In the early 1930s, one of the most successful comic strips was Buck Rogers, produced by the John F. Dille Company. Based on a pair of novellas by Phillip Francis Nowlan published in 1928 and 1929, the strip about a person from the present who finds himself having adventures in the far future proved hugely popular, and King Features Syndicate, one of Dille’s competitors, wanted their own science fiction strip to go with it, and tasked Alex Raymond, one of their staff artists, to come up with something.
Aided by writer Don Moore, Raymond gave them Flash Gordon.
Where Rogers, in essence, traveled through time, Flash Gordon instead simply goes to another world, which is threatening present-day Earth. Gordon, a polo player and Yale graduate, and his girlfriend Dale Arden are kidnapped by a mad scientist, Dr. Hans Zarkov, and taken in Zarkov’s rocket ship to Mongo, a planet that is about to collide with Earth.
Mongo is ruled by the despot Ming the Merciless, and is divided into several distinctive regions with hilariously descriptive names: Arboria (a forest), Frigia (an ice kingdom), and Tropica (a jungle), plus a flying city where the Hawk Men live and an undersea kingdom where the Shark Men live.
Both Gordon and Rogers proved to be immensely popular throughout the 20th century, being translated into various other media over the years. The Flash Gordon strip continued daily until 1993, and then as a Sunday strip until 2003.
The most popular iteration of Gordon on screen were the movie serials, starring the great Buster Crabbe, and that’s the version most etched on the general consciousness. The advent of television in the 1950s has led to several small-screen attempts, mostly animated ones, though there were two live-action ones as well, one in 1954, one in 2007.
In the 1970s, Dino De Laurentiis acquired the film rights to Flash Gordon. Originally, he wanted Federico Fellini to direct the film, but the Italian master never did it. George Lucas tried to buy the rights to Flash Gordon from De Laurentiis, but was unable to close the deal (he made Star Wars instead, so I’d say that worked out okay for him…).
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Working off an adapted story by Enter the Dragon’s Michael Allin, the script was by Batman ’66 veteran Lorenzo Semple Jr., who brought the same goofy camp approach to Alex Raymond & Don Moore’s creation that he did to Bob Kane & Bill Finger’s. Model Sam J. Jones, fresh off his role in 10 (and last seen in this rewatch in the 1987 version of The Spirit) was cast in the title role, beating out Kurt Russell and Arnold Schwarzenegger. TV actor Melody Anderson had her first film role as Dale Arden, with Topol (famous for playing Tevye on both the West End and in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof) playing Dr. Hans Zarkov. European actors Ornella Muti (Aura), Max von Sydow (Ming), Brian Blessed (Vultan), Timothy Dalton (Barin), Peter Wyngarde (Klytus), and Mariangela Melato (Kala) rounded out the main cast.
The film did decently in the U.S. and phenomenally in Europe (particularly in Italy, where Muti and Melato were both very well regarded), but a falling out between De Laurentiis and Jones kept any sequels from being done.
In the early part of the new millennium, the father-and-son team of Robert Halmi Sr. & Jr. got together to acquire the rights, hiring Peter Hume (among other things, a supervising producer on Charmed) to develop a TV show that was aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the U.S. and Space in Canada. Produced in Canada, the show kicked off with a two-hour pilot, which was cut down to ninety minutes at the last minute, with the full two-hour version only available as a two-parter on the DVD set. It starred Eric Johnson (fresh off a run as Whitney Fordman on Smallville) in the title role, with Gina Holden as Dale, Jody Racicot as Zarkov, John Ralston as Ming, and Anna van Hooft as Aura. Rather than use a spaceship, the show had travel back and forth between Earth and Mongo using dimensional rifts, with Ming having designs on Earth’s water, most of Mongo’s water supply having been tainted. Two new characters were added to the mythos, Baylin, a bounty hunter from Mongo played by Karen Cliche, and Ming’s chief scientist Rankol, played by Jonathan Lloyd Walker.
The show was not a hit, and was cancelled after one season. The show’s miniscule budget was a big problem, as a storyline that’s supposed to be about a contemporary human visiting a fantastic alien world, instead has a contemporary human bopping back and forth between his hometown and an alien planet, both of which look just like Vancouver….
A new live-action film has been in development hell, with names such as Breck Eisner, J.D. Payne, Patrick McKay, Matthew Vaughn, Mark Protsevich, Julius Avery, and John Davis connected to write and/or direct at various points. More recently, Thor: Ragnarok‘s Taika Waititi was announced as developing an animated Flash Gordon movie.
“Flash, I love you—but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!”
Flash Gordon
Written by Michael Allin and Lorenzo Semple Jr.
Directed by Mike Hodges
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis
Original release date: December 5, 1980
On Mongo, Ming the Merciless is bored, but his people show him a new planet to torment: Earth. He brings about hot hail, earthquakes, and various and sundry other natural disasters.
Flash Gordon, quarterback for the New York Jets, and Dale Arden, a travel agent, are sharing a private plane for reasons the script never bothers to explain. Ming’s craziness includes a weird eclipse and red clouds, and the turbulence sends Dale into a tizzy, and Flash comforts her.
Hans Zarkov, a scientist who has been fired from NASA, and his assistant, Munson, discover that the moon is moving out of orbit, which is causing a lot of the problems befalling Earth. He plans to take the rocket he constructed and fly it into space to stop what’s happening. Munson thinks he’s crazy, and refuses to go. Zarkov then proves he’s crazy by pulling a gun on Munson.
The pilots of Flash and Dale’s plane are disintegrated by one of Ming’s ray-beams. Flash, who has taken some flying lessons, manages to crash-land on Zarkov’s property, running over Munson as he’s trying to run away. (It’s not clear whether or not the plane squishes Munson, but five minutes later, the rocket takes off, and even if Munson survived the plane crash, the backwash from the rocket surely fried him. Poor bastard.)
Zarkov tricks the pair into his rocket, as he needs a co-pilot. Flash manages to get the gun away from him, but as they struggle, Zarkov’s head hits the takeoff button, and they blast into space. The G-forces knock them unconscious, and when they reach the area of the moon, Ming’s people grab the ship and bring it to Mingo City, Ming’s capital. The trio are brought to Ming’s throne room, where his people are giving him tribute. However, Ardentia has no tribute to give, as Ming did damage to their land. All that the prince can offer is his loyalty—so Ming instructs him to kill himself. Instead, he tries to kill Ming, who uses his ring to freeze the prince in place and then kill him. Prince Vultan of the Hawk Men brings tribute from Frigia, which Prince Barin of Arboria claims he stole. However, General Klytus reminds them not to fight in Ming’s presence.
Ming orders Zarkov to be reconditioned, Dale to be made one of his concubines, and Flash to be executed. Flash tries to escape and makes a good show of it against Ming’s troops using his football skills, but ultimately, he’s taken.
Ming’s daughter, Princess Aura, is very taken with Flash and saves him from death with the help of Ming’s chief surgeon, whom she has seduced. Another of her lovers is Barin, and she brings Flash to Arboria for safekeeping. Barin is not pleased about it, but he can’t afford to piss Aura off. Aura’s ship has a telepathic communicator, and Flash uses it to let Dale know he’s alive.
Zarkov manages to fend off the conditioning by remembering great human works of art (Shakespeare, the Beatles), but he pretends to be brainwashed. Dale manages to get one of the handmaidens drunk and switches outfits with her so she can escape from Ming’s harem. She finds Zarkov, telling him that Flash is alive. Klytus and General Kala overhear this, and instruct Zarkov to pretend to escape with her so they can find Flash.
Once they’re en route to Arboria, Zarkov reveals that he’s still his own person. (Why Dale is so chummy with the guy who pulled a gun on her and kidnapped her is left as an exercise for the viewer.) However, while they’re on their way, they’re taken by the Hawk Men. Vultan plans to turn them over to Ming. Dale and Zarkov point out that Vultan hates Ming—he surreptitiously took out some of Ming’s guards who were fighting Flash back in the throne room—but Vultan’s position isn’t strong enough for an outright revolt yet, and turning Dale and Zarkov over will lull Ming into a false sense of security regarding Vultan’s loyalty. However, Dale reveals that Flash is in Arboria.
Barin tricks Flash into entering the sacred temple of Arboria, which means he must put his hand in the big tree and hope the creature that lives in it doesn’t bite him and infect him with madness. Flash pretends to be bitten, and then takes Barin down, at which point he runs away. Furious, Barin insists on chasing Flash himself. Eventually, Flash is being attacked by a giant crab, from which Barin saves him, wanting to reserve killing Flash for himself.
However, Vultan’s people show up then, and take both Barin and Flash to the flying city of the Hawk Men. Vultan accuses Barin of harboring a fugitive, and Barin declares his right to trial by combat—and he chooses Flash as his sparring partner.
The fight goes on for some time on a circular platform that tilts to and fro over an abyss, and which also has spikes popping up out of it every once in a while.
When Barin almost defeats Flash, Flash begs him after he’s gone to team up with Vultan and try to overthrow Ming. But then Flash gets the upper hand, but rather than let Barin die, he saves him. Impressed, Barin pledges his loyalty to Flash.
Having gotten Ming’s permission to use whatever means necessary to find Flash, Klytus tortures Aura, who gives up Flash’s location. Aura is stunned to see that her father has allowed his only daughter to be tortured.
Klytus goes to the Hawk Men’s city, ready to arrest everyone, but they overpower him and impale him on the platform’s spikes. Scared of Ming’s retribution, Vultan abandons the flying city, leaving Flash, Dale, Zarkov, and Barin behind. Ming himself arrives soon thereafter and takes Barin, Zarkov, and Dale prisoner, the former two to be executed, the latter to become his latest bride.
Flash is left on the flying city, which Ming then fires upon. However, Flash manages to escape on a rocket cycle, and meets up with Vultan, who is hiding out in Arboria. Vultan regrets abandoning Flash, and is grateful for the chance to make amends. Flash flies his rocket cycle near Mingo, which lures Kala’s warship Ajax away from Mingo City. Flash leads them into a cloud, where the Hawk Men are waiting in ambush. After overtaking Ajax, they fly it to Mingo City.
Meanwhile, Aura has managed to free herself by killing her bodyguard with blades she hid in her underwear. She then frees Barin and Zarkov, who take out Kala and the generator that is messing with Earth’s moon.
Flash and Vultan plan to crash Ajax into the lightning field that protects Mingo City. But Ajax is too badly damaged, and Flash has to fly it himself—he says it’s worth it, to save billions. However, Barin and Zarkov get the field down in time so that he just crashes, and the Ajax impales Ming in the midst of his attempt at marriage to Dale. Ming tries to fight Flash, but instead he is sucked up by his ring, seemingly dead.
Aura marries Barin and they become the new rulers of Mongo. Barin names Vultan general of his armies. Everyone is grateful to Flash, Dale, and Zarkov, though now they have to figure out how to get home.
Meanwhile, someone picks up Ming’s ring…
“We’ll believe anything for funding…”
Flash Gordon
Written by Peter Hume
Directed by Rick Rosenthal
Produced by Peter Hume and Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr.
Original release date: August 10, 2007
Ming, the “Benevolent Father” of Mongo, meets with his chief scientist, Rankol, who has created a dimensional rift to Earth. Rankol sends a probe through before it closes.
Steven “Flash” Gordon runs his third straight Tri-City Marathon in his hometown of Kendall, and wins for the third straight year. He is interviewed afterward by new local reporter Dale Arden, his high school girlfriend. Their reunion is only a little awkward, though Dale doesn’t tell him that she’s engaged.
Flash is being followed by a weaselly guy in an RV. When he and his best friend Nick are about to go into a night club, Flash chases RV guy down, who claims to have been Flash’s father’s assistant on the Portage Initiative, which Flash has never heard of. He also talks about Dr. Gordon like he’s still alive, even though he died thirteen years earlier in a fire. But Flash recalls lots of really weird stuff that happened in his father’s workshop before his death.
A Latino trucker shoots down Ming’s probe and brings it to Dale, hoping to sell it to the TV news. When told they don’t pay for stories, the trucker asks for her lottery ticket, and she agrees. (It later turns out to be a winning ticket, to Dale’s chagrin.)
A rift opens in a bowling alley, which Dale very reluctantly reports on. After seeing the story, Flash goes to ask Dale about it. Dale then admits that she’s engaged, to a local cop named Joe.
An armored goon appears and kills a guy in a cowboy hat and steals his car. Flash and Dale go to the crime scene, and then try to figure out who RV guy is. After a lot of research, they determine that he’s Dr. Hans Zarkov, and they find him at a warehouse where he has all kinds of odd equipment.
Zarkov tells the truth: the Portage Initiative was attempting to open dimensional rifts. There was a fire thirteen years ago, but the reason there was no body wasn’t because he was burned to ash, but because Dr. Gordon went through a rift.
The armored goon goes to the Gordon house and takes possession of Flash’s mother, who calls him and asks after the Imex. Flash has no idea what that is, but his mother calls him “Flash” rather than “Steven,” which is a red flag.
They go to the house and take down the goon after a protracted fight (and permanent damage to Laura Gordon’s blender). The goon has a tracker and also Dr. Gordon’s driver’s license. The tracker leads them to another rift. Flash wants to go through it—it’s the only way to find his father—and Dale accidentally gets sucked through with him.
They find themselves on another world. They’re immediately taken prisoner, thrown into a cell with a mutated person. When they report to Ming who they are, the Benevolent Father immediately brings them to him. He apologizes for the treatment, and says he knows nothing of Flash’s father, but will be happy to help find him, though there’s little hope that he survived.
Mongo is a troubled world. There is very little clean water, most of the supply having been poisoned. Ming has the only “source water,” and he rations it to his subjects. His rule is based entirely upon his access to the only clean water on the planet.
Ming and Rankol are both a little too curious about the Imex that Flash mentions in passing, and he realizes that Ming sent the goon. The pretense dropped, Ming has Rankol interrogate Flash, while he has Dale made part of his harem.
Rankol soon learns that Flash really has no clue what the Imex is. But before Rankol can cut open his brain to examine it, Flash is rescued by a young woman who claims to be an abbot. She wants asylum on Earth, but Flash insists on rescuing Dale first. However, Dale has gotten herself free from the harem and has gone to rescue Flash.
The three of them go through a rift back to Earth. Zarkov detected the rift, and goes to pick them up in his RV. Zarkov is not thrilled that they brought an alien back.
Flash finally figures out that the Imex is actually Dr. Gordon’s watch, which he gave to Flash: a Timex (but at times, the clock hand blocks the T). Inside it is an alien chip that apparently is a database to all knowledge in the universe.
Unfortunately, the abbot is really Princess Aura, Ming’s daughter, who is trying to get the Imex for herself in order to show Ming that she’s more than a pretty face.
Ming has sent Baylin, one of his bounty hunters, after both Aura and the Imex. She gets them both after subduing Flash. However, Flash and Zarkov manage to get to the rift before they can go through, and Flash pretends to destroy the Imex. (We soon learn that it was another one of his father’s watches that Aura had the whole time.) Aura offers to bring Flash to his father if he gives over the Imex, but when he “destroys” it, she angrily goes through the rift promising that he’ll never see his father again.
Unfortunately, the rift closes before Baylin can go through.
On Mongo, Ming castigates Aura and has her confined to her quarters. On Earth, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov wonder what the next move is and what will happen with Baylin stuck on Earth. And back on Mongo, Dr. Gordon is seen unconscious, connected to a strange set of machines….
“What a damned nuisance!”
It’s really too bad that Mike Hodges chose to put lots of images of Alex Raymond’s magnificent art from the Flash Gordon comic strip over the opening credits of the 1980 film, because it serves as a reminder of what this movie could have been in the hands of someone who actually had affection for the high-adventure strip.
Instead, he hired the guy who wrote the first episode of Adam West’s Batman (and more than a dozen after that). Even Lorenzo Semple Jr. himself later said (in an interview with Starlog) that the humorous approach to the source material was a mistake.
Which is too bad, because there’s a lot to like about the 1980 film. For one thing, I like the old-fashioned aesthetic. Every other contemporary science fiction screen production was heavily influenced by Star Wars—Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, even Superman: The Movie—so it’s nice to see Hodges and his cinematographers design this as more of a throwback to the cheap-and-cheesy production values of the Buster Crabbe serials.
And the supporting cast couldn’t be better. Max von Sydow and Ornella Muti are obviously having a great time as Ming and Aura and Peter Wyngarde’s voice is perfect as the armored Klytus. Timothy Dalton and Brian Blessed were pretty much born to play Barin and Vultan, and honestly the whole movie is worth it to watch Blessed shout his way through the picture. (“DIVE!” followed by the trademark Blessed square-mouthed laugh…)
Sadly, the acting kudos end there. Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, and Topol are only about halfway to two-dimensional performances as Flash, Dale, and Zarkov. Jones and Anderson play Flash and Dale as completely vacuous, and Topol starts out playing Zarkov as a crazed mad scientist, but suddenly he becomes a brilliant rational and helpful scientist. (And his solution to not being brainwashed is right out of Semple’s Bat-toolbox, as that was the sort of thing the ’66 Batman always did to outsmart his opponents.)
And the movie just stumbles around from plot point to plot point without rhyme or reason. Flash’s heroism makes no sense and is given no explanation, Ming’s ardor for Dale makes even less, since Anderson plays her as a total dip, and it’s never explained why Flash and Dale are suddenly friendly toward the guy who, and I can’t emphasize this enough, pulled a gun on them and kidnapped them into space.
Still, the 1980 movie is at least a cheesy bit of fun, plus it has Queen music! Not a lot, mind you. The opening credits say, “Music composed, performed, and produced by Queen,” which sounds impressive, but mostly they just did the one song (“Flash—ah-ahhhhh!“) and Brian May also played “Here Comes the Bride” on the guitar for the abortive wedding between Ming and Dale. That’s about it. (Edited to add: Stephen Schneider, Walker, and Thomas in the comments have all corrected me—apparently there was more Queen in the soundtrack than I gathered from watching it. Mea culpa.)
Sadly, “fun” is not a word that would apply to the 2007 Flash Gordon hardly at all. Peter Hume’s heart was in the right place in many ways. His Dale is more Lois Lane than Melody Anderson, thank goodness, and his Ming is thankfully free of the yellow-peril connotations that were all over the original comic strip, and which was gleefully adopted by putting hooded eyes on von Sydow in 1980. In addition, Ming is more the charming despot than the mustache-twirling villain, and John Ralston does okay with it.
Eric Johnson certainly looks the part of Flash, but his range goes all the way from A to B, and he’s rarely called upon to stretch it that far. Gina Holden is charming as Dale, but feels like a low-rent Teri Hatcher, while Anna van Hooft’s Aura is a low-rent Ornella Muti and Karen Cliche’s Baylin is a low-rent Lucy Lawless. (Having said that, over the course of the series, Baylin actually becomes the most interesting character in the cast, which is hilarious, since she’s new to this version.) Panou as Flash’s friend Nick and Jill Teed as Laura Gordon are incredibly uninteresting.
Two standout characters, especially in this pilot movie, are Jody Racicot’s Zarkov and Jonathan Lloyd Walker’s Rankol. Rankol, like Baylin, is a new character created for this show, and Walker plays him with a low-key menace that combines with his floating all around to make him scary as hell. And Racicot’s Zarkov is a delight, a weaselly, squirrelly, neuro-atypical scientist.
The biggest problem with this pilot movie, though, is one that would dog the TV show throughout its run, and by the time they fixed it, it was far too late: the show keeps going back to Earth. After spending the beginning of the second half with Flash and Dale on Mongo, getting captured, being interrogated, playing word games with Ming, being made into concubines, and so on, to have them then come back to Earth and deal with Flash’s Daddy issues and Dale’s relationship issues and other mundane concerns is a massive comedown because, well, those concerns are incredibly mundane, and can’t compare to visiting another friggin planet. Nobody wants to watch a Flash Gordon story that takes place in a made-up suburb, they want it to take place on Mongo.
To make matters worse, the show looks horrible. The special effects would look mediocre on an early-1990s show, much less one produced fifteen years later. I actually wrote up the descriptions of the show for what was then SciFi.com, and to do that, I was sent the rough cuts of the episodes, before the effects were put in. Almost every single time I saw the final episode, the rough cut actually looked better than the dreadful effects they put in. Which is really sad, and makes it hard to take it seriously.
It’s ironic: the 1980 film had a huge budget, but deliberately looked cheap. The 2007 series wanted to look good, but had no budget, so it got stuck looking cheap.
Maybe someday we’ll have a Flash Gordon adaptation that eschews cheap all together….
Having done two early 20th-century comics adapted to movie form over the past two weeks, next time we turn to a later-20th-century one, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
Keith R.A. DeCandido urges everyone to buy his newest book Alien: Isolation because it’s awesome. So there.
Channel 20, the other independent channel in the DC area, ran the old Flash Gordon serials sometime in the md-70’s, along with Speed Racer, Ultraman, and other geek fare. So when the movie came out in 1980 when I was 15 I loved the aesthetic. And the fun. And the camp. And the script that tied it all together. But then, I loved the 1966 Batman, too.
Just last week I bought the blu-ray of Flash Gordon.
I’ve always resented the DeLaurentiis movie because his control of the film rights precluded the release of a far, far better Flash Gordon movie, Filmation’s 1979 animated feature Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All, which was only shown once on prime-time TV in 1982 and then never again (though most of its footage was incorporated or reanimated in the 1979 Saturday morning TV series, and a bootleg DVD rip can be found on YouTube). That movie was rather more adult than Filmation’s usual Saturday fare (with an opening sequence set during a WWII bombing raid in Poland and a subplot of Ming working with Hitler), as well as more fully, fluidly animated, and it’s also extremely faithful to the look and storytelling of the Raymond strips.
As for the 2007 series, here’s what I said in the introductory post to my own blog reviews of the show:
I disagree with Keith about Eric Johnson — I think he was terrific as Flash, doing a great job as a noble, compassionate hero and also bringing a lot of comic charm, as well as totally looking the part. As for Gina Holden, I agree with the Lois Lane comparison, but I came to find over the course of the series that she was the most one-note performer, adequate but not really improving or broadening her range — in contrast to Anna van Hooft, who started out rather bland as a performer but grew into one of the show’s most compelling actors as the season went on.
I usually leave after Ornella Muti’s entrance…..
Christopher: Agreed on van Hooft, who started out horribly but improved a lot. And I stand by my assertion that Baylin and Rankol are both great characters.
And yeah, the show finally got good halfway through, but they’d hemhorraged viewers so thoroughly by that point…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The claim that Space:1999 was “heavily influenced by Star Wars” is surprising if you take into account that it debuted two years earlier than Star Wars. Was there a time machine involved?
*Ahem* Topol played Tevye, not Trevye.
Sincerely,
Someone who took his screen name from Fiddler on the Roof.
@4/krad: Yes, definitely on Baylin and Rankol, though as with so much about the show, you had to wait a while to see what made them so good.
And I’d say the show got good about a third of the way through. To quote my blog post again: “as far as I’m concerned, all but one of the bad episodes are on Disc One of the 4-DVD set. It can be a bit of a trudge to get through that one (though it has one moment of brilliance in episode 3), but once you get to Disc Two, the show comes together quickly and the intricate worldbuilding and intrigue on Mongo start shifting into high gear.” (Disc One holds episodes 1-6, culminating with the very worst episode, ironically named “Ascension.”)
I saw the 1980 movie when I was 4. I still remember the Alex Raymond credits, the Queen music (that my parents bought a record of because I liked it so much) and the mixture of terror and spectacle I felt watching it.
I even remember watching the Filmation movie as well, and I think that one-two punch imprinted on my childhood self fat more than anything Star Wars related.
(Of course watching the 1980 movie years later I caught on much more how silly and funny the movie is: ”Tell me more of this man Houdini.”, but also how sexy the movie is as well).
I’d love a Flash Gordon movie that was true to the original material, and took itself a little more seriously. Alex Raymond created a masterpiece, and none of the adaptations since then have done it justice.
There is absolutely a lot of Queen music in the 1980 movie: The band composed and performed a full rock score and released it as an album. All four band members composed pieces. Only two songs have vocals, which may be why you got the mistaken impression they hadn’t contributed much. But they should absolutely be recognized for being one of the few bands who wrote an actual score to a movie and not just a bunch of pop songs for a “soundtrack.”
The complaint about Queen is wrong. Queen did the ENTIRE soundtrack. The Hawkmen attack, the incidental music in the forest, everything. You can buy the soundtrack as a full length album.
@11/Walker: While Queen did most of the music for the film, they didn’t do the entire soundtrack; Howard Blake is credited as the composer and arranger of the orchestral portions of the score. Per Wikipedia:
“In 1980, Blake was commissioned to write an orchestral music score for Flash Gordon, in collaboration with Queen. He was given only 10 days to produce the results, and after completion fell ill with pneumonia brought on by exhaustion. He recovered, and he and Queen were jointly nominated for a BAFTA Award. It was, however, a disappointment to him that the makers of Flash Gordon did not use much of his score.”
Uh, the entire soundtrack is by Queen, with orchestral additions by Howard Blake. I used to own it. The whole throne room/football battle was pure Queen, as is the entire Hawkman battle sequences against Ajax and Mingo City. (Its just not sung.) I can hear them in my head right now.
I’m just batting 1.000 here…..
LazerWulf: I’ve fixed the Tevye typo. (Say that ten times fast…)
Jana: Derp! For some reason I recall Galactica and 1999 airing simultaneously. Stupid unreliable memory. I’ve removed it from the list.
Walker: My mistake. I’ve edited the comment to credit you for correcting my misapprehension. Thank you.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@12/Christopher: The soundtrack album entry on Wikipedia credits Blake with co-writing two of the cues. The rest of the tracks were all written by members of Queen.
@14/krad: Glad it got corrected for Queen’s sake … but I’m what, chopped liver here? And to think how excited the AICN posters used to get over being first. ;)
@15/Brandon Harbeke: The Queen soundtrack album does not represent 100% of the film’s score, merely the Queen portions of it. Its running time is only 35:28, after all. Blake’s own contributions to the score were released on a separate album in 2001: https://www.howardblake.com/music/Film-TV-Scores/524/FLASH-GORDON.htm
An excerpt from Blake’s score is here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DIW8zhQ7A
I am disappointed that there is no mention at all of Flesh Gordon….
Stephen: Oh, sweet Jesus. I’m just fucking up right and left today….
I’ve edited it AGAIN, especially since I just realized that Thomas deserves credit too. Sheesh.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who sucks
I own the 25th anniversary DVD with commentary by Brian Blessed and it is awesome!
(Unfortunately for most of you it did not get released in region 1)
I loved this movie as a kid. It introduced me to Brian Blessed who was my favorite part. I’m pained to learn there could have been a version with Kurt Russell. That would have been fantastic. I don’t think Sam Jones went on to have much of a career after this. Supposedly his line reads were so bad his dialogue was dubbed over. He did do a cameo in the 2007 show though.
“Ming tries to fight flash, but instead he is sucked up by his ring.” Admittedly I haven’t seen this movie in decades, but my distinct impression is that Ming was helpless after being impaled by Ajax, and so he willfully disintegrates himself, rather than suffer the indignity of being captured or killed by a “pathetic earthling.”
Flash! 1980 might be the perfect late night party movie. I first saw it that way years ago and have loved it ever since. My only memory of the TV series, which I did watch, is the promo that briefly used the Queen guitar riff from the movie. I guess that speaks for itself.
@22,
Ming tries to mesmerize Flash with the ring, but can’t call up enough power, due to having been impaled by the Ajax. He then disintegrates. Whether the disintegration is voluntary is never explicitly called out, but since the movie ends with a gloved hand picking up the ring with Ming’s laughter in the background, it is certainly likely that his apparent death was part of a contingency plan. Especially if there had been a sequel.
Keith,
Just re-watch the Hawkman battle, with your eyes closed if necessary. Especially starting at 0:40 of this clip. Who else could that be?
https://youtu.be/Y6B9nkrSuMI
“And the movie just stumbles around from plot point to plot point without rhyme or reason.”
To be fair, the early comics do that and also have Zarkhov going from enemy to friend with little explanation (and Voltan as well).
If nothing else, the costumes in the Sam Jones version are a visual feast, and Ornella Muti is pretty much the archetypal femme fatale sexpot princess. Princess Aura looks askance at Buck Rogers‘ Princess Ardala and scoffs.
I also really appreciated General Kala and her stunning glitzy art deco black and gold uniform replete with gleaming helmet and silk cape. Evil Fabulousness.
Also, Max von Sydow clearly was having the time of his life!
@27/LadyBelaine: When I did my Buck Rogers rewatch on my blog (starting here), I realized how odd their approach to Ardala was. In the comic strip, Ardala Valmar was a human criminal/adventuress and Killer Kane’s girlfriend. But the TV show used the name for a character who was pretty much exactly Princess Aura, albeit without the redemption arc. Given that Buck predated the Flash movie by about a year, they can’t have been trying to imitate it, so I wonder what motivated its producers to change Ardala that way.
I think Sam Jones did his best work in the comedy movies Ted and Ted II.
I’m not saying it’s good, but the 1980 Flash Gordon is still one of my comfort films; the visuals and most of the cast (excepting, sadly, the leads) are pretty great (and sequin-covered), and the tree beast sequence still squicks me out to this day.
It was only on one of my more recent viewings that I realized the “Death to Ming!” guy in the tribute scene (played by George Harris, a.k.a. Captain Katanga in Raiders of the Lost Ark) is actually Prince Thun (who was a lion man in the comic strips & cartoon; and just kind of a big, hairy, bearded guy in the serials).
And I’m only today just realizing that Munsen is played by Porkins (Red Six).
Is there anyone more likely to get them back from space? Their position is rather like that of Ian and Barbara in the early Dr Who episodes.
To be fair, Zarkov was only trying to kidnap Dale into space.
ad: Oh, they shouldn’t alienate him, but they shouldn’t really be chummy with the guy, is what I’m saying.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@30,
And of course, Porkins (William Hootkins) was also in Raiders, as one of the Army Intelligence officers who recruited Indy to go after the Ark. The Hawkman 2nd in command is John Hallam (Tyrian in Dragonslayer, Light in Dr. Who). The Treeman #2 is Richard O’Brien (Rocky Horror).
Flash is a tremendously fun movie for me even though most of it makes no sense if examined closely. Like the way the Hawkmen’s wings flap exactly the same whether hovering or attacking. “Stop all engines–repel boarders” instead of, you know, flying away from the slow moving bird people using your massive rocket engine. “He only winged me.” “My father always drinks a power potion before he makes love.” (Really?) “Klytus, are your men on the right pills? Maybe you should execute their trainer.”
Such fun stuff. Probably had no chance after Star Wars remade spaceship epics forever.
#30
Wow, I had no idea that was Captain Katanga from Raiders! The actor who played Munsen was also in that movie as one of the government agents. “Top. Men.”
@6, 14 – I’m getting a strong sense of déjà vu here. I swear I’ve seen this same typo/exchange before in another article…
Ah, Thomas beat me to it.
@31/ad: Ian and Barbara forced their way into the Doctor’s “ship” and home, so that it was arguably partly their own fault that they got swept up in his journeys; and yet it took them three adventures together before they finally started to trust the Doctor. By contrast, Zarkov tried to shanghai Flash and Dale into his ship at gunpoint, a rather more aggressive action, so they had plenty of reason to mistrust him, and there’s no explanation for why that changes.
@34/35 — Ha! I didn’t realize Munsen was also in Raiders, but when you say that I know exactly which character it was.
The first one was awesome!
I haven’t actually seen anything to do with Flash Gordon except clips in Star Wars documentaries. This is kind of making me want to see the 1980 one though.
I did like the movie![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
That item about George Lucas trying to get the rights to Flash Gordon reminded me of a passage from a book about the development of Star Wars. Apparently Lucas’ earlier version of the script had the hero and his scrappy companions travel to several worlds as they battled the emperor’s henchmen, leaving the desert planet for the ice planet, the jungle planet, the forest planet, etc. But budget (and runtime) constraints forced Lucas to cut the extra realms, though he would, of course, give us Hoth, Dagobah, Bespin, and Endor in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Like Highlander, and unlike almost every other cheesy, dated (or soon-to-be dated) sci-fantasy flick ground out by Hollywood, Flash Gordon, perhaps despite itself, represented a net positive gain to the world, thanks to the immortal Freddie Mercury and his collaborators. (In full fairness, I haven’t seen Flash Gordon in over 35 years. Could be it holds up better than I’m assuming.)
I also watched the 2007 “Flash Gordon” series from beginning to end, and while I found the first few episodes to be rather so-so, I found that I was actually quite disappointed by the end of the season to find out that they were not renewing it for a second season (I had come to enjoy it that much by the end). And, likewise, I felt that Eric Johnson grew into the part as the season progressed.
I’m not really familiar with the source material, I think pretty much my only other exposure to Flash was in Defenders of the Earth (my favourite show for a year or so), so I can only judge these on their own merits really. And that 80s film is pure kitsch and wonderful to watch. I guess Zarkov’s transition from mad scientist to nice scientist is a bit weird but I was willing to go with it because it’s that sort of film, same with Flash suddenly turning into a superhero because he’s the main character. And yes, it’s worth watching for the Queen soundtrack, and Timothy Dalton almost taking it seriously, and Brian Blessed having the time of his life and setting the tone for the rest of his career. (Amusingly, his line “Gordon’s alive?!” which has gone down in history as his signature line…isn’t actually that loud or OTT. It’s nothing compared to his bellowing his way through his last scene in Blake’s 7 a couple of years earlier. “I return to them a GOOOOODDDDDDDDD!!!!!!”)
And yep, 2007 Flash. The assessment of a poor pilot and start that turns into a quite good show is definitely an accurate one. I remember the reviews in TV Zone at the time went from slating it to going “Actually, it’s quite good now”, to the point of recommending it to readers when it premiered in the UK on satellite saying “Yes, it starts badly, but if you stick with it you won’t regret it.” Eric Johnson was, of course, one of the original cast of Smallville, although I’m not entirely sure how much of an influence that was (Gina Holden also had a significent guest role on the show). Apparently the wormhole thing was partly because a 21st century audience was never going to accept the characters jetting off to Mongo in a rocket ship. (The 1980 film gets around it by having them only go as far as the moon.) They did spend a bit too much time on Earth, especially in the early episodes, and Nick was a bit of a nothing character who got quietly dropped early on before the show got good. Baylin threw in her lot with Flash and co a bit too easily and early frankly, and, despite a good character arc from spoilt princess to sympathetic reformer, Aura seemed to get turned into a vague ally of Flash in a rather odd manner as well, albeit in a rather vitriolic fashion. They did a good job of wrapping things up in the season finale, with all the major plot threads resolved while having enough hooks for a second season if they got the go-ahead. (Ironically, the same hooks as in 1980: Ming seems to be dead but there’s a hint of a contingency plan, and Flash and co have saved Earth but are trapped on Mongo!)
I always liked the Brian Blessed prototype for TomTom that turned into a genuine voice pack a bit down the line.
Drive, my Hawkmen, Drive!
I only saw it fully once, the weekend it opened, and remember enjoying it, somehow the camp stylings went over my then eleven year old head…The bits and pieces I’ve seen while channel surfing during its TV airings over the years have held up, and actually knew some of the dialogue which was featured on the Queen soundtrack album. Incidentally, opened the same month as another live action theatrical feature film adapted from a comic strip, Popeye…At risk of setting off another tangient, wonder if that fits into the rewatches..
@46/David Young: I agree that I would’ve loved to see Flash Gordon get a second season, one that probably would’ve been more consistent in quality than season 1 and likely focused almost entirely on Mongo. But I’m glad that the one season we got had a reasonable amount of closure, wrapping up all its major story arcs so that it feels like a complete story.
@47/cap-mjb: Brian Blessed’s turn in Doctor Who: “Mindwarp” was all about the bellowing. “VROOMNIK!!!!!”
I loved 2007 Aura’s arc. She had the hots for Flash, yes, but she didn’t betray Ming because of her love for Flash as in the classic version; she was an independent woman who had her own journey and priorities that motivated her shift from Ming’s ally to his enemy, and the fact that she wanted to bang Flash (so to speak) was incidental to that.
“(Ironically, the same hooks as in 1980: Ming seems to be dead but there’s a hint of a contingency plan, and Flash and co have saved Earth but are trapped on Mongo!)”
The Filmation movie’s ending is even closer to the 2007 version, with Ming overtly escaping.
Flash! Aha! Savior of the Universe!
The 1980 movie is corny as a field in Iowa, and I love it madly.
The 1980 movie is also delicately perverse in ways that shot straight over my head when I was first seeing it in, well, 1980.
As for BRIAN BLESSED, I was rewatching I, Claudius recently and was impressed by how menacing he could be in a scene where he wasn’t bellowing, but was maintaining a calm & even tone of voice and an almost pleasant demeanor.
hoopmanjh: the most amazing thing about Blessed’s Augustus is that he truly only bellows twice. It’s an uncharacteristically restrained performance. (Also likely the only time he performed beardless……..)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@53/krad: I recall seeing Blessed in the first of his two Space: 1999 guest appearances and being struck by how soft-spoken and placid his character was. I believe his second character on the show (the father to Catherine Schell’s Maya) was also played at pretty normal volume, even though he was the villain of the piece. Blessed can give a fine performance in that register, despite his reputation.
@50, @52-54: There’s a theory that, once Flash Gordon made him famous for bellowing every line (even though he doesn’t really do that in the film), he was kind of expected to do that in everything else, so has been doing the “Gordon’s alive?!” thing ever since. He was in the last season of Survivors as a guest villain and, while he raises the volume occasionally, for the most part he’s very calm and measured and, for him, subtle. But I don’t think he’s been allowed to do that in a long time, he’s just hired to play BRIAN BLESSED.
Oh, and I seem to recall seeing him perform beardless in a 90s adaptation of Tom Jones, although otherwise he was playing to type.
My first exposure to Brian Blessed was in Henry V, which as far as I can recall features no bellowing. Though I think it’s a crying shame that he’s never been cast as Professor Challenger.
I hadn’t heard about Taika Waititi making an animated version; that sounds promising though, given the colorfully bizarre aesthetic of Ragnarok. As long as he doesn’t make it *too* zany. Having grown up watching the Filmation cartoon and Defenders of the Earth, I’ve always been fond of Flash Gordon. So I was excited when I heard about the SciFi series, and disappointed by the final result.
I definitely agree with krad on Rankol (in fact I’d rate *him* as the most interesting character, especially towards the series’ end), but I strongly *disagree* when it comes to Jody Racicot as Zarkov. It annoys me that so many science-fiction movies and shows display contempt for actual scientists by portraying them as socially inept. Zarkov should be played with dignity and gravitas. The insult was compounded in the episode where Zarkov meets a scientist on Mongo, who’s exactly the same sort of twitchy, awkward misfit as him.
The one thing I think the series did right was to replace the space travel with dimensional travel. First, because modern audiences would never buy that a rocket could fly to another planet so quickly, and second because it provides an easy way of explaining why so many of the people of Mongo look human and speak English (something that the TV series never actually bothered to address, however).
Anyway, I gave quite a bit of thought at the time to what they could/should have done differently. Besides burning the bridges, I also think they should have turned back the clock (start off in 1930s Earth instead of making it contemporary). And I came up with my own “dream cast” list (chosen mainly from TV actors rather than film stars); keep in mind that this was over 10 years ago, so most of them would be too old for the parts now:
Ryan McPartlin (“Captain Awesome” from Chuck) as Flash
Morena Baccarin (Firefly) as Dale
Uwe Ochsenknecht (Stilgar from the Dune minseries) as Zarkov
Ken Watanabe as Ming
Kristin Kreuk (Smallville) as Aura
Jamie Bamber (Apollo from BSG; he’s actually British) as Barin
Ron Perlman as Thun
Oh, and I forgot (how could I forget ?!): Clancy Brown as Vultan
@57/Matthew: The 2007 series’s Zarkov was definitely not meant to be a typical scientist; rather, he was seen by other scientists as a crackpot. Note that Flash’s missing father was also a scientist. And if by “a scientist on Mongo” you mean Rankol, I’d hardly call him “a twitchy, awkward misfit.”
“second because it provides an easy way of explaining why so many of the people of Mongo look human and speak English (something that the TV series never actually bothered to address, however).”
They did acknowledge the language issue at one point, and there was an implication that there was some sort of parallel evolution going on between the worlds.
“I also think they should have turned back the clock (start off in 1930s Earth instead of making it contemporary).”
On a basic-cable budget? They had enough trouble depicting Mongo without having to worry about the expense of a period piece.
Besides, one of the best things about the 2007 series was how strong its female leads were, and how comfortable Flash was with that. I liked the show’s Flash because he was a modern hero, more about wits, compassion, and respect than brawn and aggression. I don’t think a ’30s Flash would’ve been quite as progressive.
As for casting, I think the cast we got was excellent, although unfortunately lacking in ethnic diversity. But I do think it would’ve been pretty awesome if they’d cast Tony Amendola as Ming.
@59:”The 2007 series’s Zarkov was definitely not meant to be a typical scientist; rather, he was seen by other scientists as a crackpot. Note that Flash’s missing father was also a scientist.”
Fair point, I suppose, but Zarkov is the scientist we see the most of, and having crackpot theories doesn’t mean you have to be twitchy and live in an RV. Also, I wasn’t much impressed with Racicot’s acting. The moment that stands out in my memory is when Dale says something that sounds outrageous and Zarkov responds with something like “Okay, sure. Yeah. I believe you. Really.” [side-eye glance at Flash] Of course, that *could* just mean that Zarkov is a bad liar, not that Racicot is a bad actor.
“And if by “a scientist on Mongo” you mean Rankol”
No, I was referring to Quin, the “tender” from the episode “Alliances”. (which information I found with the help of your episode summaries, incidentally.)
“They did acknowledge the language issue at one point, and there was an implication that there was some sort of parallel evolution going on between the worlds.”
The way I remember it, there was a passing reference to Mongo being “close” to Earth dimensionally-speaking, but that’s a non-explanation. Like saying that somebody has identical fingerprints to you because they live next door.
“On a basic-cable budget? They had enough trouble depicting Mongo without having to worry about the expense of a period piece.”
Well, Battlestar Galactica had a decent budget, and I was using that as my touchstone for an older property that was successfully reinvented by the SciFi Channel despite much skepticism. Anyhow, if they’d “burned the bridges”, they’d only have needed Earth scenes in the pilot episode.
” I don’t think a ’30s Flash would’ve been quite as progressive.”
If it’d had actually been *made* in the 30s, sure. But there’s no shortage of more-recent pulp movies set in the 30s that have strong, competent female characters (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sky Captain, The Rocketeer), and none of the heroes of those movies had a problem with it. As for being someone who relies more on “wits, compassion, and respect than brawn and aggression,” the best comparison I can think of for how Flash should be played is Christopher Chance in Human Target. That is, he knows how to fight well when he needs to, but he’s also smart and resourceful.
@60/Matthew: Assuming you mean the Mark Valley version of Human Target (since the earlier Rick Springfield version is pretty obscure), I quite disliked its lead character and never watched past the pilot. I guess we have very different tastes in heroes.
@53 Krad
Brian Blessed’s big break in the UK was the 1950s police series Z Cars in which he was beardless and, in fact UK audiences will have seen him beardless many times. Notably in the 1997 series “The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling” in which he punches Peter Capaldi in the face (Peter Capaldi, not the character he plays. He got to close and accidentally socked him on the jaw).
@62/Richard: Yes, I did think of Z Cars after I posted earlier (although the show actually started in 1962). I’ve never seen any of it, but given that it has a reputation for being fairly down to earth, and that he was simply part of an ensemble cast, I would imagine Blessed didn’t show many of the traits he’s later become associated with.
Typecasting is a sad thing. Personally, I find Blessed a more interesting actor when he’s not shouting.
@64
His marvelous performance in Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V comes to mind, for example.
Well there’s your problem, right there.
See?
Since the inhabitants of Arboria are essentially Robin Hood’s Merry Men in Spaaaace, I wonder if Timothy Dalton’s dashing turn as Prince Barin led directly to his casting as the Errol Flynn-ish baddie in Rocketeer?
@67/wizard clip: I would guess not, because Wikipedia says Dalton was only offered the role after Jeremy Irons and Charles Dance turned it down. That suggests they were looking more generically for “handsome English actor with a strong voice” rather than “guy who played a role indirectly reminiscent of Errol Flynn.”
According to Brian Herbert’s Dreamer of Dune, Frank Herbert did a bit of script polishing for the 1980 movie. At the time he was working with DeLaurentis on what would become the David Lynch version of Dune (although Lynch was not attached at that point), and DeLaurentis asked him to help the script a little. Apparently it was not quite enough to earn a screenplay credit but I think he got a “The Producers wish to thank…” credit.
I’ve always been a big fan of the 1980 film, but I’ve never watched the older serials and perhaps the newer show. What, the newer show is Flash Gordon without rockets? Feh!
Zarkov’s brainwashing resistance scene is one of my favorites, as is of course the scene of the hawkmen attacking (My beard is named Brian, after Brian Blessed). Another great scene is the Barin/Flash duel; to this day I expect all duels in films, TV, or theater to be on spiked platforms.
Arnold Schwarzenegger could have been Flash? Wow! (Keith, heads up, you wrote “Schwarzeneggar”.)
Anna van Hooft’s Aura is a low-rent Ornella Muti and Karen Cliche’s Baylin is a low-rent Lucy Lawless. (Having said that, over the course of the series, Baylin actually becomes the most interesting character in the cast, which is hilarious, since she’s new to this version.) Panou as Flash’s friend Nick and Jill Teed as Laura Gordon are incredibly uninteresting.
@6 – LazerWulf: There’s a LazerWulf in Fiddler?
@49 – capt_paul77: If things like Red fit the rewatch, Popeye should be a shoe-in. But it’s krad’s prerrogative.
@57 – Matthew: Captain Awesome as Flash and Uwe Ochsenknecht as Zarkov are great choices. Oh, Jamie Bamber as Barin too!
@70/MaGnUs: “What, the newer show is Flash Gordon without rockets? Feh!”
To be fair, I think the comics mainly just used the rocket as a means of getting to Mongo in the first place, and the bulk of the series was about adventures on Mongo’s surface (though I’m not really certain). Once the ’07 series shifted from its early Earth-centric focus to a more Mongo-centric focus a third of the way through, it came to feel more like the source material, albeit with names changed to be less on the nose (Arborians > Verden, Hawkmen > Dactyl, Lion Men > Turin, etc., though they kept Frigia intact).
“There’s a LazerWulf in Fiddler?”
I had to look that up. There’s a character named Lazar Wolf, the rich old guy who wants to marry Tevye’s eldest daughter even though she loves someone else.
I actually just started watching the third original serial (Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe) and there’s a fair amount of flying around in rockets on Mongo itself — I even remember at least a couple of dogfights (which, considering that the rockets were hanging from strings with sparklers for engines, were not all that well-choreographed) in earlier serials.
@72/hoopmanjh: Well, sure, there was plenty of rocket use in the serials, since they spent money shooting that FX footage and needed to recycle it as often as they could. That’s why I referred specifically to the comics, though I’m not really sure how much they used rockets after the initial arc.
Flash Gordon without rocket ships is kind of missing the point, isn’t it? I mean, sure you can make it more grounded and po-faced, like with Superman, but why in the world would you want to?! People typically don’t watch these things for the hard-hitting reality. Fun and fantasy is the point.
@74/Spike: As I said, I don’t think Flash Gordon is defined by rocketships to the same extent that Buck Rogers is. It’s defined by its story of a stalwart hero winning over the warring tribes of Mongo with his courage and goodness and inspiring them to unite and rise up against the tyrant Ming. And that’s a story that the 2007 series actually told very well.
Besides, the dimensional portal system that was used to go between Earth and Mongo wasn’t just a cursory replacement for rockets, but an integral story element in its own right, a technology that drove the narrative in various ways. It was an invention of Flash’s father, it was Ming’s reason for taking Flash’s father captive, it was the linchpin of Ming’s overall master plan, and it posed a risk of destroying both universes if used to excess.
If anything, the transportation system that the 2007 series lacked, IMHO, wasn’t interplanetary rockets so much as ground transport. The show constantly had the characters basically walking from one nation of Mongo to another, making the whole world feel rather small. Sometimes I wondered if there was some kind of high-speed rail system that the characters were using off-camera.
As for being “grounded and po-faced” (I had to look that word up), that doesn’t describe the 2007 series at all. Sure, in its first 7-8 episodes, it kept the action mostly on Earth, but it had a very light and playful tone, sometimes too much so; it was trying to be in the same quirky, fun vein as other shows on the network like Stargate SG-1 and Eureka. As it went on and the writing improved, it got more serious and intense in some ways, but the humor also became more effective.
And there were plenty of fantasy elements. The choice of an Earthbound setting was probably partly a matter of budget and partly an attempt to emulate Smallville. The show came out during a period when the fashion in SFTV had shifted away from space shows and the preference was for SF/fantasy shows set on present-day Earth. But as I’ve mentioned, the show shifts primarily to Mongo for its final 2/3.
Anyway, since when were dimensional portals between universes a more realistic concept than rockets? We actually have rockets.
But we want to see cooler rockets.
@70 MaGnUs: Glad you approve of my choices. Personally, the ones I was most attached to were Morena Baccarin as Dale Arden and Clancy Brown as Vultan. The latter I chose *before* he had a beard, on account of his deep voice and imposing stature, so the first time I saw him *with* a beard, it just made him seem that much more perfect for the role.
FWIW, in my imagined version of the Flash Gordon TV series, the inhabitants of Mongo would use rocket planes to get around. (Which is basically true to the original comics, of which I have the first three volumes of the collected editions from Titan Books.) But I’d keep dimensional travel as the way the heroes, and the human inhabitants of Mongo in times past, arrived there. “My” version of Flash would be a stunt pilot hired by Zarkov to fly him into the Bermuda Triangle in order to test out a theory, and Dale Arden would be a reporter along for the ride.
Also, the on-the-nose names for the different kingdoms and species would be names used by the Arborians, whom I imagined as the descendants of 18th-century British seafarers.
Definitely check out the Filmation version if you haven’t seen it, by the way. It’s just as much fun as the movie, but it takes itself more seriously than the 1980 movie, and is better for it IMO.
@70, 71, You didn’t know here is a Lazer Wulf in Fiddler? He has a big number of his own and features heavily in later songs.
Wulf is rich but his social position is bad, shochet or kosher butcher was not a prestigious job in the community.
@78/roxana: I haven’t seen Fiddler in decades. I think I saw it on stage once as a kid, or at least saw the movie on TV, but the only part I remember is “If I Were a Rich Man.”
I figured that was probably it. If I Were A Rich Man is a good number to remember. When I was a kid I was in a class that put on a sort of karaoke version of the musical which meant I literally lived with the soundtrack for a school year. It became part of my developing gray matter.
Amazon Prime is currently showing Life After Flash, a documentary about the making the De Laurentiis film. With interviews and anecdotes and gossip.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07PJMG3C4/ref=atv_hm_hom_c_iDbc2R_brws_17_36
I had not seen this movie since it first came out in 1980. I just sat through it this afternoon. IMO, Flash is really bad–bad acting, bad production values, bad plotting and bad dialogue. Nor, is it bad in a good way like Batman (1966). What were the creators of Flash thinking?
I just adore the 1980 Flash Gordon, (Flash! Haa!). No accounting for taste.
It is a really weird movie, though. I mean what was their target audience? ‘Batman’ – the original tv series – manages to achieve a nice balance between a genuine sense of jeapordy and high camp. You take each episode seriously enough to be engaged by it, but not that seriously. It was pretty representative of its times, though – the Sixties – whereas ‘Flash’ was about fifteen years too late.
Interesting that the Sixties also marked something of an indian summer for the big cinematic musical. They worked. Then they just didn’t. Sort of like Heavy Metal which was only actually cool for about three years (I’d reckon 1970 – 73) with ‘Spinal Tap’ being the final nail in its coffin.
According to this story at the BBC, there’s now a 4k version of Flash Gordon.