One more "RiffTrax" ambiguity

[krpalmer]

I got very worked up when I heard that some of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 writers were recording a mocking audio commentary for The Phantom Menace, and in the process stopped paying quite as much attention to news about the "RiffTrax..." but, in checking out an MST3K community, I did notice a recent post in which someone asked what "RiffTrax" people didn't care for. A few people complained that the TPM track was "too mean" to be funny, no matter that they wanted TPM to get a drubbing anyway... and for some peculiar reason, that interested me, and perhaps even lifted my spirits by some tiny degree. Of course, I've long believed that a good part of MST3K's humour is that it isn't a savage, unrestrained assault on the movies it presents.

Comments

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

The point of MST3K is to have fun with cheesy, silly movies not tear them a new one. I think that these guys decided to go with what they thought was conventional opinion about the movie; it's telling when one of the commenters you linked to says that it sounds like it was written in 1999.

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

I did wonder a little bit about the "riffing like it's 1999 (http://community.livejournal.com/mst3k/1875542.html?thread=17125462#t17125462)" comment; if anything, I have the unpleasant suspicion that the "conventional wisdom," at least so far as it tears up through other discussions, hasn't changed much since... although I did see a MSTing in the latter part of 1999 which was riffing on script excerpts from various summer movies, in the fashion of two MST3K specials. The TPM segment, which the riffer put right at the end, was one of the more unpleasant and unfunny MSTings I've seen...

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

I think he meant it in the sense that beating up on Jar Jar is passé.

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

Now that I think about it, it would tend to date somebody using it in general circles.