💾 Archived View for gemini.arkholt.com › reviews › flash-gordon-greatest-adventure-of-all.gmi captured on 2024-05-26 at 14:49:16. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
1982
2.5/5
This is the movie version of Filmation's late 70s/early 80s Flash Gordon cartoon series. It does about what you'd expect: It follows Flash as he escapes from an Earth being attacked by Ming the Merciless, arrives on Mongo, is attacked by various monsters and is captured by various foes, meets all the different races of Mongo, and teams up with them to stop Ming from destroying Earth and marrying Dale Arden. There's also a, uh, "side-plot," if you can call it that, about Ming supplying weapons to Adolf Hitler, which was never in the original comic strip as far as I know. Still, it gives Flash a double victory, because not only does he save Earth, but he also wins World War II.
The animation is standard Filmation quality, very impressive and smooth in parts and fairly jerky and difficult to watch in others. The plot is probably exciting to children, but I found it to be fairly dull and repetitive (oh look, he's captured again! Now he has to fight another monster! Wow, more animal/human hybrids! Repeat ad infinitum). Of course you have to blame the source material for that. I think the original comic strip is far more interesting to look at than it is to read.
So uh, this is... fine? I guess? On a scale of "Good" to "Torture," I'd rate it... "Harmless.""