Sunday, September 15, 2013

A quick look at Ralph Bakshi's Fire And Ice

I've always been a huge fan of this movie ever since it came out in theaters. Its never gotten its due and that's too bad. The film has always been on constant rotation and rental at every video place that I worked in back in the early 90's. 
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 From their stronghold in Icepeak, the evil Queen Juliana (Susan Tyrrell) and her son, Nekron (Stephen Mendel), send forth a wave of glaciers, forcing humanity to retreat south towards the equator. Nekron sends a delegation to King Jarol (Leo Gordon) in Firekeep to request his surrender, but this is a ruse orchestrated by Queen Juliana for Nekron’s sub-humans to kidnap Jarol’s daughter, the barefoot, microkini-wearing Princess Teegra (Cynthia Leake); Queen Juliana feels that Nekron should take a bride to produce an heir.
But Teegra makes an escape and comes upon Larn, the only survivor of a village razed by glaciers, who offers to escort her back to Firekeep. As Teegra is recaptured, Larn teams with the mysterious Darkwolf (Steve Sandor) to save Teegra and then travel to Icepeak to stop Juliana. Darkwolf faces Nekron and kills him as Icepeak succumbs to lava released by King Jarol and is destroyed.
The film finishes with Larn about to kill a beaten sub-human until Teegra stops him saying that "it's over" and embraces him. Darkwolf is seen atop a cliff; he watches the pair, smiles and then disappears. Teegra and Larn kiss as the credits roll.

'Fire and Ice'
Influence and Feel 
Fire and Ice has a weird sort of feel. Its someplace between timeless and a Frezetta piece come to life for me. This was the film that came to mind when Carcosa first hit the OSR scene. Most recently there's been the Starbarian character class that seems to embody some of the ideas this film from Exonaughts blog HERE
 I'm a huge fan of rotoscoping and this film has a ton of it. Recently I've aquired the blu ray of this movie and its so worth it. This film definitely has that 'west coast ethos' of OD&D and Arduin. 
Great film to deal with worlds going through their ice age and mixing OD&D along with it.
I'm working on a bit of an ice age space opera and so I quickly brought this one out.
Bakshi and Frezetta together. Does anything more have to be said?
An old favorite of mine! 


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