(no subject)

[teddog]

So, I managed to get time to watch Rock and Rule last night.

Thoughts?

First off - this is a very flawed film, as my friends have pointed out. Keep this in mind if any details get you interested. It's not a great movie. It is, however, good enough that it's a fun watch. Its main claims to fame is its spot in Canadian animation history and its sound track. I've seen parts of the movie before, but this was my first time being able to watch it front-to-back. Before, I'd always catch it halfway through while it was on TV.

It's a Nelvana movie.

No, really. That's the big thing that stuck out to me. It looks, feels and reads like something Nelvana created, because it is a Nelvana film. It doesn't try to hide it. If it walks like a duck...

This was a relief, because I find that with a lot of early animation aimed at adults requires me to be in the "right" mood to watch it. Rock and Rule's position as an adult animated film is a bit odd. Nelvana is open in admitting that the film was originally intended for kids, but progressed into an film geared for adults. There's sex, drugs, violence and all things that are typical of early adult animation, but most of these are implied until the last half of the film. No, while the Edison Balls are a riff on drugs, I don't count those as on-screen drug use. I'm thinking more along the lines of the nightclub and Mok's little musical drug trip.

I think the big hit against it is that the main plot is based around summoning a demon (with the voice of Iggy Pop, even), which isn't really kiddie fare. Part of the demon are honestly disturbing, both in character design and the special effect used. On the other hand, they don't even call it a demon for the most part. It's "The Beast From Another Dimension", although I think the intro mentions that one point that the ritual is Satanic. Of course, how the characters even know what "Satanic" means is up for questioning, as the film is set in after the fall of mankind. It's shades of Peace on Earth, kinda.

When it comes to cursing, the TV version from Canada has more than the film release! Maybe I'm desensitized by the likes of Family Guy and the Simpsons, but I wasn't really offended by much of "adult" content. I mean, the film is only rated PG now. You be the judge.

Am I the only one that thinks that Mok is more like David Bowie than Mick Jagger? He LOOKS like Jagger, but the way he carries himself to the public, at least when he's first fully introduced, is so David Bowie it's not funny.

Plot and character design wise, I wish I knew what the staff was on. It's sorta spooky because, like I said, it's a Nelvana film, but it's not like anything Nelvana I grew up with. My first reaction was "Care Bears came from THIS?!" That said, I don't remember their early, pre-Care Bears TV specials from my childhood, although I did see A Cosmic Christmas in my teens and that was not the product of sober minds. Many of the voice actors in the film were commonly featured in Canadian cartoons of that period.

The two disc set is really worth it if you have interest in 1980s animation. The commentary discusses the production of the film fairly indepth (how models were used, how the visual effects were pulled off before computers), and some of the production galleries, especially the gag sketches, are great.

It's also sorta sobering to watch this and realize that Nelvana had faith that this was going to be their first big film, only to have it almost destroy the company. With what Nelvana is today, you could argue that it DID kill the company. Hindsight is 20/20.

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Whenever I watch it, I'm struck by the rally rich and detailed backgrounds, jutxaposed with occasionally very, very sloppy foreground animation. Like, when the character uses a credit card, the lettering on the card was obviously drawn freehand.

Still, I love it. :)

I have much of the soundtrack in MP3 format, here and there.

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

I think that sloppiness is the same thing I'm picking up on with it looking like a Nelvana production - a lot of Nelvana productions around that time had this loose, sloppy and messy look. Assuming that Rock and Rule had a higher budget than the specials, it wasn't due to money. Of course, there's also the rumours that most of the animation staff were high as kites during production, which might also be part of it.

I find the animation charming now, since most of the animation that Nelvana puts out now is really way too clean and stiff looking and probably farmed out overseas.

That background art is really lovely, though and the highlight of the production work was the background concept pieces. I think it's in the booklet were the staff goes into detail about how the overhead shot of Ohmtown was this massive painting that they wired up with actual lights and lit it differently to create different times of the day. It's completely mindblowing to think about.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

It's completely mindblowing to think about.

Did the DVD contain the info about how they were using Xeroxed animal guts for the Satanic beast summoning? I can't remember where I learned that...

...that Nelvana had faith that this was going to be their first big film...

They were pretty big already. They'd done the first ever Star Wars animation - for the Holiday Special, sure, but in 1982 the Holiday Special was not yet a punchline to a bad joke. The Devil and Daniel Mouse was on TV a lot, IIRC.

And, of course, in 1981 they'd done Heavy Metal, which was the stoner/nerd/headbanger/general outcast film of choice for a long time.

I'm curious - how much of the "big" American/Canadian animated stuff from the late 70s and early 80s are you familiar with? Have you seen, for example, Wizards, or Watership Down?

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

Oh, they talked about the cow brains.

Yeah, but the TV specials, like The Devil and Daniel Mouse aren't full lenght films and Heavy Metal wasn't fully a Nelvana film, IIRC.

If we're talking just "adult" features in general, off the top of my head I've seen Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Watership Down, The Plague Dogs and Bakshi's odd Lord of the Rings movie. If we really want to grab at straws, I've also seen When the Wind Blows (most depressing movie ever) and most of the Disney and Don Bluth movies from that period.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

When the Wind Blows seemed to be on Superchannel (the old Hamilton Cable movie station) every day during the summer when I was a kid. I wanted to stay up and watch Heavy Metal, dammit!

Not necessarily "adult," but I highly recommend (if you haven't seen 'em...):
Flight of Dragons
The Last Unicorn
Fantastic Planet
Wizards
Fire and Ice
The Point
Allegro Non Troppo (Italian!)
Grendel Grendel Grendel (Australian!)
Heavy Metal
Secret of Nimh
The Adventures of Mark Twain (very WEIRD film)
Twice Upon a Time (produced by George Lucas!)


Not all of these films are any good, but they're all really interesting and sort of catch the spirit of the times.

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

I watched When the Wind Blows first as a kid, but it had to have been as sort of educational program, because there were discussions about how the film was made and how it connected to the source material. But then, I watched a LOT of strange things as a kid.

Fantastic Planet was late 1970s?! I thought it was earlier. The Point I kinda remember. I think YTV used to air it. It's been a while there. Oh! And I forgot about The Last Unicorn. I believe that was the first place I was exposed to anime, if you want to look at it as being a partly anime film.

Is Twice Upon a Time easy to track down now? I remember reading about it back when I was a Star Wars fan, back when most newbie fans got information from mags. The impression I got was it was hard to track down, but this was during the VHS years and I forgot about it. Allegro Non Troppo I've heard of before, because there was some rumour that Garfield ripped off a segment from it. More things to track down.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I think you might have to get to a convention to find Twice Upon a Time, and one that isn't very regulated when it comes to selling bootlegs. Or, the Internet might help you!

...because there was some rumour that Garfield ripped off a segment from it. More things to track down.

Yes, there was a Garfield subplot in which Garfield is depicted starving to death alone in the house, merely hallucinating the existence of John and so on. There's a similar sequence in Allegro Non Troppo.