Next RiffTrax - 3 Words: THE. PHANTOM. MENACE.
Author: Daniel Brooks
October 26th, 2006
That’s right. Be afraid, Jar Jar. Be very afraid. You’ve had this coming for awhile.
Next up for Mike Nelson’s RiffTrax is the Holy Grail of modern day bad movies: Star Wars - Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Joining him for the festivities is none other than fellow Mystery Science Theater 3000 alum, Kevin Murphy. This is going to be a great one.
Nelson is the former host and head writer of MST3K. RiffTrax is his new venture with Legend Films, where you pay a small fee to download an MP3 of his MST3K-style audio commentary, and synch it up with your DVD.
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8 Responses to “Next RiffTrax - 3 Words: THE. PHANTOM. MENACE.”
October 26th, 2006 at 9:13 am
I will go on record as saying Dan called this about two-three months ago. Nice work, dude.
October 26th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
PHANTOM MENEACE? Too easy. A NEW HOPE (or whatever we’re supposed to call it these days)- now THAT thing is WAY overdue for a thrashing.(Also in need of a serious asskicking: ANYTHING by Tim Burton).
October 26th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
C’mon dude, Star Wars is good. TPM has is coming. Though yeah, Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes is equally deserving.
October 26th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
I agree that it’s an easy target, but man, Phantom Menace is just ripe for the picking.
And I also agree that Burton is infuriating and often overrated (let’s be honest: “Batman” blows), but he can be a good filmmaker…well, Pee Wee 1 and Ed Wood I’ll give him, at least. He’s been off his game for a while, though.
Oh yeah, the classic SW trilogy is holy ground.
October 27th, 2006 at 2:36 am
Well, putting aside the reverance some of you have for STAR WARS… you can’t tell me they wouldn’t get a LOT of good material out of the original trilogy.(Admit it: we’ve ALL played at giving the Jawas dialogue…)
October 27th, 2006 at 6:17 am
It’s funny you bring it up, c.tower. Me and Andrew (and people over on the RiffTrax message board) were talking/arguing about whether or not they should use “good” movies for Rifftrax at all. It’s true, funny is funny, but why did they do a Rifftrax of “The Matrix” and “Halloween,” when there’s crap like “Jason Takes Manhattan” and “Battlefield Earth” that’s much more deserving?
Mike Nelson just said in an interview that he’d never do “Casablanca” or “It’s a Wonderful Life.” They’re his favorite movies. So I think he’s just doing what he thinks is crap — and if I remember, he doesn’t really like any of the Star Wars movies, so maybe they will do the OT, but I don’t think it’s deserving at all.
October 27th, 2006 at 9:53 am
Yeah, I don’t understand “Halloween.” I mean, “Matrix,” “Star Wars 1,” whatever, can get dopey, I guess. But “Halloween”…that’s a legitimately good movie by most standards — watching it with RiffTrax would just be irritating and distracting, I think.
For example, I’m not a fan of “X-Men,” but it’s not a bad or campy movie, and it didn’t work with RiffTrax because it didn’t give the writers a lot of material to work with. They ran into the same problem with the “MST3K Movie,” I think.
Anyway, the folks behind RT are pretty canny markting-wise and they’re trying to make money, so I think they’re just gravitating towards doing movies that folks just generally like to watch a lot.
October 27th, 2006 at 9:56 am
>>For example, I’m not a fan of “X-Men,” but it’s not a bad or campy movie, and it didn’t work with RiffTrax because it didn’t give the writers a lot of material to work with. They ran into the same problem with the “MST3K Movie,” I think.<<
I agree with everything except this. Most fans of the show name “MST3K The Movie” as one the best “episodes” of the show. I have to agree — though I’d never heard of “This Island Earth” before, and it seemed plenty goofy to my 16 year old brain at the time.