Flash Gordon Silver Anniversary Release in October - U.K. Only?

[Defshep]

Yeah, yeah. I love this big ol' hunka cheese from 1980. I was excited to hear that it was being released for the 25th anniversary. DTS, DD 5.1, remastered audio (the Queen soundtrack in all it's multi-channel glory!), and restored video. Problem is, it's apparently a U.K. release only. Anyone know why it's not gonna be available here, and where I can get the import at a decent price? I can't help but think that if dvds existed at the time of it's initial release, it would've been reference quality. I know, it's no "Fifth Element", but the color saturation and wild set pieces remind me of that film.

[Woochifer]

Unless you use an all-region player (which are a lot less common in North America than elsewhere in the world), a UK DVD release will probably not play on your DVD player.

I've read rumors before about Flash Gordon. The Digital Bits had the following to say back in February:

Our industry sources have informed us that Universal is currently working on a Flash Gordon: Special Edition for release on DVD later this year, in honor of the film's 25th anniversary. This would certainly make sense given that the studio has just announced the release of the long-awaited Dune: Extended Edition. We've certainly been dying for a better edition of Flash on DVD here at The Bits for quite a while now (the title was previously released in the U.S. as a non-anamorphic, movie-only DVD from Image Entertainment, but that edition is now out of print).

If this is in development, it would not surprise me for a Region 1 (North America) release to follow suit soon. My recollection of that movie is that they used a lot of grainy looking optical effects (I believe that Kit West did them, and similar optical work shows up on Stargate which is probably about as good as you should hope for with Flash Gordon).

[markw]

Why bother? This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. OK, some great visual realizations but the plot was an abomination and the acting was mediocre at best. I'm surprised Kyle Mc Laughlin ever acted in anothe picture after this.

the Sci Fi miniseries was another story altogether, at least the first one. Children of Dune was just OK.

[Defshep]

Would it be possible to convert a non-region 1 dvd into a dvd-r through a burner?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Why bother? This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. OK, some great visual realizations but the plot was an abomination and the acting was mediocre at best. I'm surprised Kyle Mc Laughlin ever acted in anothe picture after this.

the Sci Fi miniseries was another story altogether, at least the first one. Children of Dune was just OK.

Could this be the ONLY thing we agree upon? WOW!!!

[Defshep]

Yeah, I never got into Dune. It had cheesy effects and it was boring. At least with Flash's cheese you got a fun, campy film with a cool soundtrack.
On a side note, I saw that Swamp Thing has finally made it back to dvd, without topless Adrienne Barbeau. I feel a best/worst camp guilty pleasure list coming on...

[Woochifer]

Would it be possible to convert a non-region 1 dvd into a dvd-r through a burner?

It's not just the regional coding that you would need to convert. UK DVDs use the PAL video system, while North America uses NTSC. The scan rates and resolution for the two standards are different. PAL conversion will usually make the video look washed out and fuzzy.

[Woochifer]

Why bother? This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. OK, some great visual realizations but the plot was an abomination and the acting was mediocre at best. I'm surprised Kyle Mc Laughlin ever acted in anothe picture after this.

the Sci Fi miniseries was another story altogether, at least the first one. Children of Dune was just OK.

The Sci-Fi production of Dune also has a fantastic special edition DVD version that includes some extended scenes as well as a full bitrate 1.5k DTS soundtrack. I've been holding out from getting Children of Dune because I thought that it would get a similar special edition treatment, but thus far nothing has come out.