Hey folks, Harry here... as has long been rumored, Stephen Sommers has officially come on board with his producing partner to produce a new adaptation based upon Alex Raymond's classic sci-fi fantasy comic strip, FLASH GORDON.
Flash has been a staple of sci-fi filmmaking since the Thirties. Those wondrous Buster Crabbe serials were bristling with imagination and set design and spectacle. They communicated the gosh gee whiz wow of Alex Raymond's amazing strips, but lacked the variety of creatures and the inhuman races that Alex's astonishing lines conveyed in print everywhere.
The Flash Gordon rayguns and spaceships and memoribilia have been a part of pop culture since the 30s. With celluloid toys, tin toys, metal toys, smoke ring producing rayguns, pop guns, clothesline spaceships through to the days of Captain Action and Mego Dolls. Then there was the Filmation Animated series... and finally... QUEEN's FLASH GORDON. I say that, because Queen is the single greatest thing about that version of the film. Oh sure, Ornella Muti screaming out in anguish, "NOT THE BORE WORMS," may very well be the greatest moment in cinematic history, but Sam Jones' fucking football fight with Ming's guards, and those styrofoam wings absolutely drive me crazy. THOUGH... that being said, Max Von Sydow was pretty great as Ming... Though he couldn't shine the head of Charles Middleton's Ming The Merciless! In fact, pretty much across the board, Crabbe's serial owns the adaptation history of this property. Mainly because of tone. It nailed it.
For one, Buster Crabbe was the perfect actor. He was Shatner before Shatner... the man of action, not nuance. He was good enough to believe moment to moment that the cardboard panels in front of him could make the sparkler tailed ships fly and that he was indeed the hero that would "conquer the universe"!
As for Stephen Sommers and FLASH GORDON... not much is known out of the Variety announcement. It seems that Stephen is simply writing and producing the film for now, and will commit to directing it later on, if he's satisfied with his script. The key questions regarding this project most likely revolve around the concept of tone. Will this be a silly popcorn adventure lacking in emotional resonance in lieu of rocketpack joy on the Moons of Mongo? Or will he truly go after the action sci-fi melodrama of Alex Raymond's brilliant strips. Well... That's what I'm pulling for.
BTW - to clarify - I love the 80's FLASH GORDON - I can quote it all day long... but FLESH GORDON was a more faithful adaptation of the material in terms of production design and tone. Heh. Brian Blessed, Timothy Dalton, Max Von Sydow and of course Ornella ruled the universe. Sam Jones was ASS though. But Queen's music and the crazy effects rule my world. He's gonna save every one of us....
