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Public Domain from Outer Space 236

Posted by Zonk from the better-than-frankenhooker dept.
Black_by_Pubic_Deman writes "It is a work of art that truly represents the nadir of film making; a movie so bad that it's good. It has been labelled 'The Worst Movie Ever' by the Golden Turkey Awards and is also the winner of two notable Razzies. Ed Wood's classic and every Slashdot reader's favorite movie Plan 9 from Outer Space is now in the Public Domain and available as a free download thanks to the fine folks over at Archive.org."
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Public Domain from Outer Space More

Public Domain from Outer Space

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  • Looks like they weren't ready. Any of the lucky few want to make a bittorrent?
  • If only the same were true about the operating system.

    • Re:Now... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Lemming Mark ( 849014 )
      The Plan 9 OS (which really was named after the film :-) is under an Open Source license. It's a weird one nobody else uses but it is certified Open, AFAIK.

      Not quite Public Domain but good enough for most purposes.
      • Being certified "open" by a bunch of guys doesn't mean it's usable. In this case it means a bunch of people with no real backbones, said that a huge pile of lawyerese was good instead of telling them to just use one of the existing licenses.

        The redistribution restriction alone makes just putting it up on the internet, the way most every open source project is, completely impossible.

        Nope, hardly the level of openness that makes it worth touching.

        • I had a scan through http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/license.html [bell-labs.com]

          What's the clause you object to? Doesn't it have to be redistributable to be classified as Open by OSI?

    • Re:Now... (Score:3, Funny)

      by adam1234 ( 696497 )
      It may not be public domain, but it certainly does qualify as the worst operating system ever. :)

      • According to what I've read, Plan 9 is a very good OS. It takes Unix's "everything is a file" philosophy to another level. Plan 9 has fixed all of the infrastructural issues with Unix, and uses its own windowing system instead of X. Unfortunately, not many people use Plan 9 as a production OS because of the lack of applications; sure there are text editors and a web browser available, but where are the multimedia and productivity applications? Plus, I don't think we'll ever see Plan 9 on the desktop; it

  • Maybe there's a Mistake (Score:5, Funny)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @07:40PM (#13078563)
    Plan 9 From Outer Space is better than half the movies available in the theatres now.

    • You want to see real crud, I recommend Night Train to Mundo Fine [imdb.com], also known as Red Zone Cuba. I could not make heads or tails of the movie, nor did I care. There's a reason it scores 1.7 out of 10 at IMDB...
    • I saw Fantastic Four yesterday. It was bad, but not nearly as bad as the Hulk. That's because it didn't take itself seriously.

      Now the Hulk, that was worse than Plan 9. That was worse than any movie I have ever seen.
      • I liked the Hulk. Thought it was great. And honestly, it's one of those bandwagon jumping things where "everyone says it's bad because everyone says it's bad" type of things.

        It was a great movie. Don't know why people had a problem with it and when asked they really can't give a good reason other than "it sucked" or "he looked green like Shrek". Um...in the comic he was green. Hello?

        Oh well, does anyone really care? I like it and you don't. Who cares.
        • Personally, I'm waiting for the torrent version to come out...
        • Dude, I liked the Hulk too. Actually, parts of it.

          some people discuss the notion of comic book movies taking themselves too seriously. It's because comic books take themselves seriously. that's the whole point. Comic books are smart and brooding, but with pictures. Some of the smartest fiction I've read came from comic books.

          There was something austere about the film. It was minimalist but very violent. And Nick Nolte was downright creepy in his quiet menace. He was the most terrifying thing in the movie
    • Plan 9 From Outer Space is better than half the movies available in the theatres now.

      It's better than any Michael Bay [imdb.com] movie.

      Then I was right. Job has all his children killed, and Michael Bay gets to keep making movies. There isn't a God.
      -- Kyle Broflovski

    • "Plan 9 From Outer Space is better than half the movies available in the theatres now."

      I don't see how that statment and the statement that it is a really crappy movie are contradictory in any way. :)

      By the way I just downloaded it a few days ago and watched it for the first time. Incredibly bad! A must-have for any serious collector.

  • Glen or Glenda (Score:5, Insightful)

    by portforward ( 313061 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @07:42PM (#13078572)
    It was on TV late at night about 15 years ago when I was still a teen. I was wondering what that was until I saw the movie with Depp.

    Still, I don't know if Plan 9 is truly the worst movie ever. I have to agree with the MST3K crew that there are several others even worse, like Manos.

    • I've never seen Plan 9, but I don't believe it could be worse than The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? [imdb.com]

      • I've seen both (ain't that something to be proud of!), and I'd have to go with Plan 9, just because it's got the added sadness of first seeing Bela Lugosi in a pathetic performance squeezing one last drop from his Dracula fame, and secondly seeing the stiff who impersonates Lugosi during the second half of the film since Bela died during the filming. The impersonation consists of stalking slowly around the set with a cape drawn across his face.

        And besides, "Incredibly Strange Creatures blah blah blah" at
    • I have to agree with the MST3K crew that there are several others even worse, like Manos.

      The Master would like to have a word with you ;)

      /Torgo

    • Re:Glen or Glenda (Score:4, Interesting)

      by stwrtpj ( 518864 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @10:17PM (#13079283) Journal
      I have to agree with the MST3K crew that there are several others even worse, like Manos.

      My wife and I are big fans of MST3K, and we kept hearing how Manos was a classic episode because of how bad the movie was. Well, we were disappointed at the MST3K's performance in this one. We think it was because the movie was TOO bad. There was not enough story in the movie for making jokes. The main problem was that incredibly long travelogue near the start of the movie. There were only so many jokes that could be made about watching someone drive down the road.

      Some better treatments by the MST3K crew:

      • The Thing That Couldn't Die
      • I Was A Teenage Werewolf
      • Prince Of Space
      • Invasion of the Neptune Men

      Maybe those movies were not as intrinsically bad as Manos, but the provided much more joke material.

    • The reason everyone cites this as "the worst movie ever made" is because movie critic (to be generous) Michael Medved has promoted it as such. He and his brother owned a print, and made a lot of money from it's undeserved reputation as such. Anyone who has seen "Manos: The Hands of Fate" knows that "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is "Citizn Kane" by comparison.

    • Re:Glen or Glenda (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nyri ( 132206 )
      I don't know if Plan 9 is truly the worst movie ever. I have to agree with the MST3K crew that there are several others even worse, like Manos.

      What I hear is that 'Manos' - The Hand of Faith [imdb.com] is scoring below its level because of MST3K. One reviewer in IMDb [imdb.com] claims that the MST3K version was hevily edited so the movie appears worse than it is. Is he right? I don't know, and will never find out as I have no intention to watch two different versions of a crappy movie.

      Anyway, the point remains: people should
  • is named in the honour of this film, to commemorate how truly bad it was in the opinion of the Bell Labs folks

  • ET Go Home (Score:3, Funny)

    by TommydCat ( 791543 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @07:44PM (#13078577) Homepage
    Perhaps we can place a copy onboard for the next shuttle launch and send that piece back where it came fome. *shudder*
  • Don't plan to.

    Anyways, it couldn't be any worse than Battlefield Earth, could it? Or am I about to have to give up my geek card?

    Now, if it is as bad as you say, there should be an MST3K of it somewhere. THAT I would like to see.

    • The thing is, that it is unintentionally hilarious, so bad that it's good according to some people.

      An MST3k of it would only be able to pick the obvious jokes.
    • Be careful. If you bash Battlefield Earth, Scientology might sue. They might even sick Tom Cruise on your ass!

    • Re:Never Seen it. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Vancouverite ( 227795 ) <brendt.hessNO@SPAMmotosport.com> on Friday July 15, 2005 @08:06PM (#13078685)
      Anyways, it couldn't be any worse than Battlefield Earth, could it?


      Oh dear.

      You have no idea.

      An MST3K of it? They couldn't do it. There was nothing they could do to it to make it (better|worse|funnier|stupider|more appalling). It would be like taking your absolute favorite meal *ever*, then adding caramel to it to "make it taste better".

      Remember - we are talking a movie where Bela Lugosi died, and was replaced by a chiropractor - younger, taller, and blond - as "the Ghoul Man", who played his part crouched down with a cape over his face, so people wouldn't notice.

      And the Octopus battle scene! This was conducted in a public park, at night (because they didn't have a stage, a budget, or a permit) with a *stolen* rubber octopus. Unfortunately, they forgot to take the motor(s) that made the octopus run, so "our hero" had to "battle" the octopus, in a shallow pool of water, under a car's headlights, and move the limbs of the octopus himself. It's really a classic scene.

      As is the scene where the giant zombie knocks over the obviously cardboard tombstone.

      As is the scene where they are "flying" in the "airplane" - the airplane never moves, but they bounce in their chairs to simulate flight.

      As is... well, just about all of the movie, in fact.

      And how can you beat this quote from the movie - "Future events such as these will affect us in the future" - absolutely classic!

      Nope. Sorry. Pass over that geek card, son, and walk away. Just walk away.

      And watch out for those future events.

      • And the Octopus battle scene! This was conducted in a public park, at night (because they didn't have a stage, a budget, or a permit) with a *stolen* rubber octopus. Unfortunately, they forgot to take the motor(s) that made the octopus run, so "our hero" had to "battle" the octopus, in a shallow pool of water, under a car's headlights, and move the limbs of the octopus himself. It's really a classic scene.

        Actually that scene was from "Bride of the Monster", which was on MST3K. And you forgot the best bi

    • Re:Never Seen it. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Wizzmer ( 862755 )
      Battlefield Earth is the worst movie ever.
    • No. Really. Its worse than bad. We are talking beachball aliens and collander/cheese grater space equipmnet. Directed by John Carpenter and Written by the author of R. Scott's "Alien"

      I think its even worse than boogie nights... which to this day I am furious I will never get those hours of my life back.

      But if you've seen it you will agree - Dark Star. Worst. Movie. Ever.

  • What a great idea! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Yumi Saotome ( 470249 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @07:49PM (#13078609) Journal
    After all, it's future events such as these that affect us in the future!

  • The worst movie in the world... (Score:4, Informative)

    by BlastM ( 663010 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @07:50PM (#13078612) Journal
    would have to be Gay Niggers From Outer Space [imdb.com].

    The GNAA put out a torrent [idge.net] of a VHS rip for those curious how bad a movie can be.

    It might have rock-bottom production values and a below-b-grade script, but thinking about it I don't it's any less enjoyable a movie to watch than Spiderman 2 or *other random hollywood movie*.

    It's worth watching just to know what everyone's on about.

  • "Karloff? Sidekick? FUCK YOU!" (Score:5, Funny)

    by wolfpaws ( 112843 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @07:50PM (#13078613)
    "Karloff did not deserve to smell my shit! That limey cocksucker can rot in Hell for all I care!"

    • Re:"Karloff? Sidekick? FUCK YOU!" (Score:5, Informative)

      by alan_dershowitz ( 586542 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @08:15PM (#13078727)
      THIS SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MODDED FLAMEBAIT. This is a quote from Tim Burton's movie "Ed Wood", a dramatic account of the life of the director of Plan 9 From Outer Space.

      The joke here is that Bela Lugosi (of Dracula fame, and whose last role was in Plan 9) was constantly being asked questions about Boris Karloff (Frankenstein, and a somewhat rival), and it drove the already irritable old man into a angry frenzy. In the movie, he goes from happy to sign an autograph for a fan to nearly knocking the guy's head off.

      It was hilarious.

  • Speaking of Ed Wood (Score:2, Informative)

    by e9th ( 652576 )
    If you haven't seen the move Ed Wood, get it now. Johnny Depp as EW, Martin Landau as Lugosi, Sarah Jessica Parker as Ed's poor girlfriend. It's wonderful.

    Oh, and there's a great scene where EW meets Orson Welles, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, except that Welles' voice is uncannily dubbed by Maurice la Marche (Kif & the Robot Devil in Futurama, The Brain in Pinky & The Brain, etc.)

  • Hilarious film, a classic. It's always nice to be reminded that as long as nobody wants something it might actually make it to the public domain some day.

    If you haven't seen it I definitely recommend "Ed Wood" by Tim Burton. Very funny, talks about this movie a bit.
  • The worst movie ever title belongs to 'Zombie vs Ninja' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094384/ [imdb.com]

  • Ouch! (Score:2)

    by sfled ( 231432 )

    If the person who posted the original article really liked archive.org, they wouldn't have posted the link...

  • Too Bad (Score:5, Funny)

    by alan_dershowitz ( 586542 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @08:08PM (#13078695)
    Too bad that it's actually not watchable. I mean, there's something cool about something so bad it's good, but this movie is so bad that it went straight through bad, PAST so bad it's good, and back into bad again, so bad it's undescribably unpleasant to watch it. I'm talking kicked in the testicles bad. but worse.

    The only movie I have ever seen that I disliked more was a tie between Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. If there was ever a case for copyright extension, keeping those piles of shit out of the public domain IS IT.

    I am NOT kidding. This movie is BAD.
    • You obviously have not seen Roger Corman's "Creature from the Haunted Sea". I was in tears from the mere awfulness of the movie. Not even funny, never wraps around to good cheesy, just awful the whole way through.
  • Like anyone could even know that, Napoleon!
  • So, here I was, happily downloading the last few live recordings of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, when this gets posted to slashdot. I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE MOVIE, I JUST WANT MY MUSIC BACK!

    Poor Archive.org. :( Well, I really hope you lot all really do want this film, and aren't just leeching it "because it's there".

  • Public domain? What's that? (Score:5, Informative)

    by uncoveror ( 570620 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @08:19PM (#13078740) Homepage
    I am surprised to learn that anything has gone into the public domain, as previously expired copyrights were reinstated by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extention Act of 1998 [techlawjournal.com]. One Example is Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. This was on everywhere in the holiday season until then, but since is exclusively on NBC. Capra chose not to renew the copyright on that film, so it was his wish that it be public domain. We have all been robbed.

    Here is an interesting tidbit. In its day, that film was considered communist propaganda for making a common man the hero and a banker the villian. Now, the entertainment industry would have us believe that the public domain is a communist plot, and that "intellectual property" (pure vapor) is worth more than tangible things. Well, it's not! [dontbuycds.org]

    In the near future people might literally ask, "Public domain? What's that?" and only historians will be able to explain the concept. It will be as extinct as the Dodo Bird.

    • More to the point, HOW did this film make it into the public domain. I thought copyrights were automatically lengthened. I thought that one of our hopes was for legislation to require intervention to keep copyrights active, so things would begin falling intot he public domain, again.

      Of course in Eldred vs Ashcroft, it was asserted (and not rebuked by the court) that Congress even has the ability to remove art from the public domain, and place it back under copyright. Combine this idea with the recent emine
    • No one wanted to keep it. I mean really, this *is* Plan 9 we are talking about here.

    • "It's a Wonderful Life" (Score:3, Insightful)

      by schon ( 31600 )
      Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. This was on everywhere in the holiday season until then, but since is exclusively on NBC. Capra chose not to renew the copyright on that film, so it was his wish that it be public domain.

      As I heard it, the film is still public domain, but the music in it was still under copyright; NBC bought the rights to the music, and is therefore able to control copyright of the film.

      Theoretically, anyone could play it if they replaced the music (or cut the scenes which contain co

    • Bono didn't get all old movies (Score:4, Informative)

      by freeweed ( 309734 ) on Saturday July 16, 2005 @12:20AM (#13079737)
      Bono didn't cover everything, not by a long shot.

      For instance, the original Night of the Living Dead (1968) has never been under copyright. Never, because back then, you had to put a copyright notice on your film or it was automatically in the public domain. NOTLD became a wild success, and sadly the original creators never saw much money from it.

      No copyright law, extension or otherwise, has since fixed this problem. George Romero talks about this on pretty much every DVD commentary he's done.

      It's maddening that something like NOTLD never made its creators any money, and yet Disney still rakes in billions from movies it made 70 years ago.

  • Well the site is down. Duh. How predictable was that? But did they post a torrent before they posted the story? NoooooOOO. This is slashdot. Even when they can legitimately post a torrent, something that isn't even hosted on their own servers for cryin' out loud, they don't consider it. They post the story knowing the server will be DoS'd. Oh. I'm soooo impressed at the "slashdot effect". Right. GET OVER YOURSELVES ALREADY. That was cute for about 5 minutes in the go-go 90s when everybody was oh

    • Dude, this isn't some guy's backroom server running a site about his k00l tr1kz, this is Archive.org, who, having taken upon themselves the job of hosting such a vast amount of information and media to thousands of people everyday, you would expect to be able to withstand a Slashdotting and not go down like a $2 hooker the way they have.

  • Just how did this enter the public domain? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sakusha ( 441986 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @08:41PM (#13078827)
    I see everyone claiming this movie is in the public domain, but I don't see any evidence that it really IS. Just how did this copyrighted work become no-longer copyrighted? AFAIK it's not old enough for the copyright to have expired.

    On another note, I don't think this movie truly qualifies as bad. Sure it's crap, but is it bad? I remember an interesting film essay that said for a movie to be truly bad, it had to have a grand concept that was so arrogant or so ham-handedly executed that it turned on itself and became bad. Sort of hard to explain the whole essay in a couple of sentences, but to give you an example of the movies considered truly bad, he used the examples of "Pay It Forward" and "Grand Canyon."

    Now to me, nothing surpasses the horror of what I consider the worst film ever made, by Robert Altman, starring Karen Black, Cher, Sandy Dennis, and Kathy Bates.. that horror is: "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." This film even fulfills that essayist's ideas, the concept is "high theatre" (it's a film of a 1-room 1 act broadway play) and it is so stridently, shriekingly feminist that it is like being trapped in a room for two hours with a bunch of suicidal women that just won't shut up.

    • Just how did this copyrighted work become no-longer copyrighted? AFAIK it's not old enough for the copyright to have expired.

      Copyright owners of works first published in the United States before 1964 had to pay a maintenance fee in the 28th year in order to reap the full 56^H^H75^H^H95 years of exclusivity, or they'd lose their U.S. copyright. (The fee was abolished in 1992.) Patents still have a similar maintenance fee, due in the fourth, eighth, and twelfth year after grant.

      but to give you an examp

    • What seems to happen here is that a person uploads a movie to Archive claiming that it's public domain and Archive does whatever research they do and decide whether to distribute it.

      Another post [slashdot.org] points out that the Copyright Office database says Plan 9 was registered in 1958 and renewed in 1986, so the reasonable assumption would be that it's still covered unless the owner places it in Public Domain.

      Archive's page for the movie [archive.org] says the uploader's site is at www.k-otic.com [k-otic.com], a site which is basically

  • Try their FTP (Score:2, Interesting)

    by krazikamikaze ( 888506 )
    I'm getting good speeds from their FTP [archive.org].

  • Ed Wood redefines "genius" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Allen Varney ( 449382 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:03PM (#13078931) Homepage

    Everyone talks about Ed Wood, Jr. being a totally incompetent filmmaker, but that is incorrect. Wood was selectively incompetent, which is far more interesting.

    Genuinely incompetent films are incomprehensible; they're so badly written, filmed, lit, recorded, and edited you can't tell what's supposed to be happening moment to moment. They're dull. Ed Wood's films are interesting because he so weirdly mixes okay technical competence -- in the sense that you can follow the storytelling from scene to scene, because he tells it with acceptable narrative cohesion -- with utterly whacked-out, surreally incompetent plotting. He couches nonsensical ideas in the most portentous yet tone-deaf language. He displays a glorious ignorance of taste -- not "bad taste" in the too-conscious John-Waters sense, but a genuine vacuity of any informed sensibility at all.

    Ed Wood is, in fact, an interesting filmmaker. This is true. If you've ever sat with an audience watching Glen or Glenda?, they stay all the way through, and the final scene has them cheering. Wood disastrously fails to engage his audience on the emotional level he intended, but he nonetheless engages them. A genuine incompetent couldn't do this.

    I think Ed Wood is a telling case study that illuminates what we really mean when we talk about "genius."

  • Time for a big budget remake! (Score:5, Funny)

    by yndrd ( 529288 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:06PM (#13078939) Homepage
    The best news of all is that this script--pure Hollywood gold--is now available for Michael Bay or the Wachowski brothers to work their magic.

    Tom Cruise as Jeff Trent! Jennifer Lopez as Paula Trent! William Shatner as Inspector Dan Clay!

    Money in the bank, I tell you. Ka-ching!
  • Now that it's public domain will there be a set of prequels?
  • Pendragon Picture's version of "War of the Worlds"

    It's worse than plan 9...much, much worse.

  • How? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mike Hicks ( 244 ) <hick0088@tc.umn.edu> on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:43PM (#13079135) Homepage Journal
    Unfortunately, archive.org seems to be slashdotted at the moment, so I can't figure out what I really want to know -- How is it that this film is now in the public domain? Are there people that keep track of this sort of thing?

    • Re:How? (Score:3, Informative)

      by dfl ( 808355 )
      The copyright has NOT expired. According to the copyright office's searchable database [copyright.gov] the picture was registered in 1958 and renewed in 1986, so it is covered by copyright for a 95-year term. It is scheduled to go into the public domain around 2053!

      BUT archive.org does allow copyright holders to make a dedication to the public by a creative commons [creativecommons.org] license. After archive.org recovers, check the details, and if there is a "creative commons license" link, click on it.

  • not really appropriate to this discussion... but... at the same time it is... i love old movies and i love archive.org, but there is something very lacking in the world today... i grayscale video codec! what's the deal?

  • Best line (Score:2, Funny)

    by mpn14tech ( 716482 )
    I watched this from Netflix a few months back.

    I think my favorite line was:
    "Why are we attcking you? Because you're a bunch of idiots!"

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