I remember seeing Heavy Metal for the first time when I was a teenager in 1996. It was re-released with a remastered soundtrack and the VHS had this shimmer to it. I was totally blown away by the combination of music, violence, adult humor and erotica. Finally, an adult oriented animated film, but still having some charm of a cartoon. The trailer boasts that it will take you to a world that you have never seen – and it surely does. I must have seen this film a few times not just for the nudity, but how it affected animation in the 80’s.
The Music and Acting
The soundtrack features hits from Devo , Black Sabbath , Sammy Hagar , Blue Oyster Cult , Journey and Stevie Nicks – just to name a few. Ivan Reitman produced it, so it features similar comedy and adult humor of his films like Meatballs , Animal House and Stripes . Not to mention, he has similar Canadian cast members of his films and SCTV such as John Candy , Joe Flaherty , Eugene Levy , Harold Ramis and John Vernon .
The Animation and Story
The animation has some rather realistic elements to it, and sometimes it can be a bit cartoony and slapstick elements. A few Canadian animation studios helped out with this, probably most notable was Atkinson Film Arts , who would later go on to work on Care Bears specials .
The 1981 Canadian film is a series of vignettes, all tied around this floating green orb, The Loc-Nar . Some of the stories are written by or based upon stories that appeared in the Heavy Metal magazine from the 1970’s. One of my favorites is ” B-17 ” a World War II / Zombie crossover by Dan O’Bannon , who also had his hand in other classic cult films like Alien, Return of the Living Dead and Total Recall. The other shorts are rife with robots, violence, lasers, boobs and of course – metal (like when Dio shouts The Mob Rules ). Let me just say, if you are a fan of Ralph Bakshi films, ( Fritz the Cat , Wizards , Fire And Ice ) you will love this one. A combination of sci-fi, sword/sorcery, horror, nudity and adult comedy.
Music and Art : Combined
Heavy Metal wasn’t necessarily the first animated film to combine music with animation. A lot of Walt Disney’s classic hits had to have their animation timed out just precisely with timing sheets, which is the job of an animator to get words and music synced up to art with mathematical precision. Don Bluth of Dragon’s Lair fame had done it a year earlier for an animated segment in Xanadu – but it was Heavy Metal that really capitalized on combining rock and roll with adult animation. Ralph Bakshi may have set the staple for adult animation, and he even created a similar film called American Pop , which predated Heavy Metal by a few months. Bakshi’s film was more like a history of music as told through animation, but I don’t think it capitalized on the cult following that Metal did. Bakshi also rotoscoped that whole film, which is tracing live action footage, thus lacking the animated charm and fantasy of Heavy Metal. In 1983 there was also another Canadian produced animated film called Rock & Rule that used similar concepts of rock and roll with animation, but nothing like the rock and erotica in Heavy Metal were made again.
The Legacy
That is why I felt like it was so important to mention Heavy Metal as part of my 1980’s animation countdown. Its legacy still lives on with the fantasy, horror and erotica magazine, which is still in production since the mid 1970’s. Even though the magazine is a borderline pornographic comic book, it helped open up the doors for many artists to come. The writers of the original stories had some influence in this film, but one notable artist should be mentioned as well. Jean Giraud aka Moebius, helped design the work for the Taarna sequence , would later go on to have a vast influence in Tron , Masters of the Universe and The Fifth Element . Heavy Metal also got a sequel called Heavy Metal 2000 , which was a direct to video work, and lacked a lot of the charm of the original. It did have the nudity and sci fi of the original, but it was more like having porn star Julie Strain running around topless and shooting people. The film didn’t have any vignettes, but was just based off of a graphic novel, The Melting Pot by Kevin Eastman , the co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and husband to Julie Strain. The film did get a sequel of its own via a video game, called Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2 and there is something supposedly in the works with Robert Rodriguez to produce a future feature, but only time will tell.
References
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082509/
http://www.heavymetalmagazinefanpage.com/movieshm.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_MzWF8YLhY
Reference:
- voices.yahoo.com/how-did-dragons-lair-change-world-animation-11798480.html?cat=19
- voices.yahoo.com/walt-disneys-impact-world-3695954.html?cat=37
- voices.yahoo.com/how-did-pink-floyd-wall-impact-animation-film-11786451.html?cat=33
