Studiocanal has debuted a new trailer for the 4K re-release (in the UK / Europe) of the camp sci-fi classic Flash Gordon.
Originally premiering in December of 1980, Flash Gordon was directed by English filmmaker Mike Hodges, who made Get Carter, Pulp, and The Terminal Man before making this film. The colorful adventure was Alex Raymond’s famous comic strip and blasted to life in what became a sci-fi cult classic.
When energy waves pull the moon out of orbit, New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon unwittingly finds himself heading for the planet Mongo, where – with assistance from beautiful Dale Arden – he’ll take on Ming the Merciless and rescue humankind.
Check out the 4K restoration trailer of Flash Gordon below:
The re-release also celebrates the 40th anniversary, and it’s getting a special “Collector’s Edition” version in addition to 4K UHD and regular Blu-ray/DVD versions. Sam J. Jones stars as “Flash” Gordon, who is sent to the planet Mongo, and there find himself fighting the tyranny of the Emperor to save Earth. The cast also includes Melody Anderson, Ornella Muti, Timothy Dalton, Peter Wyngarde, Brian Blessed, and the great Max von Sydow as Emperor Ming.
The re-release also includes some killer new poster art created by Matt Ferguson, which you can check out below:
Director Mike Hodges said in a statement regarding the new restoration:
“I’m very grateful to Studiocanal for this brilliant 4k restoration. The restoration captures perfectly the vivid colors of the sets, skies, and costumes. It also corrects some of the problems encountered with the special effects system we used. With Chroma key compositing we could insert skies, rocket ships, hawk-men, pretty well whatever we wanted, into the blue backing built into the studio sets. The problems came later when we had to eliminate, for example, the wires used on the hawk-men. We were eventually successful but even then some 35mm prints were variable and the wires would be back again. With this new restoration that problem is thankfully laid to rest.”
For the new 40th Anniversary 4k restoration, Flash Gordon was scanned from the original 35mm negative to produce 4K files. Over 500 hours of manual restoration repaired serious damage that included image instability, scratches, and intermittent flicker. The sound was scanned from the original track negative and underwent restoration to improve issues ranging from audio drop-outs throughout the feature and during reel changes, digital clicks, and optical distortion. The film was color graded for theatrical, home entertainment, and 4K HDR release, using previous digital releases and 35mm prints as a reference. In line with the Director’s vision and the original 35mm cinema release, VFX work was applied to remove the strings in all scenes where visible. This restoration was approved by Director Mike Hodges in May 2020 and will include the first 4K HDR Dolby Vision master of Flash Gordon.
You can check out a full look at the complete extras for the home video set as well as what it will look like below:
DISC ONE – 4K BLU-RAY
- BRAND NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM, SUPERVISED AND APPROVED BY DIRECTOR MIKE HODGES
- New Lost in Space: Nic Roeg’s Flash Gordon (also iTunes extra)
- Audio commentary with Mike Hodges
- Audio commentary with Brian Blessed
- Behind the scenes of Flash Gordon
- Stills gallery (also iTunes extra)
- Storyboards gallery (also iTunes extra)
- Original theatrical trailer
DISC TWO – BLU-RAY
- Interview with Mike Hodges
- Interview with comic book artist Alex Ross TBC
- Interview with screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr. TBC
- Episode 24 of Flash Gordon (1979-1982): The Survival Game / Gremlin’s Finest Hour
- Sam Jones’s acting start
- Entertainment Earth on Flash Gordon merchandise
- Bob Lindenmayer discusses deleted scenes and original endings
- 35th Anniversary Greenroom
- 35th Anniversary reunion featurette
- Renato Casaro extended interview
- Brian Blessed anecdotes
- Melody’s musings
- On the soundtrack (Brian May & Howard Blake)
- Easter Eggs
THE FIVE-DISC COLLECTOR’S EDITION INCLUDES
- The 4K Blu-ray plus two Blu-ray discs
- BONUS BLU-RAY DISC OF LIFE AFTER FLASH, the 2017 feature documentary celebrating the film and it’s star, directed by Lisa Downs
- ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK CD by Queen & Howard Blake
- 32 page booklet
- 16 page Titan mini book (The Story of Flash Gordon)
- Reproduced booklet of the first strip of original comic books
- Poster of original artwork
- 4 artcards of various incarnations of Flash film posters across the years
- 1 sew on ‘Flash patch’
Studiocanal is re-releasing the new 4K restoration of Flash Gordon direct-to-DVD / Blu-ray (as a “Collector’s Edition” in the UK) available on August 3rd.
Source: Studiocanal, Universal
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