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Weekend Discussion Thread: An MST3K Movie “Reboot”Frank tweeted today:
It was then retweeted a kajillion times. So let’s springboard from there. A big budget MST3K movie: J.J. Abrams? If not, who? What would the movie be like? Go! 79 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: An MST3K Movie “Reboot””Commenting at Satellite News
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Honestly- I think that if there was ever any new MST3K it should go thusly: A live show, with all 8 people from Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax participating. Fathom that **** like a Rifftrax Live.
Forget big-budget – the homemade look of MST3K is non-negotiable. I will say this though: the original, optimistic aspiration that the Brains had with the MST3K movie – that it would be the beginning of a roughly annual tradition – is arguably still a feasible endeavor. What makes a proper MST3K re-union impossible is the availability of the cast, but if it was just this annual theatrical event you’d think it could be plausible to get the gang together to put on an MST3K feature complete with the robots if the parties involved really wanted to. The popularity of Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic should be enough to justify the couple of million that such a production should not responsibly exceed in cost, surely?
Bring Jim Henson back from the dead and lets get this thing rolling, baby! ;)
I know exactly what it’ll be.
A young, heroic Joel (or Mike), with better special effects, probably a female love interest, and the entire story will involve him and the robots fighting the evil scientists. There will be no riffing of bad movies, because the general audience would probably not take to such an idea. So we’re looking at a film which will basically just be a feature-length host segment.
Well, first off, a re-boot is usually restarting the franchise with a younger cast, and i don’t think anyone is ready for a Joel-and-Mike-less SOL! Seems like a non-starter.
I wanted more of a background/origin story in the first movie, so i would insist on it if another chance came up. To borrow ideas from Canucklehead, Speedy, and some of the others: if you want a young Joel you should just go ahead and animate it–2D or computer (given the Shout menus with the ‘bots, not so big budget any more!). So animated Joel and the Mads in a “Dark Star” type story, begin with him at Gizmonics, maybe an initial solo experiment, then shot into space, builds at least one robot , a second experiment, and finally all the robots (not forgetting Magic Voice and Cambot!) and a full Joel+Crow+Servo riff. To make it work they could use shorts instead of full experiments for each version, so runtime about 50% Joel’s story and 50% riffing. And we want a director who understands comedy and heartwarming, so one of several Pixar directors would be best.
While the wormhole with the other casts sounds like fun, i would stick with Joel’s origin for first movie, Joel’s escape for a second, and Mike for the third of a trilogy. It’s fun to imagine!
Just give me a movie with Trace doing his Dean Martin impression and I’m good.
“Settle down Jerry!”
And maybe he can do his Charles Nelson (any relation to Mike?) Reilly.
Just bring MST back!
Unless Michael Bay directs it! Then just scrap the whole plan!
(Warning: Obscure LOST reference)
Let’s see, he’d do some nonsensical and unrecognizably off-source reboot from scratch where Frank is gay, Dr. Forrester is really an alien spy, and Mike and the bots fight a giant robot spider–And then Harry Knowles would leak the early shooting script out on Ain’t It Cool News panicking the fans; the angry MST3K fans raise such a fuss that Universal drops the project, JJ blames Sampo for “sabotaging” his script and organizing the fans against it ahead of time, and then we get an annoying character named “Sempers” on his next TV script.
…Nah, think about it, things like that never happen. ;)
I think a reboot would be best done by David Lynch, and would involve all the MST cast. It would have a Lost Highway type vibe that would tie some of Lynches themes with the SOL. Dr.Forester would get his films/tapes from some couple that finds them in their drive way each morning in a plain envelope. Frank, Torgo, the Robert Blake guy with no eyebrows and white makeup ( from Lost Highway ) the dancing dwarf ( from Twin Peaks ) Mr. B. and Mike as Steve Urkel would for some unexplained reason swap places with Frank wearing his Black costume and confuse Dr.Forester. Deep 13 would change from Deep 13 to the Black Lodge( Twin Peaks ) then to Castle Forester, then to Mikes basement, then to Roman times randomly with strobe lights flashing. The Bots would change from Tom and Crow to DR.Forester and Brain Guy with the beak and Crows head piece and Kevin and Josh would be Tom with the gumball machine heads and 4 finger gloves. Gypsy would be married to Richard Baseheart ( Mike dressed up as) and they would have children that had GI Joe bodies with Gypsy’s head. And Pearl would live in the radiator with the woman from Eraserhead and sing about ruling the world.
Boy have I been to a dark scary place, and sadly I have to go to an even darker scary place called work. Bye for now, and please remember friends when I type I chicken pick so I’ve been at this a long time. Sorry for the waste of time, I have a crazy brain that takes over sometimes and I can’t type fast enough or spell well enough to say what I want.
@28 Edwin B: Glad to see I’m not the only one that hates Peter Jackson.
And for the record, I don’t want to see a reboot, just get the original gang back together again with the bots! My own experience says that reboots are bad if you really liked the originals. I liked the James Bond and Batman reboots but wasn’t a huge fan of either beforehand. Hated the Star Trek reboot but was a big fan of that (mostly TOS).
I thought the topic was a reboot of the “MST3K: The Movie” not the entire series…
If Paul W. S. Anderson reboots MST, Milla Jovovich automatically gets to be Nuveena.
So then if Tim Burton reboots MST, Helena Bonham Carter gets to be Old Nuveena.
And finally, if Len Wiseman reboots MST, Kate Beckinsale gets to be Wooden Nuveena.
Personally, I’m with those people who prefer not to see an MST3K reboot. Besides the fact that making a “big budget” version of it may take away a lot of the charm that made the show so enjoyable, but also, I consider the real spirit of the show to be the actual riffing, which, as shown in recent years by Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic, doesn’t need to be “elaborate”.
Nobody agreed with my Jim Henson above. :( I really think it would be a great match. Henson’s sense of humor would make him a perfect head writer as well. He could voice several characters and bring in people like Frank Oz and (with another resurrection) Jerry Nelson. This isn’t to say that this team would replace Best Brains… it would expand the character roster, kind of like The Muppet Show meets MST3K.
*prays to God for this to happen*
*waits…doesn’t happen*
*considers giving Pitch a ring*
I had this idea some time ago:
MST3K was a compelling show not only because it was really funny and featured entertainingly awful movies, but because there was an underlying psychology to the characters.
One interesting psychological detail involves Joel and Mike. Both individuals were unsuccessful losers on Earth: Joel was a janitor and Mike was a temp. Neither of the two had the strongest family relations and their disappearances went unnoticed. Joel dealt with the isolation by making robot companions, while Mike befriended these same robots but initially would not abandon the hope of escaping to Earth. However, this gradually changed and Mike stopped his attempts at escape even with the near-omnipotent Nanobots at his command.
Another interesting psychological detail here involves the Mads: first you have Dr. Forrester, with his abusive behavior towards Joel and later Mike, and of course towards TV’s Frank. Yet however abusive Dr. Forrester acted, he never seriously harmed Joel or Mike and never caused permanent harm to his cronies. Later, we had Dr. Forrester’s mother Pearl, who brought about her son’s abusive streak and later would replace her son as Mike’s tormentor. However, Pearl never seriously harmed Mike despite her occasional half-hearted attempts to do so, even with the near-omnipotent Observer at her command.
So you see that we have a psychological dilemma: captives with no desire to escape, because nothing is happening for them in the outside world, and captors with a serious need for company and to control their company. Even when both sides have their own deus ex machina-type intervenors (the Nanobots, Observer), neither side seems willing to break the stalemate.
Why? It’s because each side craves its role. We have a very interesting co-dependent Stockholm syndrome situation here that has progressed beyond merely the obsession of the captives of being held hostage: the captors themselves have become dependent on having captives. Neither side will let go because nothing is waiting for them outside the SOL, Gizmonic Institute, Deep 13 or Castle Forrester. All they have are each other.
I think the best reboot treatment of MST3K would not only feature a funny movie and acerbic commentary, but have moments of depth which illustrate the odd psychological co-dependency of the characters. These moments should be amusing but sad and make us love the characters more.
First things first: you have to rebrand the characters to appeal to a new generation of potential audience. Hence he’ll be called YouTube’s Frank, because kids today don’t watch TV anymore.
Well, I don’t know about director, but I do know about subject.
And, admittedly, it’s already been done, but I’d LOVE to see it get the big-screen treatment.
For years, I used to wish that the MST3K guys, during the run of their show, had had the chance to riff my personal Holy Grail of cinematic awfulness–the Star Wars Holiday Special! And my dream was realized when, at last, Rifftrax did it a couple years ago (and did a great job it of, too).
But . . . I know Lucas is trying to pretend that SWHS was just a bad fever dream, and would never approve it, but I would LOVE to see him crumble and say, “Oh, okay. Just this once” so we could get a good copy–with riffing!–before it gets consigned to oblivion for good.
@ CJBeiting,
If they would cut the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL down. It’s a bad, bad film. Not necessarily an entertaining bad either. Thing about the Rifftrax version is it’s probably the first time ever where I prefered the commercials.
A reboot should be Joel, Mike and the bots riffing MST3K.
Mike and Joel would bring in some popcorn, and the bots, and highlights of the MST3K history would unfold…..
And at every confusing plot point (Joel’s invention exchange, Joel leaving in a box marked Ham Dingers, Mrs. Forester unfrozen and becoming the law giver), the voice of TV’s Frank would come across the loud speaker saying in an omninous voice….
“It’s just a show….. you really should relax….”
MST3k Reboot? The Master would not approve! :-P
What I’ve learned is that way too many of you hated the Star Trek reboot. That was a fine feature film, almost surprisingly awesome.
As for the reboot, let’s go with a straight action movie pitting three huge rivals from the days of the first MST movie- MST3K and Barb Wire’s…assets.
How is making Mission Impossible 4 and Star Wars 7 in any way “rebooting” them? I already find the term “reboot” infinitely annoying, but now it doesn’t even have to mean what it’s supposed to mean?
Gizmonics Institute is launching a streaming video service of all the cheap old movies they’ve acquired. Dr. Forrester is put in charge of “testing” the movies’ quality. He takes the opportunity to live out his mad scientist ambitions by kidnapping janitor Joel Robinson. Joel’s fine with the idea of watching movies forever, but points out Dr. F needs more test subjects for accurate market data. F just builds robots with different personalities and fudges the numbers. Gypsy is the “woman”, (Dr. F. has never met a real woman), Tom Servo the intellectual/closeted gay man, and Crow is the hyperactive teen. Instead of watching the entire film, a theatrically released MST3K movie would have 30-40 minutes of recent sci-fi TV movies and recognizable bombs. Between film, we see a sympathetic Frank trying to help Joel escape. But Joel realizes this is the best job he’s ever had!
@73 This thread’s proven that no area of fandom is safe from the anti-Abrahms-nistas. Seriously, people, get over it. If you can’t do that then at least refrain from trying to mix your peanut butter with your chocolate. Hypothetically let’s say the David J. Yates movie reboot of Doctor Who came to pass (it won’t so long as Steven Moffat is producing, or otherwise Yates would be doing Who next, not Tarzan). I was up for it till he said the words “radical reinvention”. Even then if it does come to pass I’ll judge it and complain about it on it’s own terms – IN THE RIGHT PLACE. Meaning unless Rifftrax does it I’ll refrain from moaning about it here. Yeah, they did Abrahms-Trek, but I expect better of MiSTies who should be savvy enough to know complaining about Abrahms-Trek is as dead a horse as cops & donuts jokes.
@74 They still mean the same (and Abrahms directed part 3 and produced part 4, for the record), it’s just some people won’t let go. For the record I liked the last Trek though I acknowledge it had it’s flaws.
@75 I could live with that.
Well, first of all, I’d try to get back the classic Season 2-5 theater cast: Hodgson, Murphy, Beaulieu. I mean, god bless ya’, Nelson and Corbett, you guys do an awesome job, but if it were at all possible, I’d want Joel, Kevin and Trace. If not, then I could totally go with Nelson, Murphy, and Beaulieu for the theater cast, which means we could have the classic team of Conniff and Beaulieu back working Deep 13.
I’d use the same kind of really nice, lush opening that they used in the first movie, with addition of an equally snazzy set of interspersed opening shots of Deep 13, as we watch the SOL crew and Dr. F. and Frank beginning their respective days. I’d have maybe one intermission just long enough to do a really nice “host segment” sketch, and then a similar break to fit in a nice wrapper-upper kind of scene before Frank Pushes The Button.
Oh, and one more thing: if it were up to me, I would stipulate that absolutely no CGI or other digital animation be used. Even inasmuch as the current state of the art in CGI is wonderfully splendiferous and all, it would totally ruin the look of things like the doorway sequence, the Hexfield screen, and the SOL in-flight shots. I’d want to keep the SOL bridge and Deep 13 sets as close to “Season 6 Classic” look as possible, although as The Mads keep up with the latest mad science technology, we could have some good fun with funky retrofits in Deep 13.
As for the movie — well, imho, that’s pretty much a no-brainer, a movie that really should’ve been done in Season 4 but which somehow managed to escape the clutches of MST3K: Ed Wood’s immortal Plan 9 From Outer Space. Nelson and Murphy have already riffed this one with RiffTrax, and Hodgson and Beaulieu already have considerable experience with Ed Wood’s work, so a “rebooted” MST3K:TM featuring Plan 9 would be a dream come true for me.
I just saw The Omega Man – That would be my go-to movie for a reboot, no matter how they did the setup. It’s goofy on a lot of levels and could even be met with the same “how could you” response This Island Earth was met with. One host bit could focus on the three versions of the movie (Last Man on Earth, Omega Man and I am Legend); Omega Man negates the need for a remake of Last Man, but Legend makes remakes worthwhile… or something.
Ive always felt there was something to this. Reboots are usually terribly bad and they would be ripe for the riffing by RiffTrax AND Cinematic Titanic. That would truly be…. “Riffing Yourself”?…. ahyuck ahyuck…. awww….