In 1980, Adam, Carolyn and I took the movie trip bus to Keene, New Hampshire to see Flash Gordon. My mom used to go to the Saturday Matinee to see Flash Gordon when she was a kid. I had a history of liking science fiction. I had a history of liking Queen. It was awesome. It was hokey cartoon-esque space opera set in front of psychedelic clouds of color with a distinctive musical score by Queen. What could be better? I don’t think Carolyn liked it very much.
So it had some performance quality issues. I wasn’t expecting Academy Award winning anything. It was a frolic! It had strange alien worlds and creatures of different shapes and colors. It also had that somewhat erotic undertone which lent itself well to 15 year old boys like me.
As I ponder on Flash Gordon, it really boils down to the soundtrack by Queen and those sweeping acid induced space backgrounds. I’ve mention before how modern conveniences like shuffle and mix CDs etc have made listening to an entire album a rare event. Flash Gordon is an exception to that rule. I almost always listen to the entire thing. I all just flows together and the corny bits of dialogue included make me want to keep it shuffle free.
Queen did such an excellent job with this soundtrack. The movie is a retro-goofy good time but the soundtrack is even better. I wish that they would release a version with all of the dialogue removed. What would it sound like with just the music? Flash Gordon, due to its Fantasy genre was another one of those Dungeons & Dragons background soundtracks. For some reason, some of these songs take me back to a time when I would pour over the Dungeon Master’s Guide or some adventure module or campaign setting. I can safely say that Flash Gordon is my most frequently played Queen album. I can’t help I just like stuff like this. Maybe we can figure out why.
Flash’s Theme
In The Capsule
Football Fight
Execution Of Flash
The Kiss
Vultan’s Theme This was the song used in the video game Vanguard a couple years later.
Battle Theme
I could very well have put the entire thing here.