Sword and Sorcery Movies from the 80's

[Leesensei]

Does anyone remember the Ralph Bakshi version of Lord of the Rings?

 

[Leesensei]

According to Wizard magazine, Brett Ratner is not going to be directing the new Conan film. Instead Marcus Nispel (2008's Frday the 13th) has been signed on to direct the production.

Don't now if that is a change for the better or not? !

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

Excalibur, for it is only movie I know that explicitly deals with The Matter of Britain. That scene towards the end when Arthur and his remaining knights ride to the Last Battle and the Land leaps into spring with his passing by still raises the hair along my spine. They truly tapped into something ancient and ur with that. The King is the Land. The Land is the King.

Ah, Knightrider. Romero is reputed to have observed a rather contentious crown tourney of the Society for Creative Anachronism's East Kingdom before making that movie. Reportedly there are some rather distinct parallels in some of the personalities involved.

Haversack.

I think I agree with you on all counts. "Excalibur" had such a dark air of chilling mystery, and certainly blurred any lines between 'right' and 'wrong', which are so often almost cartoonly done in such epics.
And having spent some time (long ago, in my misspent youth, please don't hate or judge me) around the SCA, I certainly recognized many psychological (psychotic?) elements of "Knightriders". In fact, it's hard to think how someone would view it, without having some of that insider insight.

 

[DanielJones]

One of my favorites was Dragonslayer(1981). It was some of the best FX work for the time & one of the baddest looking dragons to boot. Now that was sword & sorcery.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Story]

Does anyone remember the Ralph Bakshi version of Lord of the Rings?

Didn't he use footage from ZULU as inspiration for his Orcs?

 

[flat-top]

Does anyone remember the Ralph Bakshi version of Lord of the Rings?

Peter Jackson lifted some scenes directly from the Bakshi version. Perhaps there was no other way to shoot those scenes, but a couple were almost identical.
I have the action figures from the Bakshi LOTR, which apparently are ridiculously rare.

 

[Haversack]

Story asked in regard to Bakshi's _Lord of the Rings_: "Didn't he use footage from ZULU as inspiration for his Orcs?"

I don't know about his LOTR, but for _Wizards_, he rotoscoped extensively from Eisenstein's classic, _Alexander Nevsky_.

Haversack.

 

[Leesensei]

Story asked in regard to Bakshi's _Lord of the Rings_: "Didn't he use footage from ZULU as inspiration for his Orcs?"

I don't know about his LOTR, but for _Wizards_, he rotoscoped extensively from Eisenstein's classic, _Alexander Nevsky_.

Haversack.

I loved Wizards. I used to have a cool t-shirt wit this image on it!

 

[Leesensei]

I found these comments on a site about Ralph Bakshi:

For his most ambitious film, an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”(1978) Bakshi used a technique he’d developed on “Wizards.” He shot the film in live action, then had his artists copy the figures frame by frame. Bakshi told The Times, “We shot the whole film in live action, with costumes, beards, makeup — like we were shooting it to be a live-action film. Then I virtually traced every frame of film. Why? To get the total realistic motion that animation has never gotten before. The film is not animated. The film is something else.”

“The Lord of the Rings” proved what other animators had learned decades earlier: Tracing live action produces stilted, unconvincing movements. Combining the traced characters with regular drawn animation and reworked high-contrast live-action footage resulted in a visually discordant muddle. Many artists felt Bakshi had turned his back on the art of animation when he used the tracing technique for “American Pop” and “Fire and Ice”; these films, they claimed, were essentially live-action.

 

[NicknNora]

All of those Harryhausen movies about Sinbad the Sailor!

Starting with "Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" these are really cool sword and sorcery movies with the trademark stop action animation of Harryhausen.
The other two films are:
"The Golden Voyage of Sinbad"
"Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger"


This came to mind so we can throw in also 'The Thief of Bagdad" which is pretty cool too. The Sabu one.

I love Harryhausen. Don't forget Jason and the Argonauts.

 

[NicknNora]

"Jason & the Argonauts" !
Has anyone seen "Atlantis, The Lost Continent" lately?

I guess I shouldn't have posted until I finished reading the thread (I do that all the time :eusa_doh: ). It's nice to see that you didn't forget Jason.

I also liked some others that were previously mentioned - Willow, Legend and Excalibur. I also liked The Mists of Avalon (although the book was far superior to the made for TV movie). And the best sword and sorcery movie has to be the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

 

[NicknNora]

fftopic: In thinking about these sword and sorcery movies I started thinking about a book series (Sword of Truth) written by Terry Goodkind. Has anyone ever read any of Goodkind's books? I read the Wizards First Rule when it came out and got hooked. They are racier than the normal fantasy novels but I thought Goodkind did a good job.

 

[illumin8em]

this thread is spot on. i was obsessed with sifi/fantasy when i was young. suffered insomnia from an early age and it was the only thing on late night, early morn to watch. this began another obsession that lasted into my late teens which was edged weapons .

 

[flat-top]

Here is your new Conan the Barbarian:

Jason Momoa. Pretty good casting methinks.

 

[Lady Day]

What about The Last Unicorn

That film was a carbon copy of the book, dialogue and everything. I know there was a live action remake in development, but I havent head much about it.

LD

 

[flat-top]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGOQ7SsJrw&feature=player_embedded#!

 

[Leesensei]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGOQ7SsJrw&feature=player_embedded#!

That was wonderful. Can't wait to see it on Broadway!

 

[flat-top]

A great review of the original Conan The Barbarian

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/01/05/arnold-schwarzenegger-conan-barbarian/

 

[Benzadmiral]

Ahh yes...Vermithrax Pejorative: "The Worm of Thrace Who Makes Things Worse".

That was one of the things I loved about "Dragonslayer": that the magical language that seemed so mysterious to the common people was plain ol' Vulgar Latin. And the fact that even the king and his daughter weren't dressed much better than the peasants.

Those, and the dragon: her inhalation before letting go the blast of fire, her nuzzling her dead cubs (who looked like gray pitbulls crossed with toads), and the way she roared on her wings down toward Richardson the wizard like a Sabre jet.

Superb stuff.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Clash of the Titans doesn't quite fit the category, but it's close.

Why wouldn't it? There's magic/sorcery, mostly as supplied by the Olympian gods, and sword work, at least when Perseus lops off Medusa's head. That creepy scene where Perseus stalks Medusa in that dim room lit only by flickering firelight . . . brrr.