Basictek

Brief freeze of Dale and Flash on the second episode of the new Flash Gordon series on Sci-Fi channel. Hopefully we will see this weapon again.

didn't the old flash gordon have freezes in it???

hopefully this new show will have some.

So far, the freezing is pretty lame (like the rest of the show) but might improve. The actress portraying Dale Arden looks good frozen!

-D-

Yes, the old Flash did have freezes. I think it was the scene where they first meet Ming and he uses the ring. I'm not sure its been awhile since I've seen the movie.

I agree with dmuk. This new Flash series is pretty lame. I like some of the new ideas, but its way too campy. I hope it gets better.

hey dmuk--

you're the same dmuk who has stories on legacy of timeless beauty, right???

you are awesome!!! your stories are some of my favorites!!!

sorry...just had to say that.

worldfreeze wrote:This new Flash series is pretty lame. I like some of the new ideas, but its way too campy.

I actually don't think it's campy enough! The writers don't take the opportunity to create amusing dialog when the situtations are clearly absurd and the 'alien planet' Mongo is too ordinary. 3 moons? Pah; been there, done that!

Ming isn't very menacing either, as one web site said, more like the guy from the homeowner's association that always bugs you about a branch hanging over your fence or something - more like "Ming the Mincing" rather than the traditional over-the-top eeeevillll.

Chew that scenery!

His minion, 'skullcap-on-a-segway', is more threatening, but I kept flashing back to the "floating nun" character from the Blues Brothers movie when I first saw the gimmick in this show. I'd love to see the outtakes of scenes where he runs into walls and such.

Ming's daughter, "princess vapid" couldn't be more of a valley girl unless maybe she started chewing gum and cracking it between her few lines. I hope this isn't going to turn out to be some sort of learn-acting-while-doing for her; the show probably can't last that long.

And what's with no spaceships? Just ain't right, I tell ya. The "dimensional rift" is so last-century. Hello? Ever hear about Sliders? Stargate? Hello?

Now, if Ming has something happen to him that drives him totally bonkers, THAT would be interesting; if the Mongo-ites (not going to call them 'Mongolians", that's taken) suddenly doff those rags and caftans and find some decent Spandex to wear - maybe there might be hope for this show yet. . .

Say, did anyone think that "bounty hunter" chick looked a lot like the previous "Princess Ardala"? Just a coincidence? I hope not.

-D-

Princess Ardala is Buck Rogers, Princess Aura is Ming's daughter.

I agree, they so missed the boat on this show it makes me ill just to think of it (I'm a huge pulp fan). It doesn't have to be campy; the old Alex Raymond strips were serious but fun, with sexy babes in skimpy outfits everywhere (like the 1980 movie, where even the evil General Kala was hot and wore spandex). The old adventure strips had ASFRish plotlines constantly, as well. But we are not allowed 'Damsels in Distress' on TV or movies anymore.

Bas

Here is a review of the show I wrote up for the IMDB and some other sites:

My spoilery review, for what its worth.

Gordon's Alive?!

No, no he is not, I'm afraid. DOA.

So I watched this thing called 'Flash Gordon' on the Bonnie Hammer channel. I'm using air quotation marks around that, because I'm having trouble seeing anything remotely resembling Flash Gordon in this production.

Let me throw my bias out there. I love old stuff, particularly 30s and 40s pulp. I love the old serials, rockets on strings and all, because they are fun. I give lots of credit to the old-timers because they built the foundation that modern sci-fi is built on. I love the 1980 Flash Gordon, it's fun, sexy, yeah over the top- but did I mention it's FUN? And the set and costume design are very faithful to the original Alex Raymond comic strip art, which quite frankly, holds up very well and is better than quite a bit of the comic book art out there today.

But all this aside- Flash Gordon is the epic story of a stand-up guy stuck on Planet Mongo with a chick he just met, and the brilliant scientist who semi-kidnapped him there in the first place. Along the way, there are giant monsters, sword fights, cliff-hangers, and a planet-wide rebellion that Flash organizes against the despotic emperor Ming, because, well, Flash is a stand-up guy. Flash has sort of an early Moonlighting unrequited relationship with Dale Arden, partly becuse every Princess and Queen of Mongo wants to sex him up. Oh yeah, and rocket ships- lots and lots of rocket ships.

Which leads us directly to our new show, which I think I'll be calling Sliders vs Smallville. No, that would be an insult to two entertaining programs. How about Stargate 90210? I think I'll just call it "this show". So Flash is this guy running in the local YMCA 10k run, and his mom is sick, and his dad is dead, and blah blah blah- show was boring at this point already. Why does every hero have to have a Lifetime movie of the week backstory for motivation? Can't a guy just do some heroing because he thinks it's the right thing to do?

Suffice to say there are no rockets, and they get to Mongo and back with sci-fi's 2nd greatest money saving invention (after filming in Vancouver using Canadian slave labor), the wormhole. Yes folks, not a rocket in sight! So the baddies send a robot over to terrorize the bowling alley (on League Night, the bastards!), and Flash and the Scooby gang investigate the mystery. Turns out Flash's old man built the wormhole technology, and maybe still alive on the other side. Flash uses the defeated robot's portal opener (I didn't mention them fighting the robot. Because it was lame.) And once on the weirdly alien Mongo (if you consider British Columbia filmed through a yellow lens "weirdly alien"), they encounter ruthless, cunning, Ming the Merciless! Or maybe he's the cranky housewares manager at Wal-Mart. I'm sure there was some PC reason for not making Ming a bald Asian guy. But making him a passive blond middle manager wearing a doorman's uniform just boggles the mind. This is supposed to be Ming the %&*$ing Merciless, not Ming the slightly annoyed. Anyway, he holds court in the dimly lit lobby of a Rodeway Inn, and lets one of his followers off the hook in a situation where Charles Middleton or Max von Sydow would have blasted her to atoms. And laughed about it.

So, there is some subplot about going to Imax movies or something, and Flash is rescued from being tortured (but not us), by the ball-shrivellingly unsexy Princess Aura. They hop back over to Earth (hello Stargate!), and find the showtimes for Imax were on Flash's watch the whole time! Aura goes back to Mongo, thinking the Imax watch is destroyed, and Flash is stuck on Earth with an inept bounty hunter broad that Ming sent in after Aura. Oh in all this, I forgot to mention Dr. Zarkov is some sort of young, creepy peeping-tom who travels around in Mentor's old Winnebago. No brilliant scientist here! Seriously, he just stands around and mumbles about red Swingline staplers and squirrels getting married. He invents a gun that doesn't work, and no one ever seems to think of getting, a you know, real gun to fight the bad guys. Even though it is established that 120 volt AC household current will kill the robot, which most humans could shrug off.

This show would have sucked even it weren't called 'Flash Gordon', but slapping this dreck with that name is punch right in the crotch to anyone who knows anything about classic sci-fi. I've seen people defending this one here and there. "Give it chance, it was just the pilot". "I was unfamiliar with Flash Gordon, so I thought it was OK". "Who cares about a 70 year old show anyway"? Maybe you've never heard of Flash Gordon, or are unfamiliar with the basic concepts. If you call yourself a fan of sci-fi, than you owe it to yourself to look into the legacy of this character. The Raymond comic strips and the Buster Crabbe serials are the Shakespeare of modern space-fantasy. Everything out there is derivative of them. Star Wars in particular is almost 100% repackaged Flash Gordon. Lucas wanted to make Flash Gordon, couldn't get the rights, and the rest is history.

Maybe you think the 1980 movie sucked, and that's OK, I can see that. But as I said before, there is alot more fun packaged into that film than the last 15 years of sci-fi put together.

One other little thing- could the Air Force please run a humanitarian aid paradrop for the ladies of Hollywood? Every woman in this show needs a bucket of fried chicken and some apple pie. Remember when ladies had figures, and did not look 10 year old boys? Ah, those were the days. Bring back spandex, lame, and nylon, please. Every since the Seattle garage bands took over, costume designers have decided the future is all about grungy leather pants. It's not sexy, not at all. I loves me some Mad Max, but not every show needs to go that route. Give us back our Erin Grays and Ornella Mutis in tight shiny pants, it's all I ask. (On a side note, I have been watching the Buck Rogers box set with my 12 year old boy. He grew a mustache after the first episode.)

So, let me sum up. No rockets, no epic adventure, no hot babes, no giant monsters, no swordplay= no Flash Gordon. If you just take it by itself- it still sucks. If you enjoyed this photo play in the least bit, please seek professional help.

I give this production 5 head butts to the face.


Bas

Bas,

Awesome Review! I especially love how you made the 5 headbutts to the face logo. : -)

Great review, Bas, and it hits the show's low points well (broad target, but I digress).

Everyone regards the 1980 Queen version of Flash as the camp classic, however think back a little bit farther and a lot less PC and you arrive at: Flesh Gordon (1974) !

Talk about a 100% tongue-in-cheek, hand-in-pants parody, with a rocket ship that looks like a gold plated dildo, what's not to make fun of. Ming (er, sorry, Wang The Perverted) is played as a sadistic idiot who's constantly insulted by his minions and doesn't "get" it, the heroine is named Dale Ardor and has curves and wears revealing costumes and... best of all... gets frozen in an honest-to-cheap-effects block of ice and abducted from above by a beam of light to another spaceship or airship. That looks cheezy as hell but it's funny too!

THAT'S the way to send up a classic. Check it out on IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068595/

The current incarnation overdosed on 'correctness pills' long before they even started writing. What a dull boring mess. But is is amusing to dump on it. "Mongo 90210" indeed.

-D-

Wow, you're a trooper Bas. Flash Gordon is not a freaking Stargate clone! Urgh...

I mean, seriously, its like a sin against nature love child of Sliders and Stargate. No spaceships is one result, another being a bunch of young heroes. Then add a pinch of teen drama to dumb down the cast from intelligent and hilariously sarcastic to moronic teenagers. Are you sure it isn't supposed to be a satire?

Thanks for the positive words! I use that animation because I usually go by Captain Atom (or something atomic) on outside boards.

Doesn't the porno-Dale get frozen in Flesh Gordon and the Cosmic Cheerleaders, the sequel to the original? Both are 10x better than the sci-fi show, even by non porn standards. That Dale is bitchin hot, to boot.

Bas