Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov travel to the planet Mongo to fight the evil emperor Ming the Merciless. In this adaptation of the Alex Raymond comic strips, the incidents are familiar but rearranged in a new sequence, with a Hitler subplot added by writer Samual A. Peeples. It opens in Poland, with Nazi bombs falling. Flash Gordon is given a message for Dr. Hans Zarkov. Reporter Dale Arden is also looking for Zarkov, to interview him for her newspaper. Next, as in the comic strip and movie serial, their plane crashes and they join Zarkov on his rocketship to Mongo, where dinosaurs threaten them. Then, in a sequence that does not occur until much later in other versions, they are captured by the Beastmen. This is followed by the familiar first confrontation with Ming, and their first meeting with Thun the Lionman and Ming's daughter Aura. Next, in a sequence not from the strip, with Flash and Thun are made slaves in the mines of Mongo. They escape, and, as in the strip, meet Prince Barin of the Forest Kingdom and Vultan, King of the Hawkmen, (skipping over the Shark Men of the comic strip). In the movie, all of these strange people are mutants. In the comic strip, they were quickly dropped when Southern newspapers objected that images of animal men promoted the Godless doctrine of evolution, but Thun and Vultan have been popular in the many film adaptations. The fall of Vultan's sky city leads to a final battle with Ming. Earth is saved, and Flash and Dale go on to new adventures. I'm normally not a big fan of anything that Filmation did after Star Trek, but this movie just blew me away when I saw it one Saturday night when I was only 15. The stunningly good animation, the surprisingly high level of violence for its day (Adult Swim has much more nowadays), and great voice acting all made an impression on me. What was more I noticed that the artists were given much more leeway than is normal when it came to showing female flesh, especially that many of the female creatures wore little more than very narrow straps over their breasts. Princess Aura acted more sultry than ever, posing like a pinup model and reclining suggestively upon her ever-so-handy couch. About the only clunky spot in the movie came when Thun and Flash were about to turn in for the night and Thun spoke about his personal sexual desires. Well-intentioned upon the writers' part, but it just seemed more than a bit weird to me. It's too bad that Filmation buried this gem after showing it only once. However, my sources tell me that it was not the level of violence that concerned the company. It was all of the sexually suggestive costumes which, in the days before digital editing became possible, would have been impossible cut out of the scenes without eliminating the scenes altogether. Flash Gordon began as a comic strip drawn by Alex Raymond. In the 1930s it was the inspiration for three much-loved movie serials starring Buster Crabbe, which George Lucas says were his inspiration for Star Wars. In the 1950s, there was a really bad live action TV version. In the 1970s, there was a camp live action film, most famous for its Queen soundtrack. "Frash Wawa, he saved every one of us…" Al Williamson drew some beautiful Flash Gordon comic books, before moving on to draw the Star Wars comic strip.<br/><br/>The Flash Gordon comic strip is now all reprint. My favorite Flash Gordon stories are those written for the comic strip by Harry Harrison, of Stainless Steal Rat fame, and drawn by Dan Barry, reprinted in Comics Revue.<br/><br/>This TV movie, also released as a Saturday morning cartoon, was written by Star Trek writer Sam Peeples, and more or less faithfully follows the early Alex Raymond comic strip adventures. The less polished, more repetitious, Saturday morning version is now out on DVD.
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