Movies: Flash Gordon Remake INC!!

Ah-ahhh! But why? Some things are just better left alone. Like spoiled pork, or anything with green stuff growing on it that isn't a plant.

But the scariest thing is that if you read a little ways down, there's the possibility of a "Red Dawn"!! Head for ze hills!

#1 FLASH, AHH-AHH, HE'LL SAVE EVERYONE OF US!

With Iron Man showing that a movie can prominently feature a man being propelled into the heavens on a rocket, and make a bajillion dollars, it's apparently okay again to show a man inside a rocket being propelled into the heavens as well. As the winners of a studio bidding war, Sony Pictures announced this week their plans to revive Flash Gordon as a feature film franchise, bringing back the football star who travels to the planet Mongo, and helps a variety of exotic races fight against the evil Ming the Merciless. Flash Gordon started off in the 1930s as the star of comic strips and a series of extremely popular serials (basically a movie broken up into parts, shown before other movies back then), and was then being remade as a flamboyantly campy Queen-soundtrack-driven adventure (and box office flop) in 1980.

This time around, Breck Eisner (director of Sahara; and son of Disney's famous former boss), who is also remaking The Creature from the Black Lagoon and George A. Romero's The Crazies, has been given the enviable challenge of bringing Flash's fantastic adventures to life. I'm not terribly excited by just how rampant the current remake trend is becoming, but Flash Gordon is definitely a pretty awesome candidate, I think. More interesting than Flash himself, I think, is the prospect of seeing Ming the Merciless return as a movie icon. Absence from popular culture for 25+ years has hurt his legacy a bit, but Ming easily deserves a place on any top 10 list of the most classic movie villains ever. "Pathetic Earthlings!"

Flash...ARRGGHHHH!!

So,

I never read the comic strips from the 30's or anything, but when I was growing up, the 1980 movie, "Flash Gordon," happened to be big. To this day, images of Flash and Prince Barin sticking their hands into evil scorpion holes haunt my wittle mind, and when someone talks about Ming the Merciless, it's Max Von Sydow's portrayal that pops immediately into my head. Mind you, the movie wasn't GREAT. It probably wasn't even good. But compared to the newest attempt starring some stick thin Smallville reject, it's a masterpiece.

Now about the "new" series showing on Sci-Fi (I got tricked and watched it on Bravo--I thought an episode of Top Chef was coming on)....

According to Wiki:

The new series, based on the comic strip of the same name and its adaptations, adds a character called Baylin (Karen Cliche), a bounty hunter from the planet Mongo. She finds herself trapped on Earth and becomes a comrade of Flash (Eric Johnson); his former girlfriend, Dale Arden (Gina Holden); and scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov (Jody Racicot), who are able to travel back and forth through a "portal between the two worlds" instead of space ships. In a more subtle change, Ming will not be called "the Merciless" and will exhibit the traits of modern, media-savvy dictators.

And other than the new Flash being rail skinny, the scientist guy just pathetic vs hateable, and Dale semi-empowered, the real biggest change and downfall of this newly improved metrosexual "Flash Gordon," is the newly improved metrosexual, perfectly coiffed white guy old man, Ming the...regular, and not at all merciless ruler guy....

WTF!?

Seriously. As if the low budget, bad acting weren't enough (and lemme tell you, the bitches looked like they were having trouble running realistically), they took away my Asian brother/hero, Ming and replaced him with some random dude from the mall. /cry. When he was introduced, I was like, okay, is that Ming's advisor or something? Get off the screen! But no...it was Ming...Mr. Ming to you.

I swear, everything's gotta be so goddamn PC nowadays. Gimme Lo Pang any day. I'm not offended, really. (Besides, Big Trouble in Little China was awesome.)

The new Flash won't even have Queen, and instead, it'll have some cover band ripping off Queen. So sad.

Anyhow, here's the new Ming his thoughts on the "character" and old Ming:




New Ming Speaks

Let us mourn.