FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (1940)
(Serial)
Article #204 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-6-2001
Posting date: 2-19-2002

A strange plague that is ravaging the earth turns out to be the work of the evil Emperor Ming. So Flash and his friends return to Mongo to do battle with him.

The third of the Flash Gordon serials does a little recasting in some of the roles; new actresses play Dale Arden and Princess Aura, and a new actor takes the role of Prince Barin. They’re not bad by any means, but I did find that they didn’t look anywhere as distinctive as their predecessors in the series; therefore, I have a lot of trouble telling the characters apart in this outing. There’s still plenty of variety in the story to keep each episode from looking exactly like the others, but it really does feel like a rehash of the first Flash Gordon serial to me; nevertheless, this is still one of the better serials out there, and the opening plot summary crawls show that this serial had a clear influence on STAR WARS.