Fire and Ice (1983 film)
Encyclopedia
Fire and Ice is a 1983 animated film, a collaboration between 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...

 and Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...

, distributed by 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...

, which also distributed Bakshi's 1977 release, Wizards
Wizards (film)
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...

. The animated feature, based on characters Bakshi and Frazetta co-created, was made using the process of rotoscoping
Rotoscope
Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. Originally, recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator...

, in which scenes were shot in live action and then traced onto animation cels.

The screenplay was written by Gerry Conway
Gerry Conway
Gerard F. "Gerry" Conway is an American writer of comic books and television shows. He is known for co-creating the Marvel Comics vigilante The Punisher and scripting the death of the character Gwen Stacy during his long run on The Amazing Spider-Man...

 and Roy Thomas
Roy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...

, both of whom had written Conan
Conan (comics)
Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard was first adapted into comics published Marvel Comics beginning with the series Conan the Barbarian in 1970...

stories for 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...

. Background painter was James Gurney
James Gurney
James Gurney is an artist and author best known for his illustrated book series Dinotopia, which is presented in the form of a 19th century explorer’s journal from an island utopia cohabited by humans and dinosaurs...

, the author and artist of the famous Dinotopia
Dinotopia
Dinotopia is a fictional utopia created by author and illustrator James Gurney. It is the setting for the book series with which it shares its name. Dinotopia is an isolated island inhabited by shipwrecked humans and sentient dinosaurs who have learned to coexist peacefully as a single symbiotic...

illustrated novels. Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade is an American painter of popular and commercial realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company...

 also worked on the backgrounds to various scenes.

Plot

From their stronghold in Icepeak, the evil Queen Juliana (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:...

) and her son, Nekron (Stephen Mendel
Stephen Mendel
Stephen Mendel is an actorUpon graduating from Bishop's University with a degree in theater he began his acting career appearing at the two English language professional theaters in Montreal, Canada. He appeared in a number of Canadian television shows and movies as well as theater in other parts...

), send forth a wave of glaciers, forcing humanity to retreat south towards the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

. Nekron sends a delegation
Delegation
Delegation is the assignment of authority and responsibility to another person to carry out specific activities. However the person who delegated the work remains accountable for the outcome of the delegated work. Delegation empowers a subordinate to make decisions, i.e...

 to King Jarol in Firekeep to request his surrender, but this is a ruse orchestrated by Queen Juliana for Nekron’s sub-humans to kidnap Jarol’s (Leo Gordon) daughter, the barefoot, microkini-wearing Princess Teegra (Cynthia Leake); Queen Juliana feels that Nekron should take a bride to produce an heir. But Teegra makes an escape and comes upon Larn, the only survivor of a village razed by glaciers, who offers to escort her back to Firekeep. As Teegra is recaptured, Larn teams with the mysterious Darkwolf (Steve Sandor
Steve Sandor
Steve Sandor is an actor who made his first television appearance on Star Trek: The Original Series, playing Lars in the second season episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion "....

) to save Teegra and then travel to Icepeak to stop Juliana. Darkwolf faces Nekron and kills him as Icepeak succumbs to lava released by King Jarol and is destroyed. The film finishes with Larn about to kill a beaten sub-human until Teegra stops him saying that "it's over" and embraces him. Darkwolf is seen atop a cliff; he watches the pair, smiles and then disappears. Teegra and Larn kiss as the credits roll.

Performers

  • Randy Norton - Larn
  • Cynthia Leake - Teegra
  • Steve Sandor
    Steve Sandor
    Steve Sandor is an actor who made his first television appearance on Star Trek: The Original Series, playing Lars in the second season episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion "....

     - Darkwolf
  • Sean Hannon - Nekron
  • Leo Gordon
    Leo Gordon
    Leo Vincent Gordon was an American movie and television character actor as well as a screenplay writer and novelist. He specialized in playing brutish bad guys during more than forty years in film and television....

     - Jarol
  • William Ostrander - Taro
  • Eileen O'Neill - Juliana
  • Elizabeth Lloyd Shaw - Roleil
  • Micky Morton - Otwa
  • Tamarah Park - Tutor
  • Big Yank - Monga
  • Greg Wayne Elam - Pako

Voice Cast

  • 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:...

     - Juliana
  • Maggie Roswell
    Maggie Roswell
    Maggie Roswell is an American film and television actress and voice artist from Los Angeles, California. She is well known for her voice work on the Fox network's animated television series The Simpsons, in which she has played recurring characters such as Maude Flanders, Helen Lovejoy, Miss...

     - Teegra
  • William Ostrander - Larn
  • Stephen Mendel
    Stephen Mendel
    Stephen Mendel is an actorUpon graduating from Bishop's University with a degree in theater he began his acting career appearing at the two English language professional theaters in Montreal, Canada. He appeared in a number of Canadian television shows and movies as well as theater in other parts...

     - Nekron
  • Alan Koss - Envoy
  • Clare Nono - Tutor
  • Hans Howes - Defender Captain
  • Ray Oliver
    Ray Oliver
    Ray "Rock" Oliver, a 25-year veteran in pro and college sports, is the University of Kentucky strength and conditioning coach, since January 2010....

     - Subhuman
  • Nathan Purdee
    Nathan Purdee
    Nathan Purdee is an American serial actor. Purdee's father was an officer in the United States Air Force, and the family moved around many times. After spending formative years in Washington, D.C., Bakersfield, California, and Kaiserslautern, Germany, he graduated from high school in Denver,...

     - Subhuman
  • Le Tari
    Le Tari
    Le Tari was an American actor who appeared in movies and on television.Distinctive for his imposing physical stature, broad mustache and lantern jaw, Tari landed a starring role in the 1976 blaxploitation film Brotherhood of Death...

     - Subhuman

Production

By 1982, fantasy film
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...

s had proven to be considerably successful at the box office, including The Beastmaster
The Beastmaster (film)
The Beastmaster is 1982 fantasy film directed by Don Coscarelli that starred Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, John Amos and Rip Torn. The film was marketed with the tagline "Born with the courage of an eagle, the strength of a black tiger, and the power of a god."-Summary:The Beastmaster tells the story...

and Conan the Barbarian, and Bakshi had a desire to work with long-time friend and fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...

. Bakshi received $1.2 million to finance Fire and Ice from some of the same investors as American Pop
American Pop
American Pop is a 1981 American animated musical drama film produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film tells the story of four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of American popular music....

, and 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute the film based upon the financial longevity of Wizards.

Because Fire and Ice was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed up until that point, rotoscoping was again used, and the realism of the animation and design replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney
James Gurney
James Gurney is an artist and author best known for his illustrated book series Dinotopia, which is presented in the form of a 19th century explorer’s journal from an island utopia cohabited by humans and dinosaurs...

 and Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade
Thomas Kinkade is an American painter of popular and commercial realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company...

, layout artist Peter Chung
Peter Chung
Peter Kunshik Chung Peter Kunshik Chung Peter Kunshik Chung (born April 19, 1961 in Seoul, South Korea, as 정건식 (Chung Geun-sik, or alternative spelling Jeong Geun-Sik) is a Korean American animator...

, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steven E. Gordon
Steven E. Gordon
Steven E. Gordon is an Annie Awards nominee, director, character designer and animator, most well-known for his work on X-Men Evolution. He was one of the directors on the first Marvel/Lionsgate direct-to-video "Ultimate Avengers" as well as the character designer for that DTV as well as the...

, Bell and Banks. Chung strongly admired Bakshi and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences on the film while simultaneously working for The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

.

Reception

Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation
Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...

's He-Man
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is an American animated television series produced by Filmation based on Mattel's successful toy line Masters of the Universe...

series. [...] Fire and Ice essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....

's appearance as Conan."

Home video release

Columbia/Tri-Star released the VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 cassette and a DVD in 2002, followed later by DVD and Blu-ray releases.

Legacy

In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...

 ranked the film as the 99th greatest animated film of all time. In 2005, it was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 by Blue Underground Entertainment
Blue Underground
Blue Underground is an American company specializing in releasing authoritative editions of cult and exploitation movies on Blu-ray Disc and DVD....

 on a limited edition two-disc set, paired with the documentary Frazetta: Painting With Fire, about the film's co-creator and producer, Frank Frazetta.

In 2010, Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...

 announced that he would direct a live-action remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...

 of the film in collaboration with Bakshi. The deal closed shortly after Frazetta's death.

External links

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