HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness is, among other things, a cautionary tale. Explorers discover the realm of what they dub the "Elder Things," otherworldly beings who created a sophisticated and beautiful civilization on Earth by engineering monstrous "shoggoths" to serve their grand visions. With every need served, the civilization degraded, until its citizens met their doom at the amoebic appendages of the horrors they had created but failed to control.

Where the Elder Things captured this process in subterranean friezes, I imagine that future explorers will look instead to this Wired video about creating the special effects behind this year's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. Instead of shoggoths, they will discover the hulking forms of giant turtles, lips pulled back in motion-captured grins. And behind it all, that hideous, rumbling piping...

...not "Tekeli-li," but "Cowabunga."