Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Movie Serial View-along

I've been wanting to rewatch some old 40s-50s movie serials, and I thought I'd see if anyone was intersted in doing some group watchings of some Superhero themed serials.

For those who don't know, serials ran back in the 1920s to the 1950s. They were usually 12-15 chapters, with one chapter being aired each week before the main feature. Most chapters are 15-20 minutes long, although the first chapter was often a full 30 minutes. They seem very cheesy by today's standards, but if you can enjoy silver age legion, there's a good chance you'll be able to appreciate movie serials as well.

I'm most interested in rewatching the two Superman serials and the Adventures of Captain Marvel, based on the Fawcett Captain Marvel/Shazam feature. The latter is often considered the best serial ever made, even by serial fans who don't have any particular connection to the source comics.

If people are interested, we can decide exactly what to watch, and how quickly. (My thoughts are 3 chapters a week, with Captain Marvel sandwiched between the two Superman serials, but I'm open to change.) Then we can take a pause while people acquire the first serial.

If we like them, there are Batman, Spy Smasher, Blackhawks, and Captain America features, plus some comics-adjacent serials we could throw in.

Any takers?

That would be really good. I would be interested in the Fawcett ones. What format do you want to do this in? This might be a great opportunity for a podcast or blip video series.

I was just going to do a discussion thread.

My experience with audio/visual is limited to a single poem on Librivox, and I actually have no decent equipment on my new rig, so the learning curve and material cost might be pretty steep for me to participate in a project like that, though it would be really cool if other people wanted to launch one as we did them.

I'm all for it. We've had a few threads discussing various serials in the past.

I don't have the foggiest on how to do a group view. But, I think some of those serials are on netflix. Hope that helps. I actually got some of the older ones for my boy a few years ago when he was into superheros. I didn't get to watch them, but it sounds like a fun idea.

My brother is more into serials than I am. I've watched a few of his Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon serials which were cheesy crazy fun.

Being a Shazam fan, I found a cheap DVD copy of the Adventures of Captain Marvel. Quite enjoyed it, very thrilling, the special effects were terrific (especially the flying scenes).

Afterwards, I was excited to see that Jerry Ordway had incorporated a few elements from the serial into the Power of Shazam title. Very cool.

It sounds like we've got at least a little core group. Definitely more than just me (yay).

I guess the first question is, where do we start? My suggestion of starting with Superman was based on the idea that both Superman back-to-back might be a bit much, and Captain Marvel would be a great way to break it up.

We can do that, or if people really want to jump straight to Captain Marvel, I'd be fine with that. It was my first, and is still my favorite, so I'd hardly say no. We could always find something else to break up the Supermans if we wanted.

Whatever we choose, we'll probably want to hold off 2-3 weeks for anyone who wants to buy them to have time to deliver. I don't have Netflix, so I can't say for their availability there. There are of course other avenues (cough cough). I don't judge.

I'll add that the inexpensive Adventures of Captain Marvel I bought a few years ago seems to be gone, as it's now only available as a crazy $50 disk. Still, used copies should be gettable for less.

The Captain Marvel serial is in public domain, so they're easily (and legally) available online.

I'm fine with starting with the first Supes serial (Yay Spider Lady!). It'll probably take me a couple of weeks to dig my copies out of storage, though.

You know, I knew that about Captain Marvel, but had forgotten it. It makes it even stranger that Amazon only offers the $50 version; most public domain things are available in several editions of varying quality. You'd think someone would slap up a no-frills, 10 buck version.

Anyone who's interested, how does a start date of Mondaay Dec. 9 sound?

And how quickly do people want to go? A threw out a suggestion of 3 per week (assuming a Mon-Wed-Fri for myself), but I could speed up or slow down as people want. 3 days a week also has the advantage of dividing easily for both 12 and 15 parters, for type A personalities like me who like the viewings to line up well with the calendar for no discernable reason.

I know the longest short cartoons are eight minutes long. Are serials about the same length? If so, we could easily do it a few times a week.

Are we going for a comedic approach in our reviews?

Most serials are about 15-20 minutes per episode, with the occasional episode (especially first eps) closer to 30 minutes.

I just thought I'd give this thread a little bump a week out from our start date. Was everyone able to get the first Superman serial? Did we decide on how many episodes a week we could handle?