GSB’s Flashback Fridays: FIRE AND ICE

Welcome to another one of Geek Soul Brother’s FLASHBACK FRIDAYS!  This is my blog series where I suggest old Movies and Television shows for all you ‘younger’ geek brothers and sisters to watch.  You may think they are just old and corny, but if you give these films a chance, you might find yourself really diggin’ them.

Fire and Ice - by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta

RALPH BAKSHI – animator, artist, director, producer, pioneer.

FRANK FRAZETTA – cartoonist, Illustrator, writer, fantasy artist, trend setter.

There were two things these men had in common.  One – They were the best of dreamers.  And Two – they created the classic animated feature called FIRE AND ICE.  An animation unlike anything before it, and not much since.

FIRE AND ICE was about the people of Fire Keep that were threatened by the advancing forces of Nekron and his kingdom of Ice.  In the middle of the struggle are Larn, the last of his tribe after Nekron crushed his village, and Teegra, the daughter of King Jarol, who is pursued by Nekron’s soldiers to be ransomed by the evil sorcerer and his Mother. Larn ends up helping Teegra escape, and soon after, join forces with Dark Wolf, an enemy that has sworn to kill Nekron himself.

What was really different about this Animated Feature was that it wasn’t your average kids cartoon.  On the contrary, this movie was raw and barbaric, not unlike the live action Sword and Sorcery movies that followed in the 80′s.  And one other major characteristic was that the animation was done in Rotoscope.  Some of you might not know about this technique, but it’s animating over live actors.  This allows for a more crisp animation, but retains the ability to include the visually stunning elements in the story.  I think I saw this movie for the first time in 1980 when I found it at the Movie rental place in town (years before Blockbusters).  This was another movie that had me BLOWN AWAY!  I was such a huge fan of Frazetta’s fantasy art and Bakshi’s animation (he did an animated Lord Of The Rings).  Needless to say, I fell in love with this movie from the start.

I urge you to check this one out when you get a chance.  If your thing is barbarians and sorcerors and swords fighting over scantally clad women, then this animated feature should be right up your ally.  For a closer look at rotoscoping and how the movie was made, check out this mini-documentary I found (thanks majesticpop, whoever you are):

Geek Soul Brother

Geek Soul Brother is here to give news and reviews from the geek old school. I love to talk about movies, television, books and comics featuring science fiction, fantasy and horror.

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