Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie

Branson Reese

It’s so funny that the MST3K movie is just an episode of the show with slightly higher production values where they watch a movie with slightly more expensive rights. I’m a Mike guy so I dug it.

Matt Singer3.5

As a teen, I was delighted when this movie came out — mostly because my local cable didn’t carry Comedy Central at the time, which meant I could only watch MST3K on vacations or when I visited relatives (which I did at length, which my loved ones were not always pleased about). Then I was frustrated because the movie was so short; far shorter than the original runtime of the film they’re riffing, or even of the weekly episodes on cable. According to the creators, it was not an easy movie to produce, with a lot of pushback from the studio. But I gotta say, the jokes hold up pretty well. And when comedy is involved, it is hard to argue with “I laughed.”

Adam Nayman

Realized halfway through this morning’s class screening that I had this thing memorized; re-reading Fujiwara and Rosenbaum’s screeds made me feel protective in spite of myself. Quite the artefact of an era that happened to intersect with my adolescence, and adolescence is the essence of MST3K’s appeal; it’s sadder, maybe, to grow out of it than to not. As a case study in about a half dozen industrial, intellectual and subcultural phenomenons, it’s essential, but the silence of the students was suggestive too.