Display MoreThe Wing Commander movie club had a good time with Flash Gordon (1980)! It's a joy of a film that for the lack of a better description is full of things you haven't seen anywhere else. It's hard to figure how Dino De Laurentiis believed this was going to be the next Star Wars… but it's certainly something. We also noted that it really seems like the missing link between Jodorowsky's Dune pitch and the 1984 David Lynch Dune, produced by this same group. For all we blame the "weirdness" of that first Dune adaptation on Lynch there's actually a great deal in Flash Gordon that suggests much of that comes from De Laurentiis in the first place. Interesting stuff!
Our big Wing Commander connection was that the Wing Commander III team listened to Queen's Flash Gordon soundtrack while the game was being developed. And it's easy to understand why, the theme is catchy. If you were present on Friday night I guarantee you've repeated "FLASH!" in your head at least once in the ensuing week. So here's the theme:
It's likely the reason the Wing Commander III team picked up on Queen's song in the first place is because Wing Commander III featured a character named… Flash! Major Jace "Flash" Dillon was played by the great Josh Lucas. He was an unknown when Wing Commander III was made but actually made it to leading man status at one point… and he has worked prodigiously ever since. The story was not the case for Flash Gordon's Flash, Sam J. Jones, who was a relative unknown when the film was made and who then faded away from Hollywood. You can learn more about his story in a recent feature length documentary called Life After Flash which is available on YouTube.
Of course the true breakout star of Flash Gordon was Brian Blessed as the mighty Prince Vultan. Vultan's over-the-top performance defined Blessed's career going forward… and he absolutely reprised it in Privateer 2: The Darkening as the drunken humanist priest Uncle Kashumai. Blessed is a treasure and the line between those two characters is arrow straight.
This one comes to us courtesy of bob (happy birthday!) who noticed that the set for Ming's spaceship and the exterior shots of the ship itself look a lot like they inspired Privateer 2's Canera!
Sully is worried about hot hail.
