MetaFilter posts tagged with scifi and YouTube

Their names are WHAT and WHY and WHEN/and HOW and WHERE and WHO.

JHarris — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:37:40 -0800

Read all about it! Discover all the news! Read all about it! Track down all the clues!
With interesting people there's a mystery to be solved! An adventure is unfolding, so why not get involved? Come on and READ ALL ABOUT IT.
Young Chris is left an old coach house by his missing uncle. As he and his two friends fuddle with the lock, a strange figure watches. The kids do not yet know the building is the entrance to a mystery that spans time and space! Aided by Otto the IBM Selectric robot typewriter and Theta the spooky as hell talking viewscreen, they will find that the concerns of an alien tyrant reach into the government of their own town. (24 of 40 15-minute episodes, including the entire first season, of this early-80s TV Ontario-produced "educational" show are on YouTube.) Far from being mindless entertainment, Read All About It taught reading and critical thinking skills. But neither was it dry viewing; the story was weird and interesting, sometimes frightening, sci-fi in the tradition of Dr. Who. It was produced by TV Ontario public television and spread to various public TV outlets. It was written by Chris Endersby. I like to think of this show as a vaccine against stupid kids TV like Goosebumps. /notelitist My own memories of the show was that it was genuinely mysterious, filled with creepy atmosphere and unanswered questions. They do not make them like this any more. For various reasons, however, it looks like the show will never get released on DVD.

Captain Kirks Alien Mysteries

Artw — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:00:05 -0800

With all the crystal skulls, nazca lines and such at the box office these days now might be the ideal time to reacquaint yourself with the theories of Erich von Däniken. What better way to do it than by watching William Shatners Mysteries of the Gods ( Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5, Pt. 6, Pt. 7, Pt. 8, Pt. 9, Pt. 10)(MULTI LINK YOUTUBE SHATNERFEST)

La Planète sauvage

smoothvirus — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 11:31:43 -0800

La Planète sauvage - based on the novel Oms en Série by Stefan Wul, and known to the English speaking world as Fantastic Planet, is a wonderfully psychadelic animated Sci-Fi film from 1973. An international production between France and Czechoslovakia, the movie has a cult following, mostly from viewers who saw it on USA's Night Flight in the 1980's. Although it has languished in obscurity for some time, Hollywood has decided it's time for a live action remake. For those who haven't seen it, or for people who haven't seen it in twenty years, some kind soul has uploaded the entire film to Youtube. You'll never look at your pets the same way again.

To Boldly Redo What Some Man Had Done Before

fandango_matt — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:34:38 -0800

In 2003, Paramount proposed redoing the special effects for the original "Star Trek" series and rereleasing the episodes as "Star Trek Enhanced". Two CGI firms redid the effects for the teaser, the opening credits and title, and the first two acts of The Doomsday Machine as a proof-of-concept with no changes to the acting or the story. Paramount ultimately decided not to pursue the project, but it's interesting to see how two different CGI firms handled the transporter, phasers, and starship effects.