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Heavy Metal (1981).

post #1 of 21
1/11/10 at 7:10am
Thread Starter 
Fun, sleazy and gory animated Sci-fi horror fantasy anthology based on the popular yet still ongoing adult comic magazine is one of the best animated movies for mature audiences besides anime or Ralph Bakshi.

It's about an evil orb from space that terrorizes a young girl telling her stories from futuristic cab drivers, a teen nerd turned into a bald purple skinned cross between Daddy Warbucks and He-Man, disorder in the court in space, WWII with zombies, stoner aliens who find a hot Jewish chick and a sexy female warrior who must avenge her race on another planet.

Sure the animation is crude at times but that's part of the charm as it has gory violence, hot animated nudity including animated pubes, graphic violence, gore, an old school rock soundtrack and a magnificent score from Elmer Bernstein. It was parodied on South Park recently and served as an inspiration to Luc Besson's The Fifth Element.

The film is basically kind of like "The Fifth Element" and "Twilight Zone The Movie" meets "Wicked City", "Akira" and "The Neverending Story". It's produced by Ivan Reitman of Ghostbusters fame and stars the voices of Susan Roman (Sailor Moon), John Candy, Harold Ramis, Roger "Squidward" Bumpass and Eugene Levy. One of my faves since i was 11 back in 1993 when i taped it off TBS then rebought it in 1996 at age 14 as it was amazing to see what was missing from the censored TV version, you guts gotta see Taarna to believe her as she is breathtakingly gorgeous for a toon besides Princess Jasmine.
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post #2 of 21
1/11/10 at 10:08am
I saw this at the theater, and I remember the part with the WWII zombies scared the shit out of me. I still pull out the DVD every now and then and watch it.
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post #3 of 21
1/11/10 at 8:06pm
Thread Starter 
How old were you? do you think this movie inspired The Fifth Element? and would you compare this to anime?
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post #4 of 21
1/12/10 at 2:09pm
It's nigh impossible that the Harry Canyon segment didn't inspire The Fifth Element. Whether it's like anime or not is something I can't really comment on, since I don't watch anime.

I haven't watched it in a few years, but I like Heavy Metal a lot, it's silly, loud, gratuitous and tosses sexual maturity out the fucking window, it's the kind of movie that can un-girlfriend you in one night, or keep you a virgin for the rest of your natural fucking life. I have to respect that power.
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post #5 of 21
1/12/10 at 9:45pm
Thread Starter 
Well both this and anime are animation for mature audiences. Do you think Taarna is a fine piece of ass for a cartoon chick besides Jasmine or Jessica Rabbit?

The closet things to this movie is the works of Ralph Bakshi, Rob Zombie's Haunted World of El Superbeasto, Akira, to even raunchy and gory anime like Urotsukidoji and Wicked City.
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post #6 of 21
1/12/10 at 9:51pm
While the last segment is justly celebrated, I have a lot of love for the one that has John Candy playing the role of a nerd that gets transformed into a musclebound hero who saves the day. It's geek fantasy in its purest distillation.
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post #7 of 21
1/12/10 at 11:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CyrusGrissom View Post
would you compare this to anime?
In the fact that they're both animated, I suppose.

As far as stylistically/thematically, not really.
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post #8 of 21
1/13/10 at 1:36pm
Thread Starter 
Well both HM and anime are animation for mature audiences you know even hentai.

But Chavez do you think this animated feature is nearly as raunchy as Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend, Fritz The Cat or Wicked City? and what do you think of Taarna? she's the white haired silent warrior hottie chick.

I have a friend who is 33 as he remembered seeing this movie in a theater back in 1981 when he was only 4 years old thanks to his 17 year old cousin taking him to see it. He told me it was his first time seeing tits, asses, hairy beavers and one dick but in animation as it was early sex education for him and his first time seeing cartoons getting killed then bleedin'. Taarna was even his first crush! i mean Jesus Christ what kind of a 17 year old takes their impressionable 4 year old to see a raunchy and gory animated movie like Heavy Metal?
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post #9 of 21
1/13/10 at 2:48pm
I used to bug the hell out of my parents about letting me rent this movie, and they always told me I wasn't old enough. By the time I was old enough, I really didn't care anymore. I've only seen it in bits and pieces since then, and it seems to be written expressly for 13 year old boys. Haven't there been a few sequels?
Also, Cyrus, you seem intent on if everyone agrees with you that the cartoon girl is attractive. It's ok man, you can put her in your spank bank, you don't need our justification.
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post #10 of 21
1/13/10 at 2:57pm
I went and saw this at a midnight movie instead of going to my senior prom. Ran into a bunch of people from prom at the theater who said that prom sucked, so I guess I chose well.

Heavy Metal has one of the great under-appreciated scores of all time. Everyone talks about the rock songs, but Elmer Bernstein is the goddamn MVP of this film. Den and Taarna wouldn't work half as well without the music he composed for those sequences, particularly Den's ridiculously heroic fanfare.
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post #11 of 21
1/13/10 at 3:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
Heavy Metal has one of the great under-appreciated scores of all time. Everyone talks about the rock songs, but Elmer Bernstein is the goddamn MVP of this film. Den and Taarna wouldn't work half as well without the music he composed for those sequences, particularly Den's ridiculously heroic fanfare.
I agree with this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CyrusGrissom View Post
Well both this and anime are animation for mature audiences.
This? Not so much. The whole mature/adult debate is boring too me, but Heavy Metal is for pre-teens and teenagers or adults that still enjoy the same things they did when they were pre-teens and teenagers. Of course you can say that about the majority of mainstream films released in the last 20-25 years.
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post #12 of 21
1/13/10 at 4:31pm
Hangin's too good for 'im! Burnin's too good for 'im! He should be chopped into itty bitty pieces and buried alive!
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post #13 of 21
1/13/10 at 4:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Miller View Post
I've only seen it in bits and pieces since then, and it seems to be written expressly for 13 year old boys. Haven't there been a few sequels?
That's exactly how old I was when I saw it. And I know of only one sequel, and it wasn't an anthology...it was one story. It was OK, I guess.
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post #14 of 21
1/13/10 at 4:51pm
I enjoy the film for the most part, but it's the smaller, more focused stories that work better (the WW2 bomber and Captain Stern, for example). Most of the larger stories, especially Taarna, could use a serious edit to improve their pacing.

I've agreed with Richard on the score in another thread. Bernstein really delivered for this movie.
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post #15 of 21
1/13/10 at 11:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JacknifeJohnny View Post
The whole mature/adult debate is boring too me, but Heavy Metal is for pre-teens and teenagers or adults that still enjoy the same things they did when they were pre-teens and teenagers. Of course you can say that about the majority of mainstream films released in the last 20-25 years.
+1.

The level of maturity on display is pubescent, at best, in about 75% of the movie.

Doesn't mean I don't like it. Comparing it to Urotsokodoji though....nah, I really don't think so. Heavy Metal is essentially sword-and-sandals/sf with LOT o'gratuitous t&a. Urotsokodoji from what I recall was operating (or attempting to) on a mythic scale. HM is just pulpy.
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post #16 of 21
1/14/10 at 2:39pm
Thread Starter 
What do you think of other adult animated features besides this such as Ralph Bakshi's stuff, Haunted World of El Superbeasto, Beowulf, South Park The Movie, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Once Upon a Girl, Ninja Scroll, Akira, Ghost in The Shell, Pink Floyd The Wall, Watership Down or even hentai?
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post #17 of 21
1/14/10 at 3:07pm
While I wouldn't call The Wall an animated movie by any stretch (the animation takes up, what, 20% of the movie at most?) I always LOVE Gerald Scarfe's work.
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post #18 of 21
1/15/10 at 1:01am
Thread Starter 
The Fifth Element can be quite the same as HM on being a teenboy's sexual Sci-fi fantasy come true and Luc Besson admits it when he came up with The Fifth Element since he loves Metal Hurlant comics.

Afterall anime is animation for adults you know even their X-rated stuff like La Blue Girl.
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post #19 of 21
6/28/11 at 7:40pm

What a strange film. I netflixed this and watched it for the first time in maybe fifteen years (caught it, like many others, on TBS late one night). Conceptually it's a homerun, with just about every geeky genre thrown together with rocking music, but it's a bit of a mess.

 

There really is a juvenile sense of getting-away-with-it. All the nudity and violence is overindulgent, like the film is trying to prove something or going for shock value.

 

The first few stories are a little dull, but it picks up around B-17 and plows through to the end. Still not sure why Loc-Nar would tell a story to the little girl that ultimately destroys it...

 

Enjoyable and very creative, incredible designs and ideas, but a bit of a mess. They animation is all kinds of smooshy as well. Still, it was worth the viewing and a nice bit of "they don't make 'em like that anymore". I wonder if Fincher's version will ever get off the ground.

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post #20 of 21
6/28/11 at 8:11pm

You people should all be ashamed of yourselves. Huffing cat urine like that...

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post #21 of 21
1/25/12 at 6:53am

It's essentially a comedy, is what it boils down to. It winks at pretty much everything. Even "B-17" is straight-up EC homage. It's kind of like Creepshow; it's Pulpshow.

 

It has this reputation for being BADASS DOOOOD, generally among folks who saw it at the right age (oh, junior high school) and haven't revisited it since. It does have one of the great badass title sequences:

 

 

...but it's basically National Lampoon's Heavy Metal. Unsurprising, since NatLamp owned and published Heavy Metal at the time. They more or less took whatever story had the most teenager appeal and did it.

 

I'm a big fan of the film, though. It is what it is, and meets its modest artistic goals with gusto. Heavy Metal 2000, on the other hand, is taint crust.

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