h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Flash Gordon - the 1980 Film - A87826143
Author: SashaQ - towel - U9936370

This Entry is dedicated to Bluebottle, who gave me the inspiration.

This is the first Entry on a film that I've done, so I hope it's OK. All suggestions for improvement gratefully received.

As a teenager, I watched the TV series with Buster Crabbe as Flash. Was that what you describe as the "first Flash movie"? I don't think that it could be described as a movie, it was a series of short episodes for the cinema. Every one ended in a cliff-hanger.

An article dedicated to me -

This is definitely an article that's needed in the guide.

It's a highly influential film – and I’ve not been able to look at a Ming vase the same way since. The ending with the signet ring was blatantly nicked by Doctor Who after the Master died in 'Last of the Time Lords'. It has inspired some similarly-titled films. The original novels by Alex Raymond were republished with pictures of Sam J Jones on the cover. (Talking of Sam J Jones, wasn't his dialogue dubbed, and wouldn't that be worth mentioning. Oh, and talking of novels, have you read the novelisation? I’m not at home at the moment so I've not got it with me and I’ve not read it for a few years and can’t remember who wrote it, but I remember it added quite a few 'interesting' details to the story).

Gnomon is right, Buster Crabbe starred in Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers film serials rather than actual films (did you know that Buster Crabbe cameod in an early episode of 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' as 'Brigadier Gordon' in a reference to his Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers roles).

With the animated series, I think that they made the pilot feature-length pilot 'Flash Gordon – The Greatest Adventure of All' first before the series. There are some contradictions between the pilot and the series (such as in 'Flash Gordon – The Greatest Adventure of All' Cloud City is completely destroyed, only for it to be revealed in the series that Cloud City was instead captured by Ming and the hawkmen merely enslaved.)

But definitely a good read!

<BB<

(The original Buster Crabbe series had one of the biggest cliff-hanger cheats I have ever seen.

At the end of one episode Flash is thrown out a window, grabs at the windowsill but misses, then is seen plunging to his death. How are they going to get out of that one?

At the start of the next episode, we see him thrown out the window, grabbing at the windowsill and getting a grip, then hauling himself back up and carrying on to save the day.
)

good entry about a classic film

I've got Queen singing "FLASH! A-ha-aa" playing loudly as an earworm now

GB

Thanks Gnomon - I've tweaked the paragraph about the cinema series, so I hope that's better.

I also added in a paragraph about the Flesh Gordon spoof, as per MMF's conversation on this Entry.

Thanks Bluebottle

I've added in mention of the dubbing thing and also rewrote the paragraph on the Greatest Adventure of All

I hadn't seen the novelisation, but I found it and have added a bit about it into the Entry



"I’ve not been able to look at a Ming vase the same way since."

Neither have I

Thanks GB

It is an earworm and a half, that one - I have it too...

dun dun dun dun FLASH! A ahhh...

This film was on TV yesterday I paid more attention to the beginning this time, and hence I have tweaked a couple of paragraphs.

Two things:

In the sentence about Ming being bored, you use past tense.

The phrase "all in England" could be taken to mean that the Isle of Skye is in England.

Thanks Gnomon - tweaks made

In a conversation on the Entry, SiliconDioxide also mentioned the final scene suggesting a sequel (that was never made) and the influence on Doctor Who, so I added a paragraph about that.

Ooh! I'd forgotten that about the ring. But then, I haven't seen the film since 1980.

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Well done!

<BB<

Thanks everyone