Welcome back, my fellow creatives!

This being summer and all, I thought it’d be fun to do an activity unique to the season: camping. When I was a kid, camping meant living in a magical woods, going on endless adventures among the fireflies beneath the stars. It was campfires and song, lake swims and long hikes through an endless forest.

But because my children have zero tolerance for bugs and my Bo has zero tolerance for tents, our family has never experienced the camping trips of my youth. Ah, well. At least we can enjoy camp another way: with movies! And I’m not talking about movies that involve camping. That inevitably leads to Jason Voorhees showing up with a machete. Rather, let’s think about campy movies as good ol’ Webster defines it:

campy

adjective

ˈkam-pē 

campier; campiest

Synonyms of campy

: in the style of camp : absurdly exaggerated, artificial, or affected in a usually humorous way

Or, we can use this definition by my daughter Blondie:

“It’s so campy, you could roast marshmallows on it.” -Blondie

Let’s launch this new summer series with none other than the outrageous science fiction adventure:

Flash Gordon!

Now, when it comes to camp cinema, any film is an acquired taste. Chris Nashawaty, author of The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982, describes the 1980 Flash Gordon as “joyless.” I agree with him to a point: for all the goofiness in this film, there are also scenes that crash the momentum, like the American girl being prepared for Ming the Merciless’ bed. But later in his book, Nashawaty uses a description for this film’s producer that explains, well, just about everything when it comes to this film:

The producer always displayed an almost Barnumesque flair for showmanship…

Exactly! “Barnumesque.” The whole thing has the look and feel of a circus: freak show, feats of strength, high-wire acts, the lot.

This movie is such a showy, bombastic, bizarre foray into space that you have to experience it on all sensory levels. The score by Queen is absolutely epic. The galaxy itself is awash in neons and pastels. The models made for the rockets, planets, and palaces don’t try to look real, and honestly? I love it. It’s a lovely little throwback to the Flash Gordon serials of the thirties and forties.

As you saw in the first video from the 1980 film, the sets and costumes have been powerwashed by Technicolor puked all over them. You have disco-style lasers, spinning spike platforms, and tree swamps as real as an Ewok playset. Everyone’s either wearing pleather or sparkling bikinis with tassels and tiaras coated in glitter.

And the acting! My heavens, the acting. Max von Sydow is truly merciless as Ming. He’s got the stance and the stare, and he’s not afraid to use’em. Timothy Dalton is a prince in the Mongo realm who’s in love with Ming’s daughter Aura. Dalton gives what I’d call a professional, grounded performance for his character; that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but in a movie this campy, a serious performance does stand out a bit.

Brian Blessed, though, is my favorite. As one YouTuber commenter said, “He’s the only one who knows what kind of movie he’s in.” Blessed is the biggest piece of ham you’ll ever meet. The man’s BRILLIANT in his roles (see him as Julius Caesar in I, Claudius!), but here he’s the boisterous leader of the hawkmen. Blessed typically plays half-crazed people, but not this time. Oh no. It’s aaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the crazed this time. His laugh is one of God’s great gifts to humanity.

So what’s a writer to get out of this camping trip?

1. Your protagonists must keep hold of the spotlight. This sounds like common sense, but this film’s a good reminder of what happens to a story when the side characters steal the show. Sure, this is still a fun watch, but I can appreciate where Nashawaty is coming from when the American protagonists do not have chemistry and are constantly upstaged by others in the room. Giving side characters their time to shine is fine, but if they’re outshining your protagonists all the time, that’s a problem.
2. Give characters time to transform. I get it. Films only have minutes to develop relationships, while books have hundreds of pages. The relationships of the characters in this film change at the drop of a hat, which, yeah, can make it hard to believe that they are capable of all rallying together to defeat Ming. Use those hundreds of pages well so that readers both see and believe why your characters come to love, hate, respect, or whatever-else each other.
3. Your story-world deserves to be remembered. I honestly love the look of this film. The insane colors and style with all the sparklies everywhere are beyond over the top. And the set models, for all their cheesiness, have a sort of charm to them you can’t help but remember. I’m not saying your story has to have glitter vomited all over it. However you design your story’s setting, it needs to be a memorable setting, something your audience can picture and hold onto.

I hope you enjoyed our first trip to camp! We’ll take another trip next month. In the meantime, I’ve got another interview and podcast coming up, plus some neat worldbuilding books for inspiration, a sensory workshop, and a resource spotlight for character building.

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!