Re: Fantasy Film Survey « Reply #32 on Aug 2, 2012, 4:49pm »
Can I put in a small vote for Hawk the Slayer? (1980). Low-budget, clunky script, but stuffed full of top-notch British actors (who scandalously couldn't get anything else back then) and a hissing, malevolent Jack Palance as the bad guy! It shows at times the limits of its budget, but its misty, dark-age, celtic atmosphere has influenced my D&D games ever since!!
Joined: Nov 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 661 Karma: 19
Re: Fantasy Film Survey « Reply #33 on Aug 2, 2012, 6:25pm »
Another one I saw a couple times recently: The Fall (2006). It's actually a story within a story, told by an injured stuntman to a little girl in a hospital in a very Princess Bride-ish approach. The story he's telling is very adventure-packed and mildly surreal, with a masked swashbuckling pirate, the world's strongest man, Charles Darwin and his genius monkey, a priest with a nearly endless supply of dynamite, a silent Indian warrior (he's from India, but sometimes he says things that sound more like American Indian,) and a shaman who has magically swallowed all the birds in the land to protect them from a villain.
One warning, though: the framing story starts out kind of warm and innocent, but at a certain point you realize it's going to turn very dark, and it does. There's a really creepy animation bit that I thought was by the Brothers Quay, but it's only in their style. Ironically, it's creepier than the animated bits in the Quay film I mentioned above, The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, and creepier than most of their short animated films, like Street of Crocodiles (which you can find on YouTube if you want a sample of what I'm talking about.)
We get past the dark bit at the end, but I just figured I should warn people.
Re: Fantasy Film Survey « Reply #34 on Aug 2, 2012, 8:05pm »
For me, the first really influential fantasy movie was Wizards. I watched it before I'd even heard of D&D. When I started playing, my games were full of lecherous old wizards, orcs and goblins armed with machine guns, and robot assassins. My early D&D games were like nobody else's (until I discovered a game called Arduin that had been doing all that stuff far longer than I).
Other movies that influenced my over the years have been Hawk the Slayer, with it's very D&D party cast (Young noble, elf archer, dwarf thief, grizzled mercenary, and outcast giant must stop an evil warlord's schemes), both Conan films (over the top action), Circle of Iron (written by Bruce Lee and Jmes Coburn, and starring David Carradine, Christopher Lee, Eli Wallach, and Roddy McDowell. You NEED to see this), Fire and Ice (yeah, tell me that Dark Wolf isn't supposed to be the Death Dealer), and later Scorpion King (the Rock doing what he does best).
Also, I've gotten a good deal of influence from the more comedic fantasy films. I always try to remember that it's all just a game and tend to throw in a lot of humor. Make sure to see the great 80's films Deathstalker 2, the Barbarians, and Sorceress.
Oh, and if you haven't seen it already, make SURE to see Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising. Best D&D movie EVER!
Joined: Dec 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 235 Karma: 19
Re: Fantasy Film Survey « Reply #35 on Aug 2, 2012, 8:10pm »
Thanks guys for some good leads. I agree with those who love the Bakshi stuff, especially Fire and Ice, I also personally liked his animated LOTR. [Xerxez quickly Ducks at the tomatoes]
Krull was great, Ladyhawke is a great film except for the music, it kind of ruins it. Conan the Barbarian, def. Time Bandits is a good one too.
I agree with those who liked Beastmaster and Hawk the Slayer as well.
Joined: Dec 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 235 Karma: 19
Re: Fantasy Film Survey « Reply #36 on Aug 2, 2012, 11:03pm »
I just remembered something about Fire and Ice that kind of creeped me out, though.
One night I was watching it again and the part where he is in the ice lands and surrounded by the beast men, there is some creepy music playing. I listened to this really close a couple of times and I plainly heard voices mixed under the music. They are yelling and screaming and you can make out phrases. I mean screaming besides the monkey men and the witch woman.
Somebody who owns the film please listen and tell me you can hear them as well so I will know I was not tripping.....
Here, I found the clip on YT--the track starts at 3:34. At the end of this sequence when he is going down in the hole in the ice I really think I hear someone saying "Help Me."
I never saw that film but, oddly enough, I know the theme music by heart. We played it in marching band and all these years later, I still hum it from time to time.
Joined: Jan 2011 Gender: Male Posts: 42 Location: American Midwest Karma: 2
Re: Fantasy Film Survey « Reply #39 on Aug 9, 2012, 10:01pm »
Re: Bakshi
I love rotoscoping. It's more than just the "Not REAL animation" that some snob critics make it out to be. There is just something dreamlike, ethereal, and surreal about it. It's perfect for dark, trippy fantasy. WIZARDS is my favorite movie, but I can totally see how it could give JD nightmares.
Re: LEGEND
Years ago, in my twenties, I oh-too-briefly dated a beautiful young Goth who had a profound sexual attraction...nay, sexual *obssession* over Tim Curry's "Darkness" character. It's been a running joke among my close friends for the past two decades: "Forget it, man, you just don't have the horns for somebody in her league", "It's all in the hooves", "You know what they say about the size of a guy's horns and the size of his..."etc, etc.
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