The evil Vultura of the planet Atoma is trying to conquer earth. Can Captain Video and his Video Rangers save the day? A supercut of the 1951 15-part serial Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere highlights the made up names for made up technology that no one understood, but it moved the plot along, so okay.
What was remarkable about this movie theater serial was that it was based on a long-running TV series, Captain Video and His Video Rangers. It ran on the Dumont network from 1949 to 1955, and was the first science fiction television series in America. Why put a serial into theaters at the same time the TV show was broadcast six nights a week? Because few people had televisions at the time.
The TV series suffered from an extremely low budget, but the audience loved it. Each episode was performed live, and only 24 kinescope episodes of the estimated 1500 or so broadcast still survive. The serial version recorded for theaters was only slightly better, but it has some special effects that weren't possible in a low-budget live TV show. -via reddit