Yeah it was trippy but really just OK. Ralph Bakshi rotoscope fest
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Yes yes yes, of course! So I wasn’t seeing things. 
How did I forget DiLaurentis did both. And of course, Sydow’s kind of lame roll (IMHO – so underused) in Dune is sadly somewhat forgettable…
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What people tend to forget is that at the time, special effects pretty much sucked. Up until then when a movie had a spaceship on the screen, it looked like a toy model, moved like one of your toys hanging on a string, and you could probably see the wires. Sci-Fi sets looked like they were made out of card-board and plywood with painted backgrounds, people in sci-fi movies dressed in impractical flashy clothing like David Bowie, and shots of futuristic cities looked like a cheap plastic models (just look at the opening to Logans Run, which came out in the prior year)
The thing about Star Wars was the special effects were both leaps and bounds beyond what previous movies had done, and also understated and toned down. Everything looked real. Which was a first. The spaceships did not look like cheap plastic models, the set locations looked like real actual places (probably because they were mostly filmed in a real, actual place) The people wore simple, practical clothing that looked comfortable and utilitarian rather than ridiculous, robots mostly looked like actual equipment and machinery that got regularly used (complete with dents, dirt and oil). Even the land speeder looked like the space equivalent of a beat up old chevy that you could totally see being a teenagers first car.
It looked like a real place, with real people who mostly behaved like real people would. The “hero” (and the anti-hero) acted fairly ordinary, rather than like typical “perfect in every way” heros that you normally saw in sci-fi movies. The bad guys did not do things just for badness’s sake, they had actual motivations (the leaders could be pretty nasty and ruthless about how they went about it, but they were not just “bad” for no reason)
That was just so different from what you’d see in the movies prior to that. It just looked like it was happening in a real place.
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“Barbarella”
Fun movie, but jeepers the design is … lets politely call it psychadelic.
I’ve never been entirely able to shake the idea that my 6yo self initially formed that the storm troopers in Star Wars were robots - I could never quite figure out how Han and Luke managed to fit inside those robot shells the first time they were on the Death Star. I still find that scene just a bit jarring.
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I actually saw it at the Chinese Theater. I was 8, and absolutely stunned as the Star Destroyer flew overhead and the SensurroundTM subwoofers shook the seats. All my allowance went to Kenner from that day forward.
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Much of that lived in design came courtesy of Ralph McQuarrie. One of the creators behind Star Wars who always justifies the praise he gets. The Mandalorian end credit paintings are a tribute to his work and in his style.
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Ye gods, this film.
I absolutely adored it, and my best mate’s mum made us our own matching Flash Gordon t-shirts, with hand-embroidered flashes!
The soundtrack was mindblowing, the costume design was out of this world and Ornella Muti was utterly swoonable.
It’s the best kind of cinematic cheese out there, a ripe, mature, flavourful one.
I understand that for most people, when they think of Queen, the first song to come to mind is probably Bohemian Rhapsody.
But for me it’s Flash’s Theme.
I had no idea who Queen were until Flash Gordon.
After Flash Gordon, I knew they were responsible for my favourite movie soundtrack, possibly of all time.
Listening to the album on its own makes you realise there’s barely a scene in the movie that isn’t accompanied by Queen’s music.
@Mangochin, you say it’s been recently remastered. Is that more recently than the 30th Anniversary Edition? 'cos that’s the one I’ve got on Bluray.
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Yeah, but “Jar Jar Binks made the Ewoks look like fuckin’ Shaft!”
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Ooh yeah point taken. The whole “Episode I” thing was so deeply traumatizing that I like to pretend it doesn’t actually exist.
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Yes, yes* and YES.
* but seriously though, wtf was up with the lizard men…?!
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I think they just did a new one this year. Favorite tune on the soundtrack is the one at the end credits “The Hero”. Just comes out like gangbusters.
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I had missed the hype, because I was in college and saw no TV all that year.
I was taken to see it (yes, another 10-year-old) on opening day in Wichita, KS. Because it was summer, we weren’t inside much, and I completely missed any advertising.
I heard mention of it among other kids, but I truly thought it was the next logical step from Battle of the Network Stars, and for the life of me I couldn’t grok why they’d want to make a movie about that TV show. 
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I suggest that 1969’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had many of those qualities.
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That cheer is the most significant thing my 13-ish self recalls. Only other flic I’ve seen with similar crowd reaction is when Chief Brody hits the air cylinder in Jaws.
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I will say, watching Black Panther here in the Baltimore area with an audience that was probably 50-75% black, has got to have been the most exuberant moviegoing experience of my life. Pure joy, and a HELL of a lot of cheering. 
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Ahh, the good old days. I was too young, didn’t even know about the devil’s lettuce. But I recall sharing a doobie when I saw Pink Floyd’s The Wall a few years later.
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It’s funny how much Star Wars helped Star Trek grow up in terms of its visual language. It kept the Roddenberry rules about Federation ship design in general (separate nacelles from main ship structure for safety, clean looking with clear Starfleet insignia and registration number) but it took in ILM’s understanding of how ships should move even in a modified Newtonian sense. It made sure that a ship felt as big as it needed to be for a scene. As well as the lighting. Thank goodness for Star Wars tbh.
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LOL the one time I got busted for smoking weed by my family I was watching The Wall with a friend, at home. My Mom actually smelled the dang air freshener we used to cover up the smell of weed!!! Amateur mistake, but I was probably 17.
Luckily, my Mom was a hippie and went to Woodstock (she’s even in a shot in the Warner Bros. documentary) so we had a somewhat pleasant conversation about it and that was basically that, haha!
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I remember Saturday morning telly in the early 70’s.
Flash with his rocket ship with the sparks falling down.
But there was another series - Dick Barton, must have been rerun from the 50’s or 60’s.
A detective thing. Here’s the only thing I remember about it - at the end of one episode you see Dick driving his old Ford-type car straight over the edge of a cliff, all four wheels airborne. Fade to black and voiceover “What will happen to Dick?” etc.
Next week, rewind thirty seconds and the fucking thing swerves dramatically away from the cliff edge and continues the pursuit.
Way to create a cynic from a nine-year old.
Happy Days!
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Paper towel tubes stuffed with fabric softener sheets FTW!
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