Universal/Kobal/ShutterstockThe original hero of space opera is up for debate. Chronologically, most would claim that John Carter, of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels, starting with A Princess of Mars (1912), is the beginning of the science fiction tradition of a lone man out to save the universe. Second in line is the comic strip hero Buck Rogers, who came from Philip Francis Nowlan’s novella Armageddon 2419 A.D. in 1928, and then became a smash hit comic strip in 1929. And finally, in 1934, Flash Gordon emerged, created by Alex Raymond.Flash Gordon rapidly became the most popular of these space bros, partly because Raymond’s art was just so damn compelling. The ostentatious look of Flash, bolstered by the mega-popular film serials starting in 1936, starring Buster Crabbe, solidified him as a foundational sci-fi hero, before we even used the term “sci-fi.” George Lucas even wanted to remake Flash Gordon outright in the early 1970s, but couldn’t get the rights, which then resulted in Star Wars.So, because of all that, you’d think that a 1980 film remake called Flash Gordon, with music from Queen, would be the greatest thing ever, right? Well, not quite. Forty-five years ago, on December 5, 1980, a major live-action Flash Gordon film appeared, directed by Mike Hodges, with a script from Lorenzo Semple Jr. (who was probably most famous at that time for having written several scripts for the 1960s Batman TV show). The result was a colorful, tongue-in-cheek tribute to the comic strip roots of Flash. The problem? Both then and now, the movie is too in its own jokes to really feel like a movie. Though it’s fashionable to love the 1980 Flash Gordon as a cult classic, it’s hard to watch it now, mostly because it’s simply not funny enough to be enjoyable, and not also not sci-fi enough to offer anything else. As with many heroes in this mold, Flash Gordon is a fish-out-of-water story. While the evil Emperor Ming of the planet Mongo (Max von Sydow) torments the Earth at the touch of a button, football star Flash Gordon (Jones) is trying to take a flight with travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson). After escaping with their lives due to increased storm activity caused by Ming pushing buttons (really, there’s no explanation as to how these powers work), Flash and Dale are abducted by the crazed Dr. Zarkov (Topol), who, like Michael Caine in Interstellar, has built a rogue spacecraft on his own, against the wishes of NASA. He abducts Flash and Dale because he needs help flying the ship, and the three head off to Mongo to deal with Ming.This set-up is, more or less, faithful to the comic strips. Nobody wants to go to space, and though Zarkov is nuts, we are rapidly supposed to like him and think he’s just a fun, crazy uncle. Neither in the source material nor in the film does this mood transformation make much sense, and it’s just the first of many things you have to accept about Flash Gordon in order to really get into it. The main plot points of Flash Gordon mostly involve Flash fighting in front of a bunch of people. At the beginning, this is all about Flash fighting Ming’s guards, turning the entire affair into an impromptu game of American football, which, arguably, is the movie’s first sin. If Flash Gordon were made today, this would be like Travis Kelce tackling people, making football references, while Emperor Palpatine watches with frustration. In short, many times while watching Flash Gordon, you wonder what the hell you’re looking at.The dreaded football scene. | Universal/Kobal/ShutterstockSome conflicts are more satisfying simply because everything is weirder and, in the case of Flash’s fight against Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton), edgier. In that battle for dominance (which results in Flash and Barin becoming buddies), there are whips and spikes and leather, which, in some ways, recalls the stranger aspects of Barbarella (1968), albeit without the same level of wit. Both Flash Gordon and Barbarella could be classified as camp, but not all camp is created equal. For every hilarious whip scene with Timothy Dalton, or Brian Blessed acting like a charming lunatic as the winged Prince Vultan, there are wooden, slightly dull scenes of Flash doing other stuff, or worse still, talking.Some might say (and a few critics did, at the time) that the problem with Flash Gordon is that the source material was stale then, and that the film merely translated that source material honestly. But this isn’t it. The 1936 Buster Crabbe serials (of which there were three) are all far more fun to watch today than the 1980 movie for two reasons: First, Crabbe is actually a pretty good actor, considering he was basically creating an entire subgenre from scratch. And second, the original serials play everything straight, which allows the audience to insert their own sense of humor into the mix. Flash (Sam J. Jones) versus Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton). | Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Moviepix/Getty ImagesPart of the appeal of Flash Gordon in the 1930s wasn’t that moviegoers and readers were dumber back then and didn’t expect as much from sci-fi stories (Metropolis came out in 1927 after all); it’s that those serials, and the comics, intentionally appealed to a wide range of viewers, children and adults alike. (Contrast this with the original Buck Rogers comic strip, which was much more childish.) In other words, Alex Raymond’s creation, especially in comic form, was sneakily more mature than Buck Rogers, but could be enjoyed by kids, too. This was also true of the original serials, which are way better than nearly any other filmed science fiction from the mid-1930s, and certainly created with more care than the cheap 1950s Flash Gordon TV series, or, in terms of visual space opera, better than pretty much anything until Forbidden Planet came out in 1956.But the 1980 Flash Gordon doesn’t feel like a continuation of any of that. A good analogy might be this: Imagine if, in 1987, instead of Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was a jokey, yet unfunny version of Galaxy Quest that didn’t feel reverent to the source material, but just mocked it outright. This is what the 1980 Flash Gordon feels like next to the Buster Crabbe serials; it feels like a joke, but if you’re not in on the joke, you might not understand what you’re looking at. This isn’t to say there aren’t some cool visuals in Flash Gordon. There are! There’s great novelty in seeing the characters from the Raymond comic strip in full color, and of course, Max von Sydow, Brian Blessed, and Timothy Dalton are all particularly watchable here. But if Flash Gordon was destined to be the 1980 version of the 1966 Batman, the film lacks an Adam West figure, someone who is both deadly serious and hilarious at the same time. Flash and Dale in a tricky situation. | Universal/Kobal/ShutterstockThis might not have been Jones’ fault, per se, partly because the script doesn’t give him very many good lines. But overall, the sensibility of the movie is off. What director Hodges and producer Dino De Laurentiis seem to have missed with Flash Gordon is that the kids who grew up with him (or watched the TV reruns like George Lucas did) actually loved Flash and wanted to see him taken slightly more seriously.This was the brilliance of Star Wars. Lucas had wanted to remake Flash Gordon not as a send-up or a camp joke, but as something genuine and warm. Obviously, Lucas succeeded beyond the wildest expectations of anyone. So, it would be easy to say that Star Wars destroyed the 1980 Flash Gordon, but that’s not true at all. If anything, the 1980 Flash Gordon should have taken more lessons from Star Wars. Have an over-the-top space opera, sure. But you can’t forget to make people care.Flash Gordon is available to rent on Prime Video, YouTube, and elsewhere.