Talk:Teenagers from Outer Space (film)

Problems with the movie

There are certain problems with the plot and how it worked, such as why it was not necessary for Derek to be given a background check before being given a room. Then there is also the matter of why the ray gun can't burn bones or boil water. Then there is the issue of there being one teenager from outer space there are, not the plural that the title implies. Then there is the whole matter of how the entire fleet could be told to land at one point and yet not realize that!

Public Domain

Since when is the film in the public domain? Any sources on this?

Yes, the Internet Achive. SIckBoy 17:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I searched IA's Moving Images Archive (MIA) for "Teenagers from Outer Space", "Killers from Outer Space", "The Boy from Out of This World", and anything with the word "Gargon" (i.e., Invasion of the Gargon, The Gargon Terror), but found no entry for this film. That covers all the listed titles from IMDb. This leads me to believe that this is just another assumption on someone's part that films of a certain age, that are available cheaply on DVD, and/or that have been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, are to be considered public domain. (See the discussion at Talk:The Brain That Wouldn't Die for more details on the problems of these assumptions and trying to confirm public-domain status even from films that are archived by MIA.) I have therefore removed the PD claims (including the category) from this article. I ask editors to cite specific evidence before restoring them. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just removed from "External links" a link to a Google Video of the entire film. Unless someone can provide reliable evidence that this film is in the public domain or otherwise freely licensed, such user-uploaded videos are copyright violations. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It's listed among the titles at [1]. How valid that is I don't know. Note: I wasn't the one that upped the link. I just recognized that and thought I'd mention it. B.Soto 07:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

The film is for sale as a public domain film through several stock footage houses. In particular, you can purchase the entire film and get a certificate of it being in the public domain from Buyout Footage (http://www.buyoutfootage.com). In addition, the film's title is not listed in the Library of Congress Copyright Office. Even though the film was distributed through Warner Brothers, it was copyrighted in 1959 by Tom Graeff. Since Tom died in 1970 and did not leave an estate or any instructions, the film's copyright was not renewed in the mid-1970s as was required by the major copyright law change at the time. That's the same thing that happened to a lot of films, such as a number of Roger Corman's, Night of the Living Dead, and a lot of Hollywood films. Jtushinski 22:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

NOT PD worldwide and cannot be accessed without permission anywhere outside the United States. The previous poster's information is incorrect. In fact all sites and footage houses selling or offering the film for download are violating international copyright. UnderPressure 20:28, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I never said anything about worldwide. But the film IS in public domain in the US. The stock footage houses that offer it (and there are a number of them--all in the US and all reputable) offer Title Reports that make it very clear that the film has no current copyright and is in the public domain in the US. Jtushinski

In the US at least, this film IS public domain

I checked the US copyright office, and they don't list this film being under copyright. It will also enter the public domain in the uk in 2010. Retro Agnostic (talk) 05:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Irony?

I noticed the summary has the sentence "The crew of the ship includes several teenagers (who ironically look quite old for teenagers)." What is the irony? --68.63.214.127 (talk) 01:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, the real irony is that Wikipedia articles, which are supposed to be composed of sourced facts, often only come into existence because of the hard work of editors who unfortunately sometimes treat humorous opinions and jokes as if they're facts, and fail to source even these questionable statements. MSTied films frequently suffer from this problem. Also, many of our amateur writers (not to mention a good sampling of professional writers from the increasing incompetent publishing and reporting industries) don't really understand the meaning of "ironic", treating it merely as an exact synonym for "incongruous". Irony requires additional elements, like a pretense of ignorance that teases enlightenment from an audience (Socratic irony), or a event or situation that is exactly the opposite of what is described, or defeats the purpose of what is intended.

In this case, the MST3K crew often joke about how B-movie actors playing teenagers look rather older than their characters are supposed to be (Teenagers from Outer Space, Ring of Terror, and several other films). But it's not like these actors were on Social Security at the time. Studios used to avoid using actual teenagers for teen-market films, so the actors were frequently 5-10 years beyond their characters' ages (something that still occurs today to a lesser degree). And many of those older films have actors that may look older than they are to later generations, largely (I suspect) because of generational changes in clothing, makeup, and hair styles. So while the ages sometimes appear incongruous, they aren't really ironic. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:58, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Destroy All Humans!

This film was included (in full length) as a bonus feature in the 2005 videogame "Destroy All Humans!", along with some parts of the film "Plan 9 from Outer Space". I think this should be mentioned in the article. 88.22.230.223 (talk) 09:38, 10 April 2012 (UTC)