I remember loving it as a kid. And then about 10 years ago, my Dad put it on for one of his grandkids, either my niece or nephew, and I remember thinking how I could have liked it as a kid.
I’m still a few movies behind though. Loves of Hercules actually got a lot better, thank god.
By the way, looks like VRV (just?) got a ton of classic episodes, if that’s anyone’s bag.
Yeah I was just coming into the thread to mention that. Not only mst3k, but rifftrax as well.
By the end of Loves of Hercules, I was in love with that movie. There’s just so much they do that make me love it. Who else makes Hercules purposefully a blockhead who is not very smart? And I just love the revelation that all those trees were other lovers of that Succubus or whatever she was that seduced Hercules.
So fun. I want to see a sequel!
But then the next movie was Yongary, a 1950s Korean movie that’s a copy of Godzilla. Only this was soooooo much better than Godzilla. All the character banter in this movie is priceless. It’s funny even without the MST3K treatment (and much funnier with the comments of course). The little kid who uses the Itch ray gun who is named Itchiro was just killing me. When he makes Yongary dance near the end I was laughing so hard.
I’ve never seen a Godzilla movie I enjoyed. But Yongary was so good! I hope it was a hit and saw lots of sequels. It certainly deserves it more than Godzilla.
They produced what I will assume was a grimdark gritty reboot in 1999, then re-released it in 2001 after “fixing” it with lots of added footage and effects.
I demand more Yongary!!!
What you really want is Pulgarsari, the North Korean Godzilla knock-off directed by and starring a South Korean couple Kim Jong-Il had kidnapped.
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom started out way too chaotic for me. I wonder if they just had lots and lots of random footage from some other movie that never got made, and decided to put it all at the start of this movie?
Anyway, once the movie actually settles in, I have to admit it was very amusing. I don’t really understand why the guys are so hard on Kor, the blond, slightly over-weight hero in this movie who actually doesn’t do much. It was obvious to me that the movie makers were themselves playing off Kor more as a comedic character, so it seemed a little unfair for the guys to make fun of the actor and the character so much.
Now I’m looking forward to seeing Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II next. I hope Kor comes back!
I think part 2 is a much more riff-able movie than 1, but I definitely enjoyed the good-natured ribbing (I feel) of Kor and his reluctance to take any action.
This reminds me that it’s kind of a bummer that they have taken older, black and white (ie. Grandpa) movies off the table, or, it seems, Netflix has, at least.
Also, I know I mentioned it before, but has anyone gone back to an old Joel episode and been shocked at how big the silhouettes seem after seeing these in HD?
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II was okay. The jokes were really good, but the movie wasn’t as good as the first one.
Carnival Magic was bonkers. Equal parts boring as hell and really interesting. It’s really a perfect MST3K movie, since the jokes can fill in during the super boring parts.
Last night I watched The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t. I have to admit, this is the first time this season that I was really bored watching one of these movies. Again, like Carnival Magic, the movie was kind of fascinating (Santa is a real guy! And he owes rent! So he gets a lawyer! He has to get a real job!) combined with long stretches that were so boring even the guys riffing couldn’t make them interesting. The “songs” were so bad, they don’t deserve to be called songs. “Think of Something, Think of Something. Think of Something” Patton Oswald: I can’t believe you’re still watching this movie. Me: Yeah, no kidding.
On the other hand, the ending kind of saves it. The “Christmas miracle” scene was actually really good in the movie itself, and then the inexplicable slide show scene was What The Fuck is Happening type of funny. And then for the MST3K crew to do a similar slide show at the end had me laughing so hard, it made up for all the boredom earlier.
Edit: One more episode left for the season, and then it’s on to the Thanksgiving season.
At the Earth’s Core: This was again a movie that was inherently pretty interesting, so getting the MST3K treatment just made it way better. It was unexpected to me that I actually liked the whole subplot of Jonah getting married.
Mac and Me: I actually liked Mac and Me back in the day, as a kid. And now after watching this, I can’t believe I did. This is a super dark movie. But the MST3k crew made it a lot of fun. And they kind of ignored that Jonah was married to Kinga or whatever her name is.
Atlantic Rim: So this is actually new enough to be a ripoff of Pacific Rim. I thought that movie was too new. But apparently not. It’s kind of jarring to have a modern crappy movie in here. At least old crappy movies were crappy but the models they used had a kind of funny quaint feel to it. Like for example, in At the Earth’s Core, that gigantic drill machine thing, they build a model, and they clearly built the model for the launch pad for the drill. Here in Atlantic Rim, it’s just really bad CGI and just embarrassing to look at. The riffing made it funny, but it was still so cringeworthy.
Lords of the Deep - Again, old movies with these kind of awkwardly built and photographed models are kind of quaint but they hold up. I can’t say the same for the mustache of our hero. Man, this movie was funny though. The whole ending with Chadwick and the rest was just so funny, I was dying.
The Day Time Ended - I finished this last night. Again, it had a lot of intriguing things in the base movie that made it interesting to watch. And the guys did such a great job of making fun of it. That song they sang was so brilliant.
Killer Fish - Lee Majors! Holy shit! I’m still in the middle of this one, but I can’t believe it’s got actors I’ve seen before and they’re doing a fairly good job so far.
I’m feeling sad that I’m almost caught up. I want more MST3K! Of course, the old episodes Netflix currently has up will be all new to me, so maybe I’ll check some of those out. Hopefully they’re as funny as these two new seasons.
I’m so glad they ended the season on Ator. What a great B-movie! Even without the commentary/riffing, this movie is hilarious! It has so much going for it, from the brother/sister marriage to the Amazon women, to the spiders, to the inexplicable bear sidekick that sometimes shows up. This movie was gold!
If you’re still stalled at Carnival Magic, it’s worth it to power through somehow, or just skip the rest of that movie. There’s a lot of gems still waiting for you.
Since I ran out of new MST3K episodes, I had to resort to watching old MST3K episodes. The current ‘season’ that Netflix has for streaming starts with a movie called The Day The Earth Froze. It’s a really bad Swedish movie that’s torture to watch so far.
And after watching the new MST3K, it’s hard going back to classic MST3K, where the good jokes are a lot less frequent. I’m not sure I can make it through this movie.
Well, that’s a, um, that’s definitely a point of view.
You disagree? You watched the two new seasons and didn’t find them funnier more frequently?
I disagree. Which is not to say that I disliked the new stuff, I enjoyed it quite a bit. But better than Mitchell? Better than Eegah? Better than whatever the heck that Rowsdower episode was called? Heck no man, not by a long shot.
Edit: let me add that the monster song in Reptilicus is probably one of my favorite single moments of MST3K, period. I drive my family nuts singing this song all the time.
Oh. I was talking more in general. Not comparing best episodes to best episodes. For me, this was the first time the show was so consistently funny it changed from something I’d have on in the background to something I’d give 100% attention to, just so I don’t miss any jokes. Even the terrible episodes like Carnival Magic had some side-splittingly funny stuff.
Yes, I understand that. I’m saying that I can choose just about any random episode from the old stuff and it’s classic. The new stuff is just “pretty good.” Now that’s not entirely fair - I’ve been watching the old stuff for decades and I’ve internalized so much of all that, and I’m comparing that against two new seasons. But since that’s all I’ve got to compare against, that’s how it breaks down. Ask me in twenty years, my answer may change.
Oh wow. Yeah, I’m a much more casual watcher of the old stuff. I certainly loved certain episodes, but I’ve never seen an episode a second time. I didn’t envision watching the new stuff a second time either. The idea had never occurred to me.
Shit, I’ve probably seen Eegah! more times than I’ve seen Star Wars. OK that’s not true but it feels true.