Flash Gordon: Savior of the Universe Edition

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dx23 · #1 Post by **dx23** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:58 pm

The Digital Bits Rumor Mill is reporting that Universal will finally re-release the long OOP print cult film in a new special edition in August.

Fletch F. Fletch · #2 Post by **Fletch F. Fletch** » Tue May 01, 2007 1:11 pm

From DVDActive:

Title: Flash Gordon (IMDb)
Starring: Melody Anderson
Released: 7th August 2007
SRP: $26.98

Further Details:
Universal Home Video has announced a special edition of the Mike Hodges directed Flash Gordon which stars Melody Anderson, Timothy Dalton, and Sam J. Jones. The "Saviour of the Universe Edition" will be available to own from the 7th August, and should retail at around $26.98. The film itself will be presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. Extras will include a Alex Ross on Flash Gordon featurette in which world-renowned comic artist Alex Ross talks about his favorite movie of all time, Flash Gordon, and about how the film has inspired him in his life and work, a Writing a Classic featurette with screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr, and a Flash Gordon 1936 Serial Episode (chapter one of Planet of Peril).

Artwork

tavernier · #3 Post by **tavernier** » Tue May 01, 2007 2:17 pm

But it looks like the DTS sound mix, the commentaries by director Mike Hodges and actor Brian Blessed, and the Hodges interview will not be ported over from the British disc, which makes no sense.

Cobalt60 · #4 Post by **Cobalt60** » Tue May 01, 2007 2:34 pm

Yeah, but what about Doc Savage?

John Cope · #5 Post by **John Cope** » Tue May 01, 2007 4:42 pm

I'll stick with the R2. I 'm pretty disappointed by those extras. Why couldn't they get Sam Jones and Melody Anderson to do a commentary? Are they too busy?

starmanof51 · #6 Post by **starmanof51** » Tue May 01, 2007 4:57 pm

John Cope wrote:Why couldn't they get Sam Jones and Melody Anderson to do a commentary? Are they too busy?

Probably not, but wouldn't it be nice if they were? I wish that for them.

tavernier · #7 Post by **tavernier** » Tue May 01, 2007 8:11 pm

John Cope wrote:Why couldn't they get Sam Jones and Melody Anderson to do a commentary? Are they too busy?

Are they still alive?

skuhn8 · #8 Post by **skuhn8** » Tue May 01, 2007 8:19 pm

tavernier wrote:
John Cope wrote:Why couldn't they get Sam Jones and Melody Anderson to do a commentary? Are they too busy?
Are they still alive?

Yup. Still alive. Sam's in the new vampire flick, Revamped.
Melody's doing social work in New York City, frequenting Bob's Five and Dime Diner, and Tivoing way too many daytime soaps. Well, she's doing substance abuse work at least, but the rest of it came to me in a vision so can't confirm.

patrick · #9 Post by **patrick** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:13 pm

It's a shame that there's no featurette about the Queen soundtrack (my favorite part of the movie). I was actually hoping that it might be a 2- or 3-disc set with the soundtrack included - although, as a major comics fan, the Alex Ross featurette sounds interesting. Perhaps he'll provide a new cover?

I have a friend who has a really nice fan-produced DVD-R copy with featurettes that aren't on any official release, I'll have to ask him for details about it.

ByMarkClark.com · #10 Post by **ByMarkClark.com** » Wed May 09, 2007 1:05 pm

The Queen soundtracks is available separately and is well worth picking up.

BTW, I had the DJ play the Brian May version of the Wedding March when my wife and I arrived at our wedding reception.

tavernier · #11 Post by **tavernier** » Wed May 09, 2007 2:48 pm

The upcoming release should at least have a separate music track so you can listen to Queen's amazing score in 5.1 by itself.

Napoleon · #12 Post by **Napoleon** » Wed May 09, 2007 3:40 pm

ByMarkClark.com wrote:The Queen soundtracks is available separately and is well worth picking up.

BTW, I had the DJ play the Brian May version of the Wedding March when my wife and I arrived at our wedding reception.

Were you dressed up as Ming? Please say you were dressed up as Ming.

ByMarkClark.com · #13 Post by **ByMarkClark.com** » Wed May 09, 2007 5:50 pm

Napoleon wrote:
ByMarkClark.com wrote:The Queen soundtracks is available separately and is well worth picking up.

BTW, I had the DJ play the Brian May version of the Wedding March when my wife and I arrived at our wedding reception.
Were you dressed up as Ming? Please say you were dressed up as Ming.

Not until the honeymoon.

patrick · #14 Post by **patrick** » Thu May 10, 2007 2:23 am

The upcoming release should at least have a separate music track so you can listen to Queen's amazing score in 5.1 by itself.

I can't wait to hear "FLASH! AH-AH-AH!" booming out of my speakers. My work does a makeshift drive-in theater once a month during the summer and I wish this streeted a little earlier so we could include it.

tavernier · #15 Post by **tavernier** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 5:05 pm

I wonder if I got a bum disc: there's no 5.1 track, even though it's the only audio option. I thought it was my set up, but I put my R2 Flash Gordon disc on afterwards and the DTS track blasted out of my surround sound speakers. But not the new disc.

That said, the extras are few, but hearing Alex Ross talk about how much he loves the movie (and Queen's music also!) is fun, and Lorenzo Semple has a few anecdotes about the movie.

Lino · #16 Post by **Lino** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 6:52 pm

But how does the video look? Does it look substantially better than the current R2 one? Or just the same?

Lino · #17 Post by **Lino** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:55 pm

DVDtalk

I would love to know some info regarding the A/V quality on one of the extras of this new edition, specifically the pilot episode for the original series as I'm personally rooting for Universal to rescue them from PD hell.

Anyone? The reviews so far aren't mentioning anything about it.

patrick · #18 Post by **patrick** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:39 pm

It's funny that Universal skimped on extras that could have been ported over from the R2 edition and yet went out of their way to package this thing in a nice hard box. While I'm sick of having yet another type of package on my shelf, the glossy cover does a nice job of showing off that awesome Alex Ross painting.

EDIT: It's also ridiculous that our cost on this was over $20.

solaris72 · #19 Post by **solaris72** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:29 am

Lino wrote:I would love to know some info regarding the A/V quality on one of the extras of this new edition, specifically the pilot episode for the original series as I'm personally rooting for Universal to rescue them from PD hell.

Anyone? The reviews so far aren't mentioning anything about it.

I don't know anything about the quality of the episode included on this new DVD, but I hear that Image Entertainment's Flash Gordon serial releases are quite good as far as A/V quality goes (and now very affordably priced, too).

tavernier · #20 Post by **tavernier** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:12 am

Lino wrote:I would love to know some info regarding the A/V quality on one of the extras of this new edition, specifically the pilot episode for the original series as I'm personally rooting for Universal to rescue them from PD hell.

Anyone? The reviews so far aren't mentioning anything about it.

The pilot episode looks like anything from 1936 that hasn't been touched up - it's passable to look at, and the audio is crackly but listenable.

Lino, sorry I missed your question above about the video quality of the new DVD: as the DVDTalk review says, this is the best-looking of the available DVDs thus far. Now, if only Universal ported the interviews and commentaries from the R2 discs, we'd have a real winner!

Lino · #21 Post by **Lino** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 9:16 pm

Review with comparison

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