HAPGOOD of MONGO

I've gone for much more original dialogue and feel much freer about film 2 as a consequence. This one was always going to be trying for more outright comedy, so I am hoping my silly voices move it closer to that goal rather than further away. That is for you, the audience, to decide.

Clay People

Hapgood of Mongo features Azura, as well as her victims, the Martians, who have been turned into Clay People- misshapen creatures trapped in shapeshifted bodies. My take on them is different from the 1940 version, but hopefully will be cool. As soon as there are pictures I will post them here.

Fictional Mars...

Mars has always been for me, as for so many people especially creators, one of those magical places of mystery, a center for storytelling and dreams.

I count myself a rabid fanatical fan of the John Carter series, and hold out no hope that a corporate media film version will follow the scantily clad princess and peerless violent swordsman model of the original.

In visiting Mars as part of HAPGOOD OF MONGO I am extremely conscious that once again, and in a context of limited means, I have to put my money -and what talent I have- where my mouth is.

I am really looking forward to the challenge of conveying my vision of the Flash Gordon version of Mars whilst trying desperately to show as little of it as possible, given how threadbare my resources are in some respects...

But I am loving the challenge. :)

HAPGOOD of MONGO

Plotting Hapgood of Mongo was the easy part... as was voicing the evil robot... :)

Now I need to decide what public domain dialogue to use and how much original to put in. I sort of want to end up with no public domain dialogue for the ongoing series to symbolise the evolution from the public domain originals to the new secondary world of the series, but also I like the original cornball stuff and it keeps it real, in the sense that this can never be a "serious" ie incredibly wanky and stupid science fiction story. It has to keep that element of pantomime, craziness and silliness to keep its heart. No matter how evil the villains, how adult the situations (and Flash Gordon was, from the beginning, very sexual- just check out the original Alex Raymond art) and how murderous the outcomes.

HAPGOOD of MONGO

Hapgood of Mongo is taking shape in script form, and will be through development and preproduction pretty fast. :)

HAPGOOD of MONGO

As the sort of anti-Flash Gordon and comedy relief character in Flash Gordon's Trip To Mars, "Happy" Hapgood became one of those "new arrival" characters that are half reviled and ignored and half loved by otherwise alienated fans. Such characters allow people who don't "get" or like an original work to "get" it via the prism of a new character, usually quite alien to the original intent of the original creators- much like the ever-irritating (to me) characters of Berenice Summerfield and Iris Wildthyme in the Doctor Who mythos. To me such characters seem utterly unnecessary and a total copout- rather than deal with the original material respectfully and appropriately, people shoehorn new characters in.

Well then I started trying to redo the public domain Flash Gordon works as animated films, didn't I?

Being too arrogant or too creative to ever normally stoop to use the characters of others except in explicit pastiche, I was struck by the potential for hypocrisy (or at least accusations thereof) in my use of Flash Gordon. That being so, I did some exhaustive scholarship on the man and his (fictional) times. And so arose my strange bump of intuition in relation to Hapgood, the unloved reporter.

In point of fact as a character he's fine. As acted by Donald Kerr he's also a well rounded and finely drawn character, and probably Kerr's finest moment -certainly the actor's only moment "in the sun" as it were.

As such he seemed a perfect subject to use to extend the Flash Gordon mythos.

This is because, despite 75 (count 'em) 75 years of existence, and other than the Filmation 1979 cartoon series (first season anyway) Flash Gordon languishes in the same cyclical storytelling purgatory as the legion of comicbook characters who are his imitators in almost every way. In the original comic strip there is no closure and very little advancement, certainly no character arc to speak of. There is validation of the characters we encounter, but not actual growth, unless we count Zarkov's miraculous transformation from raving potentially homicidal and suicidal lunatic to good-aligned version of Lex Luthor.

My purpose in trying to empower this mythos is to give it its life and its growth. At some point in the unfolding text of the films and other media I intend to create and have others create the story has to be passed from the original protagonists to their successors. The heroes all want to settle down and marry and reproduce. Even my version of Zarkov, with his robot girlfriend, will probably create some unholy engram-imprinted robot child or children at some point- with no doubt disastrous results.

Enter Hapgood. He is the anti-Flash Gordon, a nosy self-centered and "typical" human, not a spit-curled demigod or alien aristocrat. He's also no genius. He is the flip side of heroes like Flash Gordon or John Carter of Mars- antiheroic not by alignment- he's a "good guy"- but in attributes. He is not capable of the fighting prowess of the classic interplanetary hero. He is not capable of the feats of "blue magic" or science of the scientists of Mongo (or Earth). He is in fact almost the eidolon of journalist- a life support system for a point of view.

At least when we first encounter him in my version.

So to the few Hapgood fans out there- please embrace my vision, and when in coming weeks you see the new creation emerge, please PLEASE tell me what you think of my salvaging (and salvation?) of "Happy" Hapgood.

EMPIRE of PLANET X: the way ahead

Empire of Planet X is the first film in the planned series. Then come two concurrent films with slightly overlapping narratives- Hapgood of Mongo and Spawn of Sogyambi. Spawn is the story of a duo of heroes fighting the Ming War, the heroes being the two most hairstyle challenged of the heroic Mongovian royalty, Barin and Thun. Hapgood of Mongo tells the story of a victim of Azura on Earth who is mysteriously transported to Mongo in time to basically be the "comedy" antihero of the setup before joining the general cast as a desperately unneeded third wheel. It will be better than it sounds. It pretty much would have to be or why the hell do it, eh?

Then after those two films the fourth planned animated film as yet untitled is the next full chapter with the public domain versions of Flash, Dale and Zarkov and the rest fighting the Ming War. Should they be victorious in that, it falls to me to decide whether the victory over Ming needs two films- I don't think so- or whether the third and final of the first "main story" trilogy should be similar to the public domain "Flash Gordon's Trip To Mars". It has its fans but as it exists there are a lot more people hostile to it. Anyway, that is the basic plan of films. They're fun to do and will find their audience, and make a wonderful release and break from all the silliness surrounding the Khalezov Affair.