Marvel films, it's time for a Black female lead

[Guy Gardener]

No. No! Bad, poster, BAD!

Flash Gordon is an amazingly fun adventure with the best fucking soundtrack on Earth. It is amazingly quotable, it is visually dazzling, and fucking Brian Blessed is in it.

Now, sit in the corner, you can come out when you realize how wrong you are.

I haven't seen the movie again since I found out that they got someone else in to dub Sam Jone's lines.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I haven't seen the movie again since I found out that they got someone else in to dub Sam Jone's lines.

Yep. That doesn't bother me one jot.

 

[gblews]

In the two movies before that, the Invisible Girl was Mexican (American,

In the two Tim Story FF's, "Sue Storm" wasn't Mexican American, the actor playing Sue Storm was (part) Mexican American.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Reed Richards was an Englishman, probably overstaying on an expired Visa.

Does Gamora count toward black diversity if she is a green character?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Nationality vs Ethnicity.

America is a country of immigrants.

There is no one that looks American, but god we can here you coming.

That's my point.

 

[JD]

Flash Gordon (Universal, 1980) Here,, you had AA nominee (Chaim) Topol, and Golden Globe nominee Max von Sydow...and everyone knows what a crapstorm that De Laurentis "epic" turned out to be.

No. No! Bad, poster, BAD!

Flash Gordon is an amazingly fun adventure with the best fucking soundtrack on Earth. It is amazingly quotable, it is visually dazzling, and fucking Brian Blessed is in it.

Now, sit in the corner, you can come out when you realize how wrong you are.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to side with Professor Zoom here, Flash Gordon is an awesome movie. Yes it's campy as hell, but I'm pretty sure it's campy as hell on purpose.
I think the fact that it was written by one of the Batman '66 writers tells you everything you need to know about it.
I don't think it's really fair to count movies like that as "bad", when the "badness" is half the point.

 

[Nerys Myk]

One word "Queen".

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Does Gamora count toward black diversity if she is a green character?

In terms of casting, yes. In terms of character, no.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to side with Professor Zoom here, Flash Gordon is an awesome movie. Yes it's campy as hell, but I'm pretty sure it's campy as hell on purpose.
I think the fact that it was written by one of the Batman '66 writers tells you everything you need to know about it.
I don't think it's really fair to count movies like that as "bad", when the "badness" is half the point.

Flash introduces himself to Ming the Merciless as "Flash Gordon, Quarterback, NY Jets" It's fucking BAD-ass. What is NOT to love and adore about this movie?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Flash Gordon (1980) is magnificent!

 

[Guy Gardener]

A documentary came out last month about life after Flash Gordon for Sam Jones.

After Flash.

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[theenglish]

The film was completely mishandled, and was "FF in name only, just to be different than the Evans-starred crappers, while not taking any opportunity to get the FF story right--but hey, there's that MCU thing, and we have to keep shit on the screen.."



Really? Its quite common, as "award winning/nominated actors" are no guarantee of enhancing and/or saving a project--particularly fantasy projects--that were doomed at the germ of an idea.

Examples:

Dick Tracy (Touchstone, 1990) - from its star/director Warren Beatty, to Al Pacino, Michael J. Pollard, Kathy Bates, Charles Durning, Dustin Hoffman and James Caan. Overloaded with Academy Award winning or nominated actors, and they could not save a bloated production that was creatively exploitative / bankrupt from the start.

Flash Gordon (Universal, 1980) Here,, you had AA nominee (Chaim) Topol, and Golden Globe nominee Max von Sydow...and everyone knows what a crapstorm that De Laurentis "epic" turned out to be.

How about The Black Hole (Disney, 1979). This expensive (non) event film had AA & Golden Globe winner Ernest Borgnine, Golden Globe winning Anthony Perkins, and Golden Globe winner Joseph Bottoms. The point is when the project is just a creatively bankrupt mess, all of the acting firepower in the world won't make a difference. In some cases, it makes it worse, as some directors and producers lean to heavily on whatever kind of aura or performance which earned the actor his or her award, and that's often out of place in the role they were hired to play.

I have a soft spot in my heart for The Black Hole, but the other two were just as surprisingly bad.

EDIT: OOpss. Didn't know that Flash Gordon 1980 had such a fandom. I will add "IMHO" about that film and duck behind a table as cover from thrown objects in my direction.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Pure awesome cheese:

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[TREK_GOD_1]

No. No! Bad, poster, BAD!

Flash Gordon is an amazingly fun adventure with the best fucking soundtrack on Earth. It is amazingly quotable, it is visually dazzling, and fucking Brian Blessed is in it.

Nope. It was a garbage can set on self-destruct from frame one, and its no wonder it took an instant nose-dive when released. When filmmakers assume they're doing "That--er thing that inspired Star Wars! We already have the rights to it! Let's do THAT ! That'll show 'em! We will out-Star Wars Star Wars!" and abuse a concept they clearly did not understand, what happened was no surprise. Then again, DeLaurentis also pulled the same crap in 1977 with Orca, his nonsensical answer to Jaws starring Richard Harris versus a vengeful whale, so anyone working with him should have seen that coming...

Now, sit in the corner, you can come out when you realize how wrong you are.

Now pull that needle out of your arm, because whatever you're using, its clearly altered your mind.

I think the fact that it was written by one of the Batman '66 writers tells you everything you need to know about it.

Just the opposite; one, the man you refer to is Lorenzo Semple, Jr. who was responsible for the more level-headed, early development of the Batman series during its undeniably best season (the first), where comic action, even occasional noir influences were seen. Two, it was only after he backed away from the series (the remaining two seasons) that producer Dozier and Stanley "Never-met-a-schtick-he-didn't-like" Ralph Ross upended the original 80/20 mix (80-comic adventure, 20-a soft tongue in cheek about some elements) to become the stereotype that has mischaracterized the original intent of the series ever since. Regarding Semple and Flash Gordon, from production materials I've read, he thought the character should not have been treated with any humorous elements, as the source was nothing like that at all. He has said the film should have followed the classic Alex Raymond comic strip. During production, he had some disagreements about this with DeLaurentis, but the Grand Master could not be convinced to dump many of his wrongheaded ideas and the result was the gaudy, "this is the biggest sci-film!" dreck that met its deserved end as a bomb.

I don't think it's really fair to count movies like that as "bad", when the "badness" is half the point.

It was not a parody--being bad was not the intent of that film. This was not satire of bad films like Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) or a genre take-off like Scary Movie (2000), etc. This was supposed to be some great sci-fi epic stuffed with wrongheaded ideas about what heroism in sci-fi / sci-fantasy was supposed to be. DeLaurentis had the best template for that of all--the wonderful Raymond strips--but jettisoned the very things that made FG a classic creation. The rest is history.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Nope. It was a garbage can set on self-destruct from frame one, and its no wonder it took an instant nose-dive when released. When filmmakers assume they're doing "That--er thing that inspired Star Wars! We already have the rights to it! Let's do THAT ! That'll show 'em! We will out-Star Wars Star Wars!" and abuse a concept they clearly did not understand, what happened was no surprise. Then again, DeLaurentis also pulled the same crap in 1977 with Orca, his nonsensical answer to Jaws starring Richard Harris versus a vengeful whale, so anyone working with him should have seen that coming...



Now pull that needle out of your arm, because whatever you're using, its clearly altered your mind.



Just the opposite; one, the man you refer to is Lorenzo Semple, Jr. who was responsible for the more level-headed, early development of the Batman series during its undeniably best season (the first), where comic action, even occasional noir influences were seen. Two, it was only after he backed away from the series (the remaining two seasons) that producer Dozier and Stanley "Never-met-a-schtick-he-didn't-like" Ralph Ross upended the original 80/20 mix (80-comic adventure, 20-a soft tongue in cheek about some elements) to become the stereotype that has mischaracterized the original intent of the series ever since. Regarding Semple and Flash Gordon, from production materials I've read, he thought the character should not have been treated with any humorous elements, as the source was nothing like that at all. He has said the film should have followed the classic Alex Raymond comic strip. During production, he had some disagreements about this with DeLaurentis, but the Grand Master could not be convinced to dump many of his wrongheaded ideas and the result was the gaudy, "this is the biggest sci-film!" dreck that met its deserved end as a bomb.



It was not a parody--being bad was not the intent of that film. This was not satire of bad films like Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) or a genre take-off like Scary Movie (2000), etc. This was supposed to be some great sci-fi epic stuffed with wrongheaded ideas about what heroism in sci-fi / sci-fantasy was supposed to be. DeLaurentis had the best template for that of all--the wonderful Raymond strips--but jettisoned the very things that made FG a classic creation. The rest is history.

Lol. Methinks the lady doth protest to much.

It’s ok. Sometimes we’re right, sometimes we’re wrong—and a mass of words won’t change that.

Excuse me, but I’m getting word that.... GORDON’S ALIVE!?!

 

[ozzfloyd]

Flesh Gordon was better.

 

[JD]

Nope. It was a garbage can set on self-destruct from frame one, and its no wonder it took an instant nose-dive when released. When filmmakers assume they're doing "That--er thing that inspired Star Wars! We already have the rights to it! Let's do THAT ! That'll show 'em! We will out-Star Wars Star Wars!" and abuse a concept they clearly did not understand, what happened was no surprise. Then again, DeLaurentis also pulled the same crap in 1977 with Orca, his nonsensical answer to Jaws starring Richard Harris versus a vengeful whale, so anyone working with him should have seen that coming...



Now pull that needle out of your arm, because whatever you're using, its clearly altered your mind.



Just the opposite; one, the man you refer to is Lorenzo Semple, Jr. who was responsible for the more level-headed, early development of the Batman series during its undeniably best season (the first), where comic action, even occasional noir influences were seen. Two, it was only after he backed away from the series (the remaining two seasons) that producer Dozier and Stanley "Never-met-a-schtick-he-didn't-like" Ralph Ross upended the original 80/20 mix (80-comic adventure, 20-a soft tongue in cheek about some elements) to become the stereotype that has mischaracterized the original intent of the series ever since. Regarding Semple and Flash Gordon, from production materials I've read, he thought the character should not have been treated with any humorous elements, as the source was nothing like that at all. He has said the film should have followed the classic Alex Raymond comic strip. During production, he had some disagreements about this with DeLaurentis, but the Grand Master could not be convinced to dump many of his wrongheaded ideas and the result was the gaudy, "this is the biggest sci-film!" dreck that met its deserved end as a bomb.

I just looked the movie up on Wikipedia, and according to this quote from Lorenzo Semple Jr. the humorous approach was intentional. He disagreed with that approach later on, but that doesn't change the fact that the it was meant to be funny.

Dino wanted to make Flash Gordon humorous. At the time, I thought that was a possible way to go, but, in hindsight, I realize it was a terrible mistake. We kept fiddling around with the script, trying to decide whether to be funny or realistic. That was a catastrophic thing to do, with so much money involved... I never thought the character of Flash in the script was particularly good. But there was no pressure to make it any better. Dino had a vision of a comic-strip character treated in a comic style. That was silly, because Flash Gordon was never intended to be funny. The entire film got way out of control.

It was not a parody--being bad was not the intent of that film. This was not satire of bad films like Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) or a genre take-off like Scary Movie (2000), etc. This was supposed to be some great sci-fi epic stuffed with wrongheaded ideas about what heroism in sci-fi / sci-fantasy was supposed to be. DeLaurentis had the best template for that of all--the wonderful Raymond strips--but jettisoned the very things that made FG a classic creation. The rest is history.

I never said it was a parody, I said it was campy. It wasn't a full on comedy, but it's pretty clear just watching the movie that it was not taking itself at all seriously.
I'm not surprised you hate it, since you seem to absolutely loath anything that has that has even the slightest amount of humor or fun.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I just looked the movie up on Wikipedia, and according to this quote from Lorenzo Semple Jr. the humorous approach was intentional. He disagreed with that approach later on, but that doesn't change the fact that the it was meant to be funny.


I never said it was a parody, I said it was campy. It wasn't a full on comedy, but it's pretty clear just watching the movie that it was not taking itself at all seriously.
I'm not surprised you hate it, since you seem to absolutely loath anything that has that has even the slightest amount of humor or fun.

Yep. There’s difference between parody and camp.

 

[fireproof78]

Yep. There’s difference between parody and camp.

Humor is a difficult concept.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Humor is a difficult concept.

Wait until we talk about the difference between satire and parody!