A Rocketship Ride down Memory Lane
As mentioned in an earlier entry, I am planning on running an adaptation of Lizard's Iron Lords of Jupiter setting for Spirit of the Century at GenCon. It's less than 2 months away and I have 2 different adventures to prep, so I decided that it is time to do said prepping.
One of the listed references for Iron Lords, as well as one of my first exposures to the Planetary Romance genre, was the short lived but excellently done Saturday morning cartoon series, The New Adventures of Flash Gordon. As is the fashion these days, many old series are getting re-released on DVD. Of course, I put it at the top of my Blockbuster Online queue.
I was a little concerned that the series would be cheesier than my nostalgic boyhead memories reveal. And it is, a little. But it's still intensely cool. I've more recently been re-reading the John Carter books, and you can see the planetary romance influences that filtered down through the years.
A few interesting side notes. First, my wife was sitting in the room for the first episode, where the lusty princess was asking her father for Flash Gordon as her boy toy. My wife remarked both about her surprise they would have this in a cartoon, and she remarked on how like one of her romance novels this was.
Second, surprisingly, my two youngest girls were transfixed by it. I was rather surprised, considering their normal fare is Disney Princess and Barbie movies.
In just the first episode alone, I saw a flurry of elements ripe for the picking for inclusion in my Rocket Patrol game:
One of the listed references for Iron Lords, as well as one of my first exposures to the Planetary Romance genre, was the short lived but excellently done Saturday morning cartoon series, The New Adventures of Flash Gordon. As is the fashion these days, many old series are getting re-released on DVD. Of course, I put it at the top of my Blockbuster Online queue.
I was a little concerned that the series would be cheesier than my nostalgic boyhead memories reveal. And it is, a little. But it's still intensely cool. I've more recently been re-reading the John Carter books, and you can see the planetary romance influences that filtered down through the years.
A few interesting side notes. First, my wife was sitting in the room for the first episode, where the lusty princess was asking her father for Flash Gordon as her boy toy. My wife remarked both about her surprise they would have this in a cartoon, and she remarked on how like one of her romance novels this was.
Second, surprisingly, my two youngest girls were transfixed by it. I was rather surprised, considering their normal fare is Disney Princess and Barbie movies.
In just the first episode alone, I saw a flurry of elements ripe for the picking for inclusion in my Rocket Patrol game:
Characters gathered together as part of a “capture”
(by fishmen)
beast-riding amazons “witch-warriors”
monorail/rocket rail
carnivorous plant beasts
many races/factions, all at war
uniting to stand against “the emperor”
an arena/test with a blast-emitting sphere
daughter of the emperor, with a thing for the hero