The Flash Gordon (movie) appreciation Thread

[Trunk]

@Otto

And yet you call yourself Trunk. A good psychoanalyst would have a field day.

I fear MYSELF!

Especially cutting my own wrists.

I also remember that when Ming got pierced by the spaceship, I thought that was a totally awesome death.

I think it inspired Wheedon in the way he offed Wash.

[Otto]

@Trunk

I also remember that when Ming got pierced by the spaceship, I thought that was a totally awesome death.

And a totally awesome callback to the plane crash at the start of the film.

[psiekier]

I was eight years old when Flash Gordon came out, and it rocked my world!

We had a Toyota SR-5 Long bed pickup truck with a camper shell and special upholstery in the back that my father had built. We’d round up the neighbourhood kids, everyone would bring a dollar, and we would go down to the drive-in on Van Buren Boulevard and watch the movies there.

The drive-in on Van Buren is probably gone by now, but I have my old copy of Flash Gordon on VHS, and I still love it.

In college, I nicknamed one of my best friends “Flash” (after the dog on Dukes of Hazzard rather than Flash Gordon, actually), and so the ringtone on my phone when he calls is the music from the Queen soundtrack.

“Flash! Ah-ah!”

[Evil_Captor]

@Otto

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.

It was campy in effect, if not in intent.

And were there stop-motion effects in the film? I don’t recall any.

Oh, yah. The penisauruses, but most of all the giant monster that Ming unleashes on Flash at the very end. Absolutely hilarious and Harryhausen-level good.

Here’s why:

There is a small cult for this film in some quarters, which seems to rest primarily on the professional quality of the effects. The film is perhaps notable for featuring many effects artists who went on to find considerable fame in better films – among the credits one can see Oscar-winning makeup effects artist Rick Baker, stop-motion animators Dave Allen and Doug Beswick, Dennis Muren who became one of the founders of Industrial Light and Magic, model-maker Greg Jein who built the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and stop-motion animator Jim Danforth hiding under the pseudonym Mij Htrofnad (the reverse spelling of his name).

From here: http://www.moria.co.nz/sf/fleshgordon.htm

[Maus_Magill]

@Evil Captor

It was campy in effect, if not in intent.

Oh, yah. The penisauruses, but most of all the giant monster that Ming unleashes on Flash at the very end. Absolutely hilarious and Harryhausen-level good.

Here’s why:

From here: http://www.moria.co.nz/sf/fleshgordon.htm

I think the question was about stop-motion animation in Flash, not Flesh.

In Flash (Ah-ah!) there is no stop motion animation.

[CJJ]

I loved how the movie made a point of having everyone who died spew a different color of blood. I particularly remember the stunning blue on the sword that pierced the leader of the African-American planet…

[Baker]

My cousin, her husband, and two kids were visiting my folks when Flash was in the theaters. I’d seen it already, as I’ve said. But I had to take the older kid(he was 6+) to the same theater, to see(shudder) The Aristocats. It happened to be sold out, so I asked the kid “do you want to wait, and see the movie later, or right now do you want to see a movie with rockets and aliens and rayguns?” Of course he wanted to see a movie like that. I hoped the innuendos would fly over his head, and I guess they did, because when I got him home he went around poking everyone in the back, imitating the death of Ming.

[WarmNPrickly]

Is it possible to talk about Flash Gordon without bringing up Flesh Gordon? I don’t think so. I’m gonna need to find a copy of that one.