what were the bore worms in flash gordon supposed to do?
In the early on 1930s, one of the nearly successful comic strips was Buck Rogers, produced by the John F. Dille Company. Based on a pair of novellas by Phillip Francis Nowlan published in 1928 and 1929, the strip almost a person from the nowadays who finds himself having adventures in the far future proved hugely popular, and Rex Features Syndicate, one of Dille's competitors, wanted their own science fiction strip to go with it, and tasked Alex Raymond, one of their staff artists, to come up with something.
Aided by author Don Moore, Raymond gave them Wink Gordon.
Where Rogers, in essence, traveled through time, Flash Gordon instead only goes to another earth, which is threatening present-day Earth. Gordon, a polo histrion and Yale graduate, and his girlfriend Dale Arden are kidnapped past a mad scientist, Dr. Hans Zarkov, and taken in Zarkov's rocket ship to Mongo, a planet that is about to collide with Earth.
Mongo is ruled past the despot Ming the Merciless, and is divided into several distinctive regions with hilariously descriptive names: Arboria (a forest), Frigia (an ice kingdom), and Tropica (a jungle), plus a flight city where the Militarist Men alive and an undersea kingdom where the Shark Men live.
Both Gordon and Rogers proved to exist immensely popular throughout the 20th century, being translated into diverse other media over the years. TheFlash Gordon strip continued daily until 1993, and and then as a Sunday strip until 2003.
The most pop iteration of Gordon on screen were the movie serials, starring the bully Buster Crabbe, and that's the version most etched on the full general consciousness. The appearance of television in the 1950s has led to several small-screen attempts, mostly animated ones, though there were 2 live-action ones also, 1 in 1954, one in 2007.
In the 1970s, Dino De Laurentiis caused the film rights to Wink Gordon. Originally, he wanted Federico Fellini to direct the film, merely the Italian principal never did it. George Lucas tried to buy the rights to Wink Gordon from De Laurentiis, but was unable to close the deal (he fabricated Star Wars instead, so I'd say that worked out okay for him…).
Working off an adapted story by Enter the Dragon'due south Michael Allin, the script was by Batman '66 veteran Lorenzo Semple Jr., who brought the same goofy camp approach to Alex Raymond & Don Moore's creation that he did to Bob Kane & Nib Finger's. Model Sam J. Jones, fresh off his role in 10 (and last seen in this rewatch in the 1987 version ofThe Spirit) was cast in the title part, beating out Kurt Russell and Arnold Schwarzenegger. TV actor Melody Anderson had her get-go pic office every bit Dale Arden, with Topol (famous for playing Tevye on both the West End and in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof) playing Dr. Hans Zarkov. European actors Ornella Muti (Aura), Max von Sydow (Ming), Brian Blessed (Vultan), Timothy Dalton (Barin), Peter Wyngarde (Klytus), and Mariangela Melato (Kala) rounded out the main cast.
The film did decently in the U.Due south. and phenomenally in Europe (particularly in Italy, where Muti and Melato were both very well regarded), but a falling out betwixt De Laurentiis and Jones kept whatsoever sequels from being done.
In the early function of the new millennium, the father-and-son team of Robert Halmi Sr. & Jr. got together to acquire the rights, hiring Peter Hume (amid other things, a supervising producer on Charmed) to develop a TV bear witness that was aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the U.S. and Space in Canada. Produced in Canada, the prove kicked off with a 2-hour pilot, which was cutting downwardly to xc minutes at the last infinitesimal, with the full two-hr version just available equally a two-parter on the DVD fix. Information technology starred Eric Johnson (fresh off a run as Whitney Fordman on Smallville) in the championship part, with Gina Holden equally Dale, Jody Racicot as Zarkov, John Ralston as Ming, and Anna van Hooft as Aura. Rather than utilize a spaceship, the show had travel back and forth between Earth and Mongo using dimensional rifts, with Ming having designs on Earth'south h2o, virtually of Mongo's water supply having been tainted. Two new characters were added to the mythos, Baylin, a bounty hunter from Mongo played by Karen Platitude, and Ming'south primary scientist Rankol, played by Jonathan Lloyd Walker.
The prove was non a hit, and was cancelled after ane season. The show's miniscule budget was a big problem, every bit a storyline that's supposed to be virtually a contemporary homo visiting a fantastic alien earth, instead has a gimmicky human bopping back and forth betwixt his hometown and an alien planet, both of which look but like Vancouver….
A new alive-activity movie has been in development hell, with names such equally Breck Eisner, J.D. Payne, Patrick McKay, Matthew Vaughn, Marking Protsevich, Julius Avery, and John Davis connected to write and/or direct at various points. More recently, Thor: Ragnarok's Taika Waititi was appear as developing an blithe Flash Gordon movie.
"Wink, I honey y'all—but we only have 14 hours to relieve the World!"
Wink Gordon
Written by Michael Allin and Lorenzo Semple Jr.
Directed by Mike Hodges
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis
Original release appointment: December 5, 1980
Screenshot: Starling Films
On Mongo, Ming the Merciless is bored, merely his people show him a new planet to torment: World. He brings near hot hail, earthquakes, and various and sundry other natural disasters.
Flash Gordon, quarterback for the New York Jets, and Dale Arden, a travel agent, are sharing a private aeroplane for reasons the script never bothers to explain. Ming's craziness includes a weird eclipse and cherry-red clouds, and the turbulence sends Dale into a tizzy, and Flash comforts her.
Hans Zarkov, a scientist who has been fired from NASA, and his assistant, Munson, discover that the moon is moving out of orbit, which is causing a lot of the problems befalling Earth. He plans to take the rocket he constructed and fly it into infinite to stop what's happening. Munson thinks he'due south crazy, and refuses to go. Zarkov then proves he's crazy by pulling a gun on Munson.
The pilots of Flash and Dale's airplane are disintegrated by one of Ming's ray-beams. Flash, who has taken some flight lessons, manages to crash-state on Zarkov's property, running over Munson as he'southward trying to run away. (Information technology's not clear whether or non the plane squishes Munson, but five minutes later, the rocket takes off, and even if Munson survived the plane crash, the aftermath from the rocket surely fried him. Poor bastard.)
Zarkov tricks the pair into his rocket, as he needs a co-pilot. Flash manages to get the gun abroad from him, but as they struggle, Zarkov's head hits the takeoff push button, and they blast into space. The Thousand-forces knock them unconscious, and when they reach the expanse of the moon, Ming'south people catch the ship and bring it to Mingo City, Ming'southward capital. The trio are brought to Ming's throne room, where his people are giving him tribute. However, Ardentia has no tribute to give, as Ming did damage to their country. All that the prince can offering is his loyalty—so Ming instructs him to kill himself. Instead, he tries to kill Ming, who uses his ring to freeze the prince in place and and so kill him. Prince Vultan of the Hawk Men brings tribute from Frigia, which Prince Barin of Arboria claims he stole. Still, General Klytus reminds them not to fight in Ming's presence.
Ming orders Zarkov to be reconditioned, Dale to be made one of his concubines, and Flash to exist executed. Flash tries to escape and makes a adept show of it confronting Ming'south troops using his football skills, simply ultimately, he's taken.
Ming's daughter, Princess Aura, is very taken with Flash and saves him from death with the assist of Ming's chief surgeon, whom she has seduced. Another of her lovers is Barin, and she brings Wink to Arboria for safekeeping. Barin is not pleased nearly it, simply he can't afford to piss Aura off. Aura's ship has a telepathic communicator, and Flash uses it to let Dale know he'southward alive.
Zarkov manages to fend off the workout by remembering great man works of fine art (Shakespeare, the Beatles), but he pretends to be brainwashed. Dale manages to get one of the handmaidens drunk and switches outfits with her and then she tin can escape from Ming's harem. She finds Zarkov, telling him that Wink is live. Klytus and General Kala overhear this, and instruct Zarkov to pretend to escape with her so they can find Flash.
Once they're en road to Arboria, Zarkov reveals that he'due south still his ain person. (Why Dale is so chummy with the guy who pulled a gun on her and kidnapped her is left equally an exercise for the viewer.) Even so, while they're on their fashion, they're taken by the Hawk Men. Vultan plans to plow them over to Ming. Dale and Zarkov betoken out that Vultan hates Ming—he surreptitiously took out some of Ming's guards who were fighting Flash dorsum in the throne room—but Vultan'south position isn't potent enough for an outright revolt even so, and turning Dale and Zarkov over will lull Ming into a false sense of security regarding Vultan'south loyalty. However, Dale reveals that Wink is in Arboria.
Barin tricks Wink into entering the sacred temple of Arboria, which means he must put his hand in the large tree and hope the creature that lives in information technology doesn't seize with teeth him and infect him with madness. Wink pretends to exist bitten, and and so takes Barin downward, at which indicate he runs away. Furious, Barin insists on chasing Flash himself. Eventually, Flash is being attacked by a behemothic crab, from which Barin saves him, wanting to reserve killing Flash for himself.
Nonetheless, Vultan'south people evidence up then, and take both Barin and Wink to the flying city of the Militarist Men. Vultan accuses Barin of harboring a fugitive, and Barin declares his correct to trial by combat—and he chooses Flash equally his sparring partner.
The fight goes on for some time on a circular platform that tilts to and fro over an abyss, and which too has spikes popping up out of it every once in a while.
When Barin almost defeats Flash, Flash begs him after he's gone to squad up with Vultan and try to overthrow Ming. Merely so Flash gets the upper hand, but rather than let Barin die, he saves him. Impressed, Barin pledges his loyalty to Wink.
Having gotten Ming'due south permission to utilize whatever ways necessary to find Flash, Klytus tortures Aureola, who gives up Flash'due south location. Aura is stunned to see that her male parent has immune his but girl to exist tortured.
Klytus goes to the Hawk Men's metropolis, ready to abort everyone, but they overpower him and impale him on the platform's spikes. Scared of Ming'south retribution, Vultan abandons the flight urban center, leaving Flash, Dale, Zarkov, and Barin behind. Ming himself arrives before long thereafter and takes Barin, Zarkov, and Dale prisoner, the former two to be executed, the latter to become his latest bride.
Flash is left on the flying city, which Ming then fires upon. Yet, Flash manages to escape on a rocket cycle, and meets up with Vultan, who is hiding out in Arboria. Vultan regrets abandoning Flash, and is grateful for the gamble to make amends. Wink flies his rocket cycle near Mingo, which lures Kala's warship Ajax away from Mingo Metropolis. Flash leads them into a deject, where the Hawk Men are waiting in ambush. After overtaking Ajax, they fly information technology to Mingo City.
Meanwhile, Aureola has managed to gratuitous herself past killing her babysitter with blades she hid in her underwear. She then frees Barin and Zarkov, who accept out Kala and the generator that is messing with Earth'due south moon.
Flash and Vultan plan to crash Ajax into the lightning field that protects Mingo City. But Ajax is as well badly damaged, and Flash has to fly it himself—he says information technology's worth it, to save billions. However, Barin and Zarkov get the field down in time then that he but crashes, and the Ajax impales Ming in the midst of his attempt at matrimony to Dale. Ming tries to fight Wink, but instead he is sucked upward past his ring, seemingly dead.
Aura marries Barin and they become the new rulers of Mongo. Barin names Vultan general of his armies. Anybody is grateful to Flash, Dale, and Zarkov, though now they have to effigy out how to become home.
Meanwhile, someone picks up Ming's band…
"We'll believe annihilation for funding…"
Flash Gordon
Written past Peter Hume
Directed by Rick Rosenthal
Produced by Peter Hume and Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr.
Original release date: August 10, 2007
Screenshot: Sci-Fi Channel
Ming, the "Benevolent Male parent" of Mongo, meets with his chief scientist, Rankol, who has created a dimensional rift to Earth. Rankol sends a probe through before it closes.
Steven "Flash" Gordon runs his third direct Tri-City Marathon in his hometown of Kendall, and wins for the tertiary directly yr. He is interviewed afterward by new local reporter Dale Arden, his high school girlfriend. Their reunion is only a footling awkward, though Dale doesn't tell him that she's engaged.
Flash is beingness followed by a weaselly guy in an RV. When he and his all-time friend Nick are about to become into a night club, Wink chases RV guy downward, who claims to have been Flash's begetter's assistant on the Portage Initiative, which Flash has never heard of. He besides talks about Dr. Gordon like he's nevertheless alive, fifty-fifty though he died thirteen years earlier in a burn down. But Flash recalls lots of actually weird stuff that happened in his father'southward workshop before his death.
A Latino trucker shoots down Ming's probe and brings it to Dale, hoping to sell it to the TV news. When told they don't pay for stories, the trucker asks for her lottery ticket, and she agrees. (Information technology later turns out to exist a winning ticket, to Dale's chagrin.)
A rift opens in a bowling alley, which Dale very reluctantly reports on. After seeing the story, Flash goes to ask Dale well-nigh it. Dale and then admits that she'southward engaged, to a local cop named Joe.
An armored goon appears and kills a guy in a cowboy lid and steals his car. Flash and Dale go to the crime scene, and then try to figure out who RV guy is. After a lot of research, they determine that he'due south Dr. Hans Zarkov, and they notice him at a warehouse where he has all kinds of odd equipment.
Zarkov tells the truth: the Portage Initiative was attempting to open dimensional rifts. There was a fire xiii years ago, simply the reason there was no trunk wasn't because he was burned to ash, but considering Dr. Gordon went through a rift.
The armored goon goes to the Gordon house and takes possession of Flash's mother, who calls him and asks subsequently the Imex. Flash has no idea what that is, just his mother calls him "Flash" rather than "Steven," which is a red flag.
They go to the firm and have downwardly the goon after a protracted fight (and permanent damage to Laura Gordon'southward blender). The goon has a tracker and also Dr. Gordon's driver'south license. The tracker leads them to another rift. Flash wants to become through it—it'south the merely way to detect his begetter—and Dale accidentally gets sucked through with him.
They notice themselves on some other earth. They're immediately taken prisoner, thrown into a prison cell with a mutated person. When they report to Ming who they are, the Chivalrous Father immediately brings them to him. He apologizes for the treatment, and says he knows nothing of Flash's begetter, but volition be happy to assistance find him, though there's piddling promise that he survived.
Mongo is a troubled globe. There is very little clean h2o, about of the supply having been poisoned. Ming has the just "source h2o," and he rations it to his subjects. His rule is based entirely upon his access to the just clean water on the planet.
Ming and Rankol are both a piddling too curious about the Imex that Wink mentions in passing, and he realizes that Ming sent the goon. The pretense dropped, Ming has Rankol interrogate Wink, while he has Dale made part of his harem.
Rankol shortly learns that Flash really has no clue what the Imex is. But earlier Rankol can cut open his brain to examine it, Flash is rescued past a young woman who claims to be an abbot. She wants aviary on Earth, but Flash insists on rescuing Dale first. All the same, Dale has gotten herself gratuitous from the harem and has gone to rescue Wink.
The three of them go through a rift back to World. Zarkov detected the rift, and goes to pick them up in his RV. Zarkov is not thrilled that they brought an conflicting dorsum.
Flash finally figures out that the Imex is actually Dr. Gordon'due south sentry, which he gave to Wink: a Timex (but at times, the clock hand blocks the T). Inside it is an alien chip that evidently is a database to all knowledge in the universe.
Unfortunately, the abbot is actually Princess Aura, Ming's daughter, who is trying to get the Imex for herself in order to show Ming that she's more a pretty face.
Ming has sent Baylin, 1 of his bounty hunters, after both Aureola and the Imex. She gets them both afterward subduing Flash. Still, Flash and Zarkov manage to become to the rift earlier they can go through, and Flash pretends to destroy the Imex. (Nosotros before long learn that it was another one of his father'southward watches that Aura had the whole fourth dimension.) Aura offers to bring Wink to his father if he gives over the Imex, just when he "destroys" it, she angrily goes through the rift promising that he'll never see his father again.
Unfortunately, the rift closes before Baylin tin can go through.
On Mongo, Ming castigates Aura and has her confined to her quarters. On Earth, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov wonder what the next move is and what will happen with Baylin stuck on Earth. And back on Mongo, Dr. Gordon is seen unconscious, connected to a strange set up of machines….
"What a damned nuisance!"
Screenshot: Starling Films
It's really too bad that Mike Hodges chose to put lots of images of Alex Raymond'south magnificent fine art from the Flash Gordon comic strip over the opening credits of the 1980 motion-picture show, because it serves as a reminder of what this movie could accept been in the hands of someone who really had amore for the loftier-adventure strip.
Instead, he hired the guy who wrote the showtime episode of Adam West's Batman (and more than a dozen after that). Even Lorenzo Semple Jr. himself later said (in an interview with Starlog) that the humorous arroyo to the source material was a mistake.
Which is besides bad, because in that location's a lot to like nearly the 1980 film. For one thing, I like the old-fashioned artful. Every other contemporary science fiction screen production was heavily influenced past Star Wars—Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Star Expedition: The Motion Motion-picture show, even Superman: The Movie—and so information technology's nice to meet Hodges and his cinematographers pattern this as more of a throwback to the cheap-and-cheesy production values of the Buster Crabbe serials.
And the supporting cast couldn't be ameliorate. Max von Sydow and Ornella Muti are manifestly having a great fourth dimension every bit Ming and Aura and Peter Wyngarde's voice is perfect as the armored Klytus. Timothy Dalton and Brian Blessed were pretty much born to play Barin and Vultan, and honestly the whole motion-picture show is worth it to lookout Blessed shout his way through the picture. ("Dive!" followed by the trademark Blessed foursquare-mouthed laugh…)
Sadly, the acting kudos end there. Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, and Topol are only about halfway to 2-dimensional performances every bit Wink, Dale, and Zarkov. Jones and Anderson play Flash and Dale as completely vacuous, and Topol starts out playing Zarkov as a crazed mad scientist, but suddenly he becomes a bright rational and helpful scientist. (And his solution to non existence brainwashed is right out of Semple's Bat-toolbox, every bit that was the sort of thing the '66 Batman always did to outsmart his opponents.)
And the picture just stumbles around from plot point to plot point without rhyme or reason. Flash's heroism makes no sense and is given no explanation, Ming'due south ardor for Dale makes even less, since Anderson plays her every bit a total dip, and it's never explained why Flash and Dale are suddenly friendly toward the guy who, and I can't emphasize this enough, pulled a gun on them and kidnapped them into infinite.
Still, the 1980 moving-picture show is at least a cheesy scrap of fun, plus it has Queen music! Not a lot, mind you. The opening credits say, "Music composed, performed, and produced by Queen," which sounds impressive, but mostly they just did the one song ("Wink—ah-ahhhhh!") and Brian May as well played "Here Comes the Bride" on the guitar for the abortive wedding ceremony betwixt Ming and Dale. That's most it. (Edited to add: Stephen Schneider, Walker, and Thomas in the comments take all corrected me—apparently in that location was more Queen in the soundtrack than I gathered from watching information technology. Mea culpa.)
Screenshot: Sci-Fi Aqueduct
Sadly, "fun" is non a word that would apply to the 2007 Flash Gordon inappreciably at all. Peter Hume's heart was in the right place in many ways. His Dale is more Lois Lane than Melody Anderson, thank goodness, and his Ming is thankfully free of the yellow-peril connotations that were all over the original comic strip, and which was gleefully adopted by putting hooded eyes on von Sydow in 1980. In addition, Ming is more the mannerly autocrat than the mustache-twirling villain, and John Ralston does okay with information technology.
Eric Johnson certainly looks the part of Flash, only his range goes all the mode from A to B, and he's rarely called upon to stretch information technology that far. Gina Holden is charming as Dale, simply feels like a low-rent Teri Hatcher, while Anna van Hooft's Aura is a low-rent Ornella Muti and Karen Cliche's Baylin is a low-rent Lucy Lawless. (Having said that, over the course of the serial, Baylin actually becomes the near interesting graphic symbol in the cast, which is hilarious, since she'due south new to this version.) Panou every bit Flash's friend Nick and Jill Teed every bit Laura Gordon are incredibly uninteresting.
2 standout characters, particularly in this airplane pilot movie, are Jody Racicot'south Zarkov and Jonathan Lloyd Walker's Rankol. Rankol, similar Baylin, is a new character created for this show, and Walker plays him with a low-key menace that combines with his floating all around to make him scary as hell. And Racicot'south Zarkov is a delight, a weaselly, squirrelly, neuro-atypical scientist.
The biggest problem with this pilot movie, though, is one that would dog the TV show throughout its run, and past the time they fixed information technology, it was far as well belatedly: the prove keeps going back to Globe. Afterwards spending the beginning of the second half with Flash and Dale on Mongo, getting captured, being interrogated, playing word games with Ming, being made into concubines, and so on, to accept them then come back to Earth and deal with Flash'southward Daddy bug and Dale's human relationship issues and other mundane concerns is a massive comedown because, well, those concerns are incredibly mundane, and tin't compare to visiting another friggin planet. Nobody wants to watch a Wink Gordon story that takes place in a made-up suburb, they want information technology to take place on Mongo.
To make matters worse, the show looks horrible. The special effects would await mediocre on an early-1990s show, much less i produced xv years subsequently. I actually wrote upward the descriptions of the show for what was then SciFi.com, and to do that, I was sent the rough cuts of the episodes, before the effects were put in. About every unmarried fourth dimension I saw the final episode, the crude cut actually looked better than the dreadful furnishings they put in. Which is really sad, and makes it hard to take information technology seriously.
It's ironic: the 1980 film had a huge budget, but deliberately looked inexpensive. The 2007 serial wanted to look adept, but had no upkeep, and then it got stuck looking cheap.
Mayhap anytime nosotros'll accept a Flash Gordon accommodation that eschews cheap all together….
Having done ii early 20th-century comics adapted to film form over the past two weeks, next fourth dimension we turn to a subsequently-20th-century one, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
Keith R.A. DeCandido urges everyone to buy his newest book Alien: Isolation because it'southward awesome. Then there.
citation
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Source: https://www.tor.com/2019/08/09/should-we-stop-the-torture-two-versions-of-flash-gordon/