The Mystery Science Theater Live tour is underway, and stopped off at the Pioneer Center in Reno recently. It presented a movie that was made out of leftover bits from every Spielberg movie, while the newest Mad tried to show she was supreme.
Someone was supreme: the new "victim", Emily Marsh. She is more than a match for MegaSynthia's schemes and is probably more of a heir apparent to the experiment than Jonah. She clearly knows the show and how to riff even the cheesiest movies. As we told her in this post, she is the Kate Bishop of MST.
Was she pleased? VERY!
I will say one thing: fans should know not all stops in the live tour are the same. They're saving the "meet and greets" for the bigger cities, and not everyone who gets the premium seats get even a lanyard. This was the case in Reno, but I was glad to find out they had the face mask set. A bit pricey, but it's one of the models I will keep once the $@#!! Covid thing is over.
Besides, I still got a great view of the whole thing. Thing is, I was the only guy with a jumpsuit.
So, what's the live tour theme?
Well, since MegaSynthia is still relatively new in the MST-verse, she thinks weird hair and scary behavior would be enough. She even showed pictures of the other Mads, and made sure they weren't flattering at all. After all, this is HER show.
Then Emily Connor (her name on the show) and the bots arrived, and let's say her version of the theme reveals she became the test case a bit too willingly.
Then the caper: Meg "traps" everyone in a Time Bubble so we go 33 years in the past and be forced to see every episode starting with The Crawling Eye...which aired in 1989.
First off, true fans can do that themselves by any means necessary. Also, some of the past experiments have been shown elsewhere (but certainly not Monster-a-Go-Go).
She's new. She'll do better in her third live tour. Maybe better hair. She should be more well-known once she gets her turn in the Gizmoplex next Spring.
They took on an early Roland Emmerich movie, Making Contact. When you get mad at Moonfall next year, blame this movie. It's about a kid named Joey who just lost his dad. However, thanks to a toy phone, he can talk to dad...or does he?
Then he acquires strange powers, like moving stuff with his mind and having toys do his bidding or something. Then, an evil dummy causes even more chaos.
Mix in some annoying kids, a cute girl with pigtails, and a bunch of scientists who have enough gizmos to set up an "avant-garde production of Jesus Christ Superstar", and you have a disaster.
Well, at least it didn't stop him from making Godzilla look stupid by mixing him with Sleepless in Seattle.
Emily and the bots approach the movie by looking at the surprising amount of licensed items, and commenting a lot on the evil dummy. There's also the fact the plot was Spielberg's Greatest Hits, only knockoffs of the best parts. At one point, she compares the dummy to Paul Williams.
Even GPC2 got into the fun, just like Jonah's version does sometimes. They also had two great musical spoofs in the riffing, including one that was perfect for the season.
The host segments were very good, as they talked about knockoffs of familiar toys (including one that might be a bit inappropriate) and compared the movie to a familiar brand of pasta mix. The best was Emily singing about how buying stuff makes one happy...like maybe at a nearby souvenir stand at the lobby.
One thing they especially noticed is that the movie had a lot of slats everywhere, from Joey's door to the decaying house where his "friends" were planning an attack on him. It seemed annoying, until one came in quite handy during the end of the show.
The fourth live tour holds up quite well compared to the previous three editions. The first one was just like the Netflix show, while the next two depended on the presence of Joel Hodgson to pull in the fans and pass the baton to the next generation. With Emily, the future is now, and Mega should fine-tune her evil eye to "intimidate" Emily. It's clear Emily Connor is more than prepared to riff away (and maybe because she's looking for an easy gig).
Unlike my Rifftrax reviews, I'm not listing any riffs because the tour will be going until February, as it prepares to move back east after the New Year. They'll be heading soon to Denver, Dallas, Kansas City, Atlanta and New York City. Check the schedule at mst3klive.com/events.
