Fire and Ice (1983) Review With trailer!
April 7th 2011 06:08
Before the Lord of the Rings Trilogy made fantasy film making geeky cool, there was a number of attempts to make the Fantasy genre into film. For whatever reason fantasy film has always had a problem getting a foothold on the hearts and minds of Moviegoers, no matter how hard it tried. While Films like “Conan the Barbarian” and “Krull” are considered classics, none have quite reached that blockbuster status they strive for. In 1983 Ralph Bakshi had already had some success with “The Lord of the Rings” and his more enigmatic “Wizards” so he decided to have another go at the fantasy genre.
Trying now for a more original approach to the genre, Bakshi enlisted
some of the biggest names in fantasy art and writing. First among these is the legendary Frank Frazetta, known worldwide for his sexy barbarian girls and amazing images of fantasy worlds. Frazetta designed the characters, and even hand painted the backgrounds giving this film the look and feel of a Frazetta painting come to glorious life. The screenplay was penned by two veterans of Marvel's “Conan” series Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas. While the Voices are a mishmash of unknowns, one standout was Emmy-Award winner Maggie Roswell as the lovely princess Teegra, who later went on to voice Maud Flanders and a number of others in The Simpsons. Bizarrely, two other Background painters for the move went on to gain some fame: James Gurney of Dinotopia fame, and the painter of light himself, Thomas Kinkade. Kinkade claims to have learned his unique light-painting style from doing this movie.
The story of “Fire and Ice” is classic light fantasy “Barbarian” style writing. You'll find no noble elves or hobbits in this story, only axe-wielding muscle bound heroes, and large breasted damsels in distress. The film takes place somewhere around the end of the ice age, the evil wizard Nekron is using his dark magic and neanderthal-like soldiers to force the world's population closer and closer to the equator, in hopes of capturing the kingdom of “Firekeep” and thereby ruling the world. A young warrior named Larn looses his villiage in the war and seeks to reap vengeance against Nekron. Along the way he rescues the scantly clad Heroin Teegra, with whom he falls in love, and the mysterious warrior Darkwolf, who also seeks vengeance on Necron. The story is as skimpy as Teegra's outfit, and almost every line of dialogue sounds like Dragonforce lyrics . . but do we really watch a movie like this for the story?
Utilizing a process called Rotoscoping, were animators draw over the performance of live actors, the movie's motion is uncannily realistic. The way the characters walk, fight, brush hair out of their eyes, looks picture perfect. With the character designs by Frazetta the animation is just fascinating to look at. Pausing the film at any given moment will give you a fantasy image worthy of painting on the side of a party van.
“Fire and Ice”, the movie is possibly one of the most tragically unnoticed classics of animation. The good folks at the Online Film Critic Society have named it #99 on their list of the best animated films of all time, and according to popular rumor there is a Live-action version in production, but take away the epic animation and all you got left is the mediocre story, so who knows how that's going to turn out. Still, “Fire and Ice” has a well-deserved reputation as being a beautiful animated film, and status as a lower-tier animated classic. For true believers, the laser-disk version is the best way to view “Fire and Ice”, but the film is available on Blue-ray as of this writing. Don't miss out on this one, if your any kind of fantasy fanatic.
That Teegra is one of Frank Frazetta's best Babes,
Utilizing a process called Rotoscoping, were animators draw over the performance of live actors, the movie's motion is uncannily realistic. The way the characters walk, fight, brush hair out of their eyes, looks picture perfect. With the character designs by Frazetta the animation is just fascinating to look at. Pausing the film at any given moment will give you a fantasy image worthy of painting on the side of a party van.
“Fire and Ice”, the movie is possibly one of the most tragically unnoticed classics of animation. The good folks at the Online Film Critic Society have named it #99 on their list of the best animated films of all time, and according to popular rumor there is a Live-action version in production, but take away the epic animation and all you got left is the mediocre story, so who knows how that's going to turn out. Still, “Fire and Ice” has a well-deserved reputation as being a beautiful animated film, and status as a lower-tier animated classic. For true believers, the laser-disk version is the best way to view “Fire and Ice”, but the film is available on Blue-ray as of this writing. Don't miss out on this one, if your any kind of fantasy fanatic.
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