While that reviewer goes way overboard (brainwashing? and that rant on a movie called Mutiliations?), they do have a point. I feel there’s something a little bit wrong in reviewing a movie only seen in riffed form. And some people who watch the show treat every movie they riff as if it’s Plan 9. They diss the actors (and even Plan 9 has some good actors in it), the story, the overall movie, turning movies that are simply mediocre and silly as if they’re absolute drivel simply because they’ve seen them riffed.
And anyone who can’t even get the name right really isn’t qualified to comment on the show. MST2000 is the prequel, obviously.
I remember some of the editorials criticizing MST3K had similar sentiments.
The writers behind those argued the show encouraged disrespect in juvenile viewers, hate towards the whole medium of film and even dumbing down of people.
My mom and sister don’t like it much (though I have shown my mom a few host segments, and she thinks the robots are fun- she’s just not a fan of the riffing). My dad and I usually wait for a time they’re both out doing something to watch it together.
Any time I come across someone who doesn’t like MST3K, or I find myself getting a little too hot and bothered trying to explain it to people, I’m inevitably reminded:
“Just repeat to yourself ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax.’”
My step-mom always thought it was stupid. I remember one time my friend and I were trying to watch the movie and his dad came in and started making fun of it. He pitched his voice up really high in a mocking nerdy voice going “I’ll use the manipulator arm!” We tried to tell him how wrong he was, but he wouldn’t hear it.
I don’t know. Siskel & Ebert showed us clips every episode, and suggested that we base our desire to see the film on their commentary, plus that. It’s not unusual for people to pass judgment on a whole work based on samples, even if it’s unfair at some level.
There’s only a few of the movies I got to see uncut. There was a fan for awhile who was posting them for us with the riffs still in, but YT took them down, so he gave up. Among those were Puma Man , The Magic Sword… maybe a few others. Seeing what Best Brains had removed told me that none of it would’ve really changed the tenor or quality of the film, had I known about it sooner.
Also, that reviewer takes the line from the musical Carnival about “just get passionate for cheese!” to a whole new level. OK, Pal. Slang is bad and evil and, uh… do you need a nice lie-down and your binky?
They do, but at the same time, they’re not mocking the movie as MST3K does. MST is not giving us a film review, they’re trying to make a movie hilarious by making jokes based on the movie. Siskel and Ebert are trying to give a summary of the film and they don’t ask people to go out and leave a review about the movie on the basis of their little segments, either. They often would disagree on the movie and so you got two different POVs about the movie and then it was left to you to decide whether or not to see it. I see that as a completely different enterprise than what MST3K does.
However, I think the reviewer in question is nuts. While I agree with the general point, the extremity of the statements are ridiculous.
No, they’re not asking for a cascade of reviews, it’s true. (Their heyday was well before modern social media, after all.) I’m just saying that compression and condensation were a normal part of review and analysis of pop culture long before MST3k came along. Movies of theatrical origin have almost always been cut for commercial TV, especially if they weren’t considered prestigious.
But now you’ve got me curious: do you think there are any movies from the show which really do take on some kind of deeper or wildly different quality with the deleted scenes restored?
The one that comes immediately to mind is Hercules and the Captive Women. They make quite a few riffs about the plot not making sense, but I watched the complete movie and, because of time, they had to cut out a lot of the movie. So the plot points that they said made no sense only made no sense because they cut out the scene that would have made it make sense. If someone reviewed the movie on the basis only of the MST version, their review would be that it was a ridiculous movie that has no coherent plot. But it does. Is it cheesy? Is the dubbing not great all the time? Sure, but it’s really not a bad sword and sandal movie.
I think this reviewer is more of a kindred spirit than they realize. They just seem to be operating with the fallacy that riffing comes from a place of hate. I really like Mutilations. I’ve watched it several times and am eager to recommend it. Like Manos, the ultimate psychotronic movie (other than maybe The Psychotronic Man (1979) of course), it has some cool ideas and the passion and effort is detectable. Like Harold P. Warren, Larry Thomas was a salesman who wanted to be a filmmaker and was one of the few to actually see his vision through to completion. That demands a ton of respect. The idea that psychotronic movies are only bad if intentionally so is a weird leap of logic, though.
That show. That’s what my father called MST3K when he saw me watching it. He was a film historian and the idea that people would willingly talk over movies made him angry.
I watched it anyway, which was fine because we had more than one TV, but if he walked in the room, he always snarled, “oh, you’re watching that show.”
Do you know or did you know any people who just hate MST3K? Tell your stories!
My son used to like it when he was younger, but then decided he hated it as a sort of adorable form of rebellion, and now he’s coming back around. Don’t know if he’ll be a MSTie, but he’s growing up with it whether he likes it or not.
Nope. I’m sad because the few people I know who do know it already like it, but most I know have never heard of it. Most of them wouldn’t get it or would be bored.
I don’t know. Siskel & Ebert showed us clips every episode, and suggested that we base our desire to see the film on their commentary, plus that. It’s not unusual for people to pass judgment on a whole work based on samples, even if it’s unfair at some level.
