So, is this just a dream...OR...

[dalem]

Continued...

In my opinion, TV that really really hits home for a group of fans is a precarious balance that can't suffer a lot of drastic change, and what is more drastic than a decade-delayed rebirth?

Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Battlestar Galactica.  Just to name a couple of examples off the top of my head.  MST3K is a show that underwent many dramatic transformations in itself over 11 years and people still watched it.

TNG and NuBSG were NOT the same shows at all.  They were the CT and RT of their original progenitors.

Even if all the main faces and voices and writers got together again somehow, what about the lighting guys?  The editors?  How important was the old building for setting up chemistry?  Etc.

You are obsessed with lighting.  The editors for RT and CT are doing a well enough job now.  And the building...I dont think that had anything to do with it, or once again, the remants of the crew wouldnt be united again, doing RT in San Diego or CT shows in random theatres on the road. 

[/quote]


Again, I'm talking about production "magic".

-dale

[LordZordec]

In my opinion, TV that really really hits home for a group of fans is a precarious balance that can't suffer a lot of drastic change, and what is more drastic than a decade-delayed rebirth?
...
TNG and NuBSG were NOT the same shows at all.  They were the CT and RT of their original progenitors.

And they were sucessful, despite the gap of many years and differences in pretty much everything but the name.

Again, I'm talking about production "magic".

Well, perhaps I didnt state my point well enough.  On the physcial concept of sets, lighting, and donuts, I dont think that will be too hard to recapture.  Their sucess was never based on luck of the draw with actors and writers.  In the intangible realm of chemistry and a good cast and crew reuniting and working together to do something they once did, well, frankly none of the original MST3K people have ever stopped working together or ever stopped doing what they did at MST3K, which is why CT and RT even exist.

Hence, the magic never stopped, and there is nothing to recapture.  Its just a matter of getting the crew back together and calling it what it is.

[Doctor Who?]

There is no way it is coming back.

Everyone has moved on and is doing something that is more fun and costs less money to produce and there is no station out there that has a two hour whole in any of their programing block.

Why would we want it back when we have RT CT?  I mean a lot of the movie had to be edited for time,they couldn't just riff whatever they wanted,and they would not have time to do live shows if they were doing a TV show.  I mean we have it so good here,do you think The Room or SWHS would have been riffed on MST3k.  MST3K is dead,long live Rifftrax.

[Bus Taker]

My pet peeve is that every time I like a show, it gets canceled.  I was part of the ill-fated Rice-A-Roni campaign to resurrect Journeyman (2007 on NBC), which I still feel to this day was the best show on TV, but once it became clear I was wasting my time, I moved on.

We never claimed TV Executives were smart - they did cancel a rather famous show in 1969 you may recall.  Give a more recent example like Firefly and you don't want to be a part of that environment.

MST3K is different than a good show cut down in its prime since it lasted for 11 seasons, but it also doesnt fall into the same category as traditional shows with finite plots that eventually run their course - like The Office.  Since Jim and Pam got together, I kind of don't care anymore.  MST3K is more closely akin to a bizarro world Masterpiece Theatre with a dash of Saturday Night Live.  As long as there are movies and material to fuel the machine and people willing to watch, why not have it on?

Two different angles on current, more cost-efficient media, RT & CT.  You don't see as many Westerns for a reason, even though they were wildly popular for a while.

Question: Are not most of the other riffer sites (albeit sucessful and good quality in their own right) an imitation of MST3K?  And does their material not fill a niche left vacant when MST3K went off the air?  Are not most of those who buy Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic former MST3K fans looking for a fix?  If not, then why advertise on the respective web pages, "From the makers of Mystery Science Theater!!!"  Why is that plug necessary to draw in customers?  It's the only reason I know of and care for the existence of Rifftrax.

Star Trek started as an extrapolation of Westerns placed in outer space - as Roddenberry put it, "A Wagon Train to the stars."  In the same way, MST3K has earned its place in history for launching the genre.  Shatner and De Kelly moved from Westerns to Star Trek and didn't look back because they were enjoying the new concept.  Joel & Mike with their respective teams seem to be having a good time with CT & RT.

The real challenge here is the bridge the marketing gap in peoples minds.  Rather than having RT and CT pose as alternatives to MST3K, it needs to be marketted as an extension of it, and a return in some way could do that.

Plausible, but the business realities far outstrip the resources available and the likely return on investment.  I would also love to see a return of MST3K, but have accepted those business realities.  I guess none of us can convince you that we're better off without MST3K, because we're not convinced.  Just accepting that it is the nature of the entertainment industry.

[stansimpson]

...the business realities far outstrip the resources available and the likely return on investment.

DANG!  That's exactly the sentence I was trying to come up with but could not for some reason.  See, I need a paragraph to explain things like that.  Haha.  And I think you speak for all the fans on this site when you say...

I would also love to see a return of MST3K, but have accepted those business realities.  I guess none of us can convince you that we're better off without MST3K, because we're not convinced.  Just accepting that it is the nature of the entertainment industry.

[LordZordec]

If the business realities dictated, I could live with non-weekly, non-network shows.  Direct to DVD or digital download would be fine with me.  I mean, how many fricking "Land Before Time" movies have there been?  How many Barbie adventures have there been?  And why do they keep producing them?  Because big headed, spoiled brat, pre-tween children want something to watch in the back of the mini-van! 

I am the big headed bastard child that will buy your MST3K DVD if you produce it!  I will watch it once, spill Coke on it, and then lose it between the seat cushions where it will remain until the day the mini-van is sold and some underpaid flunky at the car lot has to shampoo out pounds of candy and half-eaten pop tarts from the carpet.  He will then take the DVD home and enjoy watching it as much as I would have if I had been paying attention instead of crying because we didnt go to Chucky Cheeses.

I wanna!  I wannaaaaaaaaaa!!! 

[Thrifty]

If the business realities dictated, I could live with non-weekly, non-network shows.  Direct to DVD or digital download would be fine with me.  I mean, how many fricking "Land Before Time" movies have there been?  How many Barbie adventures have there been?  And why do they keep producing them?  Because big headed, spoiled brat, pre-tween children want something to watch in the back of the mini-van! 

What you're talking about sounds an awful lot like Cinematic Titanic, those four Film Crew DVDs, or the Rifftrax DVDs.  Only thing MST3K adds is robots, mad scientists, and host segments.  Those were nice, but they were really just the icing; the riffing itself was always the cake.

[LordZordec]

Well, tell me a cake that is sooooooo good that icing wouldnt make it better?  Yeah, the cake is the same, but I happen to think that the orange cream icing with little flowers and patterns on top made it all the better.

I liked the goofy subplots and idiotic mad scientistry that lampooned parts of the film or just random stuff that needed to be lampooned.  It made it as much worthwhile as the film itself.  To site references: Warrior of the Lost World and the bit about if the title character he had never gotten his drivers license.  12 to the Moon, and the running Nuvina (Noxima?) subplot.  The Deadly Bees, and the bit where Mike is wearing a bee costume to communicate.  It was funny in a nerdy college kid sort of way...like Turkey Volume Guessing Man...

The Film Crew tried to capture some of this subplot, but more in a grown up dude sort of way.

RiffTrax is all yellow cake and no icing. 

[Thrifty]

Well, tell me a cake that is sooooooo good that icing wouldnt make it better?  Yeah, the cake is the same, but I happen to think that the orange cream icing with little flowers and patterns on top made it all the better.

You missed the point of the metaphor completely.

When something is "the icing on the cake", it's something extra, not the focus.

I liked the goofy subplots and idiotic mad scientistry that lampooned parts of the film or just random stuff that needed to be lampooned.  It made it as much worthwhile as the film itself.  To site references: Warrior of the Lost World and the bit about if the title character he had never gotten his drivers license.  12 to the Moon, and the running Nuvina (Noxima?) subplot.  The Deadly Bees, and the bit where Mike is wearing a bee costume to communicate.  It was funny in a nerdy college kid sort of way...like Turkey Volume Guessing Man...

The Film Crew tried to capture some of this subplot, but more in a grown up dude sort of way.

You are being needlessly obstinate on this issue.  Multiple similar offerings are available, but you continually bitch and moan and find some new reason that it doesn't count.  You sound like those dipshit WoW players who came on to Final Fantasy 11 boards and complained that the game needed Player versus Player (PvP) fights.  When told exactly how many ways of PvP there were, these people would always find SOME way to say it didn't count because you couldn't just go up to someone in the middle of the field and beat the shit out of them.

You're also like some guy who complains that SCTV is off the air, and when Saturday Night Live and Mad TV are shown to be still alive and well, complain that they don't count because they don't contain your favorite recurring characters.

Just shut the Hell up.  You're starting to piss me off again.

[D.B. Barnes]

I liked the goofy subplots and idiotic mad scientistry that lampooned parts of the film or just random stuff that needed to be lampooned. 

So did I. That's why when I'm not enjoying all the great riffing that's going on right before our eyes, I will often pop in a DVD or watch a DAP rip of one of the 198 episodes of MST3K

[LordZordec]

Just shut the Hell up.  You're starting to piss me off again.

Um, no.    :Poke: Is someone getting maaaaaaad!!! :Poke:  Dont you just hate it when you cant force someone to agree with you and see the world the way you want them to see it?  "I am not a number!  I am a free man!!!"  

I think that what a lot of it boils down to is most of the people who hang out here work at RiffTrax, so they feel threatened by the insinuation that their work doesnt measure up to MST3K somehow.  

[Thrifty]

Just shut the Hell up.  You're starting to piss me off again.

Um, no.    :Poke: Is someone getting maaaaaaad!!! :Poke:  Dont you just hate it when you cant force someone to agree with you and see the world the way you want them to see it?  "I am not a number!  I am a free man!!!"  

I think that what a lot of it boils down to is most of the people who hang out here work at RiffTrax, so they feel threatened by the insinuation that their work doesnt measure up to MST3K somehow.  

Uh... There's like four people who post here that work at Rifftrax.  Torgospizza and Conor are pretty regular posters.  Bill Corbett pops his head in from time to time.  Thrashalla I believe works for Rifftrax as well.

Yeah, I get pissed off when multiple people are trying to make a point and one bull-headed guy finds some excuse why none of the facts count.

[Doctor Who?]

There are almost 10000 users even putting aside spambots that is still way too many for everyone here to work for Rifftrax. I for one do not.

Also what are we threatened by?  MST3K is never coming back,end of story.  There is a better chance of Hill Street Blues getting more episodes then there is of MST3k.

Show me one network that has asked for more episodes and then show me anyone from MST3K who has said that they will drop what they are doing to do more episodes of MST3K.

You know what I am going to say it.  Rifftrax and CT are better then MST3K because the movies are not edited and the people behind them for the first time can do whatever they want.

Since you hate Rifftrax so much i would say you should give up this battle you are never going to win and go to a forum devoted to MST3K.  Then you can com plain all you want about Rifftrax and spend the next 50 years talking about how MST3K should be brought back.

I thought that Battlefield Earth was a spectactular dramatic masterpiece with the best acting and cinematography of any movie ever, and it got riffed!!!! (breaks out into tears) 

[stansimpson]

Just shut the Hell up.  You're starting to piss me off again.

Um, no.    :Poke: Is someone getting maaaaaaad!!! :Poke:  Dont you just hate it when you cant force someone to agree with you and see the world the way you want them to see it?  "I am not a number!  I am a free man!!!"  

I think that what a lot of it boils down to is most of the people who hang out here work at RiffTrax, so they feel threatened by the insinuation that their work doesnt measure up to MST3K somehow.  

Uhhhhhhh.... perhaps it's just that this isn't the best forum to say "RiffTrax sucks so bring back MST3k", hmmm? 

I would think there's some percentage of people (I'll go ahead and guess a large percentage) that are here because they like RiffTrax and would like to continue to have more of them.  Just a hunch really.  I could be wrong.


Duke:  And now, a little lesson in how to maintain proper forum-posting etiquette:  A little bit of humility goes a long way.  Being antagonistic only creates arguments; not solving them.

Billy:  Gee, Duke!  I didn't know!

Joe:  And knowing is half the battle!

[Doctor Who?]

I have to wonder why someone would go to the trouble to register here when they feel the way he does when there are still a few MST3K boards out there.