SCI-FI Digital Media Press Tour: Flash Grodon set and panel Q&A review

So how does this show relate to its predecessors? Mark said there was ‘a conscious effort to be true to the original material and stay away from camp. They wanted to make it grounded and make it fun but to take itself seriously. The goal is to not completely reinvent it but to find a way to bring it forward and find themes that will resonate with us. Ming is a dictator character, but make him more savvy. Keep it in that fun, lighter tone, but make it relevant.

Eric the spoke, ‘I mean the stakes are very real and the drama is very real. The risks that the characters go through are intense but at the same time there’s come kids from Earth and sometime it’s just a little weird and you gotta point out that that’s just a little bizarre’.

The cast were asked about preparing for their roles. Each of them hit the net right away, but what I thought was more interesting were the observations that Eric and Jody had when they told people about getting these roles. Eric said, ‘The thing that really inspired me when I was talking to people about the show, when you would find a fan from the 1950 serials, one of my doctors in L.A. like up like a 10 year old boy. Here’s a 60 year old man and he’s talking like a 10 year old boy. [He talked] about how excited this shoe made him, how much he loved Flash Gordon. When he was on the playground they played Flash Gordon. When he made paper airplanes they were the Flash Gordon spaceship. So to be a part of something that is so fondly remembered, was such a piece of Americana and pop culture, and that childlike fun is a great pleasure. There’s a deep love and care for this character; there’s a tremendous responsibility that I feel, many of us feel. As fun as the job is, there is a certain amount of care and awareness for the fans to do it justice and have it be a piece of work that the fans of Flash Gordon can be proud of.

Jody said, ‘My fiancée’s father is 80 and he went into the connection he had and I found that connection he had as a child, much different than the connection I had with the 80s Queen film version, but yet still the same excitement. Hopefully what we’re going to be able to do is bring in a whole new generation to be able to have that kind of connection when they do Flash Gordon again, in 2035 and they say, “Oh I remember the 2007 [long pause] through 2015 version”’. We had a good laugh.

We asked if there were going to be any visual callbacks from the earlier incarnations of the serials or movie. Mark said, ‘I don’t think there is any specific plans to do any visual callback like that but we are talking about getting Sam Jones in as a stunt role. It’s just too delicious not too’.

A great question was about referencing the original. How do they walk that fine line, respecting the previous incarnations and avoiding the obvious political incorrectness of the 30s version? Mark said, ‘The first thing you do is completely stay away from any of the race issues. In terms of Ming, he is consciously not an Asian dictator in that really kind of cliché ridiculous way. We wanted go with someone who was actually very charming and stay away from this bad, thin, one dimensional dictator. It’s about finding the politics and the things that resonate in us. Having said that, it’s not like our villains are now Arabs. It’s really about finding the metaphor because that’s what Sci-fi is about. It’s not about being literal with it. It’s about finding what the allegory is and how to find something that feels like it is dealing with things we grapple with today, but not literally. Basically we just ignored all that stuff and really moved into a different direction with it.

Karen added that one of the motivators for the characters the early goings on in the series is an environmental issue. As the environment is a very real issue we’re dealing with in our every day reality the planet Mongo is having its own environmental issue, water pollution. So there is one way that the creators are making the show relevant.

How do you make a grown-up show when you have this sort of foundation? When you have names like Flash Gordon, Ming the Merciless and Planet Mongo? Mark did a lot more talking during this panel than the other three, poor guy. ‘We don’t call him Ming the Merciless. It’s the challenge we’re grappling with. This show has to have a sense of fun. When you tune into the show and you’re thinking, “Okay, I’m gonna watch something that is kind of campy action. That’s just a good time”, this show delivers on a lot of that. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. What you got in Eric and the character is that everyman who is a little one step behind, trying to get on top of whatever situation he’s in. [He’s] a fish out of water. [It’s] a much higher and more entertaining show. You don’t have to go quite so far. It’s about three steps away from spandex and camp. You can see it in the distance but we’re never going to be there.

When asked about fight sequences Eric was right in there. ‘I get to do an action or fight sequence every episode and I’m a bit of a keener. I’m a little bit like a golden retriever on set, throw the ball and I’ll go get it cause it’s so exciting. You keep throwing that ball all day and I’ll keep bringing it back cause it’s the coolest game I’ve ever played. So when a fight sequence comes up I want to do as much of it as is safe for me to do. I just absolutely love it and thankfully there hasn’t been and errant punches thrown. I did break a set on Friday. The poor stunt man went into the wall and it went about a foot’. Jody offered to show us his fighting skills. ‘I’m going to demonstrate one of my fight moves’. He then ducked behind Karen and Gina and they provided sound effects as he popped up and yelled, ‘Look out Flash’. He sat back down, ‘I do my own stunts’.

Jody shared his feelings about the show with us, ‘This show has a lot of heart. The great thing [about] Flash Gordon is we’re about to do it today because these themes are still relevant, the themes, the archetypes, are still there. That’s one of the things that we can hearken back to every Flash Gordon is the archetypes have not changed. The faces may have. Times have changed. So obviously we don’t consider race any longer to be the alien threat. We consider the alien threat to be… [Looks to the others for help? Eric says, ‘Aliens’] Aliens! Yes. Of all things, aliens! But because it has a lot of heart we don’t feel we’re participating in something that may be less than tasteful. I know one thing. I really, really, don’t like to do personally is promote a lot of violence and this show we’ve got a lot of action, we’ve got a lot of fighting, but it’s not the type of violence that makes once sort of uncomfortable or not quite sure what the type of message is being brought across. And I think that’s one of the things that buoys us and keeps everyone interested and enthusiastic is that we’ve got this great history to call upon. We’re able to tell these stories in a relevant modern way. And with lots of heart so it’s really easy to show up to work and promote this type of project.

And how did you choose Eric for the role of Flash Gordon, because the leading man can make or break a show. Mark, ‘It’s self evident when you hear him talk. He really embodies that sense of, yeah, he’s an incredibly good looking guy, and all that. He has that blond Flash look but he’s not just legend, jock, hero. There’s something a little goofier about it as he says. And that golden retriever quality which I think is really endearing. There’s a sense abut him that you really identify with him, when there is an alien in his kitchen he’s not like “I know exactly what to do!’ he’s like, “What the hell do I do?’. We saw a lot of people through this role. A lot. The minute we saw Eric read there’s just something about him, his personality belies his physical stature. He may look like a football jock but he’s not. And I think that’s the quality you want in the character, who is physical, who does have that good looking he-man demeanor. But when you get to know who he is he’s just so much more endearing and relatable in that. And funny.

After the Q&A was over we met with Costume Designer Heidi Samuda. She had a lot of costumes set out for us, some from the pilot episode. For the fans out there I will let you know that the Hawkmen don’t look to have wings in this incarnation. They have capes that they spread out to fly. After the Wardrobe show n’ tell we met with Executive Producer Tom Rowe. Well, we really didn’t meet with. We just sort of trailed behind him as he whipped through each set, not quite letting everyone catch up to hear everything that he had to say. Tsk tsk.

Group photos were in Princess Aura’s bedroom. Not quite as cool as Ming’s Council Chamber would have been. What can I say? It’s hard to be a man when you’re in a room full of ostrich and peacock feathers, and draped in silk and satin. So I did what everyone should have done. I vamped it up, baby. As I said in my Battlestar post, I had fun with it. There is video out there somewhere of me blowing and tickling feathers. That’ll come back to haunt me, I’m sure.