There seem to be a lot of public domain versions of the Flash serials floating around. The DVD’s released by Image in 2000 are what I have and are pretty decent although unrestored. AFAIK, it’s the only release that has the blessing of King Features Syndicate, and is probably a port of the 1996 Laserdisc sets.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Flash-Gordon-Space-Soldiers-Trip-To-Mars-Conquers-the-Universe-DVD-3-disc-set-/252280071115I bought the big box of Flash, but you can find the individual serials on Ebay. There are shorter “movie edits” I’ve never seen that have also been released, but probably chop out a lot and you lose the cliffhanger effect of the originals.
Not sure if Buck Rogers is in the same boat, as there are fewer editions of it around. This is what I have, about the same in quality as Flash.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Buck-Rogers-with-Larry-Crabbe-12-Episodes-DVD-Estate-Listing-/222006409259
Buck initially wasn’t quite as popular as Flash, so Universal only made one serial.I don’t know if we’re ever going to see an HD release unless somebody pours some money into restoring them. A few Republic Pictures serials have made it to Blu Ray, so anything is possible.
Well, I don’t really too much money to spare on stuff like this at the moment, so I was hoping to find as many of these as I can at the library. I know that they have a DVD set of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, so I’ll borrow that the next time I’m in town. However, from what I’ve read it’s the last serial that they produced, so does that mean that I’ll miss a lot of plot, or isn’t that a problem with these old series? I don’t really know how connected these “seasons” are in terms of overall story-arcs.
Either way, I’ll google that first set you linked to to see if I can find it cheaper somewhere else.
Living in Norway can have it’s drawbacks when I’m looking for stuff like this. I’d imagine it’s already somewhat obscure and forgotten in the US, and in Scandinavia where Flash Gordon never existed outside of comics and the 80’s movie, there really isn’t a big market for these kind of imported DVDs, and shipping costs ca be very expensive.
(I guess YouTube might be a decent option though since these are in the public domain?)