Mike solo - yawn

[FordPrefect]

when he's with bill, kevin or a guest, it feels conversational, some buddies mocking out a movie. when it's mike solo, it's a man talking to himself...

Actually, that's really ironic because it's widely known that those three guys absolutely hate each other in real life. It goes back to the MST3K days. Kevin wanted to play a new head villain when they moved to MST3k, instead of being a lackey for the Pearl character. Mike started making really weird demands for content in the show. And Bill pretty much just hates everyone except his cats.

They're real pros to be able to still work together so well.

wtf are you talking about?

I believe he's making a joke.

[ShadowDog]

Oh.  I was gonna say, first time I'd heard that theory.

[AmandaGal]

Cocktail is one of my top 10 favorite riffs OF ALL TIME.  I, too, like Over the Top, but that's just a great movie.  It is almost as hilarious to watch it without the riff.

[Nunyerbiz]

I never really felt that way about the solo riffs... that it's just a man talking to himself... of course, I can't deny that is precisely what it is... but it was never the vibe I got. I suppose I look at the solo riffs more in line with the MST3K vibe. The guys had some conversational elements there, but the focus was pretty much always on the movie... riffing on what was presented on screen. I think that's what the Mike solo riffs capture very well, without anybody else to prattle on with... it's just the movies and the jokes. I think it works very well in almost every one he's done.

You bring up an interesting point.  I think their ability to edit the movie for time to fit in the 90 minutes really helped them here.  Since they had to cut it down anyway, they could cut out the parts that didn't set up their jokes as well.  With Rifftrax you can't cut anything out, you have to have it all, so I think early on Mike and Co decided to go with the banter when there was a section with nothing else available.

Yes, good call. The MST3K crew could edit the source movies for maximum riff fuel. That is definitely a luxury that the Rifftrax crew does not enjoy. That said, some of the movies that the MST3K were subjected to could not be saved by any amount of editing... and in those cases, dead air was part of the equation... As anybody who has watched most of the MST3K library will tell you, it is just accepted that some subject movies are quieter than others. I don't know if that's ever been the case with Rifftrax. I don't blame the guys for trying to fill the dead air... I just don't know if it's always worth the effort. Sometimes less is more. Especially when dealing with movies that aren't that terribly painful to deal with if the riffs went away.