means or foul) the “Despecialized” versions. Unofficial edits that cut as much of Lucas’ later CGI tinkering as possible, while retaining the best possible picture quality. It is an ongoing project, so look for the most recent version.
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Edit the gross and unfunny stuff please! BUT if you have to edit out so much the movie is so disjointed then pick another movie.
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Check out this video at the 1:58 for the Protector fight:
Plenty of room for Little Shop of Horrors jokes.
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During the original broadcast (KTMA), cable (Comedy Channel/Central, Sci-Fi/SyFy), and Netflix days of the show (with the possible exception of season 12), MST3K was structured to run in a standard two-hour, commercial-supported time slot. Of that 120 minutes, ~20 minutes had to be reserved for commercials. Another 15-20 minutes went to the host segments, show intro, and show credits/outro. That left 80-85 minutes for the riffed movie to fit into. That meant any film with a run time over 80 minutes had to be edited by the MST3K crew; less than 80 minutes, and you got a short to fill in the rest (which isn’t to say you couldn’t edit both a film and the short to fit the allotted time). The longer the original run time of the film, the more brutal the edits had to become. And at some point, you may as well apply the Rule of Funny to the edits themselves.
Suppose, just suppose (
“To dream, the im-POTH-able, dream!” ) MST3K obtained the rights to riff Star Wars: Episode I - the Phantom Menace. The film, as released, is 2 hours 16 minutes (136 minutes, ~130 if you ignore the closing credits) long. In the days of fitting MST3K into a two-hour time slot, this would have meant vicious and ruthless editing of the film to slash over 40% to fit it into a runtime of 80 minutes while still retaining the most riff-worthy elements. Even The Phantom Edit of the film which judiciously removed some of most unnecessary (:cough: "JarJar Binks” :hack: :wheeze:) and cringeworthy (“Woohoo!”) bits cut the total runtime by only a bit over twenty minutes!
So if one must hack, bash, and slash to fit, one may as well paint garishly to hide call attention to the fact. 
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Hmmm I wonder what a two-part MST3K episode would have been like… “tune in next week for the exciting conclusion to Gone With the Wind!”
*which they would still have to cut dramatically, with a running time of 3:58
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I am all for cutting films to something approximating the 80 minute length used during the original MST3K run… Though those cuts should preferentially be centered around bits of the film that aren’t essential to the plot and line up with existing host segment and “commercial” breaks (or to remove icky stuff if it can’t be avoided otherwise).
After fan-riffing The Incredible Petrified World, I can totally see where the guys would have almost certainly edited the movie (even though it’s only 67 minutes long) and inserted an extra long short at the front, because 90% of the movie is either walking or scuba diving footage. At a certain point, you run out of funny things to say, and a well placed commercial break that surreptitiously removes the third unnecessary scuba diving sequence from the movie can mean the difference between a movie that works, or one that’s pure torture for both the writers and the viewers.
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The music as well. If the awesome James Horner music sounds familiar in Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, that’s because it’s poached from Battle Beyond The Stars. There is also a music credit for this film on IMDB for “Chris Young”, who apparently is Christopher Young, the amazing film composer whose work includes the fantastic score for the original Hellraiser.
It’s true that Corman is a hack, and also true that some of the greatest names in film worked with him at one time or another.
@DeepHurting Exactly! Editing a film is an art in and of itself (just Google for stories of films that were “saved in the edit”). Carefully editing an film so it will fit into a broadcast timeslot without dropping important plot threads as opposed to randomly cutting a minute here and a few seconds there is also an art (let’s not get into time compression and frame-dropping here…). The wholesale plastic surgery that can be MST3K? That’s art on another level — though the riffs are then required to hold the movie together.
I’m also a fan of Christopher Young’s score for The Core (2003). Now there’s a film that needs riffing!
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Not sure why they cut that. It’s not particularly gory or scary or gratuitous. It’s murky as heck and hard to tell what’s going on, but honestly no worse than Ator fighting the Spider God. It looks like our “hero” here was nearly killed by the Wumpus. 
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Make sense. Barbarian Queen’s soundtrack was largely recycled from Chris Young’s Wheels Of Fire.
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This applies to older movies, though. If a movie is too bloody or too much naked stuff (used to keep the viewer awake), cuts would be needed.
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I’m totally down with them editing for content. Leave the more ‘blue’ movies for Rifftrax, as they’re known to not be as family-friendly. However, I want to see as much of the movie as possible aside from that. Of course, if they have to cut out awkward/problematic scenes that aren’t quite ‘inappropriate,’ that’s fine too. I generally just didn’t like it if they cut things for time (like the extra host segment, for instance in The Gauntlet) or to reference how something doesn’t make sense when a scene that was cut explained it. The ‘padding’ argument I’m 50/50 on. I get it, but perhaps be a bit more creative during those things and do a song or skit, like ‘Below the Dam’-- just in the theater.
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