Heavy Metal

A few days ago, I came across a long forgotten pile of video tapes. The tabs had been removed from them meaning I recorded something on them (nobody else removes the tabs except me). The dust on them meant that the recordings were made a long time ago. Of course, nothing had a label on it. Well actually the labels WERE on the tapes, just nothing was written on them.

I have been lazy for a long time - too lazy to even write a movie title on a video tape.

So I popped one in the VCR, just to see what I had recorded all those years ago. This was how I became re-united with the 1981 animated movie Heavy Metal.

Heavy Metal is probably the first full length animated movie NOT made by Disney. In 1981 MTV was new. Everyone thought it would flop - nobody would want to "watch" music on the TV right?! But MTV was a hit. So why not make an animated movie that was really just a story line held together as a string of music videos?

Thus was born Heavy Metal. Here is a DEVO song from the movie. I learned how to stream MP3 files, so now downloading the theme songs will be much nicer.

The movie starts out with a cut sceene that is SOOOOOO early MTV. Those of us who remember early MTV will remember the astronaut guy planting the MTV flag on the moon. Well here is how Heavy Metal starts.

Out of the space shuttle pops a guy in a space suit, driving a classic Corvette.

The guy drives / flies around in his classic car / space ship and re-enters Earth. Then a parachute pops out from somewhere on the car and it lands safely.

The space guy lands his car right in front of his home, where he is greeted by his little girl. He gives her a gift - a glowing green orb. But the orb is EVIL! It kills the space guy then starts telling the girl a long story. Each story is seperate, and the green orb is in all of them. How evil is the orb (called the Loc-Nar)? This evil.

This sceene takes place in a WWII B-17 bomber. The Loc-Nar enteres the aircraft and turns the gunners and bomber into skeletons. The skeletons then kill the pilot, co-pilot, and navigator. While this is happening, the Iron Maden song Aces High is playing.

But some people CAN resist the Loc-Nar's power. Like the computer geek who is sucked into some alternate world, where he is transformed into some He-Man type dude.

This is the transformed geek with an evil queen, who wants the power of the Loc-Nar for herself. She ends up getting killed somehow, and the He-Man dude ends up with some other naked animated chick. He scorns the power of the Loc Nar, because he is getting some - while back on Earth there was no way he was EVER going to score a babe.

There are several seperate stories in the movie, but all of them have a few things in common. Animated female nudity, the Loc-Nar, and 80s music.

The last story is the destruction on the Loc-Nar. The little girl turns out to be this chick.

She is a serious bad ass. She is a protector, sworn to uphold all that is good. She has a strange dinosaur / bird creature and a rather skimpy outfit. And a sword. A big ass sharp sword, which she uses to slice and dice some bad guys up.

I do not remember when I recorded this movie, but now that I found it I will keep it. The movie is a cult classic after all.