Over at Panda’s Thumb they are soliciting donations to be used to purchase at auction the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, along with all the supporting documents, footage that didn’t make it into the film, and the other usual residue of film making.
You can read the post there that explains it all, and the related links, but briefly, the production company that created the film went out of business and filed for protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy laws.The film, being an asset of the Bankruptcy estate, is being auctioned off to the highest bidder, and the proceeds will be used by the Bankruptcy Trustee to pay creditors. Apparently, the film must not have done very well, or if it did, the company still was unable to make enough money to stay solvent.
As you may or may not remember, Expelled was a film of pure propaganda that dishonestly used footage of interviews with scientists like P.Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins, to suggest that the scientific and academic community was engaged in some conspiracy to silence proponents of Intelligent Design. Even though it was pure hogwash, people like Ben Stein lent their celebrity to it.
This would be an opportunity for the reason community to get their hands on and tear apart an instrument of propaganda of the Creationist crowd, and expose to the world one of the mechanisms used to “Lie for Jesus”. I might even suggest that the raw footage could be re-edited, and recombined to make a new film – call it Expelled: The Honest Version, or perhaps Expelled: Finally! Intelligence!
Who knows? Maybe it could even earn a profit this time around?
Anyway, Talk Origins wants to buy it, and is asking for donations via PayPal. Even if they are unsuccessful, every donation is tax deductible, and will still be used for a good cause.
I just donated. If you’re looking for a different place to put your secular charitable donations, a little bit here wouldn’t hurt.
SPANISH INQUISITOR 
If scientifically literate people want to buy the film, they better do so with no hope of recouping the funds spent. This said, as an educational exercise for advancing knowledge on the fact of evolution, this COULD be the greatest move ever – but only if done correctly.
The film itself isn’t the prize, it’s the sequences that ended up on the cutting room floor. I can’t wait to see them!
I’d love to see a revised film that includes material that didn’t make the cut the first time around. The question is whether I could tolerate sitting through a lot of the garbage that made the first cut.