So as to stop hijacking Evil Captor’s thread, I’ve decided to start my own thread.
After being severely disappointed by the new Flash Gordon series (THAT’s Dr. Zarkov??), I picked up a copy of the movie. I loved this film. I was afraid that, like many things from the early eighties it wouldn’t age well. About the only thing in it that did not was Flash’s hair.
I’m sure if DeLaurenits had tried to update and modernize Flash Gordon like he did for King Kong, it would have been a mountain of suckitude. However, they went for the style and feel for the comic strips and old serial films. And it worked. I want my rocket-ships to have fins, dammit. And everything in space should be in Art Deco!
My favorite line is either Dale’s “Flash! Flash! I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!”
Or the exchange when Dr. Zarkov, Barin, and Aura are escaping.
(From memory, so it’s probably mostly wrong.)
Someone: They’ve the door code.
Aura: Barin, I’ve changed.
Barin: Aura, I’ve changed, too.
Zarkov: (After guessing the code) I thought it would be prime number in the Zenon series. I haven’t changed.
Ornella Muti, one of the most beautiful women in the World.
Zogi, the High Priest: Do you, Ming the Merciless, Ruler of the Universe, take this Earthling Dale Arden, to be your Empress of the Hour?
The Emperor Ming: Of the hour, yes.
Zogi, the High Priest: Do you promise to use her as you will?
The Emperor Ming: Certainly!
Zogi, the High Priest: Not to blast her into space?
[Ming glares at Zogi]
Zogi, the High Priest: Uh, until such time as you grow weary of her.
The Emperor Ming: I do.
A funny thing I noticed when watching it this weekend was how all the Bad-guys had vaugly russian accents. A sign of the time, perhaps? The Red Scare, rather than the Yellow Peril?
One of the first albums I had as a kid was the Flash Gordon Queen Soundtrack on vinyl. I played that thing to death and had (and still have) all the movie audio clips memorized that they put into the album.
Ming: Klytus I’m boooored. What pleasure can you offer me today?
Klytus: An obscure body in the ascade system your majesty, the inhabitants refer to it as the planet Eaaarth.
Ming: How peaceful it looks.
(blinggg, bwooomwoomwoom!)
Ming: Ah ha ha ha ha.
Klytus: Ah ha ha ha, most effective your majesty. Will you destroy this… sir… Eaaarth?
Ming: Later. I like to play with things a while, before annihilation. Ah ha ha ha, AH HA HA HA!!
Hmmm. I remember the most disappointing thing about the movie being the soundtrack. It was heavily hyped – Queen does the soundtrack to Flash Gordon. Then, when the movie came out, it was mostly “Flash…whahahh!”, repeated * ad nauseum *.
I agree though, cheesy as it was, the movie was much, much closer to the spirit of Flash Gordon than the series. And the women were spectacularly hot.
Great film. Perfectly cast in every part. Sam J. Jones had just enough acting ability to pull it off (and was quite yummy in his execution scene and revival - “don’t worry, I won’t peek.” liar!), Dale, while laboring under the unfortunate early 80s exposition about trying to get her head together, was spunky and didn’t just sit around waiting for rescue, Brian Blessed is Prince Vultan. Dialogue just cheesy enough to evoke the original while not tipping over into parody or camp.
Some of us were a bit young when Sam was originally in the magazine. I did, however, steal an issue of Playgirl from 1984 (because it had soap super-hunk Steve Bond in it) which included one of Sam’s shots. With the dawning of the Internet I found a few more of Sam uploaded various places.
I think that the soundtrack will always be one of its strong points.
Also, i liked it when Flash and Barin had to prove their mettle by sticking their hands into the stump. For some reason I always remembered this scene.
I liked the Flash Gordon movie but I really don’t think the camp approach works all that well for anything more than a one-shot movie. In a sense, it is taking the easy way out … you don’t have to rethink the series from scratch if you redo it as camp. It was a great success as camp, but frankly, I thought Flesh Gordon was better camp and had better stop-motion special effects.
Dale, to Aura: * “Keeping our word is one of the things that makes us better than you.”*
Priceless!
I’ve mentioned before that I can date exactly when I first saw this movie. It was 12/6/80. I’d been miserable all day, because I woke up late and was not able to make it on time to a Foreign Service examination. I went to the move for the distraction, and I came out feeling great!
I didn’t think Sam Jones was as hot as Timothy Dalton. Aura would have had to watch her back if I was there, I wanted him!
Although not as hunky I liked Brian Blessed too. "Oh well, who wants to live forever?** Diiiiiivvvvvveeeeee!!!**
Remember when you first see Ming striding forward to the audience chamber? I read somewhere that Max von Sydow said he couldn’t move any faster because all those robes and stuff weighed around sixty pounds.
I was probably 10 when I used to watch that, so I took it as odd, but missed the camp, I think.
Although, I always thought it was funny that another planet had football shaped objects.
Anyway. . .I used to get a huge case of the heebie-jeebies when they played that game where they had to stick their hands in the tree trunk. That used to freak me out.
I don’t agree that the film was camp. At least not intentional camp. I think it had unbridled enthusiasm and deliberately set out to go over the top but that doesn’t automatically mean it was camp.
And were there stop-motion effects in the film? I don’t recall any.
And yet you call yourself Trunk. A good psychoanalyst would have a field day.
