Rifftrax Live: Starship Troopers
If you didn’t grow up watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, I’m sorry. It’s one of the greatest shows in the history of television. When it ended 1999 I thought I’d never hear the hilarious riffing of terrible movies by Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy ever again. Luckily, I was wrong. Very wrong. The trio are still at it to this day, and it’s called Rifftrax.
Abandoning the fictional settings and puppets of MST3k, Rifftrax is comprised of three guys (and sometimes special guests) who love to make movies funny. For a couple of bucks they supply the side-splitting commentary to sync up to an already owned movie. Synching up the film and commentary with the help of Disembaudio is easy, and then you’re on your way to the land of laughs. They’ve turned the Twilight series into one of my all-time favorite comedies, and taken Transformers from completely intolerable to something I don’t mind sitting through, as long as they’re cracking wise. Now it’s the seven year anniversary of Rifftrax. What better movie to rip apart than the “classic” 1997 film Starship Troopers?
Rifftrax Live Starship Troopers was funded by a very successful Kickstarter campaign. It was originally intended to raise enough money to do a live riffing of Twilight, but they couldn’t get the rights to the film. I’m actually glad they did this one instead since they’ve already torn Twilight to pieces. Their live riffing is broadcasted out to theaters nationwide as a part of Fathom Events. This isn’t the first live event Rifftrax has held, and I’ve done my best to attend every single one. Birdemic, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Reefer Madness, and Manos: The Hands of Fate have all received special treatment by the crew, but this one has risen to the top as one of my favorite events. I don’t want to spoil anything, but just know that I was laughing so much I couldn’t even finish my candy. And I love candy. I highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, comedy, or Starship Troopers. Unless you take a film that is mostly just bug blasting and Denise Richards’ vapid smile too seriously.
If you missed it, there will be an encore presentation on September 12, 2013. After that Rifftrax will hold their next live event on October 24, 2013, which will surely be a hilarious treatment of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.
Hopefully Rifftrax will last long into the future, because bad movies are being made every day. And they deserve a good riffing.
About the Author
Keith Hanson is a podcaster currently residing in New Jersey. He can be found weekly on Sidecast where he rambles on about video games, wrestling, movies, Muppets, and other very important topics. If you want to find him right now, he's probably posting something to his Twitter.
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