I knew you were up to something, though I’ll confess I hadn’t thought of necrophilia.
How could I have gone my entire life and not seen Flash Gordon? I have no idea but it sure cost me major geek points last night.
A bunch of friends gathered at my boyfriends house last night to watch a movie. There were a few things to choose from, Flash Gordon being one of them. We planned on watching it for a few minutes then putting on something else. Needless to say, everyone was mesmerized (some of us by hot pants, others by hawk men) and we wound up watching the whole thing.
About halfway through my friend George said, “You’ve seen this before, right Jill?” Not thinking much of it I answered, “No”. Little did I know I was about to unleash a flurry of geek criticisms the likes of which I’d never been on the receiving end of. “You call yourself a geek?!” “How is that possible?!” “Ohh man, you lose at least 50 geek points for this one.” Well, I felt like crawling into a ball and hiding under the couch after that.
What can I say? It wasn’t on purpose I never watched it. I guess it just wasn’t one of those movies that crossed my path growing up. It’s totally up my alley though. I mean, my god, will there ever be anything like the 80’s again? Spandex was plentiful as was intercourse. Or at least the verbal and visual representations of it. I mean, hello? What do you think is on the front of his Rocket Cycle?
Yeesh. And don’t even get me started on all of the bondage. Or how about Dale telling Flash to “Save it for our kids” after only knowing him for about a day? Talk about a fast woman.
It took me forever to figure out why Ming was reminding me of Ian McKellan. I finally looked him up and found where I knew him from as an old man. Max von Sydow played Lamar Burgess in Minority Report. I also looked into Flash Gordon himself Sam J. Jones. But how about this for odd? He starred in a 1987 TV movie called The Spirit. Yes, THAT Spirit! The one written by Will Eisner and being made into a major movie for next year. He played Denny Colt. And his co-star? Nana Visitor, Kira, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I also saw that she had a role on the new Battlestar Galactica, which (and don’t ruin it for me) I don’t even know if it’s aired yet. And just to bring it all back around, Jones made a guest appearance on the Sci-Fi channels Flash Gordon series which, after seeing a clip of their hawk men, you couldn’t pay me to watch.
Anyway, I loved it and I could go on and on about all the fantastic ridiculous dialogue or costumes but I won’t. Though I will say, an entire soundtrack by Queen made it even better for me. I’m just hoping I can gain back at least some of the geek points I lost by writing about it. Now I must go fashion a brain drainer so I can reprogram myself to think I saw Flash Gordon when I was negative two-years-old.
digg_url = ‘https://thenerdybird.com/2008/05/i-knew-you-were-up-to-something-though.html’;
hex, I don’t blame you one bit.
Ahh so THERE was my problem freakgirl! My family didn’t have HBO until much later in life.
Jill, back in the OLD DAYS, HBO only showed about four movies over and over and over again. “Flash Gordon” was one of them. The only way you could have avoided seeing it if you were a kid in the 80s is if you grew up without a television.
Such a fun flick — and I’m not just saying that because I’ve had a crush on Ornella Muti since I was like 10 years old..
Is “Flesh Gordon” truly a “spoof” so much as, you know, just plain porn? It’s the early predecessor to such fine sci-fi spoofs as “Womb Raider”, “In Diana Jones & the Temple of Porn”, “Batman in Robin”, “Buffy the Vampire Layer”, and “Sperminator”.
No I certainly haven’t seen that one. Though I did come across it while looking up stuff about Flash Gordon. I think I’ll pass. :)
i bet you haven’t watched the spoof of this Flash Gordon movie. and funny how the spoof even got a sequel. so go rent Flesh Gordon!
Yes tintin, I shall now bow down to him and sing praises in his name. :)
geekboy, that’s cool that you got to watch it together finally. I love the fact that the lead hawk man has the line, “Who wants to live forever?” which is a line from another Queen song that was used in the Highlander movie. But seeing as how this was 6 years before the song was released it might just be a funny coincidence.
Freakgirl and I just recently watched that movie for the first time in probably 20 years a few weeks ago. It was on the Sci-Fi channel on a lazy Saturday, I think, and I was actually surprised that she knew it as well I as I did.
The awesome Queen soundtrack is probably the one element that saves that movie from being just plain campy, and instead makes it “campy but cool”. It’s kind of like the way the rousing John Williams score keeps you from noticing that most of the dialogue in Star Wars is dreadfully boring.
I continued listening to that Queen soundtrack for many years after the last time I’d seen the movie.
yeah, and you call yourself a geek??? hehe. now, have you accepted Flash as the savior of the universe?