…”The Rebel Set,” with its well developed characters and intertwining plotline. A *hokey* plotline – sheesh! – but apparently a storyline that was thought out and delivered at least a meager serving of pathos. Honorable mention? Recent DVD release “Zombie Nightmare.” Did you realize that a lot of the characters from the start of the film show up near the end of it?! Zounds
I think my pick for best written movie would be “Parts, The Clonus Horror.” Yes, it’s executed poorly, but the basic idea and the plot twists are well-plotted and thought provoking.
What’s your pick?
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I think that to really do this topic justice, you need to see the uncut movies. Some titles, like Mitchell had crucial parts cut in the MST version. There is a minute mention as to the fate of Dini in the MST version, but in the original, it is clear what happened. On the other hand the bed scene with JDB and Linda Evans was mercifully cut in the MST version. Also sometimes the riffing gets in the way of the dialog, so one cannot tell whether it is well written or not. Travelers in Space (Marooned) was very well written, well acted and a believable movie. But a substantial portion of the movie was cut in the MST version due to time constraints. Catch it on TCM sometime, you will not be disappointed.
I agree with Sampo. You know you’ve got a good story when someone plagiarizes you.
And #39, No Biography for you!
#36
“Maybe there should be two catagories, best original and best adapted screenplays. Original I’m going with Time Chasers, after all the four of the characters are killed and there’s still a happy ending.
============================
Wait a minute! Crow isn’t the only one with a spare in the past. What about the airplane mechanic. I mean, what if he steps on a Revolution era butterfly or invents the airplane and leads a squadron to strafe Parliament! :shock:
I’ll go with Time Chasers as best writing. It moved along, kept a focus on the important characters, and had proper establishment.
@ 24: Yes! I vote for that idea for a future Weekend Discussion Thread: Movies that didn’t deserve MST3King.
‘Well written’ has a couple of different components. There are a bevy of MST films that have good story ideas and plots. We’ve seen a few ‘this’ season (#8) alone. But it does take more than just a decent treatment or synopsis. There are fewer MST subject films that have snappy Nick-and-Nora-Charles dialogue or touching or profound discussions or speeches, or that do something new with a derivative situation.
And yes Hamlet has to be set apart.
With Hamlet sitting in glass case off to the side, I think, as others above, that Tormented has a lot to offer. I also think Girl in Lover’s Lane takes a big, and creditable, chance by killing off a very likeable ( and not badly written character ). Plenty of decent words strung together in that one. The scene with the girl in the bathtub is nice too.
It’s hard to say with the Russo-Finnish Troika because we are judging dubbed & translated ( and re-imagined ) versions but they may have been pretty solid in the original. As with Hamlet, it is not the original material that makes them laughable, but the particular implementation.
Kitten with a Whip, Leech Woman & This Island Earth all have more than their fair share of good writing.
Old Nala’s speech about the differing impact of old age on men and women is very well written indeed. It sticks in my mind as perhaps the best written line I can think of ( at the moment ). Nala herself may well be the best written character.
Hmmmm….I’m going to go with “Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster.” But that’s just me.
Hey, how come no one has mentioned “none of them” yet??? Shakespeare was a bit overrated, I think.
To me, The Sword and the Dragon.
I’m thinking Overdrawn at the Memory Bank although I hate to pick a movie based on something written by an a proper author(sci-fi author John Varley in this case). I dunno, I just enjoy it.
I think Overdrawn at the Memory Bank at least tried. Terrible title, but the movie tried.
I have to cast my vote for the original Hercules. It is a very enjoyable movie to watch when it isn’t chopped up to fit the mst3k time frame.
My second choice(only because it hasn’t been mentioned) would be Mole people. That had a very good concept and acting apart from Agar.
Clonus, yes, but boy is it poorly directed, and the acting is really sub par. The best written movie, and one of the better executed is Devil Doll. It is one of the few movies on MST3k I believe can be watched on its own
@4: I’m pretty sure that Soultaker was written by the main actress as a vehicle for… herself. In fact, I think they even riff on that a few times in the movie.
I agree with many of the choices above, but I’d like to throw in a vote for I Accuse My Parents. I think the characterization of the parents is actually pretty strong, and considering the age of the movie, Kitty Reid is a pretty cool character. The songs are pretty catchy and I do find myself singing them, instead of cringing (like I do with TISCWJSLABMUZ). Jimmy’s motives are often suspect, but the characters overall are fairly fleshed out. They’re not interchangable.
My vote is for Stranded in Space. Its only real sin was the icky veneer of Seventies-ness (kind of hard to avoid back in the Seventies). Frank appeared to like it too, judging by the way he praised it with faint damns in the ACEG. Bit of a shame it never went to series.
When I first watched A Touch of Satan, I actually forgot about the riffing and paid more attention to the plot. That has never happened to any of the other films for me so that movie is my choice.
I only saw one time about 15 years ago but I kind of remember the Magic Sword not being too bad. Anyone agree?
Are you all nutz?????? These are BAD MOVIES!! They’re being made fun of becuz they are BAD MOVIES!!!! You actually LIKE these movies??? None of these movies are any good without the jokes– none of them!!!!! Corman, Wood, Rebane, etc.– these are all BAD DIRECTORS!!! I am amazed & stunned by all of this!!!! AAARRRGGHHHHH!!!!
Very helpful and insightful comment there, #68.
Personally i’m going with Hercules Unchained; i think it was a solid fantasy with decent characterization, particularly the villains.
I’ve been trying to think if there’s any script for an MST3Ked movie that doesn’t have at least some merit to it. I daresay that the great majority of them could be much revised and improved without actually changing the essence of the story too much. For me anyway part of the fun of watching a bad movie isn’t merely to gape at the badness but to observe how it’s bad and how it could have been repaired.
I suppose that The Starfighters is unsalvageable because there isn’t any story to improve, just a collection of bits. Incredibly Strange Creatures… does have a skeleton of a plot in it somewhere but to make a good script out of it you’d practically have to write most of it from scratch.
Then there are the Coleman Francis movies, which stand apart. I can imagine someone taking the basic scenario of Beast of Yucca Flats and making a real story out of it but then it wouldn’t be Beast of Yucca Flats any more. The psychotic illogic of Coleman’s story isn’t a flaw in the script that needs to be corrected, it is the script. “Fix” Beast of Yucca Flats and you might get a semicompetent, forgettable horror flick out of it. Leave it the way it is and you have a unique creation of cinema.
Ralph C.: “Shakespeare was a bit overrated, I think.”
This is what happens when you try to force literature on dead-eyed high-school students who only want to be left in peace to doodle in their notebooks and mentally undress the girl sitting three chairs over. The student catches every tenth word, gets a C- on the quiz and consoles himself with the assertion that it wasn’t worth learning anyway.
It’s already been mentioned
but for whatever reason i was thinking about lee van cleef last night. (don’t ask)
In any event I always thought “it conquered the world” (not that it did) had an interesting story, despite the fact that “the ugly” was taking direction from a pickle.
I third “First Spaceship on Venus”. I can see this story in better hands making some VERY poignant statements about the universe.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say “The Day the Earth Froze”. The source material for this movie was the result of Elias Loennrot’s life work of compiling the lore of Finland. I could see it being a VERY interesting documentary on Finland. You know, for those of you interested in Finland.
I have to make an additional entry because of some of the comments already entered. In part, to be a MSTie you need to have some affinity for really bad movies. For myself, I have a pretty good collection of 40’s, 50’s and 60’s schlock. There’s nothing quite comparable to a rainy day watching something like The Monster that Challenged the World, or The Giant Behemoth. But with everything there are degrees of badness. MSTied movies are somewhere in between. Most are watchable by themselves despite their shortcomings. In many cases they are so bad they’re good.
Also, I cannot quite fathom how someone can call themselves a MSTie without having quite a few tapes, etc. of the non-commercial titles. I send you my pity.
Clonus had a good story. Time Travelers had an interesting premise.
Of course Hamlet has to win this (no matter what TS Eliot said, it is the finest work in the English language)…but Space Travellers certainly could win this…it wasn’t my favorite episode, but the film did win an Oscar….
Oh? I didn’t know there were specific requirements to being a MSTie. How does one become, as you say, a “MSTie”? Is there a test to take? Is there a form to fill out? Is there some initiation process, like having to watch a certain number of bad movies? Do you have to own certain bad movies, or a pre-set number of bad movies? Do a board of governors, or a Star Chamber, perhaps, deem one worthy of such? Or can it be as simple as seeing the show and enjoying it?
How one comes to MST3K is of no importance. There should be no requirements of being a MSTie other than enjoying the show, to whatever degree of enjoyment one elects for themselves. Please don’t make MST3K some province that is barricaded by any trumped-up set of doctrines or pre-requisites. Don’t make it into a exclusive club with an armada of red-tape. Open arms to all those who enjoy it. And, if by chance, someone enjoys the show but isn’t as “educated” as some other fans of the show…. well, you and anyone else is entitled to your opinion, whatever that opinion might be, but it should really not be a big deal.
All you need to do to be a MSTie is enjoy the show. Sheezus, the person who contributed comment #73, it doesn’t matter how much schlock you have, or how many times anyone has seen the episodes, or even, in fact, which era of the show you like best or know. If you’ve only watched the Sci-Fi episodes, for example, it would be cool if you watch the ones that came before it for your own enjoyment and to increase the number of shows you can enjoy again and again but if you choose not to do that, you’re still a MSTie.
As for the comment that most MST3K movies are watchable by themselves: Not a fact.
As for having an affinity for bad movies: One can gain an affinity for bad movies by watching the show.
I know someone who didn’t have an affinity for bad movies before that person watched the show. Also, this person thinks some of the movies would be hard to watch without the comments.
You’re welcome.
……of course, I we are all considering the ashetically pleasing scripts…but I have to say that my favorite scripts are the ones that are so poorly written that it seems a committee of 3 year old children wrote it…so in that case, may I submit as my favoritve written scripts as Wild Rebels, Sidehackers, Gamara vs Zigra and of course the granddaddy of them all, Manos, the Hands of Fate…
And let’s the rest of us cool down a little, won’t we?
I think Ralph C. was being whimsical. Is that how you spell ‘whimsical’? It looks wrong.
Oh well.
I vote for Time Chasers. If they had a far larger budget and some more appealing actors I think they could have turned it into a respectable sci-fi flick.
To follow up on what #51 said, I’ve been a fan of MST since Season 2 and one thing that always bothers me is when MST had to occasionally edit the movies they did due to time constraints. Editing for content such as swearing or nudity or violence I can understand to a degree, but when you edit the movie and then make riffs based on the edits you made, you make the filmmakers look more incompetent/bad than they really were. Or when J/M&TB react to MST’s own edits and muting of swearing and such. How do we know that the filmmakers made bad edits in the final product, or MST made editing decisions such as during the Summerfest scenes in Soultaker? Not that the Summerfest scenes were an amazing piece of filmmaking, but the unMSTed version of the scenes were better in the execution. Not that movies were brilliant without the editing, but I think it makes the writing a bit too easy when you set up your own ball on the T instead of swinging at the pitches that are thrown to you.
Mitchell is an example of this riffing on the MST edits. Like when they ask “Wasn’t John Saxon in this?”. He was, but MST edited his final scenes out due to time and probably violent content. Mitchell although it isn’t a brilliant film, if you watch the unedited version it does make a bit more sense in a mid to late 70’s cop show/movie sort of way. For that genre it wasn’t too bad in the writing department.
I always thought that the biggest drawback Mitchell had was the miscasting of Joe Don in the lead. Tweak the script a bit, get James Garner in the lead, and it’ll be quite a bit better. That bit of Rockford music was probably the filmmakers lamenting what could have been. I could believe Garner getting the better of John Saxon or Martin Balsam. Joe Don can’t even get the better of Linda Evans; she practically outacts him off the screen! But now I’m wildly off the topic at hand.
I want to start things up again but please note the difference in writing between InsaneGezzmer’s two posts. Methinks he’s come here just to start an arguement. Don’t feed the trolls, folks.
And now back to your regularly scheduled weekend discussion thread. :wink:
(Sigh)
I meant I “don’t want to start things up again”…
:roll:
#76 InsaneGezzmer and his Hyde-like alter-ego #68 InsaneGezzmer:
I think the response to you would have been a lot more positive if you hadn’t started out by calling everyone “nutz” who thinks any of the 190 or so MSTed films had any merits at all. Believe it or not, because you have an opinion, even a strong opinion, it doesn’t make it a universal moral imperative. Not even when you deliver it with up to five exclamation points per sentence.
One man’s meat is another man’s poison, and all.
Parts: The Clonus Horror. Good script, bad execution.
As an aside, I feel it’s unfair to go with Hamlet for obvious reasons. And I have to disagree with the person who defended Mitchell’s unedited form. I have seen it in it’s un-MSTed entirety, and it is actually quite a poor representation of 70’s cop movie writing. Not the worst, but definitely not good.
“I want to start things up again but please note the difference in writing between InsaneGezzmer’s two posts. Methinks he’s come here just to start an arguement. Don’t feed the trolls, folks.”
Oh, yes, post #76 is pure garbage, not worth “feeding” or whatever. Good Lord.
Monoceros:
The Professor, as he said in the very sentence you quoted, was drawing attention to the DIFFERENCE between #68 and #76, yes? As in, one (#68) was pure garbage, written in a “crazy illiterate” style, whereas the other (#76) was very much not. That suggests #68 was a deliberate attempt to provoke a response. Which leads in turn to the Professor’s strong suspicion that #76 was an attempt to do the same.
In other words, InsaneGezzmer proved in #68 that he’s willing to provoke by assuming a style that’s not his own. The Professor believes that he was being provoking in #76, too, only this time with an elevated, sniffy style.
Get it? Or would you like to be immediately dismissive and insulting some more?
Geez, #70 and #76….switch to decaf!
I would have to second that Hercules and Hercules Unchained were decent movies one could watch without the MST treatment.
and yes, Stranded In Space is probably the ‘best’ movie Mst3K ever did. Amazing it was still really funny, even though the movie wasn’t bad. It was just the 70’s-ish-ness.
and honorable mention for I Accuse My Parents. The songs are catchy, and it was made in the 40’s people! Although Jimmy is kinda stupid…
Whooo! Fight! Fight! Fight! And GO PACKERS!!!!
Funny…I just started watching Stranded in Space again yesterday. And it cracked me up. Frank’s description of the premise “sounding cool” was, I think, an example of sarcasm…particularly his reference of the guys in blazers.
But, yes…I do see what you guys mean. It was definitely more competent than most MST films. I just feel the differences between Terra and Earth were driven mainly by budget.
Joel: (with mock enthusiasm) “It’s just like our planet, but, everyone’s left handed!”
In fact, that reminds me…Joel’s mock wonder/enthusiasm is one of the most hilarious and unheralded elements of the show.
Somehow, it conveys more than a direct dig at the movie.
I love it.
Anyone remember Journey to the Far Side of the Sun? It starred Roy Thinnes and was very similar to Stranded in Space. The difference was in visual effects: “Journey” had extensive model work by Dereck Meddings, while Stranded in Space only spent money on the Ward-E set, and the explosion at the end – which may have been stock footage from another film. Still, it might have been a good series if the pilot (The Stranger) had sold.
#90 Droppo:
I’ve always wondered where it could possibly go as a series. I mean, sure, he wanders around, Fugitive-style, and the authorities try to catch him. And? The hero doesn’t even have a Fugitive-type goal. He wants to get back to Earth, but it’s not as though there’ll be a rocket sitting around for him to unsuccessfully swipe every week.
Seems to me that they’d have to go the route of “our hero defeats the authorities’ Evil Plan of the Week,” which would be kind of disappointing. I thought the one interesting thing about the pilot was Cameron Mitchell’s little speech about the way things used to be before the New Order. In other words, if they do evil things, they at least don’t do them with evil intentions, which is unusual for 1970’s TV villains.
What’s worse, the pilot shows us what happens to the people who get close to our hero. Which makes me picture him leaving a bunch of captured and/or lobotomized ex-allies in his wake as he accomplishes very little other than keeping himself on the run to get more allies, etc.
Or maybe they could have given him a clearer-cut mission. Say Terra embarks on a crash plan to extend the benefits of the New Order to Earth within three years. Our hero has to do what he can to screw this up, delaying things for however long the series runs (and maybe delivering the plan a deathblow in a finale, if the series gets one). That way, if his allies tend to have short lifespans after they meet him, well, at least we can weigh that against the fate of the entire Earth.
Wow, another hard topic here. I think i will leave this to you pros out there. As for InsaneGezzmer, it semms he’s a noob to the mistie universe, so take it easy on the boy. We gotta ease’em into this thing called life.
..Steve Pop @92: What you’re describing sounds an awful lot like Land of The Giants.. No ?
Rocketship X-M!
Dalton Trumbo probably wrote in a day and a half but it has its moments. The only episode written by an oscar-winning screenwriter, I think.
#83 – Turkey meat, that is.
I’m a medium (#94):
I’ll have to take your word for it.
Re: Stranded in Space, etc. I have a clear 70s memory (I was just a kid) of a TV movie where a guy finds himself on a planet JUST LIKE EARTH (sound familiar?) but the one plot point I recall was, he notices that he can read the labels on the shampoo bottles (or something) in the bathroom mirror. That’s the moment he first realizes he’s in opposite-side-of-the-sun-world.
Does anyone know what flick this comes from?
It was enough like ‘Stranded’ that I thought they were the same, but the scene I described does not appear in ‘Stranded.’
fathermushroom – sounds a lot like Journey to the Far Side of the Sun. Loran Alan Davis mentioned it in post #91, and I kind of remember it as well.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and nominate Space Mutiny. Yes,the acting was horrible. True, most of the special effects were ripped off form the original Battlestar Galactica. I admit, overall it just oozes lameness. But the central plot isn’t a bad one, that being a power struggle on a generation-ship that has been in space so long, it’s mission has become something more of a myth than an actual aspiration of the crew. Mutiny could be set up as a moral quandary where there are no clear-cut good guys and bad. The potential is there. With a good director, a $100+ budget, and a major overhaul on the script, it could be a really good movie.