The next Riff will be a live online riff of “Planet of the Dinosaurs.”
Here’s how it’s going to work: It will be available as a video-on-demand (VOD) title (meaning the movie and the riff together, all synched up together) and as an MP3 track. If you get the MP3, you MUST use the “retromedia” version, available here. Other versions, including the one that Netflix has available, will not work for synching purposes. It will go on sale Friday, May 15, at about 11 p.m. Eastern…
BUT!
BEFORE it goes on sale, Mike, Kevin and Bill will riff it live online beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. It will start with a live riffing of the short “Shake Hands with Danger.” That part will be free. After the short, the live show becomes a paid event. This will include the entire “Planet of Dinosaurs” performance as well as a Q & A afterwards.
You have the option of paying $6.99 to just watch the live riff, or $14.99 for a package that includes “extras” include the ability to download the live versions of the “Shake Hands with Danger” and “Planet of Dinosaurs” riffs the following Monday, a bonus MP3 song download by the RiffTones, and “a surprise digital souvenir goodie added to your RiffTrax account.” The studio version of the “Planet of Dinosaurs” riff will be available for purchase when the show has ended (approximately 11 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Pacific).
So, the way I figure it: $6.99 if you just want to watch the live show. $14.99 if you are going to be busy and want to watch it later (or many times) plus get the other goodies.
The live event ticket can be bought here.
Speaking of the RiffTones:
And finally, in a move reminiscent of Cinematic Titanic re-riffing “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,” the latest RiffTrax short is “What About Juvenile Delinquency?” riffed in episode 518-THE ATOMIC BRAIN.
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Hmm. This live show thing sounds interesting. I have a $5 gift certificate from buying 3 DVDs anyway so I might check it out just to see what it’s like. Now just to decide whether to go for the whole package or just the live show. I will probably hold off on the deluxe package and wait for the inevitable DVD of Planet of Dinosaurs instead. The only other benefit would be if the Shake Hands With Danger download included was just the short without those incredibly horrifying CG characters on the screen, but that wouldn’t be worth the extra cash alone (and they will probably sell the short for $.99 anyway).
If this is the same “Planet of Dinosaurs” I have on VHS, then it’s been askin’ for it for almost 40 years. Not the worst, but bad in a non-fun way; just unpleasant to watch. The VOD thing sounds a tad too complicated for a computer that freezes as often as mine, so I’ll wait for DVD too.
If I could riff any dinosaur movie myself, it’d be Ray Harryhausen’s final saurian outing, “The Valley of Gwangi”. Possibly Ray’s finest work, but boring cowboy elements and the title character’s color scheme would make for some great commentary, and I’ve got just enough voice impersonation talent to do it…but not the technical know-how or people skills to work with the necessary machines and hu-men, so it’ll only ever happen in my mind. (sigh)
@The Bolem Just so you know, the VOD thing isn’t quite that complicated. You buy the product and you’re given a bunch of file choices, from high-quality DivX to lower resolution perfect for iPods.
Also, this time around, we’re going to offer a Download to Burn option – an extractable, burnable DVD image that you can burn with any DVD burning software, so you can watch it on your TV instead of a computer, if you prefer.
Just wanted to make everyone aware.
Also, if you want to wait for a DVD…it may be a while. We don’t have any plans to produce one at the moment.
Thanks both @Rifftrax-es, but I mostly meant that my particular computer WILL find a way to f*&# it up.
Still, it’s nice of you to quash our baseless hopes of a quick, official DVD while they were young. Consider the DTB option…considered.
If you’re a fan whose encyclopedic knowledge of the show is slipping like mine, you’ll go “ooh a KTMA redo” and completely miss the title of the short setting off alarm bells. Like I did.
That’s _Legend_ of Dinosaur from the show with the planet logo.
This is _Planet_ of the Dinosaurs from the show with the Legend (films) logo.
PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE PUT THIS ON DVD!!! PLEASE! This movie is in my top 5 films that desperately need to be riffed. I know what was just said above about it being a while. PUT IT OUT ON DVD ANYWAY!
I think there should be a mention that if you buy the package deal, it does NOT include the prerecorded files. They have to be purchased separately some time after the live show. If I remember correctly from the “20 Questions” game, that will be $10 like all the others.
I bought the deluxe pkg for $15, and this is what the Rifftrax site says:
The deluxe package at $14.99 that gets you the full live show, the Q&A, plus you get both of the live versions of the short and the feature as downloadable videos to watch again and again (well over $10 of value on their own)! You will also get a bonus MP3 song download by the RiffTones (comprised, completely coincidentally, by Kevin, Bill and Mike), and we’ll also throw in a surprise digital souvenir goodie added to your RiffTrax account.
I didn’t download-to-burn for CT and that was their original business model. So I won’t be doing that here, either. But I’ve bought every normal DVD that Rifftrax has put out, so what does that tell you I’d like to see if you want to see the color of my money?
Awww man.
That’s the night that Cinematic Titanic is playing here. At the exact same time they’re playing here.
I hope they release the package as a non-live-show version, since I won’t be able to be there.
I think I misunderstood (or rather I might not have read the email as completely as I should have, hey I was excited about “What about Juvenile Delinquency?”). I was thinking that the downloadable files included would just be regular studio recorded versions of the short and movie that were part of the live show. Since they are actually downloadable versions of the live show itself then that makes all the difference for me (especially that one download option will be a DVD version), and I think it would be worth the extra $7 to get the full package. I think that this is really the way to go about charging for live webcast performances. The live shows seem to have a nice natural vibe to them that makes the performances a lot of fun to hear, and I’m the kind of person who watches MST/Rifftrax/CT over and over especially when I really like them so I’d hate to only be able to see the live show the one time as it was webcast.
Another thing in this vain that would be cool for them to do would be to offer up the previous live shows for sale on the website as well. Many people didn’t get to see much or any of the second one because of the website meltdown issues, and very few saw the last surprise one because it was such short notice (I know it was just a test and all). And since I actually enjoyed the performance of the first live show quite a bit more than the regular downloadable version of that short I’d pay the standard $.99 for each of those three previous live shows.
Excuse me, should have read “…worth the extra $8 to get the full package”.
I hopefully cleared up some questions over email to someone today, figured I’d post here just in case anyone else was confused:
Sorry you’re confused, I admit that this is not the clearest process. Let’s break it down thusly:
There is Planet of Dinosaurs the studio version. This will be just like NOTLD, House on Haunted Hill, Missile to the Moon or any of the other features we offer video for. You can buy either the video download for 9.99 or the MP3 for 3.99 and synch it yourself (but you’ll need this specific version: http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Dinosaurs-20th-Anniversary-Widescreen/dp/B000TJBNB2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1241552272&sr=8-1 )
That will go on sale Friday night. It is a separate product than the live show.
Regarding the Live show, the free part is the short that they will riff before the movie. You can tune in to that just like you did the other shorts we’ve broadcast live. Once the short has ended, you’ll need to have bought a ticket to watch Planet of Dinosaurs, the Q&A, anything else after that point. You can pay 6.99 and just watch the broadcast, or if you pay 14.99, you’ll be able to download the live versions of the movie and short, as well as a few more bonuses afterwards.
The studio version and the live version are two separate things. Buying one doesn’t get you the other.
Regarding DVDs, they just take much longer and cost much more money up front to produce than digital content. Since we just put out 9 DVDs over the past few weeks, we don’t have any plans to produce more.
We’ll make it as easy as possible to burn an image of the disc, and we have people working on constructing a tutorial to burn a video to a DVD.
The nice thing about our digital content is that unlike an actual DVD, if it gets lost, scratched, stolen or accidentally deleted, you are always free to download it again.
Just want to point out that there are DVD players on the market now that will also play .avi and DIVX files. We have a Phillips model that was less than $75 dollars and we can watch all of our Rifftrax VOD downloads on it.
If you’re a fan of VOD content, a DVD player that plays these kinds of files is really worth the money.
I am just happy to finally get to see Shake Hands With Danger without having to buy the DVD! I really didn’t want to buy the Shorts DVD just to get one short that I didn’t own, since I have purchased every other one. And, as an added bonus, I won’t have to see the 3D character versions of the riffers!
@Gummo #16
You are right. I’ve owned three Phillips DVD players over the years that played divx, xvid, and mpeg files, and even better they were/are also region free and have PAL/NTSC converters and so can handle pretty much any DVD from anywhere in the world. I’ll never not own a player like that again.
Also anyone who owns a PS3 or Xbox 360 can use it in the same way, and you don’t even have to go through the hassle of burning it to disc. In fact I use my PS3 to watch all the Rifftrax shorts. Both the PS3 and 360 work well, but I like the PS3 setup better. You can get a computer program that lets you link to your PS3 over wifi and then you can either watch the files straight from your computer or just transfer them to the PS3’s hard drive to watch. I prefer that because sometimes the video can stutter a bit or freeze when watching it streamed over wifi, especially if it’s HD. The ability to transfer the files directly to the system’s HD is the biggest benefit the PS3 has over the 360, but both work very well using files burned to disc or streamed via wifi. I download the mpeg2 versions of the shorts to watch and they are absolutely perfect DVD quality.
@Bat Masterson #17
There actually is one more kind of “lost” Rifftrax short. Back when they were first getting into VOD they released a free sample short called “Signal 30” I believe (it’s been a while). It had to be viewed via the official Divx player and was chocked full of DRM, and the last time I tried to play it (which was a while ago now) it wouldn’t play and said that my license had expired. Thank god they dumped that Divx DRM setup and went with what they now have for the shorts. After sampling that free one I didn’t buy any of the VOD shorts they released until they all became DRM free. I’ve bought every one of them since, but “Signal 30” is still out there in limbo. If any of the Rifftrax fellas is reading this then know that it would be really cool to release that as a normal VOD short now, unless there is something else stopping you from doing so.
VERY cool they’re doing PLANET OF DINOSAURS, that one is so wonderfully cheesy and just begs for the MST3k/Rifftrax/CT treatment. I always liked the stop-motion animation in it.
This movie is absolutely terrible. I don’t buy Rifftrax though. (Although I will be buying the DVDs coming soon!) Someday I hope this will be released on DVD. I don’t care if it takes a while, I can wait.
Good idea re-riffing Juvenile Delinquency.
I thought it was poorly riffed originally, but I didn’t really think they had much to work with.
I’d like to see a re-riff of Robot Monster.
I don’t care which group does it, but I know it can be way funnier.
I’m scared of Rifftrax live. I don’t want to break the internets like I did last time. :neutral:
Also, I’m SO THANKFUL that Rifftrax, Cinematic Titanic, and certain iRiffers have forged ahead and re-riffed some Mst3k fare. Getting some updates to favorites is always welcome, no disrespect to the original.
Finally, I wouldn’t mind seeing CT or RT do some more classic, black and white stuff like “Wasp Woman” and “Killers From Space” (yes, I know that was The Film Crew).
Thanks for riffing old bad b movies again. So far Missile to the Moon has been my favorite Rifftrax so far.
I can’t wait.
I’ll definitely buy the studio version of this (the $10 one). This is the sort of thing I wish RT would do more of.
And, as a result, I’m *tempted* to spend the extra $15 to buy the live show. I have a feeling I’ll like the studio version more, but I’d just like to support this particular direction Mike and Co. are going that perhaps spending $25 will encourage them to do more of these awful sci-fi films (there *has* to be a ton of them available rights wise).
Okay — I’m more than tempted. I’ve complained enough about RT in terms of content selection that I will put my money where my mouth is (and I *love* the fact this doesn’t say “MST3K” but rather, “from the stars of MST3K” — that’s *perfect* advertising and one they should have thought of in the first place).
Patrick —
Oh yes, Missile to the Moon is a new classic, for sure!
But I just find the shorts to be absurdly wonderful and I buy’em as fast as they release’em.
Hm, unfortunately this is out of my price range at the moment….
(Sorry, had to chime in for all us out-of-work guys.)
I think I will be downloading the studio version for sure, but I hate sitting at my computer watching video for more than 15 minutes or so, so the live show is a pass for me.
I just ordered my ticket for the live event, and I’m wondering if anyone knows yet exactly how this is all going to work? Will I get a password, or code I have to put in to prove I payed? I’m hoping to get an email or something soon telling me what I actually have to do, but as of now all I can find out on the Rifftrax site is that I payed for the event, nothing about how it will actually work on the day.
Wow, they broke the internet again