5 Questions: Flash Gordon

There is no question why 1980’s Flash Gordon has such a loyal cult following… the comic strip characters come to life and the vibrant world these characters get to play in were indelibly etched into the minds of all who grew up on this film.

But after a recent rewatch, I did have some questions about this beloved movie…

#1- Are earthquakes called earthquakes on other planets?

Flash Gordon opens with Ming (Max von Sydow) and his right hand man Klytus (Peter Wyngarde) using a Destro like weather dominator device to cause all sorts of havoc on this big blue marble we call Earth… although in fairness metallic faced Klytus had his weather dominator before metallic faced Destro had his.

The weather dominator device has several options on it including hurricane, hot hail, volcanic eruption and earthquake. Since this device was not built specifically for Earth, but instead any planet that Ming the Merciless decided he wanted to screw with, would earthquakes on other planets be called earthquakes?!? For example, if one happened on Mars, would it be a Marsquake?!?!

#2- How did a guy as smart as Dr. Hans Zarkov manage to design a rocket that could only be launched if there were two people on board?

Hans Zarkov (Topol, For Your Eyes Only), the man who NASA thought was crazy, proved to be freaking brilliant over the course of events in Flash Gordon. However I find it odd that a man of Zarkov’s superior intelligence managed to design a rocket ship that required more than one person on board to launch.

Zarkov would not have had to pull a gun on his assistant Munson (played by William “I have an awesome IMDb profile pic” Hootkins) or hoodwink Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones, Fists of Iron) and Dale Arden (Melody Anderson, Firewalker) into helping him go on his fantastic voyage had he not overlooked an obvious design flaw.

#3- Was I the only kid who was terrified of tree stumps after seeing this movie?

One of the most memorable scenes from Flash Gordon is when Flash and Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton, Licence to Kill) take the Wood Beast Challenge as they blindly stick their hand in a giant tree stump that contains the Wood Beast… a scorpion like creature that delivers instant death to anyone it stings.

I couldn’t have been the only young child who was freaked out by this scene, could I?

#4- Is the Flash Gordon soundtrack Queen’s most significant contribution to the world of cinema?

Queen’s music has been in countless films… from Iron Eagle to Revenge of the Nerds and from Wayne’s World to A Knight’s Tale. Some could argue one of the reasons that Queen’s music is so iconic is thanks in part to the movies their music was featured in.

But to me Queen’s greatest contribution to the movie world was their soundtrack for Flash Gordon (sorry Highlander). The title song is instantly recognizable and the soundtrack takes the movie to another level.

#5- Why did we never get a Flash Gordon 2 even though it was teased?

The obvious answer is a less than stellar performance at the box office (although the film did turn a profit), but after watching the documentary Life After Flash (something I would highly recommend to all Flash Gordon and Sam J. Jones fans), I learned about the turmoil behind the scenes between Jones and producer Dino De Laurentiis. Things got so bad that Sam J. Jones did not return to the production after they broke for the holidays, forcing Dino to use Jones’ stand in to finish scenes and hiring an actor to loop all of Jones’ dialogue. Sam J. Jones would then get litigious and sue Dino for not being a part of the two planned sequels that were never made.