MST3K remake: a crazy dream, but a dream none the less

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I don't know what I'd be getting myself into, but I seriously would love to do a Mystery Science Theater 3000 remake. I am serious here, too. I may be just a amateur film maker, but I very much would want to do it.

 

 As far as I can tell, the fanbase from MST3K has never died out. There are still thousands of fans out there, who would crave to see the Not-To-Distant Future again. I am one of them, and I do crave it. This is a show that lasted ten seasons and made a total of 197 two-hour shows (without commercial signs, hour and a half) AND a full-length feature film! Not many television shows make it that far, including the popular ones. Whether you liked Joel or Mike better as the host, or if you preferred the Mads over Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy, you can't deny the show was something special. In 2007, it was included on Time Magazine's list of 100 Best Television Shows of All-Time. The show has even been referenced (albeit subtly) on the popular TV series, "The Office". (season 3 episode 23 "Beach Games", Michael jumps out of the bus onto the sand, turns around and shouts "WATCH OUT FOR SNAKES!!!", one of the show's biggest recurring gags inspired by the 1962 movie "Eegah" featured on MST3K season 5.)

I've seen the behind-the-scenes video they made in the Season 8ish period for the show, and I have a good understanding on how the show was made. It's all very simplistic, and any remake would have to be just as simplistic, just as cheesy to make it work. They themselves even said that they were using real film-student level techniques to achieve the theater segments (a Chroma effect, which I have done some experimenting with in the past). I also understand the hardships they went through righting the scripts for the theater segments, making sure that they synced up with the film and were delivered at just the right moment. The puppets were made with regular house-hold items, and puppeteered using PVC pipes and fishing wire. I do admit, I'm baffled as to how they made Crow's eyes move, but I understand the mechanics behind the mouth and head.

One disadvantage (or possibly an advantage for a remake to put a fresh spin on them) is that some of the house-hold items used to create the 'Bots aren't in production anymore. Servo's head was obviously made out of a candy dispenser that is still in production (as far as I know) and Crow's head of a bowling pin, soap dish, hockey mask (also heard it said that its a lacrosse net, but I'm not sure), and some ping-pong balls. I'm also told that most Crow's pieces that make up his body aren't in production anymore, so it might just be easier (and cheaper) to style your own Crow body for a remake. Gypsy is another matter. I'm not entirely sure what she is made of, but I think it might be a length of pipe, a large flashlight, and an upside down child's car seat. I would also guess that Gypsy would be top-heavy, so I assume there must be some kind of counter-weight down below. Cambot is really no biggie, really. His appearance changed every new theme song video from the KTMA era episodes, to official season 1, to season 2, then again in season 5. Plus, he was never on-screen very much if at all. It would be easy to make a new cambot puppet.

^ this video give excellent examples of how the PVC pipes were used to control the heads.

http://www.mst3kguy.com/Bots/BotsTop.htm - this website list pieces used to make replica 'Bots.

There are still plenty of bad movies out there. They make more of them every year, and in some cases, Hollywood hasn't gotten any better! Some films are just asking for the MST3K treatment. And another reason I think doing a remake of MST3K would be fun and cool is that it's a new generation. While most of the jokes on the original show are still hilarious to this day, some jokes go over the younger viewer's heads. My father and brother have had to explain some of them to me in the past, and I typically understand most of the riffs. Updating the commentary on some new film would be a great way of bringing this beloved television show back to life.

As always, budget is a key factor. I'd figure it would be best to pay homage to how cheesily done the original sets and such were. That was part of what made the host segments funny. Sure, update them a little, but not that much. The biggest coup would be to get the rights to the show, and to a movie to make fun of. That wouldn't be cheap at all, even if the movie is a piece of crap. At first I thought, would a kickstarter get anywhere near close enough to make a decent attempt? Then I read that when the original 16mm film workprint of the infamous "Manos: The Hands of Fate" (a legend amongst MST3K fans everywhere) was discovered and a guy raised 48,000 dollars on kickstarter to remaster it. If he could get that amount of support from fans of MST3K (and let's face it, how many of them were fans of the movie on its own?), then how much could be raised for the actual show itself?

Again, this is just my wishful thinking that I could remake the show. I know it will probably never ever happen, but you've got to have ambition if you're gonna make it in the film business, right? Never give up on your dreams. Maybe some day, I will be able to fulfill this hopeless fantasy... but for now, it remains just that: A fantasy.

My Reviews: Sherlock - Season 2

I previously wrote a review of Sherlock season 1, and I loved it. Now I'm moving onto season 2.

I first watched it online off the BCC (or PBS, I forget where it was) website, where it was available for a short period of time. The quality wasn't great, but hey it was free. More recently, I acquired it on DVD from my library, so I could watch it again and pay more attention. As was the case in season 1, I enjoyed the season greatly. That being said, I probably enjoyed the first one better.

I still won't go into details on the plots, it's still mystery-oriented (obviously) and I still believe you shouldn't know too much about mystery plots going into the show. I'm told that the three episodes they did for this season were adaptations of three of the most popular Sherlock Holmes stories. I've never actually read them, though. They definitely went down the darker route, and made Sherlock almost an unlikeable character at times. They also delved deeper into the characters, fleshing out the relationships of Sherlock and Mycroft. At times, though, I felt Watson's character development was put on hold.

The first episode of the season went way over my head the first time I watched it. It might have been just because I was watching it in my living room while my dad and brother were watching sports on the TV... but the story WAS complicated. BUT.... the last episode was just. Pure. AMAZING. The ending had me glued to the screen, and that's actually hard to do for me! I'm struggling not to give away any spoilers in this review, but just trust me: It's done very well, and I hate having to wait for the next season!

It is a sad day...

Yesterday, I drew a picture of Dwight Schrute from The Office. Today, I scanned it, colored it on the computer and uploaded it to my comic blog, www.samscomicrelief.blogspot.com. A few hours later, I pulled up twitter on my ipod and I saw Rain Wilson (Dwight) tweeted that NBC just announced that they were going to end the show with the season they are currently filming.

I am saddened by this news. While I wasn't real big on seasons 6 or 7, and I haven't even seen season 8 yet, I do love the show. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with my friend Sarah about which seasons were the best. I had said seasons 3-5, but she said seasons 2-3. We at least agreed on season 3. lol.

I started watching the show back last December. I didn't really care for season 1 that much, but when I got Season 2 out, I loved it. Seasons 3 through 5 (like I said above) were my favorites, but seasons 6-7 weren't as good. At first I HATED Michael Scott. He was just too much of an idiot for me. However, when season 7 rolled around and Steve Carrel was leaving the show, I LOVED Michael Scott and I couldn't believe it. I've only seen three or four episodes without him, and (without having seen the 8th season) I couldn't and can't see the show the same way without him. I have doubts about season 8 and 9, and I knew the show couldn't last that much longer.

But still... the show was amazing while it lasted.

Trivia for Chronicles of the Chronicler: The Lost World

PLEASE NOTE: This is modeled after the IMDB trivia pages and written as if I didn't write it.

The title was originally “Inika”, but was changed to “The Lost World” after the first storyline was dropped and production had halted so Sam Shenberger could devote his full attention to “Sam’s Comics: The Movie”. It was later renamed “Time Paradox” for a few months, but after “Comics” wrapped and production for this film restarted, the project began again from scratch, this time once again under the title “The Lost World”.

Unlike COTC1, there was intended to be another installment after COTC2 ended, but the intended sequel story was drastically different. Takua ended COTC2 with the line “I feel there will be a new batch of Toa coming along sometime soon”, which tied into the “Toa Inika” idea that involved Jaller, Hahli, Hewkii, Kongu, Nuparu, and Matoro becoming the Toa Inika and journeying to a distant island overrun by the evil Piraka (based on the 2006 Bionicle storyline). This idea ended up being dropped for budget reasons and the project was completely rewritten to have the Toa Nuva instead.

This film has several unintentional connections to the MCC Film Club’s first project, Cerea. Both films feature Carl Mohr, Shannon Asprooth, Frank Padour, and Lauren Murphy, with Sam Shenberger serving as casting director and occasionally secondary cameraman. Both films also feature two music tracks by Kevin MacLeod: “Private Reflection” (used in COTC3 during the Ruins of Ta-Koro scene and in Cerea plays over the prologue) and “Movement Proposition” (in COTC3 when Pohatu and Onua are fighting, in Cerea during the flashback at the beginning).

Altair was named after the very first PC computer. Before this name was picked, other names like Aorcost, Takaru, Peft, Homete, and Teoku were considered. Although cut from the final film, Altair also mentioned having a brother named Atari, after an old-school video game platform.

The characters Kongu and Ahkmou are never seen on screen together. That was because the model for Kongu and the model for Ahkmou shared the same lower body piece and could not therefore be shown on screen at the same time.

Production for this film began on February 11^th, 2011. It continued until March 7^th 2011, when “Sam’s Comics: The Movie” was greenlit by the MCC Film Club. As a result, production for COTC3 was pushed back to September 2011. Later, “Comics” ran over schedule and production was pushed back again to December 2011. It never resumed fully until April 2012, more than an entire year later.

Lewa is the tallest of the six Toa. Onua is the shortest.

As was the case in COTC 1 and COTC 2, Bailey Freemire was originally attached to this project as the voice of Hahli. She was dropped from the film in favor of having her star in “Sam’s Comics: The Movie”.

Originally meant to be released as a feature film. Later, when the final length fell under the required 60 minutes for a feature, it was released episodically like the first two.

Only three of the Toa actually use their elemental powers: Tahu, Gali, and Kopaka. There was scripted a scene where Lewa was to use his, but it was too complicated to film so it was cut.

Unlike The Fallen Order and Masks of Power, both of which featured music from the original Bionicle movies by Nathan Furst, this film features music composed by Kevin MacLeod. When the Toa Inika storyline (and a little bit into the February 2011 production) was still being produced, music from the video game “Bionicle Heroes” by Ian Livingstone was to be used.

Each of the three Chronicles of the Chronicler series parts pertains to one of the three virtues of the Toa. Fallen Order: Duty, Masks of Power: Destiny, and Lost World: Unity.

Sam Shenberger recorded voice-overs for both Hahli and Kopaka, but later recast the two roles with Shannon Asprooth and Carl Mohr.

Jaller says that Ahkmou is prisoner 9091. This is an inside joke to the Beatles song “One After 909”. This number combination had been previously used as a phone number in “Sam’s Comics: The Movie”. 9091 is also the number combination of Sam Shenberger’s professional YouTube channel.

Lewa is left-handed, even though in several pre-production stills and even the first teaser trailer he was shown to be right-handed.

Second major Chronicler’s Company Pictures film to have visual effects.

While Matoro’s voice in COTC2 was based on Tobey Flenderson’s voice in “The Office”, his voice in this movie was changed to resemble the voice of Joel Hodgson from “Mystery Science Theater 3000”. Counting the “Adventures of Takua and Jaller” shorts released prior to COTC, this is Matoro’s third voice.

While recording voice-overs, Carl Mohr couldn’t remember the names of the characters he was to be playing, so he gave them nicknames. Pohatu was "Potato", Lewa was "Lewis", and Kopaka was "Cold Pack".

The film has two deleted scenes, the first being a scene where Takua is threatened telepathically by Makuta and the second one showing Gali fighting a Rahkshi on the beach of Ga-Koro.

This is the first and only installment to feature voice talents other than Sam Shenberger. Carl Mohr plays the voices of Lewa, Pohatu, and Kopaka. Lauren Murphy plays the voice of Gali, Shannon Asprooth voices Hahli, and Frank Padour voices Tahu.

Sam Shenberger originally wanted his friend Ryan White for the part of Lewa. However, the script was not finished in time for him to do the voice over and was never offered the role.

In all three installments, Jaller and Takua have the last two lines (if you don’t count Hahli’s narration at the end of this one). The last lines in the first and third films are the same.

The only COTC film that does not open with a shot of the mask of Shadows.

Some voices were based on real actors/movie characters/celebrities. For example, Hewkii was loosely based on Roy Scheider, Matoro was based on Joel Hodgson, and Altair on Christopher Lloyd.

Several scenes were partially filmed during production in February – March 2011, including: The scene where Altair looks through the Telescope, The scene where Makuta first appears in the Kini-Nui, and Tahu and Jaller in Ta-Koro (Matoro was not there in the original shoot). All this footage was scrapped when production picked back up in December 2011. Only one scene that was shot in February 2011 was kept, as it was the only complete scene: The fight between Onua and Pohatu. A fragment of the original Makuta at Kini-Nui also appears briefly.

Many of the voices in this installment actually aren’t the same as the voices heard in the previous films. Takua’s, Jaller’s, and Nuparu’s voices are deeper, Hewkii now has a (inconsistent) New Yorker accent, and Matoro’s and Onua’s are completely different. It can also be noted that Pohatu is played by Carl Mohr in this film, whereas Hordika Pohatu was voiced by Sam Shenberger in the first. Similarly, Hahli is voiced by Shannon Asprooth in this film.

Every character in this film’s names end in a vowel except Jaller, Altair, and Orkham.

Although his name is never said aloud, the first Ta-Koro guard is Nuhrii.

Episodes 5 and 6 are the only episodes which feature the entire cast. Shannon Asprooth as Hahli does not speak in episode 2 and is absent from episode 4, and Frank Padour as Tahu is absent from episodes 1 and 3. Both Lauren Murphy as Gali and Carl Mohr as Lewa, Pohatu, and Kopaka are absent from episode 1.

All three films begin with the line “In a time before time”. In the first two, these words are followed by “in a world you’ve only imagined”, but the third is followed by simply “a world you’ve only imagined”.

>>>> SPOILER ALERT!<<<<

below this line are bits of trivia that give away major plot points.

Both Jaller and Matoro die in this film. In the actual Bionicle storylines, Jaller died in the 2003 storyline, and Matoro died in the 2007 storyline.

Jaller’s death scene was different than originally planned. His death was to be caused by a poisonous Kraata bite, but the Kraata eventually got cut from the climax, so Jaller had to be killed by a Rahkshi instead. Voice-overs for this original ending were recorded.

Sam Shenberger described Jaller's death scene as "the scene that kept growing. Every time I edited it, I felt it wasn't strong enough. Originally, I didn't want a long drawn-out Hollywood death scene. When it came right down to it, it ended up being far too short for this hero. Eventually, some models had to be reconstructed to film some more footage. After all that, I decided that the voice-overs weren't emotion enough, so I kept re-recording Jaller's lines and adding more panicked reactions from Takua."

The whole finale was entirely rewritten at the last-minute. It originally ended without the whole time-alterations. Sam Shenberger wanted to end it on a bittersweet note by killing Jaller and Matoro off, but in the end decided that the concept of the mask of time lent itself to major time-induced intrigue.

As in COTC 2, Hahli kills the secondary main villain. She beheaded Aft in “Masks of Power” and pushes Ahkmou to his death in “Lost World".

Question and Answers: Sam's Comics: The Movie

These are questions I have been asked about Sam's Comics: The Movie.

Q: How old are the characters in this film?

A: All the characters (with the exception of Molly) are depicted as being in high school. Sam, Jack, Ryan, Nick, and Bailey are all 18, Kenzie and Lindsay are 17, Rachael is 16, and Molly is 13.

Q: Is this story based on true events?

A: No. While the story has characters based on and named after real people, the story itself is fictional. A small few of the plot points may have inspired by real events in my life, but they are overly exaggerated and none of them would have actually happened the way they happen in the film. It can also be noted that a good portion of the plot was adapted from another fictional project I wrote called “Legend of the Black Arrow”.

Q: Was Sam flirting with Molly and Lindsay in the movie?

A: No. His talk with Molly on the hilltop was meant to show that Sam has developed a kind of Big-Brother-Little-Sister relationship with Bailey’s youngest sibling. In the original script, this would have played out further on screen, but it ended up being cut. 

 The scene with Lindsay has a bit of a different issue. This scene was meant to give Lindsay Allen more on-screen time, as her character originally held more significance to the plot. It can also be noted that the majority of Sam's friends in the movie (as well as in the original comics) are girls, so it can be implied that Sam gets along with girls more easily than boys. This can also explain why Jack claims that Sam has multiple girlfriends saying “Shoemaker slays all the ladies”. Throughout all the movie though, Sam has shown real interest in Bailey alone.

Q: Why does Jack hate Sam?

A: It’s never outright said, and Sam himself doesn’t really know why Jack is always being a jerk to him. The implied story is that Jack picks on Sam because he knows Sam will react to it. Sam later sees this in the film, saying he won’t fall for any “baiting” anymore. When Bailey and her necklace come into play and Jack decides to steal it, he realizes that Sam poses a threat to him, and tries to neutralize it by discrediting Sam. As the story progresses, Bailey becomes the bait that Jack uses on Sam.

A somewhat detailed back story was written for Jack, but in the end, the scene in which it was explained was never filmed.

Q: Is this movie based directly on the original Sam’s Comics?

A: Yes and no. The film is based on the comic series, but it is not a straight adaptation. The story for the movie is original and was never mentioned in the comics prior to the movie (which at the time the film was being made supposedly took place in between seasons 2 and 3). After the film as released and Season 4 came out, the movie was deemed "independent" of the comics.

Q: Are there any differences between the movie and the comics?

A: Quite a few differences are present.

1. Sam in the comics is a lot clumsier than shown in the movie. The movie also shows that Sam is more knowledgeable than he has been in the comics and is very emotionally touchy.
2. In the comics, Ryan is definitely Sam’s closest friend. The movie portrays Sam and Nick’s friendship as either equal to or greater than the friendship of Sam and Ryan.
3. Molly hardly ever says anything in the comics, usually just standing in the background. The movie gives her much more personality not seen in the comics.
4. At the time the movie was made, Nick was a relatively new character to the series and hadn’t had many comic appearances yet. The movie gave him his big break.
5. Rachel is not a regular character in the series, only appearing once in a great while. Also, her name in the film is spelled “Rachael” with an extra A.
6. In the earliest comics, there was a running joke that Sam had a crush on one of the girl characters, but it was intentionally never said who. The joke was dropped after about two years of comic making and it was never revealed who the girl was. The movie outright says it was Bailey.
7. Bailey does not attend the same school as Sam and Ryan in the movie. In the earliest comics, she did. Post movie comics have her going to a different school.
8. For the most part in the comics, Kenzie was actually more prominent of a character than Bailey.

Q: How did this movie impact comics that were made after the film?

A: The movie had little to no impact on the comics. The only two mentions of the movie are in season 4 when Gabri asked Sam if he and Bailey were still dating (to which Sam replies they decided to be just friends after the first date) and secondly when Ryan tells Carl to lay off in a flashback, referring to him as “Jack”. Other than that, the comics adopted the last names given in the film.  

Q: Carl Mohr and Shannon Asprooth inspired the comic characters Carl and Shannon, how come they didn’t play themselves in the movie?

A: Carl and Shannon were added to the comics after the movie.

Q: Will there ever be a sequel featuring the new comic characters (Shannon, Frank, Sarah, Gabri, etc)?

A: At this point, no. I do admit I would personally love to make another Sam’s Comics movie, but I don’t think I could ever get another one together like I did this one.