This is my first time watching this movie, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.
Links to stuff I talk about in this review:
The slate.com article which talks about this serial: https://slate.com/culture/2023/07/indiana-jones-5-dial-of-destiny-raiders-inspiration.html
Link to the full movie: https://youtu.be/pvNcU_eeXvg
Link to Purple Death from Outer Space (the version edited for TV in the 60s): https://youtu.be/obnpO9kK12Y
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Gordon_Conquers_the_Universe
My parents forbade me to see the 1980 Flash Gordon movie (with Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless!). So of course I went to see it. I still have memories of lining up in the cold winter air outside the theatre.
ReplyDeleteMy parents needn't have worried -- Flash! was a really lame movie. And who knew Freddie Mercury would be such a star after his death? Sing it with me now -- "FLASH!Ah-aaah!"
Meant to say: on Star Trek: Voyager Tom Parris has a b+w Holodeck program (with Janeway and Harry Kim) that is clearly modeled after the old Flash Gordon serials.
ReplyDeleteI saw that 1980 Flash Gordon movie on a summer afternoon sometimes in the 1990s when it was being re-run on Cable. I was really looking forward to it, and it completely bored me.
ReplyDeleteIt also, I think, put me off Flash Gordon for several years after that. It wasn't until the Internet and Wikipedia came into its own that I began to find out more about this character's hey day in the comic strips and the serials.
I regret never having stuck with Star Trek Voyager. I'd be curious to see the Flash Gordon holodeck thing.
I have in mind that someday I might try to do a Star Trek watch through from beginning to end. Not this year, of course, but perhaps someday.
Star Tek: Voyager did an entire episode in b+w devoted to this Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers program in the Holodeck (naturally). I'm sure people were wondering what was wrong with their TV sets.
ReplyDeleteI just searched for it now, and saw some clips on Youtube. Not the whole episode (of course), but enough to give me a flavor for it. They certainly got the Flash Gordon aesthetic down pat.
ReplyDelete