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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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An intriguing question. My mind immediately went “animated”, so how’s about an MST3K animated movie from the folks at Pixar? Other than MST3K, reality-based pop culture referencing movies never seem to turn out well (just look at all those horrid Scary Movie “comedies” and their ilk.) But animated, you have The SImpsons, Futurama, and Robot Chicken, to name a few. And Pixar has an unmatched record of quality animated movies. So they would be my choice.
Clint Eastwood would direct and have a small cameo with a mouse in his pocket. He would declare it his last acting role, properly book-ending his career. They’d riff “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” There would be copious amounts of Master Ninja callbacks. Instead of Mike and the Bots being stranded in space, they’d be held hostage in some remote desert fort. And instead of bots, Tom would be a talking orangutan and Crow would be a…crow. The “Mads” would be villainous desperadoes who aren’t actually performing an experiment; they just love torturing innocent people.
I’m not certain that I would want a “re-imagining” of the show when Cinematic Titanic and RiffTrax Live shows are so strong, but I think director Edgar Wright could do something special with MST3K. I think his sense of humor would make for some funny, visually-striking host segments, honoring the original show and expanding on the concept of “mucking around in the culture.”
A J.J. Abrams version of MST3K? Crow and Tom would be making constant lens flare jokes. (Sorry. Someone had to say it.)
Unfortunately, I can see someone else making the Mads truly evil, rather than humorously evil. Like they ruined Joel’s father and killed his family (including his dog) before sending him into space. And now Joel’s motivated by revenge, and the movie ends with him returning to Earth and exacting a terrible vengeance on his captors.
Or, even worse, the guys behind “Scary Movie” and its various spin-offs get ahold of the franchise.
sssssssssssssss
re animate Ed Wood and let him direct. then zombie Ed could eat the brains of those who don’t like the movie.. rrmmmm critics braaaaiiinnnnsssss
Actual funny people who understand the show direct. There are Wormholes. Joel and Mike keep showing up in the SOL and the bots’ voices keep changing. The Mads alternate between taking over the world (by forcing them to watch an endless loop of the movie that finally drove Mike insane — (SPOILERS) a Friedberg/Seltzer movie) and living in Deep 13 playing endless Devil Dice on a PSX occasionally sending Joel something to watch just to keep funding coming. In the future Pearl and her minions are working to keep time in check so that her son succeeds — mostly so she can come back and kill him after he takes over the world. They’re stuck watching Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.
How about: Beast of Yucca Flats–The Musical!!!
If we’re re-imagining, let’s get Ronald D. Moore. First of all, Joel is a dark, angry female (Michelle Rodriguez). She gets violently ripped from her family and friends, shot into space where she finds a lonely, scared Mike (Channing Tatum) who is being forced to watch really bad movies. Together, they build several robots, in hopes of tricking the evil Dr Forrester (Lucy Lawless) by putting them in the theater, rather than going in themselves. Frank (Jack Black) learns of their scheme and Forrester begins pumping the air out of the other portions of the Satellite, nearly killing Mike the first time it happens. Ultimately, they all end up having to watch the original three hour premiere of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica.
An origin of Joel going to work for Gizmonics, being belittled by the Mads, the purpose of the SOL project, the Mads plan of shooting Joel into space developed and coming to fruition, Joel creating the bots, the evolution of the bots (from KTMA prototypes to CC versions), the first movie used to torture Joel (The Green Slime, in it’s entirety), the notion of Joel being responsible for the SOL’s theft and claiming to be an alien to watch Earth’s movies in order to hide the Mads’ involvement (else he get a shock to the shammies), Joel getting rewarded for pressing the button, the Mads escaping to Deep 13, and the film ending with Dr. Erhardt’s disappearance (hinted that he may have been eaten by a giant spider with no witnesses, hence him being “missing” when the sequel comes round). Those are the key points I envisioned as an origin for MST3K for a previous thread, but it works here too.
Hey Sampo. I don’t know if this was used as a weekend discussion thread idea already, but how about “Most Obscure Joke On MST3K You Got The First Time You Heard It.” Mine was when they mentioned the Mummenschanz pantomime group in ‘Master Ninja I’, one of the first MSTs I saw. I remember seeing them on the old Muppet Show.
I would like to suggest a remake of “Repo Man” from 1984. I would really like to see what David Lynch could do with it. Emilio is easily replaced by a number of current actors but Harry Dean Stanton would be very difficult to recast. I would imagine that MST3K/CT/RT would have fun with it.
Now it can be told.
Joel was originally sent up in space because he was having a torrid affair with
Dr. Forrester’s mum. Dr. Earhart being clearly the love child of a previous liaison
with Henry Kissinger. Pearl’s longing for her Joel led to her smuggling sufficent
electronic components for Joel to make the bots (and keep him relatively sane- and
at the same time she managed to hide an escape pod among hamdingers–after all, who
would ever look for an escape pod there?). As part of her plot to usurp her son’s
evil empire of evil she surreptitously helped Joel escape and sent a new temp (knowing
he would be even more resistant to the mads scheme to take over the world via watching
and monitoring bad movies). But sadly, like Gollum with the Ring, she became corrupted
by a desire to rule the world.
What do you think, sirs?
Sometimes, one should leave well enough alone. The only ones who could’ve made a MST3K movie already made one….well, except Joel wasn’t involved with the movie.
Many of the episodes would make good movies. Just release actual episodes into theaters, after any rights issues have been cleared.
:-)
Cue trailer : In a year 3000 in a future where Bad movies attack our planet 3 ragtag robots led by Joel and mike are only defense. They will have learn to work as a team and over come all odds. To make make fun these movies for sake of all humanity. For sake of the Mystery! For sake of good old Science! And for there love of Theater! MST3K the Reckoning!!!
At the end of the movie, it turns out that Joel and Mike and the Bots were dead the whole time. Or not. I’m still confused.
As with the first Star Wars, leave well enought alone.
I like the idea of an origin story. Finding out who was in charge of Gizmonics, why was Joel such a good tinkerer yet only a janitor, why did they build the SOL in the first place, stuff like that. Someone had to force the Mads out of Gizmonics and into Deep 13. I kinda picture Joel building Crow and Servo on Earth, but they don’t have free will yet. He gets just those parts off of the SOL.
Really, though, what name director understands the idea of MST, can make it fun and funny, but not hackneyed? Paul Fieg? Joss Whedon? I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest, as big name directors, Ridley Scott, who knows a little about making a movie on a space ship, and Steven Soderbergh.
I can think of one person who definitely shouldn’t helm it.
As Speedy #11 and ck #14 and PirateJoe #19 suggest, a prequel. A little background about how Dr. Forrester, played by Pierce Bronson, got so ‘evil’ and how Erhardt was grown in a lab. The youth of Joel Robinson, played by Seth Green, and his first crush, his jobs right out of high school and his daily longing to see what goes on inside the Cheeto factory, would all be explored.
A big budget reboot would for me ruin the the feel of the whole thing. Part of shows charm is the cheap sets and effects. BUT, it would be nice to see the shows return. Put Joel, Mike, and the bots with all their various voices on the SOL and give them Gone with the Wind or something. A nice long movie to really get under their skin. THERE’S STILL TWO MORE HOURS!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
@18 Beboop: “I always imagined having AT-AT walkers in the opening scene where Crow is trying to tunnel to Earth, but it just wasn’t in the budget!”
MST, as well as most of the movies viewed were low budget, and right now Mr. Abrams seems to be riding a blank check from Hollywood and The Mouse. I think the fans would demand genuine puppets and an SOL model against a construction paper background, no CGI, and as much of the original cast as possible; no recasts.
But if wishes were wings – I’d like to see them do some of the Burton-era Batman movies, the first ‘Dune,’ or perhaps ‘Altered States.’ Something where the effects would be about on par with the technology of the show itself. As far as host segments, maybe a story where Joel-Prime accidently blasts Observers from the future back into an alternate past, where Mike had a custodian job from the get go (Gizmonics and Happy Temps had a long-standing relationship in this universe). Maybe the cast of ‘Time Chasers’ could come in an offer advice?
I love the idea of the movie taking on multiple eras of the show. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see Joel and Mike in the same episode/movie along with Forrester, Frank, Pearl and Erhardt? The wormhole idea from #8 is fantastic!
I could see the show working as a big budget movie, there just need to be some minor changes. First the name Mystery Science Theater 3000 goes. It’s too banal. You need something like Night Mistress, or Clootchie and the Lieutenant. Y’know, something seducing that people can connect with. It should also take place in Pittsburgh and the lead character is Frank, who works in a bar.
I’m thinking an MST3K reboot should go in a new direction and get the Christopher Nolan gritty, serious Dark Knight treatment. Complete with Christian Bale as Joel, Gary Oldman as Dr. Forrester, and Michael Caine as TV’s Frank.
The movie has the guys watching a Best of RiffTrax! and commenting on how horrible the riffing is.
I’ve thought about this before, actually. Dr. Forrester and Frank inform Mike and the bots that they’re going to be making another movie. Mike and the bots point out that the last time they made a movie, it only played in 66 theaters. Dr. F declares that he’s going to turn this one into an epic blockbuster in order to reach a wider audience. The host segments involve parodies of every sci-fi action movie cliche you could imagine, all instigated by Dr. Forrester in an attempt to boost the box office returns. In the final segment, the SOL breaks through the Great Barrier, and they meet an all-powerful energy being that claims to be God (voiced by Joel Hodgson).
The movie is World Without End, which was riffed in a live show just like This Island Earth was. I’d love to see them take another swing at that. :)
Peter Jackson does a re-boot of Mr. B Natural. It ends up being 4 hours long, and every character is completely different from the original show. It is also a trilogy.
I’ve seen that Star Trek. JJ Abrams sucks.
A key is getting a creative writer. Solution? Consult Time Chasers Nick (who it
turns out kept one set of floppy disks containing the secret of tiime travel) and
go back in time to 2001 and take Douglas Adams to 2060 Oxford, England to cure him
of health issues which led to his fatal heart attack (for why 2060 Oxford see the
novels Blackout and All Clear :) ). Then using an aspect of the Infinite Improbability
Drive and Nick’s airplane Douglas is ensconced as the successor to Dreamworks. After
scripting MST3000 The (re)Awakening he also goes back to retroactively remove all knowledge
of Jar Jar Binks and all traces of Star Wars Parts I-III—but I digress).
I would be happy to see a new MST3k movie where they riff on a JJ Abrams film, considering all his films are absolutely awful. I think only a reunited Best Brains could make a new MST3k film; I wouldn’t want anyone else creatively involved. Ultimately I side with Joel when it comes to the original movie; I don’t think it was a good idea in the first place. I think the way RiffTrax do their VOD titles but with host segments in the style of a movie wraparound show (the original concept of the TV show) streaming on the Internet (via maybe Netflix or independently) would be the best.
#28 Noooo! Multi-picture storylines that are 1000X longer than the original source!!!
Like at #25, Nolan again. Take one of those big buff kinda actors. He is constantly asking the nanites to tattoo him with the titles of the movies the mads have already forced him to watch. The guy’s memory is shot from all the torture. During one of the films, he experiences deja vu. During one of the breaks, he stands shirtless before the mirror, sees tattoos of movie titles all over his chest. Then he checks out his hand. “The Crawling Hand” is written on his hand. He’s already seen this one. Nooo!!! (Time travel, I guess? Either that, or reruns.)
It would have to be MST3k: The Musical. They have plenty of material from the show to work with . . . also a good excuse to mishmash lots of characters from the movies as characters in the plot itself. Krankor being put in place by Crenshaw? Gamera helping to defeat Pitch? Slab Bulkhead and Rowsdower teaming up against Bela Lugosi? It could be utterly silly and uninhibited, a chance to just play around with the interaction of wildly different personalities. Kind of like the show.
But really, though, a reboot? As far as I can tell, “reboot” usually means “destroy all quirky endearing aspects in favor of commercially favorable ‘grittiness’ for an audience looking for their next vicarious shock to the system.” Exploring character background and all? Isn’t half the charm of the host segments the fact that they could throw random tidbits in and make the character’s backgrounds unexpectedly amusing, instead of holding rigidly to some specific backstory? We shouldn’t be wondering how they ate and breathed, or other background facts. You know the rest.
MST3K REBOOT: Joel is in the military during the zombie apocalypse. His entire unit is killed and he takes refuge in a movie theater where an evil scientist forces him to watch bad movies and….oops never mind!
I originally came up with this when I was a MiSTer, planning to build up to it with a series set after Diabolik.
Pre-credits we see Joel captured by a masked army and brought to Pearl, who gloats over her impending conquest of Earth.
After credits we learn Mike has been managing Joel’s shop since he left on tour with his band Statical Planets a month ago, and naturally it’s not going well. After learning from the band (perfect place for some cameos by musician fans) Joel left halfway through, they and the world then watch media coverage of the ultimatum issued to the UN by Pearl Forrester, dictator of Q(u)atar, (Bobo still by her side – he was fired from the zoo for doing something inappropriate during a celebrity visit), with the demonstration of her ultimate weapon – a satellite that beams a concentrated stream of every bad movie the Mads inflicted on J/M&tB and turns the target into a mental vegetable. Then Mike and the Bots are contacted by a Deep Throat type informant, who turns out to be Brain Guy (embittered by Pearl & Bobo abandoning him) a little late with the news but informing them of Joel’s capture. They elect to go on a rescue mission, the bots poo-pooing the idea of going to Gypsy for help.
From there –
Naturally M&tB are captured, along/alternating with Joel they riff a movie.
Pearl beats back the UN with her crack army of Frank clones (one guess where I got that from, and it involves the words “Statical” and “Planets”).
Gypsy as head of ConGypsCo (with VP Magic Voice) goes Perot and hires a team of mercs made up of movie characters from the show drawn out with the same technology Pearl reverse-engineered into her weapon (taken from the fanfic 3000: A Space Oddity).
In the final battle Pearl seemingly goes down with Castle Forrester. Turns out in the stinger she did, and has taken over hell, ordering Clayton around again and plotting her next move. Then Nick Fury shows up to tell Joel about The SOL Initiative – oh, wait, wrong franchise.
Alternatively, just make Statical Planets.
Joss, Joss, Joss — Whedon gets the humor and would make it fresh while preserving what makes it great.
Imagine bringing artistic style back to the “main” screen. Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Akira Kurosawa have all passed on… This may be considered a bit of a wild suggestion, but how about Harmony Korine. Not to the level of Trash Humpers, but at least something original.
Wait A Minute! Nothing was wrong with the original mst3k, why reboot it at all? People shouldn’t reboot themes and characters which worked in the first place. They should be rebooting stuff that didn’t work. Also, I have yet to imagine that a new star wars will have the same story coordination as the work of Irving Kershner, Richard Marquand, and Lawrence Kasdan. It’s always a possibility, but I can’t set any expectations.
#36 (Doroteos)
But you know that he’d have one episode end with a character getting suddenly and horribly killed, with the others descending into a deep-seated angst resulting one segment where the riffing is nothing but whining about how bad their lives are.
I see Tim Burton as director, with Alan Rickman as Dr. Forrester, Timothy Spall as Frank, a bleached blonde Johnny Depp as Mike Nelson, and lovely engenue Helena Bonham Carter as Pearl Forrester. The bots would be voiced by Christopher Lee (as Tom), Martin Landau (as Crow), Catherine O-Hara (as Gypsy) and of course Christina Ricci as Magic Voice.
Actually no – but this is something I’ve thought about alot over the years. I picture a great crater where the SOL fell to earth… the Nanites have been working tirelessly to repair it so they can relaunch it and head back out into space… a member of the Forrester clan is backpacking in the outback with his henchman (we’ll call him “TV’s Torg” for now) and stumbles upon the nearly completed ship and decides to revive his family’s great experiment… he sets up a laboratory in a nearby cave protected from the outside world by a bubble machine… kidnaps a passing hiker and launches him into space in the completed SOL and off they go… turns out the Nanites built replicas of the original bots as they never really understood that the bots weren’t just part of the ship…
Uwe Bill.
Uwe Boll.
Edit: Stupid auto-correct.
Joel – Nathan Fillon
Mike – Ryan Phillippe
Crow – Matthew McConaughey
Tom Servo – Seth Green
Gypsy – Jessica Alba
Cambot – Jonah Hill
Dr. F. – Jeff Goldbum
Frank – Philip Seymour Hoffman
The movie – “Skidoo”
The Normal Side of my brain says “AW HELLLLLLLLL NO”; the Damaged Side says, “Michael Bay’s Earth Versus Soup Book One: Bring Me The Head of Yahoo Serious”.
Excuse me, I have to go stick a spoon into one of those halves.
Here’s a pitch for an MST sequel: The Observers abduct Joel and Mike, pair them each with a respective Crow and Servo unit (Trace and Josh for Joel, Bill and Kevin for Mike) and pit them against each other in Movie Riffing Gladiator Games. As the host segments unfold we learn they also made two more teams, Pearl, Bobo, & Brain Guy and Dr. F, Frank, & Dr. E, and are forcing them to riff too. At the end of the movie, Gypsy arrives in a Nanite-reconstituted Satellite of Love to save everyone.
The last scene is all the characters sitting silently together in a Shawarma restaurant.
This is a reboot/reimagining entitled MST: Darkness Falls, Wisconsin.
I’m not sure about the plot (since it’s a big-budget Hollywood sci-fi spectacular, it won’t have one anyway), but several key highlights of this film are:
– At some point, Cinema’s Frank (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), walks away slow-motion from a giant explosion.
– Colonel Joseph Robins (played by Colin Farrell), lone human occupant of the space station Satellite Cherish 3, must contend with never-ending questions about what it is to be human from his three companions, the artificial intelligence units T-Verso (voiced by Avery Brooks), Cro-Bot (voiced by Paul Giamatti) and Gypstrum (voiced by Helen Mirren). They are all watched over by the station’s silent security unit, CameraDroid.
– Renegade millionaire scientist Mack Nulspin (played by Leo DiCaprio), comes aboard Satellite Cherish 3 to try and stop a fiendish plot for world domination by evil scientist Dr. Craystone Faldishar (played by Christopher Lee) and ends up taking command when Colonel Robins is returned to Earth by Gypstrum after she evolves into a super-intelligent being, capable of feeling emotions as well as transcending time and space.
– Dr. Faldishar tries to take over the world with the evil doomsday weapon code-named TORGO (Tactical Olfactory Replication Guano Octagon), but Nulspin coordinates with Robins to detonate the device safely deep inside Aaron Spelling’s vast basement.
The sequel is tentatively titled MST II: Future Umbilicon.
Reboots never work. You have high hopes for them, but they never live up to them. I agree. Like Star Wars, leave well enough alone. No reboots.
Oh I got another on this one this one is Rom com and take after Sol has landed Mike is living with the bots. He tiring to catch up on everything he missed out last couple years and and find one true love. While not get back shot in to space with meddling mads. It called Life on Satellite of Love.
Yeah, like a soap-opera medical drama! Mike and the bots could get a job at General Hospital, where Forrester is now head of surgery. They’d be forced to watch bad endoscopy… There’d be romance, drama, and special guests like maybe Hugh Laurie as “House, MD.”
As mentioned earlier, a reboot that explains the origins of the Mads, SOL, Joel & the bots would be excellent. Written and directed by the original MST3K writers ONLY!. None of those Hollywood rewrite intrusions. A cast of unknowns or mostly unknowns would work best, though I would love to see a Mstied movie actor from the past in this in some way. Kim Cattrall might be fun. Maybe Bruce J, “Rowsdower” Mitchell?
A re-riff of The Green Slime would be my choice for a movie, keeping with the B movie motiff. If the rights for that movie prove tricky, try another piece of slime, Green Lantern.
To promote this movie, I suggest a series of 10 or more trailer shorts that are 10 – 15 minutes long each. That would make a nice DVD/BluRay on it’s own right there!
…but enough fantasy, time to finish my laundry.
Crew vs. Crew… Joel/Trace Crow/Josh Servo vs. Mike/Bill Crow/Kevin Servo, with Forrester & Frank vs. Pearl, Bobo, & Observer.