This week's theme traditional animation and music. Imagine for a moment animation without a soundtrack. What is so captivating about Heavy Metal? It's place in time, it's soundtrack, animation, combinations of all of these factors. What do you think? Why?
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Heavy Metal is what you get when you base a film off of ideas about collections of art, images, and music. There is no central theme to the film that is meaningful or at all important so far as plot or story. Heavy Metal is an amalgamation of different kinds of art and genres and that is where it offers worth as a film. However, it is also what stops it short from becoming a good film.
The same ideas that give Heavy Metal it's strength are the ones that causes all the weaknesses. Instead of doing a collection of completely separate stories, Heavy Metal tries to loosely connect them with an outer story of some green ball of evil that is just showing her all this stuff. The problem is, not all the stories are about evil. One story is about some aliens who pick up a secretary and then a robot sleeps with her. Then the robot makes masturbation and Jewish jokes and that is just about the entire film. Sure, the aliens do cocaine and go on a drug trip and see the Star Trek Enterprise but that isn't necessarily evil. And if it is, it isn't even the main part of the story. Other stories are more about good triumphing over evil than they are about the pure evil this green ball is talking about. Also, as the ball is telling the last story, in the story a woman defeats the ball. While the ball is telling this story, he blows up. It could be argued that the point was this new girl was the new guardian and she defeated the evil, but she just ran out of the house. How could the ball tell the story of him getting defeated if he had been defeated and how could him telling the story defeat him. There is really no excuse for this. My theory is, whenever someone wanted to put something into the film that they thought would be a cool idea they had to tie it to the green ball.
The only discussions for this film in the planning stages probably all began with, "wouldn't it be cool if..." That explains why a roto-scoped convertible with a guy in a space suit brings that ball of death home to his daughter. "Wouldn't it be cool if we had some guy in a space suit driving a convertible in space?" "Sure, but how do we tie it in?" "Ummm, the green ball. He is bringing the green ball home to his daughter." These "wouldn't it be cool if" ideas ruin any chance the film had for a plot or any cohesive moments. Even the music doesn't match. The music is a wide arrangement of "metal bands" and even classical music and less heavy metal bands. Even thought the film is entitled Heavy Metal, heavy metal is played just as often as non-heavy metal bands and music. They didn't get a Heavy Metal artist to do the music in the film, they got Elmer Bernstein. The music plays over talking, or begins in odd places or ends in equally odd places. Even though Bersteins music plays throughout the film, it is interrupted with metal songs and no theme or cohesiveness can be achieved. The music does not emphasize the mood or develop the theme. They are simply songs to listen to while you watch the images.
All of these things that make a bad film also make the film interesting. The "wouldn't it be cool if" mentality brings some visually interesting things to the screen. For instance, "wouldn't it be cool if we filmed a naked woman and then drew over the film?" From that we saw extensive artistic roto-scoping and technology advancements. Of course, this is again countered by choppy, child-like animation from non-rotoscoped animations. Again the lack of cohesiveness is evident even in the animation, some shots and segments are extremely artistic and intriguing while others are bland and more like a He-Man cartoon.
In the end, the film is a success for what it seemed to set out to do. It was a film to showcase art and story ideas from and for a specific demographic. It was a film that provided the question to a handful of people. "wouldn't it be cool if," and that handful of people who they were asking responded with "yes." The film wasn't a huge success, and isn't necessarily referred to as a legendary classic, but a notable one at least in the terms of animation. Though this film has no cohesiveness whatsoever and fails to maintain any theme or direction, it is a successful orgy of science fiction, heavy music, naked women, fantasy beliefs, and sometimes imaginative art.
Well done. Good job of articulating exactly what went wrong with the shelf-life of this film. To fully enjoy this film seems to require a certain knowledge of a certain era, but a specific sub culture within that era. Seen through time-goggles much of it is lost to a 2008 audience.
Traditional animation has evolved tremendously since the beginning of conception. Artists have historically found new ways of implementing artistic expressions toward the public in new innovative techniques. Heavy Metal was certainly different in its own way by how the story and soundtrack were both controversial in its content. When you think back to how Felix the Cat and Steamboat Willie both contributed to how we synchronize traditional animation with sound effects and incorporate theatrical music, we understand the importance of including sound. Heavy Metal has used every technical process of animation to maximize visual output, but however failed to deliver a completely developed cohesive film.
From Walt Disney’s first full-length animated featured film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, we note that the story’s content is what perseveres through time. Heavy Metal displays a significant amount of scenes that include sex, nudity, violence, and foul language. These scenes were combined by a series of separate written stories, developed by different animation companies, in order to create a theatrical full-length film. This was evident by the irrelevant loc-nar evil ball that seemed to narrate each individual story from one to the next. Its irrelevance is discovered after the first story. As the story continues, the evil ball’s irrelevance becomes even more significant. At this point, the film has failed in delivering a complete original film.
Although Heavy Metal’s story line falls short to compete with the industry’s leading powerhouse Walt Disney Studios, we can deduct certain elements within the film that visually seemed to be groundbreaking special effects. There was a scene where a man was on trial for a multiple number of charges, bribed a witness, and believed that he would get off because of that. But what made this scene remarkable was how the character on the witness stand answered the questions and began to transform into this incredible hulk-like character. The transitions were seamless and facial expressions were animated very carefully and extremely detailed. This was my favorite part to watch because of the variations of facial gestures and transitions that showed the intensity of emotional stress in a very controlled state.
There is also an additional scene that showed an incredible perspective. Exactly at the part that showed flying through an open field and trying to land in a designated area. This was a minute part but what made it significant was how the time-sequence of animated images became flawless in depth of field and first person navigation through the sky. This is just another observation of one of the many artistic ways to show creative inspiration.
Seeing traditional animation in form is an extremely intricate process that requires a long step-by-step process. Heavy Metal was a movie that shows how certain surreal elements within an animation can work individually and how the combination of different stories can also kill the effect of the entire film. However, the support of the soundtrack, which doesn’t have a complete heavy metal sound, was as irrelevant as the name Heavy Metal to the film. Because of this, the film only allows the viewer to deduct specific parts that were interesting and concludes to be ineffective as a complete full-featured film.
Hey Will. I like the way you see the details that elude many viewers. You also keyed in very well on the elements of this film that have made it lose relevance over time. Since so few of us know much about the Heavy Metal publication that gave this film its name - it seems lost to us now. Yet, as you pointed out there are still some amazing things to watch and see and enjoy and learn from.
j
Heavy Metal is another movie that falls into that qualification of cult-movie. Clearly it was never meant to be a family movie. Rather the movie targets teenagers. Similar to a popular french magazine of the same name, HM is a vignette with 5 different short stories linked by an common object which represents all the evil in the universe; the visual imagery if strictly adult content and in some of the stories there’s a definetly psicotropic character and an overwhelming amount of nudity and gore violence depicted in an impressive artistic way that doesn’t envy at all the imagery of the printed magazine the movie is based on.
what i found most amusing about the different tales that the movie depicts in its scenes it’s that nowadays i can find some similarities with movies that not only were more successfull when they were released but also they came out after Heavy Metal; this i could appreciate it in the scenes of the teenager who’s abducted into a fantasy world and become some sort of big-muscle hero that somehow plays the key role in resolving the ministory, destroys the evil, keeps the girl and rules that fanatasy world.
A popular theme, HM is just like the movies of Conan during the 80’s. Even though Heavy Metal appeared first, Conan’s main characteristic and plot mirror HM. The only difference being that Conan was not a regular teenager abducted to an odd world and transformed in a super human, the other elements are undoubdtely present in the Conan mitology. Other characters share similarities. The female figure is exploited in this story in two diametrical opposite ways, whether as strong powerfull dominant figure that rules over other creatures or the weak and in perish bombshell that is waiting to be rescued; but always the element of wild beauty present and dominant troughout the chapter.
HM, like many episodes of the Twilight Zone and the film The 5th Element, constantly address the issue of survival of the fittest. For example, in The Fifht element and HM both stories take place in New York city; in a chaotic future were it looks like only the bravest and smartest ones can outcome the obstacles.
This is a movie that amuses me every time i see it. A masterpiece, that I did not see until 9 years after it was released. It has a huge impact on the way i consider cartoons as a media just made for kids; no longer are subjects restricted.
The Original Heavy Metal Movie experience was and always will be a cult flick that is meant to be enjoyed multiple times through heavy doses of alcohol and drugs galore. Why is it a cult flick and not a historic film that will be remembered as a film on the level of say Fantasia? Wait a minute, a comparison between the levels of success between Fantasia and Heavy Metal? The majority of the viewing public will probably remember Fantasia fondly with the orchestra blaring beautifully, the dancing mops, and sorcerer apprentice Mickey. Heavy Metal, on the other hand, is most likely referred to most people as just a movie that's all about heavy metal music with scantily clad chicks. However, there are moments and aspects in Heavy Metal that have been influential in movies after its initial theatrical release and take a different original look of things as to how some of the stories and its characters are handled. Altogether the movie and the print publications of which it was based on has led to its cult success phenomenon and years later a more cohesive sequel with modest nods among its followers.
Heavy Metal was released back in 1981 when a majority of animation and technical films were still evolving especially films outside of well-known studios such as Disney and Warner Brothers. The plot of the movie is made up of separate stories that are forcefully loosely connected by an evil green orb in order to bridge them altogether. Most of these stories came directly from the Heavy Metal print magazines and writers that have had relations with the print. After watching the whole film, one can notice that the animation styles between each tale differ greatly. For example, if you look at the very beginning of the film where the father of the daughter travels to the house, you’ll notice the enormous amount of fantastic rotoscoping animation and transitions taken to bring this scene with incredible accuracy and believability. In the last story, Taarna, the flight scene where the heroine flies through the landscape shows an amazing amount of rotoscoping that’s on a different technical level even by today’s standards if done by 2D solidly. In contrast, the story with the hijacking doped up aliens takes a more simple animation route but with a more psychedelic twist with technical placements and use of lighting to bring about the drugged out groovy mood. The animation style of the “Harry Canyon” taxi cab driver story provides a gritty look that definitely enhances the mood and direction of the story. The variance in styles is due to different teams and departments working on a different tale of the movie. This allows for the degree of freedom that is expressed within each team that may not have happened if only one animation department/team worked on the whole of the film. It’s actually common in today’s VFX films for different companies/teams to be working on different segments of the same film. The main direction of how a film is dictated limits all the teams to follow that direction. This leads to main conformity and smoother story and technical flow for the audience based upon the lead director. In contrast, Heavy Metal allows a showcase of the technical and animation skills of each team that was assigned to complete the tale that was assigned to them at the sacrifice of the overall main evil orb story in terms of conformity and flow to bring everything together.
The stories themselves apart are quite genius in storytelling, twists, and style depending on how you look at it and if necessary intoxicated. In “Harry Canyon,” the story is all about a tax cab driver in the future that pretty much doesn’t really care that much about the world but knows how to care of himself and a person that knows not to pass up on a deal when it lands on his bed literally. The story exhibits all the sex and violence but does it in more of a ho-hum its normal everyday future life type of thing. The death scenes are rather unique in the sense of how they’re pulled off technically and the timing of when they’re done. All of which adds for an interesting original take in execution and story that sets itself apart from other animated stories prior to its time. Ironically, this story brought to birth a movie of a similar nature called “Fifth Element” which that movie’s style also stands by itself with paying homage to Harry Canyon in the form of Bruce Willis and the evil green orb as the 2nd evil “Moon of Doom.” In “B-17” the original direction and style of how the pilots die and then comeback to life to haunt their remaining living comrades is unique that no other film prior have tried to pull that off. The closest thing that this has been pulled off onscreen within recent history has been “Snakes on a Plane” and “Flight of the Living Dead” which occurred only within the past 2 years. The only big exception to that would be the “Alien” franchise that was actually an offshoot and more evolved futuristic form of the “B-17” story. In the court case in space story, the defendant is a handsome conniving villain that goes out in style and avoids execution in the process. As to not spoil the details, the animation in how it’s pulled off adds to the characters’ characteristics to add believability to them such as how the defendant acts like he’s got everything in the bag throughout the whole story.
Overall, the movie as a cohesive movie from beginning to end falls short in bringing it altogether through the evil orb, which is basically the weakest element in the whole movie. The music didn’t really help out that much as it seems to be a patchwork collection of music from various popular bands to make the movie more marketable. [If you want to see an animated movie that does a similar overall storytelling like Heavy Metal but done better see “Robot Carnival.”] Still the movie had decent tales and ideas of the “exotic gritty nature” with dashes of excellent technical direction at the time of release that amuse the intended audience at the time and those willing to take a gander at it. This direction borne the cult status that remains today.
OK please tell me you all saw the South Park that aired last week that paid such funny and wonderful homage to Heavy Metal!!!
ha ha, I thought it was funny how Will said, "the irrelevance of the ball was discovered..."
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