Taarna triumphs!
Saturday morning cartoon shows. Sex and violence? Naked women? A rock ‘n’ roll cartoon? Sign ‘em up! It flipped the then- suffering animation industry on its head. The enduring legacy
of HEAVY
METAL proves, however, that its cult-like popularity goes well beyond the novelty of animated boobs. What may have begun as an adolescent male fantasy has evolved into a more widely appreciated cultural icon due to its imagination, stylized characters, and general ballsiness. Hal Hefner, creator of HEAVY METAL magazine’s first online web comic (GATES), believes that, “what separates HEAVY METAL is that it’s raw. It’s not afraid to take its clothes off and get crazy, but it’s also not afraid to be intelligent.” How else to explain the very sophisticated
hilarity of the “Captain Sternn” sequence, in which an officer accused of every heinous crime known to man (and “one moving violation”) encourages his lawyer by insisting, “I got an angle.”? Aliens of various height and nature look on as the dialogue plays out with Hannover Fiste attempting to testify on Sternn’s behalf, and some truly classic lines are delivered (“Unless you count the time he sold dope dressed as a nun…”). But of course, this is HEAVY METAL, which always takes things a step further. Hannover soon transforms into a Mr.- Hyde-ish version of himself and chases
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Sternn around the space station, pounding his head into the walls in time to Cheap Trick. It’s over the top in the best possible way, which is arguably HEAVY METAL’s trademark. Richard Corben, creator of the “Den” episode, explains that, “the idea of a character thrust into a fantastic and alien world of primitive barbarism is not original and was a common basis for many pulp serials and novels. I wanted Neverwhere to be a heroic adventure with a muscular guy and a buxom gal, but carried further than was possible in the old pulps.” And that’s just what HEAVY METAL does—takes it, whatever ‘it’ happens to be,
even further. The film’s first tagline was “A step beyond science fiction”. Indeed. It’s almost possible to form any tagline for the movie using this formula: a step beyond science fiction, beyond everyday animation, beyond mainstream expectation, and eventually, several steps beyond its own expected audience demographic. (I hesitate in pointing to the author of this article as an example. Female, what?) Of course, science fiction had been done
before. Sexy warrior women had been done before. The connecting story of the ‘Loc-Nar’ even has a Tolkien-esque ‘one ring’ quality. But to take it so far, to do it all at once… HEAVY METAL doesn’t have
A live model was filmed to capture the sultry movements of Taarna FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • SEP/OCT 2011
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