Wizards (1977)
I never want context for this.
It’s so frustrating, that Wizard has these good bits and the rest is half-baked. Just like so many North American cartoon films that try to be self-consciously adult—
I mean, that's Bakshi's entire oeuvre.
"'Oh, what wand have you got, Stephanie? Is that a dragon heartstring core?' No, it's a GUN. And it's only got one spell - BANG." -Stephanie Sterling
I wish I could recommend Wizards. I do. I love Ralph Bakshi. The film has these amazing snippets of brilliance. It’s a cult classic for a reason. The character designs are great… But most of the movie is just utter and complete drivel.
Fire and Ice, the Frazetta movie, was done with Bakshi. And it is, at best, a very shitty Conan movie where Conan has 2 cameos. It has the girl in the purple bikini, and her love interest does nothing. And the hero -Blackwolf- shows up for no reason 2x and does all the action. The movie sucks.
When you see clips of Wizards on social media, you’ll think it’s great. Sit down and watch the movie and you’ll be bored except for the scenes (like this) that catch your attention.
Everyone here is overstating how bad this movie is.
Many of Bakshis movies are best when you approach them for what they are. Multimedia collages.
Um, ok. I can see your point.
Bakshi’s contributions to animation somehow cannot be overstated, and yet are also under appreciated.
The artwork is phenomenal. It comes with a disclaimer: appreciate it in the context of its time, and pay attention to what happened before and after.
Bakshi’s use of rotoscoping and, as you put it, “collage” work in the late 1970s-early 1980s was mind blowing. This film and the Heavy Metal movie created the adult market for animation in the United States. Basically, Bakshi movies were adult swim in the 1970s and 1980s.
I am a fan of Bakshi. And I am NOT overstating the mediocrity of this film.
His LOTR and Hobbit adaptations were much better uses of his talents in a framework that better suited his skill set. Wizards is pretty, with very good ideas that lead to a lot of innovative animation.
But no. No, I am not overstating anything about this film.
I said I was going to elaborate more, but you refused to wait and chose to double down before I got the chance to. Thanks, Dawg. Now I'll get into more detail. Lately, when it comes to approaching media consumption more thoughtfully, I've been reevaluating what it means for art to be "good" or "bad". Wizards is one of the movies I've been thinking about when reconsidering this binary. Because it's butt-fucking insane. It's a about a post-apoctalyptic fantasy world a-la Adventure Time but instead of the Ice King, you have an evil wizard with skeleton arms who galvanizes his evil armies towards world domination by using a projector to show them Nazi propaganda.
The plot of Wizards is a mess. No doubt. Schizophrenic in tone, not always focused. Sometimes, it's adult, gritty and urban. Other times it's slapstick comedy scenes that run too long. I couldn't tell you the moment to moment plot of this movie if you point a gun to my head. But that's not what floods my mind when I hear someone invoke Wizards. When someone says Wizards my mind conjures a myriad of colors, animation techniques, and backgrounds. Wizards visuals are as eclectic as it's story, but it works more towards the movies advantage. I said Bakshi movies are a collage, and that's what this movie is. A collage of not only animation techniques but of illustrative ones as well. Exposition is handled in these gorgeous sepia tone ink-and-pencil illustrations. The camera literally just pans over them while a narrator gives exposition.
Backgrounds range from loose lines one top of watercolor washes to dense harsh inkwork of multilayered cities.
Animation can be cutesy Saturday Morning Cartoon one moment, then harsh High Contrast Rotoscoping the next. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTzSzr-_7YE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0oSjfoqvyU This movie is a grab-bag of different art styles thrown into a blender. All of which are compelling for their own respective reasons. So when comments on this thread say this movie is only worth it for the gun scene, I'm frustrated and confused. Those backgrounds, those animations, those illustrations, are all immediately rendered null as if they didn't happen? This brings me back to my "good and bad art" problem. Good or Bad presents a binary that doesn't really tell much outside of some vague probability that you'll enjoy it. The 1-10 grading scale ESPECIALLY peeves me. As if all of a pieces intricacies can be boiled down to a single numerical value regardless of tone or content. When you say something is "good" does it tell you that it achieves some objective measure of aesthetic values? Does it tell you that it will click with your sensibilities and resonate with you on some profound level? Does it tell you it's more worthy of preservation than bad art? In terms of animated movies, MUST it be lean, plot driven, and conventionally told to be enjoyed? What separates Wizards from MAD GOD who's plot is just as confounding to a casual viewer, but enjoys more critical acclaim? What's the greatest movie of all time? The greatest book? Cartoon? Comic? Maybe you have an answer to all of these. What if someone disagrees with you then? Are they just wrong? Are they stupid for differing in opinion? Or does objectivity in art only take us SO far? The only answer that springs to mind is this: Wizards has more artistic merit, warmth, and humanity in it than all the corporate slop content of current year. Because it's bold, gorgeous, and takes tremendous risks. Risks that would NOT fly among todays safe and easily consumable Hollywood slop. Risks that don't always pan out, but are admirably taken nonetheless. I'd recommend Wizards over any of Disney or Illuminations recent output.
Yeah, I was watching a football game and then I went to bed. I responded and then watched my Chiefs almost lose again.
As for Wizards.
Your response was worth the wait, so sorry I went right after it.
Now, Like I said, I agree with you that the artwork is more important than the story. I also never said the words “Good” or “Bad” to describe the film.
I whole heartedly agree with everything you said, except with my caveat needing to be restated: in the context of its time.
Wizards used all the entire bag of the tricks available to animators of its day, and it created a nearly psychedelic effect to the whole film. Weird tonal shifts. Funny bits that take too long “They killed Fritz!”. But it also has a nonsensical plot and it does not so much conclude as it does just sort of… stop.
It’s pretty. It was an important stepping stone for a lot of the animation that came after it. The Black Cauldron, in particular, seemed to copy Wizards’ artistic approach. Strangely, the Black Cauldron is also a thematic mess with a nonsensical plot.
