FLASH GORDON (AAAH! SAVIOUR OF THE UNIVERSE!)

I'm... flabbergasted. Flash Gordon. What a movie. What fun. There was Brian Blessed. There was a dictator so evil it was cartoonish. There was Flash, who manages to be The Everyman while also being near-superhumanly badass... and who's so awfully nice it almost feels like he's a manchild, if it weren't for his occasional bouts of snark. There's doctor Zarkhov, who's basically me, except a lot smarter.

And the sex. Seriously, almost everyone in this story seems motivated by sex in one way or another. It drives the entire plot! Talk about advanced civilizations...

Maybe advanced civilization, but sex is the dominant driver in every civilization or else they could not propagate themselves.

NO IT ISN'T! When our evil tyrants meet new girls, they don't use Go-Go Enslavement followed by 'Mawwiage, mawwiage is what bwings us together' in the span of twenty-four hours. Same with the Daddy's Little Villain and how much of the plot she moves just by being a slutty slut, on par with the protagonist of I Like To Play Games.

A nice bit of timing! I saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it's been stuck in my head ever since, but I was too afraid to create a thread here.

A truly amazing film. Really good cinematography, music, set and costumes. "Everything Star Wars does well Flash Gordon does better," were my thoughts after seeing it (I don't mean it literally, but that's what was going through my head, however unjustifiable).

It took until the passing through the vortex with it's amazing special effects for me to realise how cool the movie really was. I expected a campy So Bad, It's Good film but there was very little bad to be found. There was also loads of cool framing done with the camera (I think that is how you say it?).

I guess there must something special about Dale, as Flash and Dale are set to be married with less than ooh, I'd say 3 hours of contact. Ming spent more time with her than Flash (I'm not counting the time in the rocket as they were kinda asleep).

I would love a Freudian (or even Jungian) psychologist to do a analysis of the film, I'm sure they'd have fun.

edited 16th Mar '12 2:48:35 PM by Gvzbgul

Well, the spaceships look like dildos with a rocket engine attached.

bump?

Just watched it for the first time the other day. It was pure fun. ^^

I didn't like that Flash and Ming didn't have a fight fight, but impalement on a rocket works. XD

C'm on, that's about as cruel as you can get. He got raped by a freaking spaceship!

It's only rape if it's in the butt.

This was murder.

edited 21st Jun '12 7:14:08 PM by HandsomeRob

This video disagrees with you.

They got a fight in the cartoon, so I'm cool with it XD Quite the way to die, too.

Little niggling technicality but the time span in which the movie takes place is actually meant to be 3 days not 24 hours.

First day the trio arrive and are taken to Ming. Events happen that lead Ming to declare that Flash will be executed the next day. He is held in a dungeon overnight where Dale comes to visit him.

Second day Flash is executed then later revived by princess Aura and taken to Prince Barins kingdom who locks him in a cage in the swamp for the night. He later escapes goes through treeman initiation thing before tricking his way out and they run around teh forest and get captured by Vultan.

Third day Vultan makes Flash and Barin fight Klytus shows up followed by Ming who declares he will marry Dale. The floating city is destroyed Flash and Vultan survive and decided to crash Mings wedding. Ming gets impaled on a rocket Barin is declared the rightful heir by Vultan and everyone lives happily.

Also the romance between Dale and Flash doesnt happen that fast when you stop and think about it. It even has a semi believable progression.

When they first meet its on a plane suffering terrible turbulance and Dale is already scared of flying. She asks Flash to talk to her to distract her form whats happening with the plane and he takes the opportunity to talk 'romantically' about how hes been watching her the past couple days. She smiles and doesnt protest his topic of conversation because shes more worried about the plane jumping about than the crazy guy talking to her and at this point.

Then he manages to impress her by landing the plane and trying to save her from the crazy scientist waving a gun about.

After they arrive on Mongo she becomes quite possesive/jealous of Flash when he is distracted by the scantily clad court ladies reminding him that he came there with her. This is partly from petty jealousy because hes just been confessing his romantic feelings for her on the plane but is now ogling other women but more because theyve just arrived in a strange alien world the only things familiar to her are Zarkov, who waved a gun at her and tried to kidnap her, and Flash who saved her life on the plane and tried to save her from Zarkov. Its likely if anything bad happens in this strange alien place she can count on Flash to defend her so she clings to him as the only thing dependable and familiar person in a strange new world.

Then he gets sentanced to death the next day and she gets sentanced to Mings harem. When they talk in the dungeon its with the knowledge that he is about to die because he tried to protect her from Ming. Their talk about love and marriage are wishful thinking of a more cheerful future that might have played out if they had never come to Mongo or if Flash had had the courage to talk to her in the bar rather than waiting til they were on the plane. As far as their concerned Flash is going to die and Dale is going to Mings bed and their is no way out of it. So they say stuff they wouldnt normally like making and acceoting marriage proposals.

But then Flash is revived by Aura and is able to contact Dale telpathically. Their conversation is odd and hardly romantic from a viwers perspective but from Dales perspective this is a miracle. She saw Flash die and now hes contacting her telepathically giving her hope of a better fate than Mings harem. She accepts Zarkovs help in escaping because even if he is the crazy gun waving scientist who starnded her in this strange place he had good intentions (trying to convince Ming to spare earth) and is familiar in an unfamiliar place.

The next time Dale and Flash meet its in Vultans sky palace. This is the first time shes seen him since his execution so its not surprising how happy she is. Then she has to watch helpless as Flash is forced to fight Barin and almost dies then Ming shows up and recaptures everyone. When Ming and Flash talk face to face Ming declares his intention to marry Dale saying that she is a superior woman. This is likely because hes never had a woman defy him by escaping his bedchamber before he can arrive and enjoy himself before. At any rate Dale agrees to marry Ming to rpotect others and is then overjoyed when Flash arrives once again to rescue her.

Their flirting banter and kiss at the close of the movie shows that they are definitely a couple but whether their relationship will work now that things have calmed down and its not life or death all the time...

Their romance is a combination of body guard crush and rescue romance. Dale falls for Flash because he is always there to protect/rescue her and is the only familiar dependable person in a strange alien world. Flash already had a slightly obssesive stalkerish crush on her at the start of the movie and is lucky enough for events play out in a way that allows him to get the girl.

What's obsessive or stalkerish about someone catching your eye and then not acting immediately on it? That would only aply if he had invaded his privacy, or at least gone out of his way to get chances to look at her.

I agree his crush is not stalkerish at all but everyone that I have ever forced into watching this movie has been creeped out by his launching into a speech about staring at her and imagining an entire life together when they had only just met.

Like I said I agree that its not stalkerish but am used to everyone having the opposite opinion which is why I described it as stalkerish in my post. Maybe I should edit it but then your post and this one would look out of place :S

Oh, I didn't remember the "imagining a life together" bit. Chalk it up to Values Dissonance: back then, mawwiage is what bwings us togethew was a good, wonderful thing, that women wanted and men didn't give willy-nilly. Nowadays, for a woman, getting married is getting ensnared, she loses everything. Especially if she's attractive.

I actually found a lot of the serious moments to be serious XD;

I think Flash Gordon stands up as a film much better than A New Hope does. It also had a far better cast than A New Hope, with already proven actors and actresses. Okay, Sam Jones was a little bit wooden but the rest of them had chops.

I would hate to watch a remake of A New Hope, but I would love to watch one of Flash. Done right, with the same sense of fun and camp that Flash had under the direction of Mike Hodges.

If anything, Flash was more like the Richard Lester version of The Three Musketeers than A New Hope, or the increasingly po-faced remakes of the Lester film. It was fun to watch.

I dunno, I think we've missed the window of opportunity for a good Flash Gordon movie. I envision something like John Carter, not bad or good, just bland.

Unless the guys from The Mighty Boosh are put in charge, that'd get the visuals set up quite nicely, then you just need a band that could fill in for Queen...

edited 20th Aug '12 6:16:13 PM by Gvzbgul

The Darkne... No, forget I said anything, 8-)

Ach, I think you are right. Hollywood would only fuck a remake up beyond all recognition.

Sorry fr the necro-bump but I was reading about the 2007 Sci-Fi series and saw pictures from it. Their Ming reminds me of Dennis Hopper's King Koopa.

So even though I posted in this already, I was reminded of this after watching Ted, what with Sam Jones' cameo in that movie.

They played the Flash kicks Ming's guards asses tunes while Mark Wahlberg was driving to Ted's apartment to meet him(Sam Jones).

Good stuff.

edited 18th Dec '12 7:03:24 PM by HandsomeRob

It's called "Football Fight". I have the Flash Gordon soundtrack.

...it has a name

screams like a girl