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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 44 No. 12. June 8 1981

Flash Fights Back

Flash Fights Back

In 1977, Star Wars stunned the world by grossing more than any previous science fiction film. Critics went wild with adoration as audiences flocked to see what was proclaimed as a modern re-creation of the old 'SF Adventure' style. By January 1981, box office takings stood at 400 million dollars, putting Star Wars well above any rival to its Number One smash hit status.

But its financial return - a profit of around 3800% to 20th Century Fox - was out of all proportion to its artistic merit, scientific accuracy, or indeed any other feature. Most critics confused 'quality' with 'profitability', because Star Wars was in fact appalling. The dialogue was banal, plot inane, and the amount of accurate science the film contained would not have covered the head of a pin. All that saved it from utter ruin were determined performances by Sir Alec Guiness, Peter Cushing, and the special effects team.

The main reason behind Star Wars' failure was conflict of themes. Writer-director George Lucas attempted to superimpose his pseudo-philosophy, the 'Force' - a mystic force that transcended science, making scientific achievements unnecessary - across a science fiction theme of a man attacking the universe with slide rule and ray gun. The resulting clash wrecked the plausibility of Star Wars.

Flash Gordon was consequently immeasurably superior. Although equally banal in places, it relied on direct action by men and machines. There was no 'Turn off your computer and trust the Force'. Flash did not 'wish' his way through the enemy defences, as did Luke in Star Wars - instead he had to hope Prince Barrin would shut off the enemy generators in time.

Anti-Science Philosophy

The conflict between science and mysticism is so basic that attempts to reconcile both usually destroy believability and authenticity of plot. It is difficult to see why Lucas, who in an interview explained he wanted to believably re-create Flash Gordon style adventure, included mysticism as a major theme. A possible reason may be that American film making subordinates everything, including artistic quality, to commercial appeal. In the past fifteen years, anti-science philosophies have become prevalent, particularly in California, following the 'hippie' revolution. Lucas, a product of this period, cashed in on the popularity of 'Science is bad'.

Following the commercial success of Star Wars came a host of science fiction films, including Star Wars' inferior sequel, presenting anti-science philosophies. Steven Speilberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for instance, showed alien encounters as a new religion. Aliens arrived with heavenly lights and a (synthesised!) angelic choir. The aliens regarded humans as a race in their own image with which they worked in mysterious ways. Truck drivers could cope, but scientists were helpless to understand. This was exactly opposite to the basic theme of science fiction. Battlestar Galactica implied man's ancestors originated somewhere 'out there' - an idea somewhat at variance with the observed fossil record.

Believable Technology

Fortunately this mass of pure American hokum did not represent all post-Star Wars SF production. Welcome relief came with Alien, which containe realism and scientific believability that thinking audiences of the post-Apollo period should expect. The jury-rigged spaceship, grumbling crew, and a corrupt Company so typical of reality: plus performances from actors who did not let the special effects dominate their work, made an impressive film.

Moonraker, although featuring typical tongue-in-cheek Bond type adventures, and lines like: 'This is Jaws. He kills people,' included Space Shuttles. This use of existing equipment ensured the film was firmly based in scientific reality. The modelwork was excellent and the plot quite believable, a spin off from its use of real technology.

Disney studios also went to considerable trouble to get the latest update before making their movie The Black Hole, basing their plot around the theory that Black Holes from 'Einstein-Rosen bridges' - a traversable space warp. With a 'deranged' scientist attempting to be the first 'Black Hole' explorer, the film emphasised the basic theme of science fiction.

In 1979, Star Crash appeared, a hilariously funny and particularly vicious satire of You Know What. The Italian production featured English actress Caroline Munro as Stella Starr, a decorative super-hero who went up the Force in scene after scene, cavorting through cliches in quite realistic multicoloured spaceships evidently constructed from plastic scraps left [unclear: o] from assembled kitset tanks. (A sequel is presently being considered.)

Lands Floating in the Skies

A year later, Flash Gordon was released. This direct remake of the original 1936 Universal production was so superior to Star Wars there was no comparison. Rockets in red, gold and royal purple, akin to Zeppelins, battled amid the surreal skies of Mongo. The lasers did not look like 20mm AA guns, but more like Victorian telescopes or H.G. Wells' Heat Ray projectors. It was a relieving change from the sterile polystyrene fighters so common from Star Wars and its clones. Being in an atmosphere, rocket noises and gun flashes were mandatory. The sets and interiors were from the grand old tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars stories, with their techno-Byzantine architecture. Lands floating in the skies, as in a Roger Dean painting, were a fresh and exciting change from the endless string of Tunisian deserts and Norwegian ice caps so common in other films.

The film had certain elements of humour, such as the line from Melody Anderson, playing Dale Arden: "Flash, I love you ... but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!

hours to save the Earth!" The intention was to portray the original comic strip and as such the film was excellent. The only draw back was that sixty percent of the special effects, and models such as a ship graveyard, were not included in the final print.

Alien, Flash Gordon, The Black Hole and the few others I have mentioned were the cream of the Sci-Fi boom. The remainder were generally pathetic trash, seldom worth the celluloid they were printed on. Science fiction is not the medium with which anti science philosophies should be transmitted. Mankind can - and will - ultimately understand the universe, by its own initiative. People don't need magical voices whispering in their ears before they can act. Science fiction is the vehicle with which this statement is emphasised, over and over. Of course, Star Wars and its ilk certainly provided entertainment, and escapism, and the technical effects were excellent. But they bore about the same resemblance to science fiction that the Reagan administration does to disarmament.

Matthew Wright