After watching this week’s lecture on SF Film Serials, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon, and completing the assigned viewings, write at least 250 words summarizing your notes. Focus on what stands out to you, what were some of the important points that I made, what were interesting elements in the readings, connections between the readings and other SF that you know, etc. Remember, the weekly writing assignment is graded on best effort. I would like to know what you find notable about each week’s class. As long as the posts relate to the class and you give me your best, you receive all the credit. Also, this serves as regular writing practice, which has been shown to improve your writing skills by simply doing this kind of work. It will help prepare you for the writing that you will do on your research essay and the final exam.
I don’t want anyone to feel that they can’t catch up in our class. If you get behind, let me know over email, and when you turn in an assignment late, send me an email to let me know to grade it for you. While the end of the semester is the hard deadline for everything in the class, you may turn any work in up to that point to receive credit. Remember: it’s always better to turn in something rather than nothing!
The discussion on the affordances and constraints of different media presenting the same story is something that I am very familiar with, at first in my English 1 class and now my Films from Literature class with the same professor. The final paper in particular was focused on the topic, as we wrote a comparison between a work of our choosing and its film adaptation. Just like it was mentioned in the lecture, an adaptation in the form of a video game is one that I find the most engaging of all. Think about it, in written form, or even as a motion picture for that matter, the story can only move in one direction. On the other hand, video games give people the option to control the direction of the narrative through choices, something that has been more and more prominent in recent years in the RPG genre.
On the subject of Flash Gordon, I got this weird feeling that SF works from back then were a lot more, relaxed in terms of the setting. I got this sudden yet subtle realization that fandoms from modern works are more likely to pick on plot holes and contradictions, leading creators to be more meticulous when producing stories. I think the word is that the setting in the episode was more, rich? It just feels like when coming out with the plot, there was more creativity when it came to the possibilities of space travel and such, but maybe that comes down to it not having done much world building before going straight to the point. It’s just a hunch.
The week’s lecture is a continuation on Pulp SF and we get into what is SF serials and learn about two examples, “Buck Rogers” and “Flash Gordon”. The professor starts off by talking about mediums. A medium is a thing through which something else is conveyed. The different types of medium are magazines, novels, films, music, video games, and radio. Then we discussed the different affordances and constraints of the different mediums. For example the affordances of video games is that the story is being controlled by the player. The story could change depending on the player choices and action in the game. And the constraints is that the game is only available on one platform, requires certain hard drive space on console or computer, bad graphics, etc. The two stories mentioned in the lecture “Buck Rogers” and “Flash Gordon”, were adapted through different type mediums. From magazines, novels to tv shows. One fact I found funny is that the same actor, Buster Crabbe played both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in the serial film adaptation
Episode one of Flash Gordon starts with the meeting of Flash and Dale parachuting off the plane for safety. As soon as they land, they meet Dr. Zarkov.
Dr. Zarkov will convince both Flash and Dale to go out in space to the planet that’s on course to collide with earth, to save it with him. On the planet Flash, Dale and Dr. Zarkov meets with Emperor Ming. Ruler of the planet. The Emperor wants to destroy earth. One thing I like about this is that it’s very fast paced. No background story build up. Just straight to the point. I could imagine this got people hooked on it so fast back in the 30s. And the cliffhanger makes it exciting to watch the next episode.
We begin lecture 7 introducing film serials, comic strips, and media adaptations of science fiction writing which first appears in Issue 1 of “Amazing Fiction”. In the same issue as The Skylark of Space E.D. Smith, we discover the story of Armageddon 4219 AD. It introduces Buck Rogers, a war veteran who falls into suspended animation for 492 years waking up in the year 2419. He joins raider gangs that live on the outskirts of town in fear of the Han empire. The story is soon adapted into a comic strip, becoming widely popular for its use of more pictures and less words. Short after in 1932, comic strip Flash Gordon is created to compete with Buck Rogers; Which quickly turns into a film serial and television adaptation: The comic strip creating a storyboard for the serial.
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon share a common ally and a common enemy. Played in both serials is a protagonist played by Buster Crabbe; gold-medal olympic swimmer. Both also share a common enemy: Yellow Peril. The creators made a racist, fear mongering drama on the stereotype that Asian immigrants would come into the United States to steal jobs from Americans.
Science fiction gradually branches itself into more mediums and media as it grows from its roots in Frankenstein. The genre gets more warped and twisted and experienced in different ways. As it approaches into the late half of the 20th century, it soon adapts itself into video games. Here, science fiction can be experienced through non-linear storytelling and player skill. Two things that film and book could never display.
I really enjoyed watching Flash Gorden (1936) which seemingly had more realistic messaging and good dialogue for a film made so early on at the beginning of modern television. Throughout the lecture, I did notice that the impact of the current events at that time with anti-China bias was roaming in that film. I was confused at first because historically during the 1930s America was in fear of Japan due to World War II but nonetheless, I am not surprised to see the hateful media propaganda towards Asian-Americans almost 90 years later. At the beginning of the first chapter of Flash Gorden (1936), when the entire world began to panic and scream, running around, doing their rituals as a ‘goodbye’ perhaps, I thought about how ill-prepared we are in modern-day for the possibility of the world ending. It was astounding the way people reacted to an emergency rather than preparing calmly. The scene shift to Flash Gorden and Dale (Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers), made me think about the romantic aspect of all stories, SF or not, to bring about the appeal to a wider range of audiences and create a greater sequence of conflicts for the main character’s motivations. Furthermore, the choice of the monsters that Flash and Dale, and Dr. Zukrov saw on Mars made me think about the biological galvanism that we covered during Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus” because of how often humans contemplate life being on Earth.
From the accomplishments of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and NASA, I was researching on my own about life on Mars, and the possibility of water forming naturally there as the only planet besides Earth to have water – life on Earth started with water and a rapid change in the atmosphere with more amounts of O2 which helped life form on Earth and evolve. Thus, the lizard-like monsters we’ve seen on Flash Gorden seemed very logical as the first creatures to roam the Earth were reptiles underwater, and soon evolving to mammals on land and amphibians. Where in Flash Gorden’s case, the creatures of Mars just started to form. I also loved the drama between Princess Aura and her jealousy of Dale, wanting to be with Flash Gorden, that element of dramatic unpredictability and battling over space shows the advancement of the technology we have now.
While in Chapter 2, Emperor Ming’s hypnosis on Dale was interesting to me that he would control her mind until she married him,, kind of alluding to the aspect of female oppression through science. The ideology of hypnosis might be a little inaccurate because it is not the same as completely mind-controlling – in fact, what Emperor Ming is trying to do might be how women were often manipulated into being the ‘housewife’ for a man to feel superior to her. The different cultural and societal aspects of this film show a lot about how science is used to portray these issues but in reality, it is done psychologically and spread the same a plague does.
In the lecture of week 7, we started with SF film serials, medium/media, comic strips, affordances and constraints. And science fiction is a promiscuous genre when it comes to claims of origination and translation and is the stories that are told and retold across a variety media. Then later we learned about the two stories in the lecture of “Flash Gordon” and “Buck Rogers”, both titles are adapted from different kinds of mediums such as magazines, novels and TV shows. Alex Raymond was the creator of “The Flash Gordon”, the comic strip for king feature syndicate in 1934 to compete with the long established “Buck Rogers” in the 25th century comic strip. Flash Gordon was about a meteors striking the earth, and mad scientist Dr. Zarkov work to uncover their origin. One thing I found funny about Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers was that they both share the common ally and enemy. And both shows were played by the same actor Buster Crabbe, Buster was a former Olympic gold medalist for swimming.
Before watching Flash Gordon (1936) I had heard of it from Ted 1-2, since there was a cameo scene of Flash Gordon in the movie. Flash Gordon (1936) was actually a pretty fun to watch from his adventure to a new land to encounter Emperor Ming. Emperor Ming was one bad villain in the show and Flash Gordon has to fight his way out from Ming. The story of the show was pretty straight forward to the point without any characters background story, and I think this really catch lots of audience attention to the story and making them to keep follow the next episode of the show or the series.
After reading this week’s assigned readings and watching lectures, we can link the topics Professor Ellis discussed of constraints and low production costs. This week’s medium, Flash Gordon (1936), focuses on a different way SF can be portrayed through film. As I was watching the film, what stood out to me were the lizards in a tank being portrayed as a foreign specie on the planet of peril. This emphasizes Professor Ellis’s point that SF Films Serials have very low production costs because instead of creating a monster and spending money on makeup, supplies and sound effects; someones possibly pet lizard was used to depict a monster. At the end of episode 1, we are left with a cliffhanger when Flash Gordon suddenly drops to the center of the planet when the floor gives out. Professor Ellis mentioned cliff hangers are to get the viewer to tune in the following week and was common in SF TV shows. Episode two proceeded along the same themes of the first episode. It is important to note that many SF themes that we have mentioned in previous lectures were also seen in the Flash Gordon Film. These include the use of bems (bug eyed monsters, in this case the lizards), megatext like the rayguns, and the portrayal of galactic empires. What stood out to me also during the tv show, was the scenery the film took place in. Due to low production costs, it seemed that some frames of the film were paintings, some were filmed in a desert like setting and then others seemed a little more reasonable and took place in a theatre setting.
Lecture seven was about the transmission of SF through media such as film series and comic strips. I read both the comic strips and I also watched the film series of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, both SF contents. The main character in each SF film series was the same performer, Buster Crabbe. He used to be an Olympic swimmer who in 1932 won Olympic Gold Medal for 400m freestyle. I personally enjoyed Flash Gordons’ series more than Buck Rogers. I found them interesting and funny at the same time. I’m not going in details about Flash Gordons’ series, because I did that the previous week and I don’t want to be repetitive.
Through this lecture we learned the definition of medium as the power of communication using technology, a technology through which art is conveyed. As we know, our main focus remains SF and its broadcasting through different medium, such as comic magazines and film series which we already mentioned and other sources of technology such as music, video games or novels. We learned the characteristics of film serials which are very notable watching Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon series. For instance, everyone gets an idea that these film serials had low “production costs” if we just refer to the visual and acoustic quality of the films. When we think about the evolution of technology from 1930s to the 21st century, it is fascinating how the technology have changed our lives. People now days are more connected to medium. It has not only entertaining purpose, but also informative and educative.
In this week’s lecture Professor Ellis talked about medium/media and their relationship to science fiction. Some examples of media include magazines, novels, films, music and video games. Just like many others in this class the most interesting part for me was the talk on how different storytelling in video games is. I’ve read/seen all kinds of stories, but for me, none of them captivate me as much as video game stories, simply because I am directly affecting what is happening in said video game. As an example, a game called Ratchet and Clank, which was one of my favourite childhood games, got a movie adaptation a few years ago, and even though the story was pretty much the same as the game, it didn’t feel nearly as entertaining as the game, whereas I could replay the game a dozen times and still enjoy it.
As for Flash Gordon, I have to say that it was definitely interesting. The show didn’t bother introducing us to characters or giving us some context. It instead went straight to the point, that the earth would be destroyed from another planet that was on a crash course into earth. A few minutes later, the protagonist of the story, Flash Gordon, is already on said planet fighting against Emperor Ming’s forces in order to save the earth. I can understand why the series was made like this however. Just like the professor said in class, these series had low production costs and value, so the creators aimed at making short, action packed episodes with a thrilling cliffhanger that would make the viewer want to come back for the next episode that would air the week after. Flash Gordon definitely succeeded in the cliffhanger part as I actually wanted to watch more after the first two episodes considering that the second episode ended with Flash about to be snapped in half by some crab monster.
Some things that have stood out to me from the lecture and the videos were that it does fit the points mentioned about Science Fiction film series. Some of the points being that they were low value, low cost, and always left on a cliffhanger. In the Flash Gordon episodes, you can see that there are no special effects. You can also see that it is low cost when they use iguana’s as the monsters. They could have created a monster for Gordon to fight, but instead they just took something already existing and changed the context of it. You could also see how the value is low, because there wasn’t any major thing that is noticeable in the backgrounds. It is very forgettable which demonstrates how there is not too much value in the whole production. In the first episode of Flash Gordon, They ended with him and the King’s daughter falling down a pit. This is an obvious cliffhanger because it was at the climax of what was going to happen but then they ended it right there so that it makes viewers a little more inclined to tune in next time to find out what happens next. Cliffhangers were a major part in the Science Fiction series. The king in Flash Gordon is also heavily played on the stereotype of Asian Americans. The throne room had asian ornaments hung in the room and the king himself was all the worst stereotypes of Asian Americans. This reflects on the time that Flash Gordon was produced. People feared Asian Americans because of the Yellow Peril. Flash Gordon had numerous things that tie it to being a Science Fiction series.
I love the costume design in the show Flash Gordon; the kilt, the shorts, and their clumsy actions make me laugh. It’s comical because, for instance, their fighting scenes are too simplistic and unrealistic. This show has so many coincident events, which are crudely and poorly placed, and it does not have character development either. Nevertheless, the scene design is so intriguing, and it continues to draw my attention back to the show; for example, the weird but very interesting statue in the episode two, where a bunch of aliens dancing around it for the marriage ceremony, is so otherworldly.
While I was watching the show, I also realized that there were racist connotation embedded in the show which made me uncomfortable watching it. I personally believe that we should not watch racist shows like these and endorse them, but I’m sure there are others who would disagree with me, with their own reasons.
I learned two important terms in our class. The first is affordance; it describes the things that medium is capable of. And the second is constraint, which is about the things that medium isn’t capable of doing. Moreover, medium is a technology through which art is conveyed.
I also learned four characteristics of SF serials. They are (1) released weekly and shown before feature film; (2) they have relative low cost of production; (3) they have low production value; and (4) they all have cliffhangers to attract viewers to come back and continue to watch their future films.
The main focus of this week’s lecture revolved around film serials and the assigned viewing of Flash Gordon. In the first chapter “Planet of Peril” we are almost immediately introduced to a catastrophic situation, it seems that a planet is heading straight for Earth. In efforts to help, Dr. Zarkov goes to Mongo with Flash Gordon and Dale, where they run into Emperor Ming the antagonist of the story. In the lecture we discussed what serial films are, they are short films shown before a feature. They consist of 4 distinct traits: weekly releases that leave people on the edge of their seats, the cost to produce was relatively low and so the production value was also low.
Both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were space operas, they both were telling stories of interplanetary relationships particularly threats that these planets posed for Earth. Both stories also had the antagonists be represented by Asian characters, which coincides with the racist anti-Asian rhetoric at that time in America. Speaking of, one thing that did stand out when watching the first chapter of the Flash Gordon Serial was in the first 5 minutes of the episode. In the beginning, when they first notice that there is a planet heading to earth and the threat humans will face, to convey the severity, they have a montage of different cities and citizens running around in a frenzied state from the news of their impending doom. They show London, Rome, Paris, Shanghai, and India then they show Africa. This serial came out in 1936 and given the history of race relations in the United States I did not expect to see black characters/people in an SF short film. What stuck out the most however was not the presence of black people but how they were shown, with spears and big shields and clothing that only covered their privates. The creators went out of their way to display the entire continent of Africa as primitive and out of touch with their western neighbors. I am aware of the time this was created and so it is not surprising, it is one thing to read about the revolting misrepresentation of BIPOC characters in classic SF and another to see it for yourself.
In this week’s lecture professor Ellis continues to discuss Plup SF. defining what a new medium is. The new medium is a technology through which communication is performed, which SF is told so the medium is the thing through which something is conveyed. The different types of mediums are magazines, novels, films, music, and video games. We discuss the different affordances, for example, magazines have affordances of generally linear storytelling meaning like the story go starts at one point and progresses through the writing to some conclusion printed text. In the lecture two stories were mentioned “Buck Rogers” and “Flash Gordon”, and they were restyled throughout different types of mediums like magazines, novels, and tv shows. The Flash Gordon film series was the first Pulp Science Fiction film. It was based on stories of Buck Rogers that were published in Amazing stories. Buck Rogers was created by Phillip Francis Nowlan in 1928. The Flash Gordon series was produced by Universal Pictures. There were three series of Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon space soldiers, made in 1936, Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars, made in 1938, and Flash Gordon conquers the Universe, made in 1940. Both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers were played by the same actor Buster Crabbe. Buster Crabbe was one of the first actors who defined the superhero prototype. Buck Rogers was also produced by Universal Pictures. It took two reels to produces one episode of Flash Gordon. What I found most intreating in this lecture was when the Professor talked about cliffhangers, which are to get the watchers to turn in to the following week and that is very common in SF tv shows. For instant at the end of episode one of Flash Gordon(1936), we were left with a cliffhanger when Flash Gordon drops to the center of the planet.
In the first half of the week 7 lecture seemed to focus on the different types of media and the benefits and constraints with each one. Two important terms were Affordance meaning the things the medium is capable of doing. And the opposite of that being constraints which is the things the medium is not capable of doing. Magazines have set text with no pictures sounds and are targeted for a literate audience. While video games are interactive and have much more capability to tell showcase amazing stories and ideas. we continued to discuss important SF Film serials. SF film serials consist of four major details. First, they are release periodically on a weekly basis. Next, they often contain a cliffhanger at the end to entice people so that they stay interested and make sure to tune in next week. They also have low production cost and low production value. Flash Gordan was an example of this as it had contained all these film serials. Each episode ended with something to interest the viewer so that they would make sure to see how he escaped danger or avoided a near death experience like in episode 4 where he nearly drowned. it was clearly low budget as the octopus trying to drown him had little movement and its tentacles just seemed to magically appear onto his leg. Most of the action was skipped to keep the budget low. as the Philip francs Nolan lived from November 24th, 1883, to February 1st, 1940. He was known for writing Space Opera with his story Armageddon 2149 AD. This story went on to be adapted into a comic strip medium which contained less words but a lot more visuals. Alex Raymond went on to create Flash Gord to compete with Bruck Rodgers comic strip.
This week’s lecture focuses on the mediums that different science fiction stories can be portrayed by. Different mediums such as magazines, novels, films, film serials and videos games play a part on how these stories are shown. The affordance of these mediums has its pros and cons on the public it reaches and the quantity of people it reaches. Buck Rogers started in Philip Francis Nowlan amazing stories, Armageddon 2419 AD, after the novel Buck Rogers was adapted into comic strips. Buck Roger comic strips portrayed racism towards Asians and took a stand against them. In 1934, Alex Raymond created Flash Gordon comic strips for Kings Signature that was more of a space opera which was a competition against the Buck Roger comic strips. Flash Gordon evolved into film serials by Universal Pictures starting with Space Soldiers released in 1936, Trip to Mars released in 1938 and Conquers the Universe released in 1940. Buster Crabbe who was an Olympian swimmer in 1932 played in Flash Gordon was also contracted to play Buck Rogers in 1939 when Universal Pictures put Buck Rogers on film serials. Flash Gordon seemed to have more success I believe because it geared itself into a more positive light. I’m a little surprised though on why they would use the same actor to play Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon since they seemed to have different personalities, agendas and they were in competition with each other.