.gif)
Wizards (film)
Encyclopedia
Wizards is a 1977 American animated
post-apocalyptic science fantasy
film about the battle between two wizards, one representing the forces of magic and one representing the forces of industrial technology. It was written, produced, and directed by Ralph Bakshi
. This is 20th Century Fox
's first animated film.
Wizards is notable for being the first fantasy film made by Bakshi, who was previously known only for urban films such as Fritz the Cat
, Heavy Traffic
, and Coonskin
. It grossed $9 million theatrically from a $1.2 million budget, and has since become a cult classic
. The film was rated PG
by the MPAA.
instigated by five terrorists
, and it has taken two million years for the radioactive clouds to once again allow sunlight to reach the surface. Only a handful of humans have survived, while the rest have changed into mutant
s who roam the radioactive wastelands. In the idyllic land of Montagar, the true ancestors of man – fairies, elves
and dwarves – have returned and live in peace. During a celebration of 3,000 years of peace Delia, queen of the fairies, falls into a trance and leaves the party. Puzzled, the fairies follow her to her home and discover that she has given birth to twin wizards. Avatar, a kind and good wizard, spends much of his boyhood entertaining his mother with beautiful visions, while Blackwolf, a mutant, never visits his mother, but spends his time torturing
small animals.
After many years, Delia dies. Blackwolf is excited; he believes he will take over her leadership and rule the land. Avatar opposes his evil brother and forces him to fight for the kingship. Avatar's magic is empowered by his grief, allowing him to defeat Blackwolf. Blackwolf leaves Montagar with a vow to return and "make this a planet where mutants rule".
Years later, Blackwolf has risen to lead the dark land of Scortch, where he salvages and restores ancient technology. He tries to attack Montagar twice, but is foiled both times when his mutant warriors become bored or sidetracked in the midst of battle. Blackwolf then discovers an old projector and reels of Nazi
propaganda
footage. He enhances the projector with magical power and uses it in battle to both inspire his own soldiers and horrify enemy troops. The mutants destroy the elf army, who are too frightened by the visions to fight back.
Meanwhile, in Montagar, Avatar has become a tutor tasked with training the president's daughter Elinore to become a full-fledged fairy. Suddenly, the president is assassinated
by Necron 99, a robot sent by Blackwolf to kill believers in magic. Elinore flies into a rage at the death of her father, and Avatar confronts the robot and battles it using brain reading
. Necron 99 loses the desire for war and Avatar changes the robot's name to Peace. Avatar learns from the robot that the "dream machine" — the projector — is Blackwolf's secret weapon, inspiring his armies with images of ancient warfare. Avatar, Elinore, Peace, and the elf spy Weehawk set out to destroy the projector and save the world from another Holocaust
.
In a forest inhabited by fairies, Peace has an intuition that something is amiss shortly before the group is accosted by the leader of the fairies, Sean (Mark Hamil
). Weehawk realizes that Peace is missing, when an unseen assassin kills Sean and kidnaps Elinore. Avatar and Weehawk begin to search for Elinore in the forbidden Fairy Sanctuary, but Weehawk falls into a chasm and insists that Avatar leave him and find the girl. Weehawk is rescued from a giant, poison gas-breathing mutant insect by Peace, who shoots it dead after dealing with his assassin comrades. As Weehawk rests, exhausted from the battle, Avatar locates Elinore, who has been captured by fairies and small human-like creatures, and is about to be killed.
Avatar attempts to explains that they did not kill Sean, but the fairies don't believe him, and shoot him with an arrow. Wounded in the shoulder, Avatar refuses to fight back, which impresses the fairy king. Instead of executing them, he merely teleports Avatar and Elinore to a snowy mountaintop. Avatar and Elinore resume their journey despite the poor conditions, but they soon realize they are wandering in circles. Weehawk and Peace finally find them and together they find their way out of the mountains.
Soon Avatar and the others encounter the encamped army of an elf General who is preparing to attack Scortch the following day, but Blackwolf launches a sneak attack that night. Elinore is outside with Peace when one of Blackwolf's mutants sneaks into camp and attacks her, but Avatar is able to stop it before it hurts her. Things turn for the worse, though, as a battle tank arrives to destroy the camp. Peace manages to disable the crew, but as he inspects the vehicle, Elinore kills him with a sword and climbs into the tank. It drives away as Avatar and Weehawk watch in confusion.
The next day, Avatar and Weehawk enter Scortch by ship and make for Blackwolf's castle while the General leads his elf warriors in a bloody battle to distract Blackwolf's forces. The pair splits up, Weehawk tracking Elinore while Avatar goes after his brother Blackwolf. Weehawk nearly kills Elinore, but she explains that Blackwolf had been controlling her mind ever since she first touched Peace. Blackwolf declares his magic superior to Avatar's and demands his surrender. Avatar admits that he hasn't practiced magic in some time, and offers to show Blackwolf one last trick that their mother showed him when Blackwolf wasn't around. Avatar then pulls a gun and fatally shoots Blackwolf. With the loss of their leader, the mutants give up fighting. With Montagar's safety secured, Weehawk returns home, but Avatar and Elinore decide to go start their own kingdom instead.
Ralph Bakshi
had long had an interest in fantasy, and had been drawing fantasy artwork as far back as 1955, while he was still in high school. Wizards originated in the concept for Tee-Witt, an unproduced television series Bakshi developed and pitched to CBS
in 1967. In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox
. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films.
The film is an allegorical
comment on the moral neutrality of technology and the potentially destructive powers of propaganda. Blackwolf's secret weapon is propaganda, used to incite and motivate his legions and terrorize the good fairy folk of Montagar; Blackwolf also utilizes technology for evil ends. However, in the end, it is Avatar's willingness to use a technological tool (a handgun pulled from "up his sleeve") which saves them all. Bakshi also states that Wizards "was about the creation of the state of Israel
and the Holocaust, about the Jews looking for a homeland, and about the fact that fascism
was on the rise again".
British illustrator Ian Miller
and comic book artist Mike Ploog
were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable to Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. Artist Alex Niño
signed a contract with Bakshi to work on the film, and was granted a work visa
, but was unable to gain permission from the Philippine
government in order to leave for the United States until two months afterward, and later found that by the time he had arrived in the U.S., not only had the film's animation had been completed, but Niño's visa did not allow him to submit freelance work on any other projects.
The film's main cast includes Bob Holt, Jesse Welles, Richard Romanus, David Proval and Steve Gravers. Bakshi cast Holt based on his ability to imitate the voice of actor Peter Falk
, of whom Bakshi is a fan. Welles, Romanus and Proval had previously worked with Bakshi on Hey Good Lookin', where Romanus and Proval provided the voices of Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro, respectively. Actress Tina Bowman, who plays a small role in Wizards, has a larger role in Hey Good Lookin' . Actor Mark Hamill
auditioned for and received a voice role in the film. Bakshi states that "He needed a job, and he came to me, and I thought he was great, and Lucas
thought he should do it, and he got not only Wizards, he got Star Wars
." Bakshi had wanted a female narrator for his film, and he loved Susan Tyrrell
's acting. Tyrrell performed the narration for the film, but Bakshi was told that he couldn't credit her for her narration. Years later, Tyrrell told Bakshi that she got most of her work from her narration on the film, and that she wished she had allowed him to put her name on it.
John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that "[the] overall affect of the animation is akin to that of the great anime
creators - one has to keep reminding oneself that Wizards predates Miyazaki
's The Castle of Cagliostro
(1979), not the other way round. [...] The backgrounds [...] are especially lovely, even the simplest of them; and in general the movie has a strong visual brio despite occasional technical hurriedness." Notable artists involved in the production of Wizards include Ian Miller
, who produced the gloomy backgrounds of Scortch, and Mike Ploog
, who contributed likewise for the more arcadian landscapes of Montagar.
Bakshi was unable to complete the battle sequences with the budget Fox had given him. When he asked them for a budget increase, they refused (during the same meeting, director George Lucas
had asked for a budget increase for Star Wars and was also refused). As a result, Bakshi finished his film by paying out of his own pocket and using rotoscoping for the unfinished battle sequences. According to Bakshi, "I thought that if we dropped all the detail, it would look very artistic, and very beautiful, and I felt, why bother animating all of this? I'm looking for a way to get realism into my film and get real emotion." In his audio commentary for the film's DVD release, Bakshi states that "There's no question that it was an easier way to get these gigantic scenes that I wanted. It also was the way that showed me how to do Lord of the Rings
, so it worked two ways." In addition to stock footage, the film used battle sequences from films such as Zulu
, El Cid
, Battle of the Bulge
and Alexander Nevsky
for rotoscoping. Live-action sequences from Patton
were also featured.
Vaughn Bode
's work has been credited as an influence on Wizards. Quentin Tarantino
describes Avatar as "a cross between Tolkien's Hobbit
, Mel Brooks
' 2000 Year Old Man
, and Marvel Comics
' Howard the Duck
" and Blackwolf as being physically similar to Sergei Eisenstein
's Ivan the Terrible
. In Jerry Beck's
Animated Movie Guide, Andrew Leal writes that "The central figure, Avatar [...] sounds a great deal like Peter Falk
, and clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard
character."
As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards in order to avoid conflict with Star Wars, and Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill
to take time off from Star Wars in order to record a voice for Wizards.
, it was very successful in the theaters that showed it, and developed a worldwide audience. According to Bakshi, he was once interviewed by a German reporter who was unsure as to why the Nazi Swastika
was used to represent war. Bakshi said "I didn't get any criticism. People pretty much loved Wizards." Film website Rotten Tomatoes
, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 53%.
Audio clips from the film have been sampled by Toxik
on the album Think This
, Cypress Hill
on the albums IV and Skull & Bones
, and Vanilla Ice
on Platinum Underground
. and 65daysofstatic
on B-Sides and Rarities album Volume 1: Then We Take Japan
.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment responded to an online petition created by Animation on DVD.com and written by Keith Finch demanding the film's release on DVD. The disc, released on May 25, 2004, featured an audio commentary
track by Bakshi and the interview segment Ralph Bakshi: The Wizard of Animation. Bakshi has stated that Wizards was always intended as a trilogy
. One of the sequels was pitched to Fox, who have yet to greenlight the project.
In late 2004, a Wizards II graphic novel went into production, produced by Bakshi. The stories will be from the Wizards "universe" and each story will be created by a different artist. In September 2008, it was announced that Main Street Pictures would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards.
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
post-apocalyptic science fantasy
Science fantasy
Science fantasy is a mixed genre within speculative fiction drawing elements from both science fiction and fantasy. Although in some terms of its portrayal in recent media products it can be defined as instead of being a mixed genre of science fiction and fantasy it is instead a mixing of the...
film about the battle between two wizards, one representing the forces of magic and one representing the forces of industrial technology. It was written, produced, and directed by Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...
. This is 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
's first animated film.
Wizards is notable for being the first fantasy film made by Bakshi, who was previously known only for urban films such as Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat (film)
Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American animated comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi as his feature film debut. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States...
, Heavy Traffic
Heavy Traffic
Heavy Traffic is a 1973 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film, which begins, ends, and occasionally combines with live-action, explores the often surreal fantasies of a young New York cartoonist named Michael Corleone, using pinball imagery as a metaphor for...
, and Coonskin
Coonskin (film)
Coonskin is a 1975 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi, about an African American rabbit, fox, and bear who rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists and the Mafia...
. It grossed $9 million theatrically from a $1.2 million budget, and has since become a cult classic
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
. The film was rated PG
MPAA film rating system
The Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system is used in the U.S. and its territories to rate a film's thematic and content suitability for certain audiences. The MPAA system applies only to motion pictures that are submitted for rating. Other media may be rated by other entities...
by the MPAA.
Synopsis
Earth has been devastated by a nuclear warNuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
instigated by five terrorists
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, and it has taken two million years for the radioactive clouds to once again allow sunlight to reach the surface. Only a handful of humans have survived, while the rest have changed into mutant
Mutant
In biology and especially genetics, a mutant is an individual, organism, or new genetic character, arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is a base-pair sequence change within the DNA of a gene or chromosome of an organism resulting in the creation of a new character or trait not...
s who roam the radioactive wastelands. In the idyllic land of Montagar, the true ancestors of man – fairies, elves
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
and dwarves – have returned and live in peace. During a celebration of 3,000 years of peace Delia, queen of the fairies, falls into a trance and leaves the party. Puzzled, the fairies follow her to her home and discover that she has given birth to twin wizards. Avatar, a kind and good wizard, spends much of his boyhood entertaining his mother with beautiful visions, while Blackwolf, a mutant, never visits his mother, but spends his time torturing
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
small animals.
After many years, Delia dies. Blackwolf is excited; he believes he will take over her leadership and rule the land. Avatar opposes his evil brother and forces him to fight for the kingship. Avatar's magic is empowered by his grief, allowing him to defeat Blackwolf. Blackwolf leaves Montagar with a vow to return and "make this a planet where mutants rule".
Years later, Blackwolf has risen to lead the dark land of Scortch, where he salvages and restores ancient technology. He tries to attack Montagar twice, but is foiled both times when his mutant warriors become bored or sidetracked in the midst of battle. Blackwolf then discovers an old projector and reels of Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
footage. He enhances the projector with magical power and uses it in battle to both inspire his own soldiers and horrify enemy troops. The mutants destroy the elf army, who are too frightened by the visions to fight back.
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
by Necron 99, a robot sent by Blackwolf to kill believers in magic. Elinore flies into a rage at the death of her father, and Avatar confronts the robot and battles it using brain reading
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
. Necron 99 loses the desire for war and Avatar changes the robot's name to Peace. Avatar learns from the robot that the "dream machine" — the projector — is Blackwolf's secret weapon, inspiring his armies with images of ancient warfare. Avatar, Elinore, Peace, and the elf spy Weehawk set out to destroy the projector and save the world from another Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
In a forest inhabited by fairies, Peace has an intuition that something is amiss shortly before the group is accosted by the leader of the fairies, Sean (Mark Hamil
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
). Weehawk realizes that Peace is missing, when an unseen assassin kills Sean and kidnaps Elinore. Avatar and Weehawk begin to search for Elinore in the forbidden Fairy Sanctuary, but Weehawk falls into a chasm and insists that Avatar leave him and find the girl. Weehawk is rescued from a giant, poison gas-breathing mutant insect by Peace, who shoots it dead after dealing with his assassin comrades. As Weehawk rests, exhausted from the battle, Avatar locates Elinore, who has been captured by fairies and small human-like creatures, and is about to be killed.
Avatar attempts to explains that they did not kill Sean, but the fairies don't believe him, and shoot him with an arrow. Wounded in the shoulder, Avatar refuses to fight back, which impresses the fairy king. Instead of executing them, he merely teleports Avatar and Elinore to a snowy mountaintop. Avatar and Elinore resume their journey despite the poor conditions, but they soon realize they are wandering in circles. Weehawk and Peace finally find them and together they find their way out of the mountains.
Soon Avatar and the others encounter the encamped army of an elf General who is preparing to attack Scortch the following day, but Blackwolf launches a sneak attack that night. Elinore is outside with Peace when one of Blackwolf's mutants sneaks into camp and attacks her, but Avatar is able to stop it before it hurts her. Things turn for the worse, though, as a battle tank arrives to destroy the camp. Peace manages to disable the crew, but as he inspects the vehicle, Elinore kills him with a sword and climbs into the tank. It drives away as Avatar and Weehawk watch in confusion.
The next day, Avatar and Weehawk enter Scortch by ship and make for Blackwolf's castle while the General leads his elf warriors in a bloody battle to distract Blackwolf's forces. The pair splits up, Weehawk tracking Elinore while Avatar goes after his brother Blackwolf. Weehawk nearly kills Elinore, but she explains that Blackwolf had been controlling her mind ever since she first touched Peace. Blackwolf declares his magic superior to Avatar's and demands his surrender. Avatar admits that he hasn't practiced magic in some time, and offers to show Blackwolf one last trick that their mother showed him when Blackwolf wasn't around. Avatar then pulls a gun and fatally shoots Blackwolf. With the loss of their leader, the mutants give up fighting. With Montagar's safety secured, Weehawk returns home, but Avatar and Elinore decide to go start their own kingdom instead.
Cast
- Bob Holt - Avatar
- Jesse WellesJesse WellesJesse Welles is an actress. She is best known for her voice work in the animated films Wizards and Hey Good Lookin , directed by Ralph Bakshi. She played a lead role in three Rockford Files episodes: "Roundabout" , "Two Into 5.56 Won't Go" and "A Different Drummer"...
- Elinore - Richard RomanusRichard RomanusRichard Romanus is an American actor of Lebanese descent. Among other roles, he has appeared in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and provided voices for Ralph Bakshi's animated films Wizards and Hey Good Lookin'. He played Lorraine Bracco's ex-husband, later husband again, in three episodes of The...
- Weehawk - David ProvalDavid ProvalDavid Aaron Proval is an American actor, known for his roles as Tony DeVienazo in the Martin Scorsese film Mean Streets opposite Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel and as Richie Aprile on the HBO television series The Sopranos .-Biography:Proval was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Jewish heritage,...
- Necron 99/Peace - Steve GraversSteve GraversSolomon Gottlieb also known by his stage name Steve Gravers, was an American character actor who appeared in numerous television shows and also in several movies in a career that lasted from 1952 until his death from lung cancer in 1978.- Selected Credits :Television* Have Gun - Will...
- Blackwolf - James Connell - President
- Mark HamillMark HamillMark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
- Sean - Susan TyrrellSusan TyrrellSusan Tyrrell is an American actress of Irish descent, known for her role as Ramona Rickettes in the film Cry-Baby.-Background:...
- Narrator (uncredited) - Ralph Bakshi - Lardbottom (uncredited)
Production
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...
had long had an interest in fantasy, and had been drawing fantasy artwork as far back as 1955, while he was still in high school. Wizards originated in the concept for Tee-Witt, an unproduced television series Bakshi developed and pitched to CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
in 1967. In 1976, Bakshi pitched War Wizards to 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films.
The film is an allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
comment on the moral neutrality of technology and the potentially destructive powers of propaganda. Blackwolf's secret weapon is propaganda, used to incite and motivate his legions and terrorize the good fairy folk of Montagar; Blackwolf also utilizes technology for evil ends. However, in the end, it is Avatar's willingness to use a technological tool (a handgun pulled from "up his sleeve") which saves them all. Bakshi also states that Wizards "was about the creation of the state of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and the Holocaust, about the Jews looking for a homeland, and about the fact that fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
was on the rise again".
British illustrator Ian Miller
Ian Miller (illustrator)
Ian Miller is a British fantasy illustrator and writer best known for his quirkily etched gothic style and macabre sensibility, and noted for his book and magazine cover and interior illustrations, including covers for books by H.P...
and comic book artist Mike Ploog
Mike Ploog
Michael G. Ploog is an American storyboard and comic book artist, and a visual designer for movies....
were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable to Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. Artist Alex Niño
Alex Niño
Alex Niño is a Filipino comic book artist best known for his work for the American publishers DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Warren Publishing, and in Heavy Metal magazine.-Early life and career:...
signed a contract with Bakshi to work on the film, and was granted a work visa
Visa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
, but was unable to gain permission from the Philippine
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
government in order to leave for the United States until two months afterward, and later found that by the time he had arrived in the U.S., not only had the film's animation had been completed, but Niño's visa did not allow him to submit freelance work on any other projects.
The film's main cast includes Bob Holt, Jesse Welles, Richard Romanus, David Proval and Steve Gravers. Bakshi cast Holt based on his ability to imitate the voice of actor Peter Falk
Peter Falk
Peter Michael Falk was an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo...
, of whom Bakshi is a fan. Welles, Romanus and Proval had previously worked with Bakshi on Hey Good Lookin', where Romanus and Proval provided the voices of Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro, respectively. Actress Tina Bowman, who plays a small role in Wizards, has a larger role in Hey Good Lookin
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
auditioned for and received a voice role in the film. Bakshi states that "He needed a job, and he came to me, and I thought he was great, and Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
thought he should do it, and he got not only Wizards, he got Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
." Bakshi had wanted a female narrator for his film, and he loved Susan Tyrrell
Susan Tyrrell
Susan Tyrrell is an American actress of Irish descent, known for her role as Ramona Rickettes in the film Cry-Baby.-Background:...
's acting. Tyrrell performed the narration for the film, but Bakshi was told that he couldn't credit her for her narration. Years later, Tyrrell told Bakshi that she got most of her work from her narration on the film, and that she wished she had allowed him to put her name on it.
John Grant writes in his book Masters of Animation that "[the] overall affect of the animation is akin to that of the great anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
creators - one has to keep reminding oneself that Wizards predates Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
's The Castle of Cagliostro
The Castle of Cagliostro
is a 1979 Japanese animated film co-written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is one of the films featuring master thief Arsène Lupin III.The second animated Lupin III movie and arguably the best known, Castle of Cagliostro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who also co-directed the first...
(1979), not the other way round. [...] The backgrounds [...] are especially lovely, even the simplest of them; and in general the movie has a strong visual brio despite occasional technical hurriedness." Notable artists involved in the production of Wizards include Ian Miller
Ian Miller (illustrator)
Ian Miller is a British fantasy illustrator and writer best known for his quirkily etched gothic style and macabre sensibility, and noted for his book and magazine cover and interior illustrations, including covers for books by H.P...
, who produced the gloomy backgrounds of Scortch, and Mike Ploog
Mike Ploog
Michael G. Ploog is an American storyboard and comic book artist, and a visual designer for movies....
, who contributed likewise for the more arcadian landscapes of Montagar.
Bakshi was unable to complete the battle sequences with the budget Fox had given him. When he asked them for a budget increase, they refused (during the same meeting, director George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
had asked for a budget increase for Star Wars and was also refused). As a result, Bakshi finished his film by paying out of his own pocket and using rotoscoping for the unfinished battle sequences. According to Bakshi, "I thought that if we dropped all the detail, it would look very artistic, and very beautiful, and I felt, why bother animating all of this? I'm looking for a way to get realism into my film and get real emotion." In his audio commentary for the film's DVD release, Bakshi states that "There's no question that it was an easier way to get these gigantic scenes that I wanted. It also was the way that showed me how to do Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It contains both animation and live action footage which is rotoscoped to give it a more consistent look throughout the length of the movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of the high fantasy...
, so it worked two ways." In addition to stock footage, the film used battle sequences from films such as Zulu
Zulu (film)
Zulu is a 1964 historical war film depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between the British Army and the Zulus in January 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War....
, El Cid
El Cid (film)
El Cid is a historical epic film, a romanticized story of the life of the Christian Castilian knight Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, called "El Cid" who in the 11th century fought the North African Almoravides and ultimately contributed to the unification of Spain.Made by Samuel Bronston Productions in...
, Battle of the Bulge
Battle of the Bulge (film)
Battle of the Bulge is a widescreen war film produced in Spain that was released in 1965. It was directed by Ken Annakin. It starred Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Telly Savalas, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews and Charles Bronson...
and Alexander Nevsky
Alexander Nevsky (film)
Alexander Nevsky is a 1938 historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein, in association with Dmitri Vasilyev and a script co-written with Pyotr Pavlenko, who were assigned to ensure Eisenstein did not stray into "formalism" and to facilitate shooting on a reasonable timetable...
for rotoscoping. Live-action sequences from Patton
Patton (film)
Patton is a 1970 American biographical war film about U.S. General George S. Patton during World War II. It stars George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Bates, and Karl Michael Vogler. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner from a script by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H...
were also featured.
Vaughn Bode
Vaughn Bodé
Vaughn Bodē was an artist involved in underground comics, graphic design and graffiti. He is perhaps best known for his comic strip character Cheech Wizard and artwork depicting voluptuous women. His works are noted for their psychedelic look and feel...
's work has been credited as an influence on Wizards. Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
describes Avatar as "a cross between Tolkien's Hobbit
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
, Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
' 2000 Year Old Man
2000 Year Old Man
The 2000 Year Old Man is a persona in a comedy skit, originally created by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner in 1961.Mel Brooks played the oldest man in the world, interviewed by Carl Reiner in a series of comedy routines that appeared on television, as well as being made into a collection of records...
, and Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
' Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck is a comic book character in the Marvel Comics universe created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. The character first appeared in Adventure into Fear #19 and several subsequent series have chronicled the misadventures of the ill-tempered, anthropomorphic, "funny...
" and Blackwolf as being physically similar to Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
's Ivan the Terrible
Ivan the Terrible (film)
Ivan the Terrible is a two-part historical epic film about Ivan IV of Russia made by Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. Part 1 was released in 1944 but Part 2 was not released until 1958 due to political censorship...
. In Jerry Beck's
Jerry Beck
Jerry Beck is a well-known animation historian, with ten books and numerous articles to his credit. He is also an animation producer, an industry consultant to Warner Bros., and has been an executive with Nickelodeon and Disney....
Animated Movie Guide, Andrew Leal writes that "The central figure, Avatar [...] sounds a great deal like Peter Falk
Peter Falk
Peter Michael Falk was an American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo...
, and clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard
Cheech Wizard
Cheech Wizard was a cartoon character created by artist Vaughn Bodé and appearing in various works, including the National Lampoon, from 1967 until Bodé's death in 1975...
character."
As War Wizards neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to Wizards in order to avoid conflict with Star Wars, and Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
to take time off from Star Wars in order to record a voice for Wizards.
Response and legacy
Although Wizards received a limited releaseLimited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
, it was very successful in the theaters that showed it, and developed a worldwide audience. According to Bakshi, he was once interviewed by a German reporter who was unsure as to why the Nazi Swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
was used to represent war. Bakshi said "I didn't get any criticism. People pretty much loved Wizards." Film website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 53%.
Audio clips from the film have been sampled by Toxik
Toxik
Toxik is an American thrash metal band from Peekskill, New York. The band plays a style of thrash metal with elements of progressive metal, which would later be named "progressive thrash metal". Initially active from 1985 to 1992, the band reformed in 2007....
on the album Think This
Think This
Think This is the second studio album by the thrash metal band, Toxik, released in 1989 by Roadracer Records. The album was re-released by Metal Mind Productions and Displeased Records in 2007...
, Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill is an American hip hop group from South Gate, California. Cypress Hill was the first Latino hip-hop group to have platinum and multi-platinum albums, selling over 18 million albums worldwide...
on the albums IV and Skull & Bones
Skull & Bones (album)
*Rolling Stone - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "A bipolar breakdown…proving hip-hop is more like T2…capable of morphing into anyone they wanna be."*CMJ - "Proves rather convincingly that Cypress Hill still packs a mighty punch."...
, and Vanilla Ice
Vanilla Ice
Robert Matthew Van Winkle , best known by his stage name Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper, extreme athlete and home improvement television personality...
on Platinum Underground
Platinum Underground
Platinum Underground is the fifth studio album by American rapper Vanilla Ice. Released on August 16, 2005, it is the rapper's third independent release, after Hooked and Bi-Polar...
. and 65daysofstatic
65daysofstatic
65daysofstatic are an instrumental post-rock and math rock band from Sheffield, England comprising Paul Wolinski, Joe Shrewsbury, Rob Jones and Simon Wright...
on B-Sides and Rarities album Volume 1: Then We Take Japan
Volume 1: Then We Take Japan
Volume 1: Then We Take Japan is a collection of b-sides and rarities plus four videos released in Japan on November 8th 2006. It consists of a CD with 11 tracks and a DVD containing four videos, three of which are of live performances. The DVD was made with Medlo, long-time collaborators with...
.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment responded to an online petition created by Animation on DVD.com and written by Keith Finch demanding the film's release on DVD. The disc, released on May 25, 2004, featured an audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
track by Bakshi and the interview segment Ralph Bakshi: The Wizard of Animation. Bakshi has stated that Wizards was always intended as a trilogy
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
. One of the sequels was pitched to Fox, who have yet to greenlight the project.
In late 2004, a Wizards II graphic novel went into production, produced by Bakshi. The stories will be from the Wizards "universe" and each story will be created by a different artist. In September 2008, it was announced that Main Street Pictures would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to Wizards.
External links
- Wizards at the official Ralph Bakshi website.