Personal blog - and temporary home page until new website is finished - of writer, editor and graphic artist Christopher Mills


Saturday, August 04, 2007

Okay, maybe THIS is Ming, still...

Okay, I admit it. I may have been wrong, but in my defense, that other photo didn't have a caption when I found it on the SciFi Channel website.

Apparently that guy was just a lackey.

From this new Flash Gordon cast photo (click on it for a bigger view), it looks like Ming is marginally more imposing than I originally thought, even if the costuming and set design here just reeks of cheapness and unoriginality. I mean really – where's the glamour? The romance? The style?

Oh yeah – that stuff just doesn't "fly" these days.

But even by the standards of made-for-cable TV, the sets and costumes (for more shots, check out the SciFi Channel website) just look terrible; like Sliders and Andromeda had a yard sale, and then the Flash folks bought up stuff in bulk but took out all the interesting details.

And having watched some of the promo material online, my reaction is that they've sucked all of the adventure, romance and fantasy out of it. And that's not Flash Gordon, to me.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Come on, Sci Fi. Even a dictator of the poorest third world country has a better throne room than that. There should at least be some hint of opulence.

This just keeps looking worse.

Charles Gramlich said...

It looks pretty lame to me. And all over the place. There doesn't seem to be any "vision" behind it.

Anonymous said...

I fear the worst. I have young kids, so I watch a lot of Disney Channel which carries a Canadian show called LIFE WITH DEREK. The guy playing Ming can be seen playing the father. Kinda bland. Nice guy I'm sure, but... you know.

Glen Davis said...

After reading the articles about the show on TV Guide I too am now fearful. Flash is none too bright, cocky, and screws up so that he seems "more human" and gets saved by Dale a lot. Plus his father opened the rift between Mongo and Earth so I guess we get to deal with a lot of father issues too.

Great.

Hollywood does this time and again.