MST3K, You Have Much to Answer For

The BBQ Pit
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Last night I went to see the War of the Worlds movie at the planetarium. Yeah, you read that right. Our local planetarium is doing a series of classic science fiction movies shown on the dome, and last night was George Pal’s ‘War of the Worlds’.

This is a beloved film from my childhood. I caught this one all the time on the Sunday Morning scary movie matinee. I thought the Martian death machines were cool, the martians were cool, and I even found it scary in some parts. My wife had never seen it, didn’t even know the story, so we went so I could edumacate her.

I freely admit that the movie is dated and cheesy. The lead scientist is a hoot, as is the obligatory screaming woman. There’s some kind of dated and therefore funny stuff involving atomic weapons. So yeah, it’s kind of unintentionally humorous as points.

However, this is not a call for would-be Crows and Servos to start injecting their own humor into it. As we’re watching the movie, this guy behind us starts in with his “hilarious” jokes. Out loud. He’s fucking MSTing ‘War of the Worlds’. I kind of turn to give him a glare, but he’s oblivious. After about three more jokes, we ask him politely if he’d mind not doing it, at which point we’re declared as “no fun”.

Jesus Christ, people - and geeks especially - have you forgotten how to watch a goddamn movie? I can’t tell you how many times on MBs I’ve seen the same thing, “Oh, we saw that movie last night and it sucked, but we had a great time MSTing it! The peopel around us thought we were hilarious!!” No they didn’t. I guarantee someone around you thought you were a fucking unfunny, inconsiderate dickhead, especially if that someone was me. At what point do you decide, fuck, this movie is so bad, I’m gonna liven it up for these folks, since they clearly came for my rapier wit and not to watch a movie?

Here it is, folks, in a nutshell:

DO NOT FUCKING TALK OUT LOUD DURING THE MOVIE.

Is that clear and concise enough? I don’t care if you’re so funny circus clowns and wacky chimps come shooting out of your genitals. I don’t care if you fart zany calliope music. Shut your goddam cakehole and let people watch the frickin movie. They didn’t come to see you. If you think the movie is bad, then leave, but don’t decide to spice it up for other people.

For those still not up to speed, yeah, I could watch WotW on DVD, but this was a chance to see it on the big screen - a huge screen, in fact, which is cool because it’s a fucking WAR of the WORLDS and thus can benefit from a large screen. This was my wife’s first time seeing it and my first time seeing it on such a screen. And I got Jolly McWacky sitting behind me cracking stupid ass jokes out loud to make the experience better.

Make your wacky comments all you want when you’re at home with your stupid friends, I don’t care. But when other people have paid for the movie, put a fucking cork in it.

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MST3K doesn’t hurt people. People who badly imitate MST3K hurt people.

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This has been happening long before MST3K came along. It’s much worse now due to cell phones and pagers. Face it, manners are dead.

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One should only MST3K in the privacy of home with like-minded friends. Churls.

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I just wanna know what a “Sunday Morning Matinee” is. :wink:

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“This has been happening long before MST3K came along. It’s much worse now due to cell phones and pagers. Face it, manners are dead.”

—I don’t think manners were ever alive. I read about how, in silent-film days, people would constantly read the titles out loud to each other in loud, annoying voices. And I’m sure even in the “Golden Days of Cinema,” there were rude, smack-worthy people in the audience.

Which is why I bless the inventor of the VCR . . .

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Some kind of large aquating mammal I believe.

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aquatIC!!! Damn. I ruined my own joke.

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Ok, I admit it. I’ve MST3K’d a movie before. Only once, though, and all the comments were made on the sly to the person I was with.

But it was a Friday the 13th movie, (“Oh! Shut the door! He can’t get through a wooden door!”) and there were approximately 5 people in the theater, all of whom were doing the same thing. I think pbrtallboy was with me at the time. And it was a blast, but only because we were all doing it and cracking up.

People don’t know how to watch movies anymore. I went with a friend to go see “Changing Lanes” last week, and the dumbasses behind me had to keep informing each other of what was going on, because their phones kept ringing. So basically the whole movie went like this:

<dramatic scene>
Ass #1 gets off phone.
Ass #1: “Oh shit, what happened?”
Ass #2: “Well, blah blah blah…oh wait, my phone’s ringing.”
Ass #2 finally hangs up. “So, what happened just now?”

My friend finally turned around and just said, “shut. the. fuck. up.” very calmly, and for some reason that worked. By that time, though, we had heard most of the dialogue through their yakking.

I agree, though, that once you pay for a movie, you pay to see it, not hear a buncha dipshits make commentary on it. Especially a classic like “War of the Worlds”. It’s not “Rocky Horror Picture Show”, for cryin’ out loud.

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Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wants to be that funny.

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sigh amateurs! Leave the MST3K-ing to the PROS: http://www.mrsinus.com/about.html

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When I was a kid back in Astoria (Queens), NY, it was always a riot to go to a horror movie on a Saturday afternoon, at the old UA Astoria theater. That’s because, on a Saturday afternoon, a huge percentage of the audience was black kids from the projects. And those guys turned EVERY horror movie into MST3K, years before MST3K existed.

Never mind cheesey “man in a rubber suit” movies. Just imagine what these kids could do to a George Romero or Dario Argento gore-fest!

At the time, at least, audience participation made the whole show more fun. Today, of course, I cringe when people treat every movie as their own personal chance to play Tom Servo.

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Eve said

Actually, the whole concept of talking = rudeness in movies began with the advent of the talking picture; until then, it was quite common and acceptable for people to talk during the movies (although there was typically a class division associated with this). Most theaters had rinky dink pianos (not the large orchestras of the movie palaces) playing generic music, many working class immigrants were illiterate and needed the titles translated anyway, and the movies were often a place for the community to gather and interact.

However, now-a-days, it’s unforgivable. I wouldn’t blame MST3K, though, I would blame video. Video has gotten everybody accustomed to talking during movies–not just talking back at the movie, humorous or no, but talking all the conversations they have at home: how their day was, errands they’ve got to run, what else that actor has been in, etc. Video is more intimate so people become more casual about the experience of watching movies, and those bad habits are ones they carry to the cinema. That’s why I rarely watch videos with other people, either, because they will not shut up! Hey, I didn’t rent this for my health or because I wanted to throw my money away! People don’t get it.

When I managed a movie theater, I had the perfect MST3K outlet–we would receive the films Thursday night for a Friday opening and would have to build the prints up and preview screen them to make sure they were OK (this was after the theater closed to the public that evening). After a long day of work and an evening resigned to watching crap at 2am, who wouldn’t resort to a little talkback when you’ve got the entire house to yourself?

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I dunno, ArchiveGuy . . . I read an awful lot of books and hear an awful lot of songs complaining about “talkers” in movie theaters in the silent days. Even in silent movies themselves, they often make fun of obnxious audience members who disturb everyone else.

And of course there have ALWAYS been kids to make smoochy noises during the love scenes . . .

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Yo! Professional MST3K-er here! :slight_smile:

(The only movie I’ve ever MSTified “off duty” was the first Power Rangers movie, but since I kept my voice down to a whisper, I doubt it counts.)

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Lego, the real problem was that it wasn’t me doing it.:slight_smile:

Heck I remember the time in which we MST3K school films. During class.

70-75% of the films need some MST3K injection to make it enjoyable. another 20% are too boring to even try.

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On a minor hijack…

After 9/11 the Harkins Theaters company here in Phoenix decided to run some classic movies at their theaters to raise money for one of the charities. I think they ran one classic at each of their theaters.

My girlfriend and I went to see the Sunday afternoon screening of “Casablanca”, for my money the best movie ever made. I’d had the chance to see it on the big screen a few years ago, and as you’d expect it’s even better. The GF hadn’t seen it on a big screen, and it was something like $3.50 a ticket; so we were morally compelled to go.

So, it’s a packed house, and there’s one upper middle-aged guy behind us who bore an unholy resemblance to Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. The movie winds along in its brilliance, and after Rick shoots the Major and Louis tells the cops to round up the usual suspects, CBG behind yells at the screen, “Jesus. He has the smoking gun right there in his hand!”

I’ve never been more appalled at someone’s behavior in a theater. Sure, it was just because he did it during my favorite movie, but c’mon now…

I now return you to your regularly scheduled rant.

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Yeah, cause it’s clear from my OP that the issue was that the wrong person couldn’t keep his mouth shut during the movie.

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Infidel. Your hack critic seems to have been too stupid to even realize the plot point. You should have turned around and said something like “Of course Rick had the smokin’ gun and Louis knew it. That’s the WHOLE FREAKIN’ POINT! HE’S GOING TO COVER UP THE SHOOTING, DIPSHIT! What the HELL do you think the “Beautiful Friendship” line is all about!?”

Oh, I love that movie too.

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Mr. Blue Sky, manners aren’t dead. Miss Manners (Judith Martin herself) gave a lecture at MIT a few years ago, and started off by telling three stories about people who shot other people because they were rude - cut in front of them in a line, made fun of someone, whatever. Her point was that manners are quite important to all of us, even if it doesn’t always seem that way. Rude is rude is rude, and talking during a movie is rude.

Esprix