Seventy years ago, they already had Powerpoint rangers!
No wonder we can't find any trace of their mighty civilization.
Yes, Friday was the day for me to watch Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. This one didn't look very familiar either, but I know I must have seen it way back when, or how would I have known about Nitron?
Anyway, Nitron. Apparently it's some constituent of Earth's atmosphere, without which the Earth would be destroyed, or at least lifeless. The total quantity in the atmosphere, when extracted, seems to be on the order of gallons. If extraction is stopped, it'll regenerate quickly*.
Nitron - especially nitron which has been made radioactive by being dragged across interplanetary space - can be used to make a variety of Ultimate Weapons, from ray guns that have effects on the order of a large firecracker or small grenade, to bombs that have effects on the order of a large grenade, to paralyzing-ray guns! And the great thing is, these various ray guns can be fired, oh, maybe a dozen times before you need to strip-mine the atmosphere of another planet to reload!
As the story begins, Earth is under attack. Obviously, it has to be Ming. But, Flash says, we saw him die in the flames! No, Flash, we the audience saw him go into the flames. You came along a moment later and believed the crazy high priest when he told you Ming was dead.
So, naturally, Flash, Zarkov, Dale, and the new comic sidekick set off for Mongo, but end up on Mars, which after all is right next to it, at least in the alphabetical listing, if you skip Mercury. (Apparently Mars and Mongo have some common heritage, as Mars also has Forest People of whom Barin is somehow the rightful ruler, though it seems they didn't get the word.)
Action ensues, involving much stock footage of electrical activity. I lost count of how many times they used the clip of the Shark Men's blazing circuit breaker from the previous series.
In this series, they cheat on some of the cliffhangers! Not as badly as in some other serials, but here's the deal: a proper cliffhanger shows the hero certainly doomed, and the next week's recap shows exactly the same sequence of events, and then shows what happens in the next second to save him. In Trip to Mars, some of the recaps introduce new material a few seconds before the end, which is decidedly cheating, though it's not as bad as changing the events which had been shown the previous week.
Ming is a bit out of character in this one. He comes across as less of an evil overlord, and more of a mischievous, slightly nutty grandpa. Villains should not chuckle!
It's only been a few hours, and already most of the specifics are fading from my memory. Well, I guess that explains how they could get away with cheating on the cliffhangers, what with there normally being a week to forget the fine details. It might also explain why I was recognizing hardly anything, thirty years after having seen it.
Flash does lift the curse from the Clay People, though. He gets possession of both the Black Sapphire and the White Sapphire, destruction of both of which will undo Azura's wicked works. How to destroy them? Hit them with a hammer? Zap them with a ray gun? No worries - the Clay Men have a purpose-built Electric Black And White Sapphire Destroying Machine ready for use!
Speaking of Azura, how is it that when she teleports, she disappears suddenly in a puff of smoke, but arrives gradually, preceded by the generic "mysterious apparatus in use" sound?
Oh, yes: at the end, Ming is revealed to be an Earth Firster! Lemme just pop the DVD into the drive here, and look it up exactly:
"It is written that the planets shall all be destroyed but one! And the Earth shall be first!"
Now that's the Ming we know and love to hate!
Today - what with me still having the creeping crud, and being unlikely to do much useful - it'll be time for the third and final installment, in which Ming sabotages Earth's microelectronics by causing corrosion at the junctions between gold bonding wires and aluminum die attach points.
* As will the buildings that crumbled when extraction started. When extraction resumes, the exact same buildings will crumble again.
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