Sword and Sorcery Movies from the 80's

[Propman]

I worked on the picture "The Sword and the Sorcerer" in 1981... We opened 6 weeks before Conan did, and made a fortune!!!

 

[flat-top]

I worked on the picture "The Sword and the Sorcerer" in 1981... We opened 6 weeks before Conan did, and made a fortune!!!

YES!!!! What was that like??

 

[Atomic Age]

The best (and only) TV series of the genre:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085113/
It only lasted 8 episodes!

Yep! Great score too!

Doug

 

[Atomic Age]

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.

Disney used rotoscoping extensively in Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo Bambi etc, etc. But Disney did it with some artistic flare. Backshi was just a hack!

Doug

 

[scottyrocks]

This is my favorite:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083791/

 

[Feraud]

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.

Agreed. Superb!

A great review of the original Conan The Barbarian

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

Good read. Thanks for the link.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Disney used rotoscoping extensively in Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo Bambi etc, etc. But Disney did it with some artistic flare. Backshi was just a hack!

This is not exactly true. Disney animators did indeed shoot live action footage for reference use in many of their animated films, but they never traced over it frame-by-frame. The rotoscope process/device was invented by Max Fleischer (and patented way back in 1917!), and there's no way that Walt Disney wanted to be associated with a technique invented and owned by one of his arch-rivals. It's been widely misreported that rotoscoping was used by Disney (e.g., on Wiki), but the best Disney scholars (like Michael Barrier) have proven repeatedly that it just wasn't done.

(However, Disney has their own list of shameful animation abuses, like reusing the animation of Snow White dancing with the dwarfs for Maid Marian in their crummy 1973 Robin Hood.)

Getting back to the topic, yeah, Bakshi is well known for using rotoscoping, but at least he's never tried to hide it. And BTW, I think American Pop is a great, nearly forgotten little flick.

 

[scottyrocks]

American Pop was awesome. I saw when it came out in theaters. I think I was in high school.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I saw it theatrically back then too, and never again since. So really, I have no idea how it would hold up today. But I was definitely VERY impressed with it in 1981... (I was four years out of college then.)

 

[scottyrocks]

We had rented it a few years ago on VHS or DVD. It was still fun to watch but wasnt the mind-blower it was in 81 when hormones were in full swing and the world was a more innocent place.

 

[Atomic Age]

This is not exactly true. Disney animators did indeed shoot live action footage for reference use in many of their animated films, but they never traced over it frame-by-frame. The rotoscope process/device was invented by Max Fleischer (and patented way back in 1917!), and there's no way that Walt Disney wanted to be associated with a technique invented and owned by one of his arch-rivals. It's been widely misreported that rotoscoping was used by Disney (e.g., on Wiki), but the best Disney scholars (like Michael Barrier) have proven repeatedly that it just wasn't done.

(However, Disney has their own list of shameful animation abuses, like reusing the animation of Snow White dancing with the dwarfs for Maid Marian in their crummy 1973 Robin Hood.)

Getting back to the topic, yeah, Bakshi is well known for using rotoscoping, but at least he's never tried to hide it. And BTW, I think American Pop is a great, nearly forgotten little flick.

In the commentary on Pinocchio, Leonard Maltin, Eric Goldberg and J.B. Kaufman talk about the live action filming of both Snow White and Pinocchio. Every major character in Snow White was filmed live then copied for animation. In Pinocchio only the Blue Fairy , Stromboli's wagon (a miniature was filmed) and another horse drawn cart were filmed. As a result Pinocchio has a much more "animated" look than Snow White.

Now while there is a difference between literally projecting the images onto paper, and tracing it, as Bakshi did, and meticulously copying each frame by hand, the distinction is VERY fine. As I said Disney did it with a bit more artistry, meaning the process of copying rather than tracing, introduces flaws (and artistic embellishment) into art, so while the motion is very fluid, it doesn't seem to be simply photographed.

By the way, the wagon, cart, and bird cage miniature photography WAS literally copied as wash off relief cels, a slightly more mechanical process than rotoscoping.

Doug

 

[Doctor Strange]

Well, far be it from me to contradict my old teacher. (I attended Leonard Maltin's course on cartoons at the New School in 1982.) But I still think Walt would have gone ballistic if anybody used the word "rotoscope" when discussing how they utilized their live-action reference footage...

 

[Benzadmiral]

How about some of the sequences in Heavy Metal (1981)? Sure, rotoscoped, but a lot of fun, especially the long sequence at the climax with the swordswoman.

 

[stardust]

I just turned to The Boyfriend and said "I'm reading a thread about 80s sword and sorcer-" "WIZARDS!"
This thread is great, we're going to work our way through these movies First time for myself, but childhood favourites for The Boyfriend.

 

[flat-top]

http://www.conanthebarbarianin3d.com/motionposter/

 

[flat-top]

What is best in life?
Maybe not this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...n-arnold-schwarzenegger-reboot_n_2019849.html

 

[dhermann1]

Never saw this thread before. FUN!
Favorites: Clash of the Titans (1981)
Dragonslayer, 1981 (with the magnificent Sir Ralph Richardson)
Excalibur 1981, with the even more magnificent Helen Mirren as Morgan le Fay
Can I include Danny Kaye's The Court Jester from 1955? With the EXQUISITE Glynis Johns? I suppose not. But it's still a great flick.

 

[Feraud]

What is best in life?
Maybe not this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...n-arnold-schwarzenegger-reboot_n_2019849.html

This could be amazing if they go with an older King Coman

 

[flat-top]

Agreed......but that would make too much sense.....

 

[Feraud]

Haha I think you have a point there.. Any chance of John Milius to direct? Since I'm in wishful thinking mode..