Synopsis
Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov travel to the planet Mongo to fight the evil emperor Ming the Merciless.
1982 Directed by Gwen Wetzler, Marsh Lamore …
Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov travel to the planet Mongo to fight the evil emperor Ming the Merciless.
Φλας Γκόρντον, Jens Lyn og Ming den Grusomme, As Aventuras de Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon : La plus grande de toutes les aventures, פלאש גורדון - ההרפתקאה הגדולה מכל, Flash Gordon, La Aventura Más Grande, Флэш Гордон: Самое великое приключение из всех
The Weekly Animation Challenge 2018
Week 34: Adapted from an animated TV show
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Taking some heavy cues from the Fleischer brothers' classic Superman cartoons of the 40s, Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All is something of an overlooked gem within the Flash Gordon franchise. Produced by animation studio Filmation (He-Man/Fat Albert/a whole bunch of DC comics & Archie-based TV shows) in 1979 and intended for a prime time TV movie slot, the film was chopped up and censored down into kid's show format before being restored to its feature presentation and released in 1982. But despite being shown in truncated bits on Saturday morning, the animation doesn't show its seams or feel limited the way that cartoons geared towards…
87 Not only do I prefer this feature-length animation to the live action Mike Hodges film that was being simultaneously produced, I think it’s the best filmed adaptation (serials, motion pictures or TV series) of the Alex Raymond comic strip, both in terms of quality and fidelity to the source material. The design work is terrific and highly detailed, and rotoscoping on both characters and spaceships is used to excellent effect. After being produced, NBC decided to go forward with a Saturday morning cartoon series instead, necessitating not only chopping it up but also removing references to Hitler and severely toning down the violence and sexy female quotient. Ultimately only aired a single time on TV, this great adventure has never had a physical release (I ripped a copy off of Youtube that was subsequently taken down) it’s worth the hunt if you can find it.
Many regard Filmation as creators of some of the worst cartoons to ever air on television, but every once in a while, they’d exhibit tasteful judgment in the writing department. This helped create some of their lasting material, like the animated Star Trek, their Tarzan show, and this Made-For-TV film, which actually aired several years after it was made.
Initially created for NBC, the execs saw this and decided to order a weekly Flash Gordon show in the same vein instead, hoping to capitalize on the massive interest in serialized, old-fashioned storytelling that Star Wars made hip again. Being that one of the Filmation guys (not sure if it was Scheimer or Prescott) was a massive fan of Flash Gordon,…
I'm sure we've all seen the Mike Hodges/Dino De Laurentiis version of Flash Gordon, so you'll k now what to expect, Earth is under attack by the planet Mongo, although only Doctor Zarkov recognises the threat and sets off in his own personal rocket ship to combat Ming the Merciless with a couple of hitchhikers, gold medal winning Olympic athlete Flash Gordon and intrepid girl reporter Dale Arden.
The rest of the story takes a familiar trajectory, Mongo has a number of different races and Gordon will be in combat with some and forge alliances with others. Some of these people will be familiar, Prince Barin and Prince Vultan, while the fact that this is an animated film means that…
From the very first moment you know this is going to be good. The animation quality is well above the usual standards of Filmation. I've liked some Filmation shows, particularly the animated "Star Trek", but their animation style was far too often cheap and stiff. Stock shots reused over and over again, plenty of static shots of one character while another character off-screen is talking...a lot of cheap tricks were used to save on animation.
I don't blame them, animation can be expensive, but it can sometimes be dull to watch. But this starts off and there is movement, and style...and you can tell that some effort was put into this one, and it truly carries the spirit of "Flash…