I had some time on my own at home yesterday, and decided to do a bit of research.
Wired had run an article on free streaming services, and I was curious to see if any of them were worth what they were charging.
Sorry to say,
Plex didn't impress,
Sony Crackle isn't available in Canada, and
Vudu had more things for rent or sale than for free. And then I hit
Tubi, a free commercial-driven site.
As you'd expect, when I'm presented with any sort of media library, the first thing I do is to look at the science fiction section. And, as I sort of expected from a free service, there were a lot of movies that I had never heard of: knock-offs, cheap copies, and outright failures.
But as I looked through the content, I realized that there was actually a surprisingly high level of gems amid the dross - well, if not gems, at least things with a bit of sparkle to them.
I first noticed that there was a Marvel animated movie,
Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow - it's generally accepted that Disney+ is going to eventually be the only streaming service featuring Marvel content, so I was pleased to see something here, even if it was only a straight-to-DVD production.
As I went on, I found more and more titles that jumped off the screen at me: an HD version of
Battle Beyond the Stars, which I just referenced recently in my posting about
science fiction Westerns; cult classic
Hell Comes to Frogtown, an important part of the late WWF wrestler Rompin' Roddy Piper's acting career (he's better known for
They Live!, but you have to start somewhere);
Ex Machina, which seemed a long way from home in this odd mix of movies; an HD quality transfer of 1957 stop-motion monster classic
20 Million Miles to Earth - in fact, there were a lot of somewhat camp 50s science fiction films, including
Devil Girl From Mars from 1955, I guarantee that Netflix™ doesn't have that one. And I'm looking forward to
Doomed! the Untold Story of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, a documentary look at the 1994
Fantastic Four movie by the famous B-movie producer which never made it to commercial release.
There were also more serious classics, such as
The Day of the Triffids (in an average quality transfer, I'm starting to wonder if they just can't find a 35mm copy anywhere) and
The Last Man on Earth, with Vincent Price, which is the first film adaptation of
I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson.
There were game-inspired creations like
Dead Space: Downfall, and
Dragon Age Redemption from 2011, starring geek goddess Felicia Day as Tallis the elf assassin; legendary bad movies like
Star Crash from 1979, and
Abraxas Guardian of the Universe (with Jesse Ventura - sorry, Roddy Piper is a better actor); and
The Dinosaur Experiment, whose
poster art we've already discussed; along with vintage Elvira
Movie Macabre and
Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes taking a sarcastic look at even more bad movies.
The TV section offered the entire collection of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson Supermarionation™ programs, starting with the cartoonish
Supercar,
Fireball XL5*,
Stingray, whose opening line of "Anything can happen in the next 30 minutes!", I still quote now and then, to the bemusement of people around me;
Thunderbirds,
Captain Scarlett and the Mysterons, and
Joe-90. Not surprisingly, it also included
Space 1999, another Anderson creation; the 1966-1971
Dark Shadows series,
The Dresden Files,
Space Precinct,
3rd Rock from the Sun (admittedly just Season 1, as far as I could tell), the award-winning
Tin Man miniseries (a 2007 re-imagining of
The Wizard of Oz with
Zooey Deschanel), the British
Robin of Sherwood series from the 80s that I loved,
One Step Beyond - my god,
Tracker, with Adrian Paul, has anyone else reading this even heard of
Tracker? Patrick McGoohan -
The Prisoner! A wide range of old school anime, including
Robotech Super Dimension Fortress Macross and
Genesis Climber Mospeada in Japanese - with subtitles, thank heaven. The
Black Scorpion series - fine, they
can't all be winners...
It was like browsing through a single fan's slightly eccentric TV and
movie collection (which it may well be, it's not hard to imagine putting
an individual in charge of a specific section of a site like this.)
I just kept finding things -
A Boy and His Dog, based on the Harlan Ellison story of the same name; 1978 conspiracy classic
Capricorn 1, and 2009 conspiracy classic
Moon; Russian superhero movie
Guardians,
Hellboy animated feature
Sword of Storms, with Ron Perlman doing the voice work for Hellboy;
a Terry Gilliam movie called
Tideland that I'd never heard of; the unfortunate 2009 adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's classic
A Princess of Mars, with ex-porn star Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris, the titular princess;
Cloverfield, that's unexpected;
Under the Skin, with Scarlett Johanssen - ha,
Flash Gordon Conquers the
Universe, from 1940? Really? And good quality, too!
The movie section featured over 450 movies - and the icing on the cake?
Plan 9 from Outer Space, which I would
hope needs no introduction. A mediocre digital transfer, but it's the thought that counts for things like this.
To wrap it all up,
Tubi would be a fascinating opportunity even if they wanted money for it. On that basis, a commercial every now and then seems a small price to pay.
- Sid
* At some point in my childhood, a British relative sent me a toy version of the spaceship from
Fireball XL5, complete with jet cycles and crew. No kidding, there is one for sale on eBay right now for $26,525.36 CAD - it's a shame that I didn't just leave it in the box all those years ago.
