Blog: What do you think, sirs?
November 7th, 2007
Hoo boy. Sharon pointed me toward the recently relaunched official site for Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Longtime readers know that I am somewhat of a fan of the show. The fact that there’s new MST3K anything should be cause for celebration. But it’s very clear that things have… changed.
Now, the common trait of an internet nerd is to run, screaming and hollering preferably, away from the first sign of change. Add a mere flame decal to Optimus Prime and you’ve immediately ruined 10,000 childhoods. So instead, I’d like to give these guys a chance to have fun and experiment a little. The show certainly has been through many changes already, so what’s another voice cast and art style?
But the new Flash show *is* a pretty big leap from the bots I grew up with. I know we’re lucky to get anything now that everyone from the old show has parted ways. It’s just… I dunno. Maybe they need to make fun of some movies or something?
Anyone else a fan of Joel, Mike and the Bots? Got a favorite host segment? Episode? Short? Just no Joel v. Mike stuff… had enough of that back on AOL.
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November 7th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Since I’ve already anguished about the art and production style, here’s my concerns writing-wise:
A) Can the bots carry themselves alone, with no human, much less without the whole “stuck in a spaceship forced to riff bad movies” angle? Now, let’s be honest here, I love the ‘bots, I’ve written dumb stories that contained no movie riffing whatsoever, BUT as someone else on LiveJournal mentioned, first off, lots of the fun from the few host segments that were solely character-centric were from their interaction with Joel and Mike. That, and beyond their MAD RIFFING SKILLZ and some odd obscure personality facts, they’re not the most well-developed characters, at least not to carry a whole cartoon.
B) This I’m probably going to wait out on. The humour. It is entirely possible that the new writing staff are still trying to figure out whatever the heck they’re doing. I mean, the original MST3k series had KTMA and…well…we all know how that was. But I defiantly get the feel that the writers are totally missing the type of humour MST3k uses and don’t really know what to do with the characters. This can change, though, if they continue on.
If they improve the techincal aspects such as the sound, the picture quality, etc (mostly the sound), it’d already be one big step up. Use some Flash preloaders. And I don’t know what program they’re using to do the animation, but it looks like they can do it just as well in Flash and they won’t have the cruddy pixelation problem and have smaller filesizes. I mean, they’re using a Flash player for the whole site anyway. :|
But yeah. Along with my technical beefs, I wonder if the bots can carry a whole cartoon, especially when not being written by ANYBODY that was working on MST’s writing staff during the entire 10 years.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I should mention that the “common internet nerd” I was referring to in the OP was… me. Hope you didn’t feel singled out :)
But yeah, you do have good points about the cartoon. Maybe this is finally their chance to flesh out the bots, outside of 90-second segments.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
That was… well… weird. Not really a fan yet, but I’m willing to give it a shot, though I got bored about 30 seconds in with the “fishing” short. Maybe I’ll just stick with Rifftrax… which reminds me, I need to check out again.
Oh, and favorite episode? “Riding With Death”. I watched it so many times I wore out my VHS copy and had to track it down on pirate DVD…. good times.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
I was denied (denied!) of Comedy Central until 1999, so the Sci Fi network was my first experience of MST goodness when it started up. I got into the show all backwards. Though I do remember tuning in at my grandparent’s house and being all “what is this show with the silhouettes?”
So I’m a little Sci-Fi channel biased. My favorite episodes are Prince of Space, Hobgoblins, Puma Man, Pod People, Jack Frost, The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, and of course Manos has it’s own creepy, horrible charm. I need to check out more CC era shows, but it’s been ages since I’ve fired up a working VCR.
November 9th, 2007 at 11:13 am
No worries, Brian, I understood. ;)
Favourites? Hmmm…I was raised with MST3k, so I don’t really remember WHEN I started watching…some of my earliest memories of the show are Santa Claus, Attack of the Blood Beast (with the short “Once Upon a Honeymoon”, which is pure gold) and…which is the one with the “Chicken of Tomorrow” short? I love that short. And of course, I love the shorts “A Case of Spring Fever”, “Robot Rumpus”, and whatever the one with Mr. B Natural is called.
Episode wise…I love Pod People, Gamera Vs. Gurion (odd choice, but I feel it’s underrated), Prince of Space, Hobgoblins, Pyuuuuaman, and Jack Frost. I also love the Summer Blockbuster Reviews and such. I remember the first time I watched the first summer blockbuster review my spleen almost burst from all my laughing. :D