4K Restoration Of FLASH GORDON Headed To Disc This August!
StudioCanal will release an all-new 4K Restoration of Mike Hodge’s 1980 classic FLASH GORDON to home entertainment this August, in honour of the film’s 40th anniversary.
Our planet is under attack! An unexplained energy wave has pulled the Moon out of orbit, sending it careening towards Earth. Strange natural disasters bombard our world. Baffled scientists are at a loss as to the cause of the chaos. A lone voice – brilliant, but disgraced, scientist Hans Zarkov (Topol) – is convinced that these catastrophes are of extraterrestrial origin and predicts that we only have 10 days before the Moon crashes into Earth, destroying all life. Humanity is doomed! Realising that he alone cannot stop these sinister attacks he forces football hero Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) and New York travel-agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) aboard his makeshift rocket ship at gunpoint. Their destination – the mysterious Planet Mongo. On this strange new world all life cowers under the cruel reign of Ming The Merciless (Max von Sydow), an intergalactic tyrant who demands absolute loyalty under pain of death. Aided by his menacing, golden-masked hench-thing Klytus (Peter Wyngarde) he holds the fates of whole peoples in his icy grip, and Earth is but his latest plaything.
After crash-landing on Mongo Flash, Dale and Zarkov are immediately captured, and taken to the spectacular Mingo City city to face the wrath of Emperor Ming. Flash is sentenced to death, Zarkov to have his mind erased and reprogrammed, while Dale faces a fate unimaginably worse: to become Ming’s bride! Enlisting the help of Ming’s daughter Aura (Ornella Muti), Flash escapes his execution and flees, but his adventures have just begun. Seeking sanctuary in the forest world of Arboria he meets Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton) and undergoes the terrifying trial of the tree insect. Flash prevails but he and Barin are captured by the mighty Hawkmen, with whom Arboria is at war, and taken to Sky City where Prince Vultan (Brian Blesses) forces them into a fight to the death. But with Dale still imprisoned Flash must make friends of these warring princelings and enlist their help to overthrow Ming, rescue Dale and prevent the annihilation of Earth. Our only hope is Flash Gordon . . . saviour of the universe!
For this 4K Restoration, the film was scanned from the the original 35mm negative to produce 4K files. Over 500 hours of manual restoration repaired serious damage that included image instability, scratches and intermittent flicker. The sound was scanned from the original track negative and underwent restoration to improve issues ranging from audio drop-outs throughout the feature and during reel changes, digital clicks and optical distortion. The film was colour graded for theatrical, home entertainment and 4K HDR release, using previous digital releases and 35mm prints as a reference. In line with the Director’s vision and the original 35mm cinema release, VFX work was applied to remove the strings in all scenes where visible. This restoration was approved by Director Mike Hodges in May 2020, and will include the first 4K HDR Dolby Vision master of FLASH GORDON.
StudioCanal will release this restoration to 4K UltraHD/Blu-ray & 2 Disc Blu-ray on August 26th and both SKUs will contain the following Special Features…
Disc 1
● Lost in Space: Nic Roeg’s Flash Gordon
● Audio commentary with Mike Hodges
● Audio commentary with Brian Blessed
● Behind the scenes of Flash Gordon
● Stills Gallery
● Storyboards Gallery
● Original Theatrical Trailer
Disc 2
● Interview with Mike Hodges
● Interview with Comic Book Artist Alex Ross
● Interview with Screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr.
● Episode 24 of Flash Gordon (1979-1982): The Survival Game / Gremlin’s Finest Hour
● Sam Jones’s Acting Start
● Entertainment Earth on Flash Gordon Merchandise
● Bob Lindenmayer Discusses Deleted Scenes and Original Endings
● 35th Anniversary Greenroom
● 35th Anniversary Reunion Featurette
● Renato Casaro Extended Interview
● Brian Blessed Anecdotes
● Melody’s Musings
● On The Soundtrack (Brian May & Howard Blake)
● Easter Eggs
FLASH GORDON hits 4K UltraHD/Blu-ray & 2 Disc Blu-ray on August 26th.