Flash Gordon

We watched the movie Ted last week but this post isn't about that movie. The movie has several references to the 1980 movie Flash Gordon including an extended cameo by Sam Jones who played Flash.



Flash Gordon and its soundtrack from Queen saved me senior year of high school--whenever I felt down I would listen to the album and run the movie through my head escaping reality for a little bit. These were the days before videos and CDs, now I've rewatched the movie several times on DVD.



Flash Gordon was not a great movie by any means but it resonated with me with its action sequences, great music and corny lines like "Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!". The stars of the movie Sam Jones and Melody Anderson were and still are relatively unknown but it had a great supporting cast.



Topol, best known as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, played a scientist who many mocked for his crazy (but true) ideas of what was happening in outer space. Basically the same character as when he played Galileo.



Timothy Dalton played Prince Barin and would go on to be James Bond and the Max von Sydow, who played chess against Death in The Seventh Seal, was the Ming the Merciless.



What does this all have to do with computational complexity? Absolutely nothing. But today I turn 50, it's my party and I'll post what I want to.