80s Animation Month: Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985)

It's difficult to talk about Starchaser: The Legend of Orin without acknowledging the fact that it's a massive rip-off of George Lucas's Star Wars movies (particularly Episode IV). Don't get me wrong, there's some original elements and ideas to it but they are buried under a mountain of very familiar characters, story and action beats. I guess the director and writer were hoping no one would notice? Or maybe they were pressured by the studio into making it like Star Wars in order to guarantee success? Needless to say it didn't work out and the film flopped. While ripping off someone else's work is hard to defend you've got to admire their skill a little. I mean, just look at George Lucas's own attempt to replicate the Star Wars phenomenon with the distinctly lacklustre prequel trilogy. It's a lot harder than it looks.

So Starchaser is set in on the planet Trinia in a galaxy far, far away. Our hero Orin (Luke) lives in an underground mining community digging up precious crystals for the evil overlord Zygon (Darth Vader) and his robot soldiers. One day Orin finds the hilt to a sword (lightsaber) and decides to dig his way to the surface. He runs into zombie cyborgs and is rescued by Dag (Han) a rakish smuggler and his female robot companion Silica (C3PO). They all travel in Dag's ship The Starchaser (Millenium Falcon) to a rough town full of criminals (Mos Eisley) where Orin is again rescued by the Governer's Daughter Aviana (Leia). Aviana explains that Orin's sword hilt is a relic from an ancient order of guardians called Ka-Khan (Jedi Knights). Orin and his friends team up to break into Zygon's base (Death Star) and save his people.

I'll say this. Starchaser isn't a terrible film. It's got a reasonably brisk pace and it's full of action sequences. Okay, it is a big rip-off but there's quite a lot of fun playing 'spot the similarities'. You could easily make a drinking game out of it. Like all the other 80s animated films I've covered, this too is surprisingly bleak and creepy at times. There's cyborg zombies who want to harvest Orin for his limbs, Orin's grandfather gets whipped around the eyes by a laser whip, Dag spanks his female robot and reprogrammes her to be more subservient and Zygon even strangles Orin's girlfriend to death during their escape early on. The film never really establishes a stable tone at any point. It goes back and forth between childish sentimentality and disturbing adult elements which makes the film very uncertain as to who it is aimed at.

And this is only compounded by the fact the animation style is very similar to a Saturday morning cartoon (which surely confused the audience even more at the time). The film was originally released in 3D but sadly you can only get it on a plain old 2D DVD. They use a lot of (obviously) early computer animation to draw the spaceships which sticks out a mile but I guess these were the major bits that were going to be converted into 3D. The rest of the animation is a pretty flat and uninspiring but there are a few impressive sequences, particularly the enormous firey portal where the miners dump their harvested crystals. As well as having a shaky tone the film also has a pretty weak story. The characters just seem to jump from place to place with little sense of a storyline unfolding.

The dialogue is also clunky in the extreme. I mean what kind of speech is this? "Thousands of years ago on some obscure planet a primitive chess computer was the first inorganic mind to beat men. In a few hours I will be calling checkmate in the last such game the humans and their kind will ever play." Interestingly the film was written by Jeffrey Scott who wrote a lot of episodes of the animated 'Dungeons and Dragons' TV show. I used to love that show as a kid and this film definitely has a little of that same vibe. Despite it being set over several planets and having loads of characters, it still feels very TV-ish rather than Cinematic. It's derivative and forgettable rather than original and memorable.

All in all, Starchaser is an okay movie. Again, I think it would mostly appeal to someone who grew up in the 80s and wants a trip down memory lane. Surprisingly, it's been recently announced that a studio is looking to remake this film in live action! http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/rilean-pictures-plans-live-action-remake-starchaser-legend-orin-exclusive-36083 That should be very interesting, particularly given the fact that Disney has recently bought Lucasfilm and is aiming to get a new trilogy in the cinema soon without Lucas at the helm. Perhaps the new Star Wars and Starchaser will go head to head! Now that would be awesome to see.

GRADE: B-

80s Animation Month: Heavy Metal (1981)

Heavy Metal is a bit of an anomaly for 80s Animation Month because unlike Fire and Ice, Rock & Rule and Starchaser (next week's entry) it wasn't a flop and actually managed to turn a profit. Okay, it wasn't anything stellar but it doubled its $9 million budget. This may have been down to the fact that it was based on an existing (though quite niche) comic book. 'Heavy Metal' magazine started publishing in 1977 and initially reprinted translations of a French comic book 'Metal Hurlant' before they started using their own artists and writers. The magazine was known for its provocative artwork which often feature topless or scantily clad female characters in sci-fi settings. I read several issues as a teenager and I've got to say, though the art was superb, the stories were very forgettable. Still it gave a platform for a lot of great artists such as Moebius and Milo Manara.

The plot of the Heavy Metal film is difficult to describe in detail. Essentially, it's an anthology film of short stories. The film begins with an astronaut returning to earth with a glowing green orb. When he gets home the orb kills him and terrorises his daughter by telling her weird and wonderful sci-fi/horror stories. These stories include Harry Canyon - a futuristic noir thriller about a cab driver caught up with criminals (GREAT), B17 - a horror short about a World War II bomber crew who get attacked by zombies (CREEPY), Den - a bizarre story about a nerdy kid who is turned into a musclebound hero and sent to a far off planet (WEIRD), Taarna - a short about an alien female warrior fighting off a barbarian invasion (NOT BAD) and many other, lesser, stories.

For once this isn't a kids film that has a couple of inappropriate elements; the makers clearly pitched this at grown ups. I think aiming it directly at adults was probably another reason this did okay at the cinema, the audience knew exactly what they were getting. One interesting thing to note is that this film was produced by Ivan Reitman, of Ghostbusters, Stripes, Meatballs fame, and featured a lot of famous Canadian actors voices such as Eugene Levy, John Candy and Harold Ramis (most of the Second City cast is here). Sadly Reitman's involvement doesn't mean its a laugh riot though. In fact I'd almost say it's a little dull and dry in places. The anthology nature of the film means that most stories are over before they've begun.

Like the comic, the artwork is great but the quality varies from short to short. Again, there's some use of rotoscoping which gives the characters fantastically realistic movements but it's not used in every segment. The stories are okay but none of them really wow you. I did enjoy the Harry Canyon story though because it fused the classic film noir cliches (femme fatales, world weary protagonists) with a futuristic setting (not unlike Blade Runner). The whole futuristic cab driver angle definitely reminded me a bit of The Fifth Element but that's to be expected given that both films were paying homage to Moebius' ultra detailed line drawings. I also enjoyed the Den story because it was a funny tale of literal wish fulfillment.

The whole tone of the film is quite juvenile. There's a fair bit of sex, breasts and cursing but I guess that's just an accurate reflection of what the magazine is like. It plays a lot like some 13 year old boy's daydream and while I enjoyed the dynamic, let's-try-everything nature of the film I didn't think it ever found its groove. Speaking of grooves the soundtrack almost made up for the film's other shortcomings. They roped in a lot of great bands (none of which I would really call "heavy metal bands" ironically) including Devo, Blue Oyster Cult and Cheap Trick (again). I'd recommend the film to anyone who is a fan of these bands or just that era of 80s music.

So ultimately, I found that Heavy Metal didn't quite live up to it's bold tagline "A Step Beyond Science Fiction". I think the concept of an sci-fi anthology film is a great idea and it's been mooted for a few years that either David Fincher or Robert Rodriguez might oversee a new Heavy Metal anthology. I'm not adverse to eroticism or juvenile storylines in science fiction but I hope whatever filmmaker does take on the new project remembers to have some decent writing to go with all those boobs.

For another review of Heavy Metal check out The Film Connoisseur's perspective
http://filmconnoisseur.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/heavy-metal-1981.html

GRADE: B-