The whole Rock & Rule thing got me to thinking about all the cool, old-school cell animation fair that was out when I was a kid. I had a father that didn't pay much attention to the ratings system or even to the concept that there might be some films that a kid shouldn't see. Some I didn't see until I was in my teens. Here's my list of my favorite old-school animated movies.
Fire & Ice, Wizards I'm not much of a Bakshi fan. I recognize his contributions to animated films, but I don't think all of them are as great as he's given credit for. I think some of the acclaim might just be because of the subject matter/language juxtaposed with it being a cartoon that gives it a bit of shock value. I don't know. That said, I do like these two films. I guess I prefer his whimsical/fantastic side better than I do his urban commentaries. In all honesty, I kind of wish that the John Carter adaptation had been done in a style similar to Fire & Ice than live action.
The Secret of Nimh Probably my favorite animated film when I was a kid was. The owl scene always freaked me out, and I couldn't stand waiting for it every time I watched. I guess that I've always gravitated towards the darker stuff. Either it's because of growing up watching the Gothic Horror era of Doctor Who or that's just another symptom. Plus, it's not a musical. I'm not a fan of a lot of Disney films simply for that reason.
Akira This is the film that introduced most of America to Anime films. I'd watched stuff like Robotech, Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, and other Japanese animated shows. Akira was the first full length film, and it made me go "Holy shit!" I couldn't believe what they were allowed to do in Japanese cartoons. This opened the door to stuff like Vampire Hunter D and The Fist of the North Star.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
I saw Ooshi's Ghost in the Shell and his Patlabor films before I saw Akira. In my prepubescent youth, I had foolishly believed Akira would be just like those films and that all anime would be the same.
At age 8 or 9, I actually thought Akira was pretty scary--not to mention I could barely understand what was going on.
Record of Lodoss War will always be closer to my heart than those films.
I'm in agreement that Wizards was a great movie. Nice animation and message, with plenty of humor to break it up too. And very distinctly a 70's-era creation.
The other movie that stood out for me was the 1981 Heavy Metal movie. I was impressed that it lacked the silly juvenile elements of most Disney-type animated movies. It was an animated movie that endeavored to tell a sophisticated and mature story in an animated film. Even what humor was in the film was from an adult perspective that kids largely wouldn't understand, or would be inappropriate for them to watch. The World War II bombers attacked by gremlins. The coke-snorting hippie aliens who crash their spaceship on earth. Harry the cab driver. The Richard Corben "Den" adaptation (love the John Candy voice!) Wrightson's "Captain Stern". And most effective of all, "Taarna".
I dubbed Heavy Metal to video tape almost 20 years ago, but haven't watched it since. And Wizards to VHS well over 20 years ago. And like most of the movies I have on both DVD and VHS, I can watch them anytime, but somehow never do, because, y'know, I could watch them anytime. But don't.
Both may have diminished somewhat, when compared to modern standards where they often spend over 100 million to make a film. But while I haven't seen them recently, I still remember them very fondly.
I remember having a rough time getting through Wizards. The animation looked good but at some point it looked like they ran out of money. Sort of the same problem with Rock and Rule. The animation was really neat at the time but the story was weak. I actually rewatched that one after it started getting discussed here and the music sounded horrible. Considering the talent involved that's a shame. If you liked Rock and Rule I recommend The Devil and Danial Mouse. It doesn't have Debbie Harry or Lou Reed but Nelvana did a nice job on this precursor before Rock and Rule.
One that I totally liked as a kid was The Last Unicorn. Might have to check that out again to see how the memories hold out.
I remember having a rough time getting through Wizards. The animation looked good but at some point it looked like they ran out of money. Sort of the same problem with Rock and Rule.
I think they did on Wizards. Or at least didn't have enough to do what Bakshi wanted, so he just used old stock war footage. Rock and Rule, as I said, was more of a lack of direction than money as they did some pretty cool optical effects and the production quality never seemed to suffer. It just seems to be a film that never stopped evolving. It was originally a kids film that morphed into an adult film that didn't seem to know fully what it was doing.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
Grimm and I met a guy who was an animator on that show as well as Thundarr and He-Man and such at Wizard World NOLA last month. Tom Cook was his name, and he was a pretty cool guy. You, on the other hand, are a horrible person. Just saying.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
I don't care about the stuff that you buy off the internet.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
I first saw this as a kid on USA's Night Flight. I didn't fully understand it then and thought at first that it might have been a Monty Python bit. To this day I'm not sure if I like it or not. But I am still mesmerized by it.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet."
I just re-watched Wizards (1976) that I haven't seen since the early/mid 1980's. Knowing artists now that I didn't know then, the animation scenes by Mike Ploog and Ian Miller were very noticeable seeing it again, being far more familiar with their styles than I wasback then. And the Vaugn Bode influence that was aalways obvious.
Still fun to watch again. I always considered this and the Heavy Metal movie (1981) two of the most memorable animated films of that era. Cool World (like Wizards, another animated Bakshi film) was also on today, but I wasn't around to watch it, and frankly wasn't wild about it when originally released, so didn't go out of my way to record it to watch later.
