Flash Gordon (1980) Reaction & Review! FIRST TIME WATCHING!! 

"I'm just not going to question logic in this film anymore." You held out longer than most, Shan. Best. Leo.

Prince Vultan is played by the legendary Brian Blessed. He's a British National Treasure known for his booming voice. He challenged the Dalai Lama to a boxing match, he's climbed mount everest 3 times without supplimentary oxygen, he's the oldest man to ever visit the north pole, as well as his lenghty acting career on stage and screen. He's a very unique person.

Queen also did the music for the film “Highlander”. HIGHLY recommend.

"I'm just not going to question logic at this point." Wisdom.

Flash Gordon began as a newspaper comic strip in the 1930's, and was later turned into a film serial, which starred Buster Crabbe as Flash. It was the spiritual precursor to Star Wars. In fact, George Lucas tried to secure the film rights to Flash Gordon but was denied.

I recommend watching the movie Highlander. Queen did the music for that movie too, and it is a cult classic.

Shan...I really love the fact that you commented on how much you like the music LITERALLY just before you saw that Queen is credited. Yes...Queen, the actual Queen, WITH Freddy Mercury did the soundtrack for Flash Gordon...and it was EPIC! Of course, they got a TON of crap from people in the music biz and the media...were called sellouts and corporate hacks, and stuff like that...but their music totally makes this movie, proving that truly...everything is better with Queen. 🖖💯✌

Queen also did the music for the original "Highlander" movie. Which I'm hoping appears on your channel as well.

This movie gets referenced all the time. My favorite moments were in Ted, when the original actor for Flash Gordon appeared as himself. And in Avengers Infinity War when Iron Man called Star Lord "Flash Gordon, here" as an insult, but of course Star Lord took it as a compliment.

Have You ever watched "Galaxy Quest" ( 1999, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tim Allen, Sam Rockwell, Tony Shalhoub... )? If not, this is a clear recommendation !

The young me was freaked out by that scorpion like thing and the scene where they stuck their hands into the hollow stump where it lives.

"This is a weird one" Yes, yes it is.

Absolute cult movie that is just pure fun. Brian Blessed is a legend and such an amazingly funny man. And yes Queen did the music. Freddie is my obsession so hearing his voice anywhere has me hooked

From this day forward, everytime you hear the word "FLASH" your brain will scream "Aaaah ahhhhhh!"

Oh wow! A movie I forgot about. We were about 8-9 yrs old when this came out, and my cousins and I would run around the backyard singing the flash song and shooting nerf guns!

How I've longed to hear you say the words "ARMY OF HAWKPEOPLE!!!" on this channel.

Brian Blessed is my favorite in this film. The guy picked an acting style and stuck with it in pretty much every role I've seen him in.

You’re killing it with your film choices Shan! When so many other movie reaction channels seemingly have all agreed on the same handful of movies to react to, your channel truly does stand apart. The 1980s was a treasure trove of great science fiction films Everyone knows Terminator and Aliens. As you’ve seen here, there’s so much more to discover. From fun campy films like this to Cronenberg films, “Videodrome” and “The Fly” to an outright sci-fi comedy like “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” “They Live” “Blade Runner” “Akira” “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai” “Tetsuo The Iron Man” “Starman” “Enemy Mine” “The Running Man” “Escape From New York” “Alien Nation” The 1980s was a goldmine of wildly different, unique and diverse sci-fi films.

Shan, if you liked Flash..."Ice Pirates" is another tongue in cheek humor, campy sci fi, cheesy but fun space movie from the 80s that you must consider reacting to LOL

Max Von Sydow is playing the Role of Ming The Merciless.

Flash Gordon was a serial in the 30s. It heavily influenced George Lucas in his making of Star Wars and he continued that love of those types of film in the creation of Indiana Jones.

My uncle attended the premiere and a party for this movie (he worked for King Features Syndicate who had the rights to Flash Gordon) and he wasn’t too impressed by the movie or the cast (but my brother loved the cheese, so I saw this like 20 times as a kid... I loved the sequined costumes and Queen’s music but the script and acting... Oy).🧀🧀🧀😂

I just spotted Richard O'Brien in some scenes. Richard is the creative genius behind 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'. If you think Flash Gordon is weird...check out TRHPS. Keep up the great videos!

Flash Gordon, one of my favs for sure. Funfact - Sam Jones was dubbed in this and to this day, no one knows who dubbed him 😎

My wife walked down the aisle to me to the wedding march from Flash Gordon. :D I saw Queen in 1982, and they opened the show with a recorded version of "Flash! a-aaaaah" playing after the lights went down. The lights started beating in time with the buildup, then FLASH all kindsa lights. That was an awesome show. The camp in this flick is over the top and hilarious.

Applause for not calling a meteorite a meteor. And I got the expected reaction when you saw who did the theme music. One of the very few good parts of the movie. Yes, Queen did the whole score. Best. Leo.

Awesome choice, sir, what a spectacle of cheese. A bit of trivia for any who care (otherwise, feel free to move on): THE COMICS: Flash Gordon started out in 1934 as a daily newspaper comic strip created by King Features Syndicate in response to the success of a rival publication called Buck Rogers that was spawning novelizations and kid's toys. They tried to get the rights to John Carter of Mars, but couldn't agree with Edgar Rice Burroughs on terms, so King Features got their staff artist, Alex Raymond, to invent something new. Raymond borrowed the concept of another world approaching planet Earth from a sci-fi novel called When Worlds Collide (later made into a decent 50's sci-fi film as well), including an athletic hero and his girlfriend, plus a scientist, who travel to this new world by rocket. Other writers and editors were brought in, with Raymond creating the art, and it quickly became a hit that indeed proved to be a rival to Buck Rogers, also leading to endless peripheral merchandising. It ran continuously from 1934 to 1992, with the Sunday paper edition running until 2003. THE SERIAL ADVENTURES: In 1936, due to popular demand, Flash Gordon was adapted for the big screen as a 13- chapter movie serial (the first science fiction serial, in fact) starring Buster Crabbe as Flash. A 72 minute "feature film" version was released later the same year. It was Universal Pictures' 2nd highest grossing production of that year. The Hayes Office objected to the "revealing" costumes however (quite tame by today's standards) and as a result, Universal made the girls wear more modest clothes in the two sequel serials, released in 1938 and 1940. The serials were so popular that Crabbe was actually hired to play Flash's comic book publication rival Buck Rogers in a 1938 serial that copied the structure and style (and likely borrowed some of the costumes, props, and sets). STAR WARS: George Lucas tried to buy the right to Flash Gordon in the early 1970's, but rights-holder Dino De Laurentis wouldn't sell. As a result, George was forced to create something new. He borrowed the "opening scrawl" concept that was used at the beginning of each Flash Gordon adventure (such as Chapter 10 - "The Unseen Peril," which would be followed by a couple of paragraphs moving up the screen bringing the audience up to speed) as well as the overall style; with intrepid heroes being chased from a Forest planet to an ice planet to a desert planet, etc., often crashing their ships when they landed. Of course, George added a lot of contemporary ideas, including the "hero-myth" formula, state-of-the-art visual FX, and John Williams' score. But watch the opening of any Flash Gordon adventure and you'll see the great-granddaddy of Star Wars. KURT RUSSELL: After the success of Star Wars (which was only retitled "Episode IV: A New Hope" upon its re-release the following year), Dino De Laurentis rushed his own version of Flash Gordon into production, and offered a healthy sum to up-and-coming former child star Kurt Russell to play Flash (Russell had auditioned for Han Solo actually, and was among the top choices after Harrison Ford - his audition tape can be seen in the Star Wars documentary, Empire of Dreams). Russell read the Gordon script and said, "There's no character here, no development, he's just the hero for the sake of being the hero," and Dino said, "Well, its a comic strip!" So Kurt turned it down, and Dino DOUBLED his offer, which was more money than Kurt had ever made at the time - a ridiculous sum, he said, but Kurt turned it down to work with his friend John Carpenter on Escape from New York, which came out a year after Flash in 1981. Both Flash and Escape would become cult classics, but at the time, Flash failed to find its audience, and was considered a disaster, barely making back its 27 million dollar budget, while Escape quadrupled its $6 million dollar budget and became and INSTANT cult classic. And making matters worse for Dino, George Lucas released The Empire Strikes Back the same year, to MASSIVE box office success. Queen's soundtrack was the only successful element of the film (aside from several of its actors who would go on to do far better work) reaching #10 in the UK pop music charts, and #23 in the U.S. Over the years, largely because of the underground popularity of the soundtrack, the film began to find a new audience, who came to appreciate Flash Gordon as a psychedelic "rock opera" rather than a sci-fi competitor to Star Wars. In retrospective reviews, people have come to appreciate the lengths the largely British and European production designers went to, in order to make the film's visuals match the Alex Raymond comics, and of course heap praise upon the mostly European cast. Every few years since, someone announces that a new effort is being made to relaunch the franchise as a rebooted feature, but to date, no productions have made it past the scripting phase. There was a short-lived "teen Flash" TV series on the WB I believe, but outside of trivia, it wasn't worthy of the legacy. I would HIGHLY recommend that you watch a Seth McFarlane movie called Ted now, after having seen this, as it features a hilarious and loving homage to this underground "classic". Thanks for another great reaction/review, and as always, sorry for the information overload!

This was the first movie I was allowed to see in a cinema without my parents. I was 15 years old in 1980 and travelled by train into the city with a friend. I recall it blowing my mind visually at the time, and with music by Queen, it sounded great too.

Best line in the movie was from Shan, "I'm just not going to question logic in this film anymore." LOL

Hi Shan! This movie was intended to be campy, and we were just coming out of the 70s, so Camp was still popular. I would like to recommend another Sci-Fi movie for you, that isn't so campy: The Black Hole. Disney's very first PG rated movie. It is on Disney+, and I remember seeing it in the theater at the age of 12. It came out in 1979. But back to this... Something to note: The actor who played Flash Gordon, refused to return to the studio to record his vocal track, so another actor did Flash's voice. Klytus was modeled more after Darth Vader than the SS. The other uniforms probably were inspired by them, but then again, so were many in Star Wars. Queen was really at their peak when they scored this movie. It's a very popular soundtrack, too. Definitely recommend it. Also, whenever someone says "Flash" in any context, it's almost required that one follows it up with "AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!" 😁

Everyone all together... "Flash! Ah, AAAAA...."

7:51, those were actually clips from different films that Topol had starred in early in his career.

Queen also did the soundtrack for Highlander. That is where the song "Who wants to live forever?" comes from.

15:15 Prince Vultan’s line “Who wants to live forever?” is supposedly the inspiration for the Queen song from the Highlander soundtrack.

DUDE! I can't believe you watched this!!! Talk about a film that brings back childhood memories. My grandmother took me to see this when I was only six! She had heard of Flash Gordon because it used to be a radio serial back in the day, plus she knew I was into Star Wars. I don't think either of us were expecting to see this film! Yes, it's cheesy. But so much of this movie seared itself into my young and impressionable brain. The venomous creature in the log. The unbelievable music by Queen. The iconic dialogue. "What do you mean Flash Gordon approaching?" It was like nothing I had even seen before. I know this movie won't - can't - have the same affect on you as it did me. But all the same, it makes me happy in ways I can't quite explain that you have watched it. Thanks for such an amazing channel!

I saw this in the Theater when it came out,and it was the first VHS tape my parents bought. I cant count how many times ive watched it. I love it for it cheesiness , and the music by QUEEN.

Brian Blessed is a British national treasure. On top of that, he's likely one of the loudest human ever to exist, if not the loudest. Absolutely crazy man who's done all kinds of crazy stuff. You should check out the episode of "Have I Got News For You" where he's a quest host on your own time, just to experience Brian Blessed at his very best :D

Actually used "Flying blind on a Rocket Cycle?!" in conversation the other day.

Not only a comic book, this was the peak of sci fi entertainment in it's day with the original series starring Buster Crabb, and the movie makes far more sense when you have seen the old black & white series. There was also a late 70's cartoon series that was on every Saturday morning with Swap-Shop....you kids have no idea how good kids TV used to be!

The leader of the Hawkmen (Vultan) is played by Brian Blessed, who is actually a very accomplished Shakespearean actor.

Klytus had such a unique look and personality. The actor who portrayed him is underrated lol

Brian May wrote most of the soundtrack after the rest of the band lost interest in the project. Brian Blessed (Voltan) still to this day gets approached by people in the street asking him to say GORDONS ALIIIIVVVVEEE!

This was a surprise. I watched this movie a lot when I was younger. The music, loved. The "football" scene was one of my fav scenes in the movie. Recommend The Blob.

The music during the hawk people attack on the ship rocks. An all-time great soundtrack

'This Hawkman' , the legendary Brian Blessed(for fun trivia, he more recently voiced the Gungan Boss Nass in Star Wars - The Phantom Menace :P ), always gives the extra. xD And, of course, Vultan asking 'Who wants to live forever?' in a movie with the soundtrack being entirely Queen, as a nice foreshadowing of the title theme for Highlander (1986) , which also was fully scored by the same band :P

Dino de Laurentiis also produced the campy 1968 film _Barbarella,_ with Jane Fonda and John Phillip Law and based on Jean-Claude Forest's awesome French comics. Despite the similar feel and tone (and because of the greater respect for the source material) I like that one a little better.

My favorite movie, my comfort movie, my cure for everything. It's intentionally cheesy and over the top and I think it's very charming. I adore the soundtrack. Loved the reaction.

I used to watch the VHS of this movie when I visited my cousins in Norway. As others have pointed out, Brian Blessed is an awesome actor who truly deserves more recognition. Topol, who plays Zarkov, is best known for his main role in Fiddler on the Roof, both on stage and the 70’s movie, which earned him an Oscar nomination.

Topol was also a famous actor. Star of Fiddler on the Roof and helped James Bond in For Your Eyes Only

What makes this classic is that its flaws are complementary to the piece as a whole. I'm not embarrassed to say I love this movie and I always have.

Brian Blessed, the actor that plays king Vultan, still delights fans of the movie by shouting "Gordon's alive" whenever he's invited in panel shows. Ornella Muti's acting is strange because her first language is Italian, and she has an extensive career in French films too. Muti is equally famous for her keeping her good looks for more than forty years, as if time didn't affect her at all.

Wow, was not expecting to see this one

"Highlander" best Queen songtrack EVER.. and.. Sean Connery.. there can be only one!

Great cult classic. Cheesy but comic style that fits.

The first time I saw this film was on the Sci-fi Channel in 2003 during the Christmas day movie marathon.

My mom, god rest her sci-fy sole. Used to tell me about her childhood back in the late 1930's going to the w/e matinee(kids cartoons, a Disney flick, Flash Gordon,Movie Tone News, and then the main movie) and seeing a live action space serial called Flash Gordon. What this movie did was basically show the whole series of weekly 10-15 min episodes and filter out a lot of other events. In the 70's I witnessed all the episodes my mom saw on a small Boston tv channel 56 Saturday night "Creature Feature". After the main monster movies, they'd show a short episode of the 30's Flash Gordon. You then had to wait a week to see the next episode, just like my mom and millions of American kids/families back in the good ole days. I got hooked as a young teen watching the black n white low budget flicks, yup they were cheesy awesome. Then when I was around 19 this movie came out and one of my fav bands did the soundtrack. This is taking me back....The sad part......I never made it a point to tell and show my mom this version of what she used to go and see as a kid. Other than the great Max Von Sydow, another major actor was Chaim Topol(Zarkov) known for Fiddler On the Roof. If any of you youngsters want to watch the original your grandparents most likely saw in the theater, check this out. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZTrSncxwGBE.html

I forgot how utterly insane this movie is...

Back in the day I was in my local Blockbuster and found this on DVD and joy of joys it had a commentary by Brian Blessed (Vultan). It is just so much fun hearing him talking about this movie, the man is a national treasure. This BB commentary DVD was only released in Europe so I tracked down a copy a few years ago. There is a semi famous anecdote about him on set having the time of his life running around making 'pew pew' noises only to be told "We'll put the sound effects in later Brian."

17:43, Cliffhanger, to a sequel we never got. There have been production delays of a new reboot of Flash Gordon, which has been in development hell since 2009.

You cut in the middle of the best line of the movie. "Flash Gordon, Quarterback NY Jets".

Queen's music was the perfect choice for the Flash soundtrack. R.I.P. Freddy Mercury.

SO much fun. Voltan was ADORABLE and always makes me laugh. The music is awesome, and in this instance, the cheezy effects seem to enhance the enjoyment of this film instead of detracting from it. Glad you enjoyed.

One reason this movie is entertaining and 'works' is because the actors play their roles seriously with just the right amount of 'over the top' flare.

This is the absolute definition of a "Popcorn" movie - just a fun movie to go see and hear music by Queen! Flash Gordon was a comic strip that started in 1934 and the first film adaptations started in 1936. They were filmed as a series with a new episode shown each week to keep people coming back every week. They each ended with a cliff hanger which is refected in this movie by the repeated "cliff" points in the storyline. I'm glad you reacted to this, it's an old favorite of mine.

1. You fave '39. You are immediately greatly esteemed. 2. " I'm definitely going to be shouting 'Flash!' randomly from now on, it's just something you have to do after watching the movie, obviously." 😂🤣

Seeing this in the theater on opening day was like a fever dream XD Really captured the comic/serial tv show feel that just threw logic out the window.

I swear, at first I thought you said “This Hawk-Man is CROWING on me...”

Highlight always the Hawkmen dive attack coupled with Queens ‘The Hero’ song. So much electric guitar and bombastic drum oompf galore!

There was a Flash Gordon TV show based on a comic in the 1930s. That movie is a tongue-in-cheek homage to it, and it emulates the camp & the corny style of the original *on purpose* 😁😁 So yes! You're right: that was all intentional! 😀 The band Queen totally got that and made the perfect soundtrack for such a purposefully campy movie. And yeah! They made the score. It's the first full score by a rock band for a major blockbuster movie production.

The leader of the hawk people is Brian Blessed. He voiced Boss Nass in Star Wars Ep 1

That hawk man is growing on you because he is none other than Brain Blessed!

Queen also did the soundtrack for Highlander. A movie that did marginally well at the time of its release but has become a cult classic. I recommend it highly. Good review as always Shan. You always look past the poorer qualities and seek the good in films.

Queen's music is used throughout Good Omens, but the original music, inspired by Queen, was composed and partially performed by David Arnold, who scored the entire series.

This movie is absurd, goofy, campy, and outrageous. I love it!!! It's a childhood favorite and Queen's soundtrack for the movie likewise is a childhood favorite especially the song "The Hero" the closing credits. The movie is just a bunch of fun, nothing more and nothing less.

Flash Gordon is widely considered to be the most camp film ever made. Because, while everything on screen is too flamboyantly over-the-top to be taken seriously, it's all done with complete sincerity on the part of everyone. *Everyone* was legitimately doing the best they could. As for Prince Vultan, the ruler of the Hawkmen. He was played by Brain Blessed. Or, as he's know to his fans, *BRIAN BLESSED*!!! This human capslock has been around for years. From Doctor Who to Blackadder, from Star Wars to a long run in Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare films, Brian Blessed has been a giant and jolly presence on film screens fro decades.

The actor who played Zarkov was also in Fiddler on the roof. Sydow had a cameo in Star Wars the Force awakens, The actor who played Vultan was the voice of the head Gungan in Phantom Menace, Munson was Porkins from A New Hope.

I am soo glad you reacted to this one. Nobody ever gives this movie love. Subscribed. Also, I just have to compliment you on the format. It is better than every single other reactor I have seen. You take the time to separate intro from film from post on the timeline. That is the kind of attention to detail I wish they all did.

Your smiles throughout the movie says it all. This movie is the most fun you can have in a movie.

Watching this, I remembered some films with some of these same actors... Topol in "Fiddle on the Roof"(1971) and 007's "For your eyes only" (1981), Ornella Muti in "Oscar"(1991) with Silverster Stallone, Max Von Sydow in "Three Days of the Condor"(1975) with Robert Redford, and Brian Blessed in the old british mini-serie "I, Claudius"(1976) along with many other fine actors. I think Queen also made songs for the film "Highlander"(1986). :D

Queen's soundtrack here is only surpassed by their soundtrack to Highlander, a movie that I have seen so many times that I can pretty much recite each line from memory.

This is not just an old comic book but it was once a serial that played in movie theatres. Buster Crabb played Flash Gorden. They were 15 minute episodes that played at the theatre on Saturdays. The episodes would end in a cliffhanger.

1:20 This "what play thing" dialog was sampled in a really good song by The Orb called "Earth (Gaia)".

I saw this at theater when it was originally released and have loved it ever since then. Yes I am old lol.

Quenn also provided the score for 1986 film "HIGHLANDER" along with Michal Kamen. Most of the songs can be found on Queen album called "A Kind of Magic" released in 1986

This is one my dad plays all the time, we also really appreciate the soundtrack, the movie is almost like a movie-length music video of an album based off a comic

This was my earliest memory as a child of a movie theater experience, all the way back in 1980. It may have been my first. Still one of my favorite movies of all time. I just bought the blu ray box set made by Arrow Video. I highly recommend to anyone thinking of getting it. They fixed an issue with the sound that was a problem on previous releases. It's just such a fun and uplifting movie.

O man, what memories. This was one of the earliest films I saw in the theater, with my dad. I was 6-7 years old, and he had been reading Flash Gordon comics all his life. I tell you, that critter in the tree-stump scared me more than about anything.

Also remember it spawned the cartoon Defenders of the Earth.

Some of the costumes, make-up and designs they took inspiration from the book sketches of Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune (most sci fi movies have taken the ideas that was in that book sketches, even sketches of how a certain shot of the movie would have looked like). Sam J. Jones was originally a model and his voice was dubbed over in this movie. He didn't return to voice dub himself because apparently he didn't get along with I think it was either the producer or the director. There where plans for sequels, Sam Jones was even contracted in doing those sequels, but it never happend because the movie wasn't a box office success (which is a shame, I would have loved seeing those sequels). Kurt Russell was considered for the role of Flash Gordon, now that would have been awesome! I like Sam Jones in the role, but the idea of Russell sounds more tempting!

Great reaction & review! The style of practical/special effects was meant to recreate the effects used in the original Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s & 1940s. Cheesy, campy, and fun! This movie was panned by critics, but it's grown to become a cult classic. The music in this film is SO good! I thoroughly enjoy the content you share on your channel :) I appreciate all that you do and all that you are!

FLASH, AH! SAVIOR OF THE UNIVERSE! FLASH AH! KING OF THE THE IMPOSSIBLE!

2:54, yeah that is correct! He plays the paranoid scientist whom believes in space aliens.

Queen also did a lot of music for Highlander (1985) including the theme song. So look at that as well! I have the music album.

YESSS!!! I have loved this movie since I was a kid, and I was only 2 when it came out. Thank you for reacting to it.

5:40, he uses his ring to hypnotize those around to do his bidding.

"Is this an intergalactic supervillain?" No! This is Ming! This is THE intergalactic supervillain!

saw this movie at the cinema with my father, I loved it.41 years ago...

As 12 year olds when this came out , we lost our minds and thought it was the best movie ever!!! I still find it charming.

DDDIIIIIVVVEEEE! Brian Blessed was having so much fun on this!

'39 is one of my favorite songs too! Big Brian May fan. Last year, I went to see Queen and Adam Lambert in concert, and ended up having the chance, to get an autographed guitar from him! My most prized possession now, lol.