If you are like me, you grew up on the cheesy 1980 sci-fi film Flash Gordon. It was rushed into production to cash in on Star Wars, but it did something interesting in the process: it leaned hard into being ridiculous.
Not ironic, nor apologetic, just openly, gloriously absurd.
The film has that old, half-embarrassed, half-winking tone common to pre-modern superhero and sci-fi movies, the kind that seemed unsure whether it was allowed to take itself seriously. And yet, the costume design went all in. Bright colors, ornate armor, skin-tight outfits straight out of a 1930s comic strip. It fully embraced the pulp aesthetic, and as a result it looks nothing like anything else from its era. It was glorious!
Some of the women's costumes were... educational, to say the least, for an eight-year-old boy. But I was too young to understand what I was seeing, so it all sailed right past me.
What didn’t sail past me was Brian Blessed.
I didn’t know his name for years, but his performance as Prince Vultan burned itself into my brain. Every time he showed up in another movie or TV show, I’d blurt out, “It’s the Hawkman from Flash Gordon!”, as if that were his proper title, like “Sir” or “Doctor”.
And then there was the music. The opening theme by Queen, paired with those animated comic panels, remains one of the best title sequences ever put to film. Long before Marvel made flipping comic art part of its brand identity, Flash Gordon was already doing it, and doing it with far more style.
I loved that song for years before realizing who made it. Later, when I first heard other Queen tracks, my reaction wasn’t “Oh, the legendary rock band”, it was “Hey, it’s the guys who did Flash Gordon.” Kids have priorities.
There’s also a nice layer of historical irony here. Star Wars directly inspired Flash Gordon’s revival, yet it was the old Flash Gordon serials that originally inspired George Lucas to make Star Wars in the first place. The influence is barely hidden in the first film: the opening crawl, the space opera melodrama, even the structure.
Lucas has been open about it. Star Wars is basically Flash Gordon filtered through Akira Kurosawa.
Which makes the whole thing feel like a cultural ouroboros: science-fiction endlessly consuming its own tail.
A sequel to Flash Gordon was planned, and the ending practically announces it. This wasn’t just wishful thinking, as many B movies do; it was real. One of the major reasons it never happened was that Sam Jones, who played Flash himself, walked away after discovering that much of his dialogue had been dubbed without his consent. His anger was justified, but still… part of me wishes he’d swallowed it and done the sequel. I still want to know how Ming survived long enough to crawl back and grab his ring, damn it.
Speaking of Ming...
You know the creepy high priest who officiates Ming’s wedding? This guy:
That’s Philip Stone. You might recognize him from another film — The Shining. Specifically, this character:
Hold crap! That’s the ghostly butler who nudges Jack toward murdering his family. Does that mean The Shining exists in the same universe as Flash Gordon? ...Maybe that's how Ming survived. He had the Shining!
But I digress.
Gordon is alive.
Not because the movie is “good” in any modern sense, but because it committed fully to what it was: pulp sci-fi spectacle, unashamed of its origins, unconcerned with prestige. It didn’t try to be clever. It didn’t try to be cool. It just went for it.
And somehow, forty-plus years later, that sincerity keeps it in our heads. Well, mine at least.
| David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. |
