Mystery Science Theater 3000: C/D, S/D.

Your concerns are justified, given that Star Trek V is certainly not the kind of movie a right-minded person should be expected to pay for. It'd be like buying a copy of Bloodlust.

In which case, I sympathise. Luckily I had the foresight to marry a Trekkie-in-denial, otherwise I'd probably be in the same predicament.

Just now finished up Samson Versus The Vampire Women, which has some surprising dead time (they could have done a lot more with the wrestling sequences) but redeems itself with the absolutely hilarious use of the old professor. The impressions they do of him are dead-on and add so much to the movie. "Now I want you to come back tomorrow, and leave immediately!"

Never could muster the interest to download/rent/otherwise be exposed to anything sci-fi related. It's not knee-jerk Mike hate (although I vastly prefer Joel) - just that everything I heard sounds so WTF. Dr. Forrester's mom? What? Great, more hammy villainy in Deep 13 is totally what the show needed....

Altogether, classic as entertainment on its own, probably dud in terms of what it spawned; as several people observed upthread, the world did NOT need another excuse for nerds to think they're clever in public places. Sons of bitches nearly ruined Snakes On A Plane for me. I don't think it changed anything one way or the other in terms of how we watch or consume anything - I mean, it was the 90s, postmodernism and cynicism and backtalk were hep generally, not to mention the tension between ironic appreciation and genuine camp love.

"He's got a voice like a body being thrown through a bus window."

Speaking of, in part, there's a new interview with Mike up recently here worth a read if you have some time for it. One of my favorite bits:

QS: Of the ones you've done so far, are there any that were particularly hard going for you?

NELSON: I really, really, truly hated Star Wars: Episode I. I can't even describe how angry it made me.

QS: Had you seen it prior to that? Did you follow that whole debacle in real time as they were released? Or did you know enough to avoid them even then?

NELSON: I think Kevin at the time called me up and said we should go at the premier of this new Star Wars movie and laugh at the people. And I said, "That sounds fun." I think we couldn't get to one... they were all sold out, so we had to get to the one where only like 20% of the audience is dressed up instead of 95%.

QS: That'll keep down the light saber battles before the show starts.

NELSON: Yeah, you keep getting poked in the eye with light sabers and stuff. So we went to that and it was in the middle of the day, and I don't know why but I fell asleep during the middle of it. And I also, it was so loud, it was the loudest experience I'd ever had outside a Who concert. It was so loud that I couldn't even comprehend what was going on. So the memory of it was not coherent.

QS: Don't worry, neither was the execution...

NELSON: (laughs) Then when I saw it again... I just could not believe how incompetent it is in every way. Storytelling - non existent. Acting - god awful, horrendous, terrible acting. It's just astounding how bad it is.

QS: And yet made so much money. Do you ever worry about your fellow man when you view some of these huge successes?

NELSON: It does trouble me. It troubles me. But I fully accept that there are certain things that I am immune to. And I try not to make judgments on those. I am immune to the charm of comic books. And I understand that very many talented and smart people make them and read them, so it's something in me. But with Star Wars, I don't think I can be that charitable. I can maybe go halfway on that.

Other snippets: meeting Burt Reynolds and being fascinated by his wig and why Kevin Smith horned in on Mike's turf with the Roadhouse commentary.

Vol. 11 DVD set of MST3K out in a few months; no word of the contents yet. Also, apparently the rights have expired to all the films on Vol. 1 if you've not got them already, but doubtless your friendly neighborhood torrent will have you covered.

"Love wears a mask..."

"...a tight leather mask!"

And another revival due to this really nice ramble of an interview with Trace Beaulieu. Lots of details I didn't know about, and I think rightly spends a lot more time on his work pre and post-MST3K than on the show itself. Good stuff.

wow, nice

thanks ned

looks like Joel and some other original MST cast members are putting together something new:

http://www.cinematictitanic.com/

the text is conspicuously absent of any acknowledgement of Rifftrax, and is kinda vague about exactly what this is going to be. but the the "gentle and easy to swallow" part makes me wonder if it's going to be slightly more family-oriented, and the references a release by Christmas that's comparable to "Eegah" and "Manos The Hands Of Fate" would imply that they're going to be licensing campy cult movies for DVD release, as opposed to the Rifftrax model that allows for more current/popular releases.

thats kinda disappointing, i had just accepted joel was a weirdo genius & would be in bill watterson-style principled retirement forever

joel hasn't been retired though? i thought he was script doctoring for a while?

He'd been working at his own pace for some time on various things.

Not sure about this news; I'm kinda with Ethan. Still, also having Trace, Josh, Frank and Mary Jo together in the mix is of interest. (Also, all five of them were in that Darkstar game that still hasn't been released, I think.)

i knew trace was writing gags for americas funniest home videos - what scripts was joel doctoring?

So I go over to mst3k.com and I also read this:

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THE 'BOTS ARE BACK!
We are excited to announce some very big news for MST3K fans.

But first, some housekeeping: For reasons that will become apparent, we need to ask those of you who reach our site using the URL MST3K.com to update your bookmarks, and please use the URL MST3Kinfo.com. Many of you use this URL already, but if you get to us via MST3K.com, starting next week you won't be able to anymore.

The reason is that, next week, MST3K.com will become a new destination for a brand new site, created by a reconstituted, relaunched Best Brains Inc.

Or, as they put it when they contacted us about this: The 'Bots are Back!

Beginning November 5th, BBI will be launching its very own website at MST3K.com. The site will feature brand-new animated adventures of Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy. We're told the goal is to have one new adventure each week (though "some settling may occur with shipping," they added). The Web site will also feature work from the original series (which BBI is now calling "the legacy series"), behind-the-scenes footage and other material culled from the BBI vault.

Also on the site will be BBI's first online store, featuring all new merchandise. (This means that the BBI merchandise section of our site has been taken down. )

The new adventures of the 'bots are being produced by BBI President, MST3K series writer and the returning voice of Gypsy, Jim Mallon. He will be joined on this new experiment by veteran MST3K series writer and performer Paul Chaplin (who will be on the writing team and will be providing the voice of Crow) along with new writing and performing talent.

We know this is going generate a lot of buzz among the fan base and you all probably have a zillion questions. So do we. Many will be answered on Nov. 5th. More will be answered soon after. Jim told us that the site and project "are going to grow in a very organic fashion and we're going to let the characters and the story take us in the direction they want to take us." We at Satellite News can't wait to see it.

What does this mean for Satellite News? The biggest change is that we will no longer be known as "The official MST3K Web site," and this marks the end of our 10-year arrangement with Best Brains as the official voice of the old Info Club. Jim has, however, declared us, "The Official MST3K fan site." We still have close ties to BBI and whenever they have news you'll see it here first, along with news about the rest of the former cast and crew members of our favorite cowtown puppet show. For us, this is just one more topic in the growing list of MST3K-related news it's our job to report.

We have some interesting plans for our site as well, so be sure to stay tuned!

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Okay, this is just getting ridiculous.

It's like all those competing versions of the Drifters.

When Kevin and Frank re-team, it will be time to get excited all over again.

i duno. joel, trace and frank doing shit together is pretty damn exciting.