I didn’t think it was possible for any version of Flash Gordon to bore the living crap out of me, but the Sci-Fi Channel managed it.
When BSG was reimagined, Ron Moore removed all the kitschy and campy aspects but replaced it with adult drama and sex. In the case of Flash, the producers likewise removed all the kitschy and campy elements from Flash Gordon, but replaced it with blandness. How colorless was Doctor Zarkov? How staggeringly dull was Ming the Merciless, no longer an evil, vaguely Asian guy but instead an unimposing Caucasian with the amazing ability to convey a total lack of threat. Were the producers REALLY that concerned about protests from Asian groups if they’d portrayed this decades-old iconic character in the classic manner?
And, hey…there was a REASON that Whitney was written out of Smallville: He was colorless and dull. So using him to anchor the series here only succeeds in that, like an anchor, he weighs things down and slows them to a halt.
I wanted to love this series, I really did. I mean, they had me with the prospect of evil aliens invading a bowling alley. (Which I have to think is a tactical mistake on the part of the aliens. If evil aliens showed up on league night standing at the far end of the lanes at my local bowling alley, we’d all just start chucking fifteen pound bowling balls at them.) But the flat writing, miscasting, and non-existent budget sank the pilot episode and I have, frankly, very little hope for subsequent outings.
Is it possible to do a tongue-in-cheek space opera for today’s audience? Sure. The producers of “The Adventures of Captain Zoom,” an underrated cable gem not even available on home video, accomplished that, featuring a lunkheaded hero, a hilariously offhand villain outing by Ron Perlman, a bewildered-looking Nichelle Nichols who didn’t quite seem to understand how she’d wound up there, and a budget of what looked to be $1.79. “Flash Gordon” from those folks would have killed. What we got instead was simply something that killed time, and even that, not very well.
PAD
• 
I liked it a bit better than you did, PAD. There were some humorous moments here and there. I actually liked the guy playing Flash, enough that I was surprised when I noticed that he was the same actor who played Whitney, who I hated.
You’re right about the boring characters. I’d add the useless black friend. I describe him that way because being black was *all* he did, which made him slightly more memorable than Dr. Zarkov. Of course, the friend pretty much disappeared as soon as Dad’s assitant showed up. Once he filled the role of “person for Flash to talk to,” the friend obviously wasn’t needed anymore.
Plus, generic bounty hunter chick looked so much like Ming’s daughter that I thought they were supposed to be clones for awhile.
And you’re right about the lack of budget. I can understand that having a lot of the action take place on Earth saves money, but that’s *so* far from what the original was about. The original was so out there that having a show be this grounded on Earth almost makes it pointless to call it Flash Gordon.
Overall, I found it exceedingly mediocre. Using Queen’s theme song got me hyped up enough to watch it. Seeing that next week’s episode is all about generic bounty hunter chick moving in with Flash drains my enthusiasm for giving it a second try.
Flash Gordon and bowling? That sounds like a Flash Gordon parody that my friends and I made in high school (our Flash was a professional bowler).
After a while of forest scenes, it made me think of low budget alert (not even night forest scenes). I guess they didn’t want to budget creating a ship either, so they used the warp holes. And the secret gadget? A cheap watch. It did make me yearn for the old serials and the 1980 movie (which I have the soundtrack). So I will buy both and get the bad taste out of my mouth. I will say I did see some promise in the two female leads, and the male lead did remind me a little of Denis Leary. However, I will not revisit the show unless I see some kind of stellar preview trailer of a future episode….
“Captain Zoom” was the best dámņ version of Flash Gordon ever put on TV. Perlman hamming it up as Not-Ming was absolutely glorious. Didn’t hurt that both the Love Interest and the Evil Vamp both had a remarkable degree of depth for such a seemingly low-budget production.
Ironically enough, PAD, the writing had enough touches that felt like your work that for the longest time, I thought you actually had written it.
The fact that it never made it to a series, while Team Knight Rider (from the same series of syndicated movies) got a full season, is an absolute crime.
Ðámņ shame it’s not available on DVD, either; I’d snap it up in a second.
Truthfully, I couldn’t watch more than a few minutes of it when they rebroadcast it the other night. It struck me as done in the same vein of Smallville or Buffy and I can’t admit to being a big fan of either. I know there is a big audience for the whole Superhero done as Dawson‘s Creek but I’m not in that audience.
I know the original is viewed as hokey now but, there was a time when channel 13 was rebroadcasting the original series and I had to watch it. I found it exciting even though is was at the time about 30 or 40 years old.
There is a fashion sense that was very specific to a certain kind of scifi – you can even see it in the original Legion costumes. Somehow, I think playing up that part of the equation is part of the whole franchise.
I can’t say I hated it, I just didn’t find it altogether compelling to watch.
I saw the 1980 movie first before watching the series. Not on purpose, really. It just happened to be on TV. So I was all hyped up to watch the new TV show! And wow, my reaction was the same as yours. Incredibly boring. In fact, the two friends I watched it with and I fell asleep partway through.
I wanted camp and bright colors and vague bdsm references. And I got…a soap opera. Try again, Sci-Fi.
“Truthfully, I couldn’t watch more than a few minutes of it when they rebroadcast it the other night. It struck me as done in the same vein of Smallville or Buffy and I can’t admit to being a big fan of either.”
Well, I’m not only a fan of the original “Flash Gordon” but also of Buffy and Smallville, so if even *I*, the most target of target audiences, didn’t like it…
PAD
They should have done it a la Sin City or not at all. The 80s Flash movie may be the single worst written movie that I love–eye popping sets, incredible costumes, Brian Blessed, Queen…just great stuff. Terrible on most of the ways you would judge a movie but just great stuff nonetheless. Probably a harder trick to pull off than you’d think or they would have done the same thing with Masters of the Universe.
I caught a few minutes of this new thing and bailed. Flesh Gordon looked more interesting (and had better effects, from what I saw).
And if Ming couldn’t be Asian he could still be imposing–who’s whiter than Max Von Snydow?
If the 80s Flash comes out on HD I might have to seriously consider upgrading my dvd player. (Anyone have advice on the HD vs Blu-ray choice?)
Thanks for the comments here. I have it sitting on our DVR which has less than 10 hours free space at the moment. I guess I can free up 1.5 hours without watching this.
Neil
I wasn’t thrilled with the first episode. In fact, it was pretty painful to watch, and the dialogue was horrendous. I’m giving them until they introduce Barin and Vultan. If they can prevent such interesting characters from becoming as bland as the rest of the show, I’ll stick with it.
Hmmm. It was so bad that I am not going to give it a second chance unless someone tells me that it has improved significantly.
Hmmm. It was so bad that I am not going to give it a second chance unless someone tells me that it has improved significantly.
“I know there is a big audience for the whole Superhero done as Dawson‘s Creek…”
I’m really not seeing the comparison to Dawson’s Creek. He had a bit of a romance and unresolved issues with a parent, but that’s pretty standard stuff. Scrubs has that.
I gotta agree, this was pretty awful, and from the looks of upcoming episodes, it doesn’t look like things are going to get much better…
Some of the effects work (especially in the background replacement/extensions) was *really* shoddy… I’ve seen better effects in some fanfilms…
They cancel Dresden Files, and give us this… {sarcasm}THANKS, SciFi…{/sarcasm}
I sort of liked the new Dale, Gina Holden. Eric Johnson? He’s the poor man’s Mark- Paul Gosselaar.(Zack Morris). Who would have been much better at this. As for Ming, I honestly can’t believe they couldn’t find a more exotic type actor who wants to play a villian.
“Well, I’m not only a fan of the original “Flash Gordon” but also of Buffy and Smallville, so if even *I*, the most target of target audiences, didn’t like it…
PAD”
I was just about to say this very same thing. I found it boring beyond belief and I had the whole Imex bit figured out pretty quick. I will give it one or two more episodes. If no improvement then it’s one less hour away from the keyboard. 🙂
Bobby
It was called an IMEX? I couldn’t figure out what the hëll they were looking for.
I never thought I’d say this, but after wathing the pilot, I found myself yearning for the good old days when I could watch the classic serials on Channel 13 out of New York. This series really had nothing to recommend it; in fact, if you changed the names of the characters, you would have no way of knowing that it was Flash Gordon. With the demise of Stargate, I thought I had seen the last of the Vancouver forest du jour, but it appears that we’ll now have a lot more of that to look forward to- those who stay with the series that is.
And am I the only one who wondered how Ming could have had a daughter that age? I know, that’s like, one of too many annoying elements from the pilot, but it happens to be the one that really bugged me.
John H. nailed it right on the head… They cancel The Dresden Files to bring us this poor excuse for a show!
From the inintial announcement SciFi made (“We’re doing a Flash Gordon series to debut in six months!” ) when they didn’t have any writers or show runners or even a concept about how to modernize it, I figured it wasn’t going to be anything good.
According to reports, the debut got a 1.5 rating with around 2.1 million viewers. About comparable to the highest ratings the Stargates got in their last runs. The best thing SciFi apparently has to say about it is that it was the highest rated series debut on SciFi in 2007 (Dresden Files did a 1.4, Painkiller Jane did a 1.3). I’ll be surprised if Flash manages to maintain that level and its likely to drop into the 1.0 range pretty quickly.
Lee Whiteside
SFTV.org
I was prepared to be underwhelmed when I read about the overall theme earlier in the week: not Flash Gordon, rocketing off in a classic “fish out of water” adventure, but Flash Gordon, trying to juggle home life while saving the earth at the same time. Once I saw that, I knew the series would bomb.
The first Flash Gordon I fell in love with was not the 1980s movie, but the 1970s Saturday morning cartoon. You had the action/adventure, the classic serial cliffhanger ending each week, and a great villain. Even the animation was advanced for its time (it hasn’t aged well – but for Saturday morning of the time it probably had more depth to it than anything else).
The live action movie was a bit more camp than action, but with Max Von Sydow, Topol. Brian Blessed and Timothy Dalton, it managed to be better than the script.
This version disappoints on all levels. Ming has no presence as a villain. They are centering a lot of the action on Earth instead of Mongo. The quest is for the father, not to save Earth. Zharkov is a geek rather than a genius. Finally, no cliffhanger. What’s Flash Gordon without a cliffhanger???
This show is failing on just about every level. Like the new BG, it may as well not even call itself by its title.
Anyone have advice on the HD vs Blu-ray choice?
Blu-Ray is winning right now, but since neither side is going to throw in the towel any time soon, you might want to look into a dual-player even though they’re not cheap – they probably still beat paying for two overpriced players.
Bill Mulligan, what size TV do you have?
Bill Mulligan, what size TV do you have?
My over 10 year old 27 inch TV died finally and by happy luck Wal-Mart was getting rid of their stock of older HDTV sets so we got a nice floor model for better than half price. It’s a wide-screen TV with a 31′ diagonal.
They are also offering 3 months free HD service here so we made the mistake of signing up for it. I say mistake because once you watch HD on an HD set every other channel looks like it was filmed using a security camera during a snowstorm. The Discovery channel alone is worth the price.
Regular DVDs look very nice indeed on an HD TV but I know that if I get an HD DVD player I will want to upgrade all my DVDs…I’m about to have 3 kids in college, I really don’t need these temptations.
At 31 inches, it’s extremely hard for most people to tell a difference between DVD and HD-DVD. Usually anything below 42 inches isn’t worth the upgrade. On my 42″ plasma I can tell a difference between regular TV and DVDs, but the DVDs look perfect to me so I wouldn’t notice anything better.
Before you buy, you might want to borrow someone else’s HD player and see if you can tell a difference on your TV.
Thank you! Anything that saves me money…
Jason, correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that even standard DVDs also looked better when played on a HD machine?
That being said, I’m in no great hurry to invest in HD. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that it’s better to wait a while for things to shake down. The fact that players on both sides of the fence have dropped in price is incidental; after all, what good would it have done to buy a Betamax for fifty bucks when the tapes were gone from stores a few months later.
BTW I noticed that the current Best Buy flyer is selling a DVD of Flash Gordon, episodes one and two this week. I would recommend that anybody who was planning on buying it should just take that money out of their wallet and burn it. That way, you won’t feel any worse having to sit through this piece of crap again, but you’ll also save a couple of bucks in gas.
Whenever anyone wanted me in third grade they sang the Queen song. I was utterly devoted to the cartoon. I wanted wings not because of Hawkman but because of Vultan. So, I was thinking if it’s at least half as good as the cartoon, I’ll like it. I tried. I really did. But a woman from Mongo that can drive a 4X4? THAT was Zarkov? Somewhere, Sam J. Jones and Topol are wondering why they suddenly have headaches. I’ll give it a chance, you don’t wanna blow everything in your pilot, but SOMETHING’s gotta get in there.
PAD,
Just curious. I assume by “original Flash Gordon”, you’re referring to the Buster Crabbe movie serials of the 1930s and 40s, and not the Sam J. Jones movie, right?
Not to imply that you were around in the 30s or 40s, but movie serials from that era do survive, and I trust that you do know about them.
And speaking of _Flash Gordon_, anyone interested in the _real_ original Flash might want to check out the seven volume reprints of Alex Raymond’s Sunday strips published by Checker Book Publishing Group. Raymond’s artwork could be fantastic at times.
It’s interesting to note, by the way, that in the very first _Flash Gordon_ comic strip, the “world-renowned polo player” is wearing a parachute as a passenger on a transcontinental plane. A wing of this plane is struck by a meteor and Flash bails out, carrying fellow passenger Dale Arden in his arms.
How interesting that he knew he should have a parachute handy on that particular flight. Could it be that he was in on Ming the Merciless’ plans all along, that their battles were all staged?
Nah, he probably just attended the Rick Jones School of Flying Vehicle Escapes.
Flash also suffers regular bouts of certain types of James T. Kirkitis, and often loses his shirt before a battle.
But again, great artwork and entertaining stories.
As to the new series, didn’t see it.
Saw the Sam J. Jones movie when it came out and liked it at the time. Haven’t seen it since. I suspect I’d still like it- on a nostalgic level, if nothing else.
Rick
P.S. Completely off topic because it has nothing to do with polo players, or football players, or bowling leagues or women named Dale with no connection to Roy Rogers, or rulers described as “merciless”; but today, Aug. 15, is the day the summer issue of the audio zine SCYWEB BEM- which features my short story, “Ascension”- is scheduled to publish.
Be the envy of all your friends. Be the first on your block to get a copy.
C’mon, we’re talking about the (we hate)Sci-Fi channel. Is anyone really surprised it was such a waste? Alex Raymond must be doing about 500 RPM’s right about now.
Its such a shame MST3K isn’t still around. This thing was pretty much tailor made for that show. It’s about the only way it could generate any entertainment value.
I’m just thinking with a bunch of better casting choices it could really hold up well – David Duchovny is a bit long in tooth to play Flash but I bet he would be a decent Doctor Zarkov. And I can’t imagine anyone out there today besides Ian McKellen playing Ming.
>They are also offering 3 months free HD service here so we made the mistake of signing up for it. I say mistake because once you watch HD on an HD set every other channel looks like it was filmed using a security camera during a snowstorm.
Had this come about fifteen years ago, I’d have seriously considered making the jump to HD. But now? With all the screen clutter networks add on to the picture – from “you’re watching ‘x’ show (as though one was unable to read a TV guide?!) and other unwanted pop-ups, to the ever-present channel identifier – it brings to mind the editorial comic someone posted here at work where panel one had a generic, non-HD tv screen, and panel two showing “HD – the same crap in sharper focus”. I’ll pass.
It’s sad, really, when a fancy, updated effects-filled show manages to utterly fail to be anywhere near as engaging as the 30’s Buster Crabbe serial. But then, I felt the same way when I recently saw the ’02 pilot remake of TIME TUNNEL (missed it the first time out) and was depressed to see the low budget 60s Allen original was superior in many respects.
As for the 80s FLASH GORDON film? The only thing I’ll say about it is that I got a free pass to see it and still felt like asking for a refund when I got out.
The 80s Flash movie may be the single worst written movie that I love–eye popping sets, incredible costumes, Brian Blessed, Queen…just great stuff. Terrible on most of the ways you would judge a movie but just great stuff nonetheless.
DIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
Sorry, had to get that out of my system. 🙂
And yes, the ’80s film is one of the absolute best guilty pleasures known to man. A horrible script, but a surprisingly good cast once you exclude the two leads: Blessed, Dalton, von Sydow, Peter Wyngarde, even Richard “Riff Raff” O’Brien in a small role. (The less said about Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson, the better.)
I am so very tempted to get the “Savior of the Universe Edition” DVD that just came out.
Put it on a double bill with “Xanadu” and I’m in Bad Movie Heaven.
TWL
The “Imex/Timex” was their lame attept at a “V’ger /Voyager 6” moment, but for the longest time I was wondering if someone was going to ask them why they were so interested in really big movie screens?
From the Hollywood Reporter: “Sci Fi Channel is pulling the plug on ‘Painkiller Jane.’ …. The cancellation of ‘Jane’ comes on the heels of the strong Friday premiere of another Sci Fi series based on a comic strip, ‘Flash Gordon,’ which scored the channel’s best series premiere numbers this year.”
Based on the name only of “Flash Gordon” it appears enough people tried it out to please SciFi. It will be interesting to see how week 2 does.
Neil
My review:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
It was so lame that even talking about it here becomes a discussion of HD-DVDs to break the boredom.
I remember watch the original Buster Crabbe serials every New Years Eve for years when I was a kid. Never liked the ’80s movie, just too goofy for me. This new show was very disappointing. Too many secrets, hidden agendas, mysterious pasts and zip on action.
Had this come about fifteen years ago, I’d have seriously considered making the jump to HD. But now? With all the screen clutter networks add on to the picture – from “you’re watching ‘x’ show (as though one was unable to read a TV guide?!) and other unwanted pop-ups, to the ever-present channel identifier – it brings to mind the editorial comic someone posted here at work where panel one had a generic, non-HD tv screen, and panel two showing “HD – the same crap in sharper focus”. I’ll pass.
I hear you, bro. Having the USA NETWORK logo plopped in the corner of a film does break the mood. It’s especially ludicrous when it’s a letterboxed film–they go through the trouble of trying to make it look decent and then ruin it with a a superimposed logo…wtf?
DIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
GORDON’S ALIVE!
Nice to see you back, Tim. 🙂
Xanadu? Xanadoo-oo-oo (now we are here)
In Xanadu!
God, what a movie! Fun Fact–if Xanadu hadn’t been a total BO disaster the NEXT movie on Olivia Newton John’s plate would have been THE SILVER SURFER!
***Posted by The StarWolf at August 15, 2007 07:52 AM
Had this come about fifteen years ago, I’d have seriously considered making the jump to HD. But now? With all the screen clutter networks add on to the picture – from “you’re watching ‘x’ show (as though one was unable to read a TV guide?!) and other unwanted pop-ups, to the ever-present channel identifier – it brings to mind the editorial comic someone posted here at work where panel one had a generic, non-HD tv screen, and panel two showing “HD – the same crap in sharper focus”. I’ll pass.*******
Six of one, half-dozen of the other on some of that ID stuff. It depends on how you look at it if it qualifies as “useless clutter” or not. For someone who’s from a different town, and who’s not at all familiar with the local cable/satellite set-up, or who uses a company where they illogically randomly assign channel numbers to the stations without bothering to see what numbers the stations call themselves by (i.e. Channel 13 is #20 on the cable box, Channel 25 is #150 on the ‘box, Channel 3 is #580, ect.), those little channel ID boxes become invaluable for telling the viewer just where s/he’s at on the dial.
And speaking of the 1980’s Flash Gordan film, does anyone remember the novelization to that one? It’s been a few years since I last read it, but if I recallit correctly, the thing was a couple of steps shy of softcore pørņ — or at least it read that way to my teenage self. Like, the main activity at Ming’s court seemed to be getting laid with whoever the newest servant/slave/harem person of the court happened to be. Fun stuff, at least for a teenager.
Chris
“I can’t imagine anyone out there today besides Ian McKellen playing Ming.”
I can imagine everyone out there playing Ming. Where did they get that guy? Donald Trump would be more threatening as Ming.
Some dark part of my mind changed the song line “Flash – Ahhhh!” to “Flash – Suuuucks!”.
Mike
I’m about to give up on the (not)Sci Fi Channel. They don’t greenlight a BSG sequel/spin off. They cancel Dresden, which was excellently made and interesting. They don’t pick up Blade, the series, another pretty-well made, fun, and interesting show that Spike cancelled after one poor ratings season. Then they give Painkiller Jane and Flash (for a speed walker) Gordon full season orders before an episode is ever aired.
I’ll not even mention the decision to air such Sci Fi staples as golf and wrestling.
I’ve tried watching Flash several times. I have a hard time getting over how the savior of the universe is a marathon runner. That’s not Flash. That’s slow and steady wins the race. What, they couldn’t even make him a sprinter? Maybe they needed a long enough intro to get through the opening credits, and the pre-race warmup sprinters go through just wasn’t compelling enough.
I’ll try to get through this first episode, but a good part of me is hoping those good ratings drop terribly for the second week. Alas, I think there’s good portion of the sci-fi audience that is just starved for something even remotely resembling good sci fi until BSG comes back. They’ll turn in for the first 3 or 4 weeks, inflating ratings on what is clearly a bad, bad show.
>For someone who’s from a different town, and who’s not at all familiar with the local cable/satellite set-up, or who uses a company where they illogically randomly assign channel numbers to the stations without bothering to see what numbers the stations call themselves
That would be what the “Info” button on the remote control is for. Again, there is no real need for these intrusive measures. Another option: just go back to having station IDs during the commercial breaks as they’d had for fourty years.
bobb,
although I was entirely unimpressed with SciFi’s treatment of Flash Gordon, him being a marathon runner wasn’t on my list of problems. I saw some earlier version where he was, I think, a gold medalist decathalon athlete.
GORDON’S ALIVE!
WHY IS EVERYTHING I SAY IN ALL CAPS? (That’s in the closed-captioning, in case you missed it.)
Brian Blessed is really high on my list of “actors I’d love to see on stage, or better yet get to have lunch with just once.” It’s never gonna happen, clearly. (The closest I came was seeing Patrick Stewart’s one-man Christmas Carol performance on stage; he’s explicitly stated that he based his Ghost of Christmas Present on Blessed.)
Fun Fact–if Xanadu hadn’t been a total BO disaster the NEXT movie on Olivia Newton John’s plate would have been THE SILVER SURFER!
I’m not sure I can buy that one without some sort of citation. It’s just so amazingly out there. It’s not impossible — I can certainly imagine some early ’80s film exec coked out of his skull and sugggesting it — but I’d love to see some confirmation of that.
And it’s good to be back — hopefully I can stick around a bit more this time.
TWL
Rick, as far as I’m concerned, Buster Crabbe will always be Flash Gordon. Not that I’m old enough to have seen them in the local theater with a double feature and a newsreel, but I certainly watched them when they came to Channel 13 in New York.
And Sean, I can sympathize with being identified with a theme son. When I was six or seven, I absolutely loved the Batman TV theme song. My dad who was a teacher, used to run a summer camp during the summer and one day during lunch, one of the camp administrators made an announcement over the PA system that they were dedicating a song to me, and played the Batman theme! Once you’ve been laughed at by a hundred or so kids, it’s time to find a new favorite song. Or at least a cooler one.
To whoever mentioned Ian McKellen as Ming, don’t you think the fact that Sci-Fi has cast a group of relatively unknown actors, I assume from Vancouver, would suggest they’re not exactly paying star salaries here? This may be the cheapest-looking Sci-Fi series since, well, the last one which I guess is Painkiller Jane and look what just happened there.
Joe–in a case like that, there is a third option. The song protection program.
WHY IS EVERYTHING I SAY IN ALL CAPS?
Because your words are all really good in the outfield? No?
You gotta love the spikey arena combat scene from the movie. I loved it so much that I (loosely) based a fight on it in one of my novels. And any movie with Richard O’ Brien playing a flute in tights can’t be ALL bad, right?
Geez, those crickets are loud.
Tim–have you caught Brian Blessed’s King Richard in the first season of the Black Adder? FRESH HORSES! Ðámņ, now I’m doing it.
I could slag SciFi but, they came up with Eureka and I absolutely love that series and they also did The Lost Room which I hope they either do a sequel to or at least try to make that into a series.
Tim–have you caught Brian Blessed’s King Richard in the first season of the Black Adder?
Yep. And his King Yrcanos in Doctor Who (back in the mid-80s), and his Duke of Exeter in Branagh’s Henry V, and his Emperor Augustus in I,CLAVDIVS …
Does this guy ever play someone NOT of royal blood?
TW(as quick as boiled asparagus)L
Fun Fact–if Xanadu hadn’t been a total BO disaster the NEXT movie on Olivia Newton John’s plate would have been THE SILVER SURFER!
I’m not sure I can buy that one without some sort of citation. It’s just so amazingly out there. It’s not impossible — I can certainly imagine some early ’80s film exec coked out of his skull and sugggesting it — but I’d love to see some confirmation of that.
Doubt me, do you? Well, here’s our very own Robert (Bob) Greenberger (http://www.bluecanary.net/news/2007/02/18/hollywood-does-comics/)
Everyone got very excited when Steranko’s Mediascene mag announced a Silver Surfer movie was going to be made with Olivia Newton-John attached as Shalla Bal. Never happened.
That’s where I heard about it as well. If you can ever score the Jim Steranko Xanadu issue of his magazine MEDIASCENE PREVUE #42 you can read the grim details–there is a nice SILVER SURFER back cover by Mike Bryan.
The part that really stuck in my head–and this is over 25 years ago–is that the producers had supposedly spent a great deal of money to actually make a board that could hover off the floor. They could only get it to rise a few feet but were hoping that with some more money and reserch they could get it higher up. And I’m thinking “Holy Christ, these idiots think that the secret to making a good Silver Surfer movie is to actually make a surf boars float!”
I know that sounds like the result of college year drug ingestion but at http://www.tcj.com/253/f_stanlee.html I read the following: Lee Kramer, Olivia Newton-John’s former boyfriend and manager, was moving forward on a proposed $20-million Silver Surfer production. Paul McCartney had been approached about the score, and a levitation device was being built at the Imperial College in London.
(This page also has some things on it that (if true) we can all thank the heavens never got made. Example: “A Silver Surfer treatment contained elements of early-’70s blaxploitation movies. In Lee’s proposed storyline, the Surfer races across the Earth on his board. As he swoops down over New York, a “tall, overdressed black man” enters the picture: “It’s Sweet-Daddy Wisdom, leader of New York’s Black Mafia. He aims a hand gun at the Surfer. He commands the Surfer to land gently and get off the board. He says that everyone’s been trying to get a line on him. And now he belongs to Sweet-Daddy Wisdom. Ol’ Sweet-Daddy’s gone and caught himself the world’s choice prize. He’s captured the ultimate honky.”)
(I disagree with Bob on one aspect though–I thought that Olivia Newton-John was going to play Ardina, from the Lee-Kirby Silver Surfer graphic novel, not Shalla-Bal)
Any way, yeah, it’s true. Horribly, horribly true…
Fun Fact–if Xanadu hadn’t been a total BO disaster the NEXT movie on Olivia Newton John’s plate would have been THE SILVER SURFER!
I’m not sure I can buy that one without some sort of citation. It’s just so amazingly out there. It’s not impossible — I can certainly imagine some early ’80s film exec coked out of his skull and sugggesting it — but I’d love to see some confirmation of that.
Doubt me, do you? Well, here’s our very own Robert (Bob) Greenberger (www.bluecanary.net/news/2007/02/18/hollywood-does-comics/)
Everyone got very excited when Steranko’s Mediascene mag announced a Silver Surfer movie was going to be made with Olivia Newton-John attached as Shalla Bal. Never happened.
That’s where I heard about it as well. If you can ever score the Jim Steranko Xanadu issue of his magazine MEDIASCENE PREVUE #42 you can read the grim details–there is a nice SILVER SURFER back cover by Mike Bryan.
The part that really stuck in my head–and this is over 25 years ago–is that the producers had supposedly spent a great deal of money to actually make a board that could hover off the floor. They could only get it to rise a few feet but were hoping that with some more money and reserch they could get it higher up. And I’m thinking “Holy Christ, these idiots think that the secret to making a good Silver Surfer movie is to actually make a surf boars float!”
I know that sounds like the result of college year drug ingestion but at http://www.tcj.com/253/f_stanlee.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.tcj.com/253/f_stanlee.html I read the following: Lee Kramer, Olivia Newton-John’s former boyfriend and manager, was moving forward on a proposed $20-million Silver Surfer production. Paul McCartney had been approached about the score, and a levitation device was being built at the Imperial College in London.
(This page also has some things on it that (if true) we can all thank the heavens never got made. Example: “A Silver Surfer treatment contained elements of early-’70s blaxploitation movies. In Lee’s proposed storyline, the Surfer races across the Earth on his board. As he swoops down over New York, a “tall, overdressed black man” enters the picture: “It’s Sweet-Daddy Wisdom, leader of New York’s Black Mafia. He aims a hand gun at the Surfer. He commands the Surfer to land gently and get off the board. He says that everyone’s been trying to get a line on him. And now he belongs to Sweet-Daddy Wisdom. Ol’ Sweet-Daddy’s gone and caught himself the world’s choice prize. He’s captured the ultimate honky.”)
(I disagree with Bob on one aspect though–I thought that Olivia Newton-John was going to play Ardina, from the Lee-Kirby Silver Surfer graphic novel, not Shalla-Bal)
Any way, yeah, it’s true. Horribly, horribly true…
You know what would have been great? George Takei as Ming. Yeah, I know he’s not Chinese, but it still would have been awesome. I love a villain you can root for.