When I was a kid I used to enjoy playing Superman. This consisted of taking a towel, attaching it to my neck with a clothespin so it flowed behind me like a cape, and jumping off of things.
My mother considered this a pretty dicey activity, but at least I wasn’t playing in abandoned minefields or anything. (OK, I was doing that, too. Really.)
The horribleness to which Flash Gordon has sunk is fully expressed by the fact that the essential plot element of this week’s episode is that on Mongo, this sort of thing actually works.
I’ll have more to say later, but OMG Jeebus on a bicycle Flash Gordon is bad, bad, bad, bad bad. It may be sliding into areas of such insane awfulness that it leaves viewers gibbering in eldritch horror.
I’ll write more after a quick trepanning to let the bad images out.
… tears of hilarity, mind you, 'cause seriously. Someone actually saw the previews, and still watched!
hrf. Ahem. At least, take heart that your suffering will serve to provide enjoyment to others.
Wait. That’s not very heartening, is it?
But, eldritch horror? Like, a performance of the King In Yellow? Because if the King In Yellow was written by the Flash Gordon writers, Hastur, Chthulu, and all that lot don’t seem really all to scary.
Come to think, Chthulu was KO’d by a boat when he was waking up, wasn’t he? That is about as eldritch horrorish as Flash Gordon.
Dude, didn’t you read the part where I said as a kid I played in an abandoned mindfield? And now I watch Flash Gordon’s fifth episode. Nothing has changed.
The stupidity of the story was almost made up for by the hotness of the Hawkmen and the implications inherent in the apparent lack of Hawkwomen.
But I came close to changing the channel when they started doing that dorky trudge-dance thing. I haven’t seen moves that ridiculous since The Chicago Bears Shufflin’ Crew.
You’re still watching this soap opera? Too much CSI, TeleNovella, and relativity schlocks the sci fi. Whedon knows how to do it…these folks need a clue.
Wow! Of all the episodes so far, the MST3K worthy suckatude of this one was just…
Wow.
Not only the idea of grown men running around with their trench coats trailing behind them, but the goofy "bird noises" they were all making. At one point they seemed more like a bunch of hoping chimps than birds.
Then there's the name of the tribe, "Dactls." I guess someone on the writing staff thought that sounded better than Hawkmen. After all, it's half of the word pterodactyle, how cool is that!
However basic research would have told them that that part of the word means “finger.”
Yep, instead of the winged Hawkmen, Mongo has the coat trailing, bird noise making, chimp dancing, FINGER TRIBE ! :D
When I saw the image of all those “Hawkmen” – a bunch of guys with shaved chests wearing leather diapers prancing around in an abandoned quarry like a bunch of Kansas City faggots and making bird noises, I flashed to the scene in “Goodbye Girl” where Richard Dreyfuss is discovered sobbing in his dressing room because he’s had to play Richard III as a simpering homosexual. Poor guys. I bet they have to buy Kleenex by the gross on that set.
Did anyone catch Flash quoting Han Solo when they were captured by the Dactyls? “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” I don’t know if this was a deliberate reference to the fact that George Lucas had once wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, but I would even call Episodes I through III better than this feeble effort.
Now, now, there were three good things about this episode:
Very little Zharkov
They actually went back to Mongo. However, the secret entrance to Ming’s palace must have traffic like 101 at rush hour.
Flash’s mother is back. Something for us geezers.
And I don’t know why you doubt the kid could fly. I’m sure he kept his arms straight.
At the rate they’re going, Flash should build a set of allies like in the serial by the fifth season. And the chances of them reaching that are about the same as the chances of me reaching 250.
So, floating dude catches (arrests) Flash and Zultan, they beat up the two gaurds, run, many many gaurds follow - Flash is recaptured and taken to Aura? Who just lets him walk out?
And damn, Dale is much faster than Flash, since she was able to catch up to Him and whatshername after they had been running after the running hawkmen - for like a long time.
And Flash is really really fast since he was able to get to the Palace at the same time as Vultan - who flew -
Wonder how many takes it took them to get that hawkman dance down - the actors had to be all over themselves trying not to laugh.
This is becoming fun to watch, just to see how bad it will be - it hasn’t disappointed in that reguard.
One note - it was actually better than Highlander: The Source (Source of what?).
I thought he was Segway-Dude, it’s obvious they had a Segway hidden under his robes, he leans a lot when he moves
and yeah, Flash is rapidly becoming classic MST3K/Rifftrax material, clearly all Sci-Fi channel re-imaginings can’t be good, the last good ones they had were Farscape and BSG
It’s still better than the usual saturday night crap on the Sci-Fi channel. But it could have been so much better, and that’s what really hurts. What am I supposed to watch now that Stargate SG1 is gone?
You see on Mongo the crow takes the long way around.
I was wondering about this also. And that every land in Mongo is about fifteen minutes walking distance from Ming’s palace. After all, they got back to Earth in time for dinner. I don’t think the Amazons were much further than the Hawkmen.
I can just see the writers cackling “No one will notice!”
Bellydancers have a move where they appear to be dancing in place but manage to glide across the stage without making an apparent effort to do so. This would be a lot more fun to watch, especially if Aura did it.
