Robert Rodriguez is making a live-action version of Ralph Bakshi’s Fire and Ice animated movie.
We look at what went wrong in the original.
It only made sense that later in life they would join forces to make a movie together.
What people forget is thatFritzwasnt rated X for its sexual content, which was comparatively tame.
It received that deadly X not for any of its content, but for its format.
What kind of evil, subversive hippie trick is this?
A year later he solidified his family-friendly geek cred with his truncated animated version ofLord of the Rings.
Putting their two minds together should have resulted in the ultimate animated geek extravaganza.
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It didnt.
Instead, what he needed to do to pull it off was in essence animate a Frazetta comic book.
To this end he brought in fantasy comics writers Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway.
Heres what they came up with.
So theres this evil queen named Juliana, see?
But an evil queen with sense of humor enough to name her son Nekron.
Now, how did she think that would go over in the schoolyard?
Not very well, apparently, because hes an adult now and still living with his mom.
But he is a wizard now so thats something, and an evil one to boot.
Okay, think about that one for a minute.
How long is the timetable on this operation of theirs?
I mean, glaciers move, what, an inch a year?
Hundreds of years at least, depending on how small the village was.
Well, all right, it being a magic, evil glacier it moves a bit faster than most.
Were clearly not dealing with the brightest bulbs here.
Butoh, never mind.
So you got your beefy, well-toned hero Larn out for revenge.
You got your kind and wise king of Firekeep, Jarl.
You got the kings beautiful daughter Tegra (shes the one with the really big boobs).
You got an army of sub humans.
You got dragonhawks and Tegra all naked and guys with names like Darkwolf (who are these parents?
), and precious little dialogue to confuse matters any further.
What the hell else do you want?
Despite the insipid story and the endless barrage of cliches, there are some worthwhile things here.
The artwork in general is top notch.
Even more interesting to me was the Susan Tyrrell connection.
Tyrrell narrated BakshisWizards, and I think thats when I first started developing a big crush on her.
Why, its almost like a family reunion!
Even a fantasy film likeWizardsstill featured hookers and mutant Nazis and dirty jokes.
You know what really killed this film, though?
What really kept it from becoming the ultimate animated geek extravaganza it was meant to be?
Quite simply,Heavy Metalbeat it to the punch two years earlier.
Rating:
2 out of 5
