At the end of the seventies Science Fiction was hot property once again in Hollywood following the commercial successes of Star Wars, Alien and Superman: The Movie. Italian uber-producer
Dino De Laurentiis, back then responsible for some of Hollywoods most expensive flops and still recovering from the critical and commercial disaster of his 1976 remake of King Kong, was desperately searching for a hit. He had owned the rights to
Alex Raymond and
Don Moores 30's comic book strip
Flash Gordon for many years but was unsure of how best to tackle an adaptation. Year after year would pass as he tore his hair out trying to figure a way to make 1930s Saturday morning serials work in a decade that had reveled in it's cold violence and gritty motion-pictures. When Californian film geek
George Lucas, then responsible for
THX 118 and
American Graffiti approached De Laurentiis about capturing the rights during a development struggle on an adaptation - the producer turned him down.
De Laurentiis knew HE wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie someday but just didn't yet know what it would be, and he had no interest in selling the rights to a young upstarter. Lucas, a little wounded by the snub, decided to write his own original screenplay influenced by the cliffhanging serials of the thirties. The result was The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, later renamed
Star Wars (1977) and it spawned a multi-billion dollar franchise. De Laurentiis' jaw dropped to the floor. And yet, he now finally knew how to make a Flash Gordon movie work.
In 1979, De Laurentiis set to work developing Flash Gordon as big budget sci-fi epic to rival Lucas effort. Hiring
Lorenzo Semple Jr. to write the screenplay, a writer on the popular
Batman TV series starring Adam West during the sixties thus ensuring the project would be instantly injected with high camp. This was intentional - Batman was a popular show, and Star Wars had hit a pop culture wave among kids like no-other movie before. With a screenplay in place, De Laurentiis then needed a director to bring the vision to life. Originally pursuing fellow Italian
Federico Fellini to fill the role the producer worked his way through a massive list of sci-fi directors including
Nicholas Roeg, who had directed
David Bowie as
The Man Who Fell To Earth but most turned down the project based on it's kiddie screenplay. Eventually, his eighth choice,
Mike Hodges, whose CV included the classic Brit gangster flick
Get Carter, was convinced that the project was worthy of his time. Together Hodges and De Laurentiis assembled an eclectic cast of big international names including
Max Von Sydow, Topol, Brian Blessed, Peter Wyngarde and
Timothy Dalton. For the title role they chose an unknown,
Sam J Jones, beating off competition from
Kurt Russell (who had also lost out on the Han Solo role) and
Arnold Schwarzenegger who De Laurentiis thought better suited
Conan the Barbarian, his next epic.
Despite the talent involved the film failed to make an impression either critically or commercially. However with the introduction of home video during the early eighties the film found a wider audience and with the continued popularity of the rock band
Queen, who scored the entire film, Flash Gordon began to benefit from a cult following. With numerous releases on video, DVD and now this month its debut in
HD on Blu-ray, the film seems to continue to gain adoration from new and existing fans - 30 years after it's initial release. The films basic plot sees Flash, an American football star and Dale Arden (
Melody Anderson) a journalist skyjacked aboard Dr Zarkovs spaceship following a series of freak weather conditions on Earth. Zarkov traces the source of the weather disruption to the planet of Mongo where Ming the Merciless is planning to destroy Earth. Flash attempts to bring together opposing forces, the tree people led by Prince Barin and Prince Vultan with his army of hawk-men to help overthrow Ming and return Mongo to the people and save Earth in the process. If you ask people what they remember most about the film they will usually mention one of three things. The music, in particular the theme song by Queen, Brian Blesseds over the top but brilliant performance as hawk-man Prince Vultan and his oft imitated line Gordons alive, and finally ex-Blue Peter presenter
Peter Duncan failing to beat a deadly tree in a variation of Russian roulette involving putting his hand into various holes in a tree trunk knowing that there is a poisonous creature inside one of the holes.
The sets and costumes deserve special mention, eschewing the cold, used look of many science fiction films of the time. Oscar winning designer and Fellini collaborator
Danilo Donatis vision for the film is one of bright, elaborate sets full of vibrant colour and grand art deco design. Costumes are camp and outrageous in keeping with the overall style and range from the sublime to the ridiculous from Flashs iconic t-shirt to S&M leathers and PVC. The film is highly enjoyable and despite some dodgy special effects it has not dated too badly. Flash Gordon does not take itself too seriously and I think that is one of the reasons it has remained so popular. Everyone involved seems to be having a great time, particularly the actors best known for more serious roles. Here they are able to lose themselves in their characters, hamming it up without parody or losing that sense of fun. The film is ridiculous but it never pretends to be anything else.
Quality
The film has never looked so good, the 1080p transfer handles the colours well and the image has been really cleaned up compared to previous DVD releases which were already pretty good. The only downside to such a crisp, clear picture is that it makes some of the poorer special effects look even worse. The DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack is very good and Queens score sounds excellent, it is just a shame there is no option to watch the movie with an isolated score.
Extras
This is where this 30th Anniversary release really lets itself down with recycled extras from previous DVD releases and a wealth of material missing. Considering the amount of space on a Blu-ray disc this should be the definitive edition but unfortunately there is nothing here to recommend that owners of the DVD should make the upgrade. There is a woefully short 2 minute introduction from Mike Hodges and also an informative feature length commentary with the director but that is all. The Brian Blessed commentary track from the 25th Anniversary DVD is shamefully missing (it's one of the greatest of all time) as is the 30 minute interview with Mike Hodges from that release. Also there are no episodes from the original Buster Crabbe series available as in previous editions. An Anniversary edition should have retrospective documentaries, vintage featurettes, deleted scenes, a documentary tracing the origins of the character from comic book to big screen, Queen music videos, the list of possibilities for a film of this nature is endless.
The Blu-ray comes in a limited edition 2 disc steel book case and includes the original Queen soundtrack on CD. I understand that the rights to the film have changed hands a number of times and has probably had some impact on the extras available to certain film companies but this is one of the laziest releases I have seen for a Blu-ray. This camp cult classic deserves a better release but unfortunately we may now have to wait for the 35th Anniversary to get it. Flash Gordon: The 30th Anniversary Limited Edition is available on
Blu-ray from Monday.