In my humble opinion, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988) should be part of every film school’s Cinema 101 curriculum.

Think about it. The show—an American series originated by comedian Joel Hodgson that places a human and his “robot friends” (including the bronze-colored, bird-like Crow and the orb-headed, wiggly armed Tom Servo) in a spaceship within which the team comments uproariously on the horribly made flicks they’re forced to watch—tells us everything we need to know about what makes a quality motion picture … by lampooning bad ones. They jump on idiotic names given to main characters. They spoof ridiculous scenes through sketches and verbal asides. They summon up references to famous yet irrelevant individuals when they see a performer onscreen who looks like someone else.

All of these facets of the cinema-viewing experience, of course, are things that we may do as well while watching motion pictures. So MST3K is, in effect, congratulating us. By echoing our own feelings about the goings-on in films, they bolster our appreciation of art through well-deserved flattery. “See, we saw that this person resembles Katherine Hepburn, too,” they might think after watching an actress dressed in The African Queen (1951)-style garb shoot a stuntperson in some poorly conceived fight sequence. That’s why they impersonate her as she’s dispatching her enemies onscreen. And you know what? We might have been thinking the same thing. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to see Kate battle it out while remarking on the calla lilies?

Robot Monster (1953)

Yeah. It sure would be. That’s why the MST3K gang does it. It’s both ridiculous and funny. But it’s also quite clear when encapsulated in the impression. It may be what we were thinking, yet it’s not what we were doing. So the robots and their human pals do it for us. In that way, they’re nodding in our direction. “We’re just like you,” they appear to be saying. “We think this reminds us of something else, and it’s just as ludicrous—and hilarious—as you thought. The fact that you noticed it is impressive. You know all about what makes a movie bad.”

Along with what makes one good. Because by pointing to the terrible aspects of the crummy flicks they watch, the human-bot trio is also identifying the traits that help create outstanding cinema. If a character unintentionally looks like Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen, it’s a distraction … and great pictures minimize such issues. Awful ones, however, call attention to them because they transfer audiences’ focus from the story to the components. We become more aware of celluloid problems when a movie is lousy. For that very reason, MST3K should be taught in film schools around the world. It can be used to show budding directors, actors, screenwriters and others how to craft excellence by showing them how not to do so. As such, it’s the perfect complement to any class relating to film theory.

I’d like to mention some of the elements that the show often highlights in an effort to break down what makes a film good or bad. This certainly is not a comprehensive list, but it’s one that frequently comes to mind while I watch MST3K episodes owing to the patterns of incompetence behind the poverty-row pictures featured. Here goes:

Acting

One of the most common faults with poorly constructed films is the quality of the acting, which is invariably dreadful. Consider the wooden performances by James Best and Co. in MST3K target The Killer Shrews (1959), an agonizingly dull picture that purports to be a horror movie yet has some of the most unconvincing thespians ever. One of the consequences: The film just isn’t credible. Now compare that to, say, Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949), in which Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, et al., offer nuanced turns that add texture and dimension to the movie. These actors work off of each other, sometimes talk over each other, but always do so in a believable manner. You can’t just make a movie with some guy you met on the street and have a guaranteed masterpiece. The people starring in the flick must be ideal for their roles. If they don’t sound right, a pic can lose its luster. Competent acting, then—along with on-point casting—is essential for any production.

Directing

No film is worthwhile if it’s not well-directed, and the offerings that MST3K has verbally bludgeoned showcase this problem admirably. Performers’ results must be fitted perfectly into the scenarios they appear in, whether it’s where they’re standing or how they deliver certain lines. Who told George Barrows in Robot Monster (1953) to wander around aimlessly from his cave to whatever silly rocky area was nearby without furthering the action? Yet Ted Kotcheff had the right idea in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) to ensure that Richard Dreyfuss’s indecisive meandering back and forth toward the end of that film pointed to his lack of direction … as well as his undetermined future. Without that, a full, satisfying movie we would not have. As directors often have a big say in casting, it can safely be noted that their skills in this and other disciplines play a major role in the voices, structures, insinuations and appearances of motion pictures.

Cinematography

How many times have we watched a cruddy movie on MST3K that features absolutely abhorrent cinematography—where images are blurry or too dark or don’t make sense in the context of the film? Witness, for example, one of the worst flicks ever shown on the series: Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), which featured some of the most washed-out, drearily filmed shots in cinema history … including those all-too-“frightening” sequences in the evening where viewers can barely make out where the hell the family dog disappeared to. Contrast that with the scene in Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985) that showcases the anguished Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu) observing his dazed father, the elder Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) walk away from the castle his progeny just destroyed. Jiro, in the foreground, eyes the once-powerful lord shuffling away past dead bodies and into the emptiness of the countryside. It’s a stunning work of art in itself and provides insightful context in merely a picture on celluloid. Meanwhile, Manos can’t even tell you why those endless shots out of the car window are worth including. You’ve gotta have a good cameraperson to frame the action. Composition matters. And bad movies, which often feature actors speaking with their backs to the audience, have a woeful lack of competence in that regard.

Music

You know you’re in with a group of smart alecks when one of them, upon hearing a horrid, clickety-clack bit of incidental music while watching The Hellcats (1968), references American composer Charles Ives—who was known in part for channeling in his music the conflicting sounds of marching bands walking in different directions. Certainly, the MST3K gang knows what quality tunes are (how many times have they cited Igor Stravinsky during their riffs?) , yet this posse also understands that if the melodies in a motion picture stink, sound derivative or recall other sounds that were not supposed to be summoned up, the effect can be a deal-breaker when it comes to cinematic quality. Every time Tom Servo sings a popular song in relation to the action happening onscreen, he points to the challenge of avoiding the incorporation of irrelevant connotations into the themes hitting audiences’ ears. On the other hand, a film such as Sergei Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky (1938) connects Sergei Prokofiev’s superlative score, with its rousing anthems and disturbing chants, to the action so seamlessly that they act off of each other to move the proceedings along. If only all filmmakers would adopt such practices; we wouldn’t have “the haunting Torgo theme” from Manos if that were the case.

Editing

Ever notice that so many of the crappy pieces o’ crap shown on MST3K feature long takes of absolutely nothing happening? Or maybe endless dance sequences or other musical interludes—see The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964)—that aim to showcase some hot numbers but ultimately result in dispensing some of the most boring scenes ever to appear on the silver screen? Someone obviously was asleep at the wheel during those bits of imbecility, with the impression given that seemingly nothing ended up on the cutting-room floor. But great films generally have a lot that’s chopped up, moved or removed, and those functions often go to the editors. Picture that scene in François Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses (1968) in which Antoine Doinel, as a hotel manager, takes an angry man up to a room where they discover the fellow’s wife in bed with another dude. Snappy cuts call to mind a whiz-bang scenario in which flowers are thrown, words are exchanged, and Doinel attempts to be discreet while trying not to look at the nude, affair-guilty spouse. These edits suggest his frame of mind, which is manic, confused, surprised. Maybe that can be compared as well to the portion of Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967) where Mrs. Robinson’s naked body appears in super-quick glimpses to Benjamin Braddock, who’s both embarrassed and turned on by what he sees. Incompetent editing can ruin the pace of a picture. Competent editing, on the other hand, can transform it into something fabulous.

Dialogue

Not to dismiss the importance of screenwriting, which always seems to be a bugbear when it comes to bad movies. Take MST3K fave The Beatniks (1960), which—in its attempt to be with-it during an era when the youth of the world was challenging their elders both politically and socially—demolishes any possibility of the film being coherent with tedious, unintentionally humorous dialogue that goes on and on without any point. It doesn’t drive the action and looks behind the times, too, in its effort to hop on the counterculture bandwagon. (How about a little 1950s-style slang, Scarecrow?) Meanwhile, John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (1962) sparkles with an obscure yet illuminating script that manages to make a thoroughly absurd idea (hypnotizing an American soldier into becoming a cold-blooded killer) perfectly credible. That scene in which Frank Sinatra discusses everything from ethnicities to football towns with Janet Leigh is an example of turning bizarre sentences into meaningful, subtext-laden realism, as is anything in Michael Anderson’s The Quiller Memorandum (1966), whose Harold Pinter-developed script brims with intrigue and pertinent questions. Bet The Beatniks could’ve use some of that magic, though it would have taken a great deal more improving to make that into a superlative movie.

Economy

Great films simmer in our brains after they’re over. Mediocre ones, on the other hand, make a hasty exit. In a sense, that’s often what we do when watching the latter flicks, owing in part to the time they take to make their points. Why in God’s name is there so much technobabble in The Phantom Planet (1961) that we don’t need to hear? I mean, every other line in this space saga seems to be about some kind of level being reached or some type of apparatus attaining a strength of 2.1759 or something. Totally unnecessary. We’ve seen how technobabble can be kept to a minimum in, say, Leonard Nimoy’s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), when chief engineer Scotty creates “transparent aluminum” for a company in an effort to build a sizable container for the whales the crew needs to transport through time. I know, right? That sounds just plain silly as an idea. Yet it’s believable in the context of the movie because not too much time is spent on the details of what this substance is made of. We see Scotty typing away at a computer, with images suggesting molecular components coming up, and then … that’s that. We don’t need to be told by Scotty how he did it. It’s credible in its cinematic framework because the film has established scenarios we believe. I wish The Phantom Planet could’ve done the same thing. Too bad.

Sound

Um … what did that character just say? Yep—bad films almost always are incoherent, though in more ways than just those relegated to the quality (or lack thereof) of the dialogue. When Marlon Brando mumbles in Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), we pay attention. When Ed Wood’s actors do so, however, in The Sinister Urge (1960), we start to nod off, despite the salacious subject matter (which concerns pornographers, the mob and other nonsensically added components). If you can’t hear what folks are talking about in a film because the flick ain’t audible, the picture can be unwatchable. On the other hand, sound can be manipulated so creatively as to enhance the enjoyment or other sensations incited by a sequence … such as the werewolf-transformation scenes in John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London (1981), which features frightening cracks, creaks and crunches as the protagonist’s bones and body turn into those of the namesake monster. We can’t forget this aspect of filmmaking—it’s one of the most critical facets. Not that everything has to be as creepy as An American Werewolf in London. It does, on the other hand, have to be interesting to listen to, whether it’s loud or soft or even muffled. It can’t be taken for granted.

Continuity

Few who’ve seen MST3K’s comedic assault on Space Mutiny (1988) can forget the fact that one of the “principal” characters is killed off early on … then bizarrely reappears in a subsequent scene. Why. Wasn’t. This. Caught? Oh, well—it makes for a good episode. The thing is, though, a great movie can make continuity mistakes and remain credible owing to the precedent it has set. For example, it ain’t a big deal when the head of the unconscious Luke Skywalker in George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) magically seems to change its placement on the ground from one shot to another after the character is attacked by a Tusken Raider. The flick is so involving that this tiny mistake may be overlooked. Even tighter pictures allow for fewer mistakes and ensure that elements stay stable from start to finish—like Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), which has Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes walk around with a bandage on his nose for about three-quarters of the film after he’s sliced by a hired goon (played by the director). That bandage remains a consistent fixture in the movie but is never a distraction. It’s part of the plot, of his character. And it works. Space Mutiny doesn’t.

Costume Design

What in the name of all that is taffeta was going through the mind of the designer responsible for dressing Adolfo Celi in that abysmally luminescent golden gown in Operation Kid Brother (1967), which Joel and the robots so appropriately spoof in one of their most hilarious sketches? This is why costumes are so freakin’ critical. Audiences can’t be gagging/laughing/crying at someone’s attire while trying to pay attention to the proceedings that are supposed to be the focus of a movie. If it’s a smartly constructed film, such as Ashutosh Gowariker’s glorious historical epic Jodhaa Akbar (2008), the clothes should make a significant impact on the picture itself without drawing eyes away from the action itself. In Jodhaa Akbar’s case, the intricately beaded and jeweled Indian vestments are something to see, but they don’t take away from the dialogue onscreen. Instead, they supplement the developments in the plot, which in part concerns the (somewhat fictionalized) attempts of Mughal emperor Akbar to win the love of his Rajput wife. Operation Kid Brother just leads us to wonder why such pointlessly gaudy apparel was created in the first place. Jodhaa Akbar’s rationale was to provide an in-depth look at royal and other costumes of Mughal India in the 16^th century. Maybe Operation Kid Brother was trying to be so elaborate in its vestment design so as to emulate the garb of the 1960s James Bond films. Remember, though, that oftentimes, such garb—especially in classics such as Terence Young’s Dr. No (1962) or Guy Hamilton’s Goldfinger (1964)—is rather slickly fashioned, with little out of place and much less ostentatious. There’s always a reason in great cinema for the costumes to be what they are.

Fight Scenes

I wish every battle scene could be like the one in Alexander Nevsky. Or Ran. Or Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight (1965). All of these battles had perspective—in Nevsky, it’s all about exhorting people to war against tyranny, while in Ran and Chimes at Midnight supply a more disturbing point of view that comments on the futility and violence of fighting. All of these sequences also have a variety of composition: Masses of soldiers are interspersed with one-on-one combat in an effort to humanize the conflict, to get us interested. Even the fisticuffs in Michael Crichton’s Westworld (1973) feature a plan of attack (ah, the “fun” of beating up the denizens of a fictional wild-west town as part of the amenities at a futuristic theme park), as well as an arc of activity. Not so in Operation Kid Brother, where the pugilists have no reason to be, uh … pugillating—and no one cares about what transpires after the mayhem is over. Or take the “railing kills” in Space Mutiny. They’re so frequent that any thrills at seeing made-up evildoers get blasted to pieces are deflated. So why does the repetition work so well in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969)? Or Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954)? Well, for one thing, we care about the characters. We also believe what’s taking place onscreen—regardless of whether it involves someone getting shot or someone getting sliced. That’s in part due to the presence of perspective and variety … something the MST3K “actioners” don’t provide. Hence their suitability for lampooning galore.

Chase Scenes

Again: perspective and variety make all the difference in a quality chase scene—which isn’t at all present in Space Mutiny (where the purported “cars” used to whip around corners and dash down spaceship aisles look like they’re made of cardboard, despite their ability to “reach speeds of three”) or Warrior of the Lost World (1983), whose motorbike-mad protagonist interacts entirely without conviction with his onboard, Knight Rider (1982-1986)-esque talking computer while cruisin’ down the highway to escape the incredibly ineffective villains out to get him. Nope … those flicks sure ain’t William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971), where Gene Hackman’s “Popeye” Doyle rampages under the El train in an effort to stop a murderous goon who tried to kill him. They’re not Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva (1981), either, whose chase scene stylishly and energetically showcases a ride down the steps and through the Paris Metro. What are they, then? Total, unadulterated crap without nuance or creativity. Such is the fodder for MST3K’s wonderful insults. And we have the Mystery Science Theater 3000 team to thank for teaching us why these facets are so funny when done wrong … and so beautiful when done right.