Wizards (1977)

Studio: Fox
Theatrical Release: Feb. 9th, 1977
Blu-Ray Release: March 13th, 2012
Rating: PG
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Review by Craig Sorensen

After terrorists detonate a nuclear bomb, all human civilization is destroyed.  Slowly all the magic creatures of lore return to repopulate the planet.  Twin sons are born to the Queen of the Faires, Avatar the good wizard and Blackwolf, the evil wizard.  After their mother dies, Avatar exiles Blackwolf to the irradiated remnants of the earth to live with the mutants.  While there, Blackwolf begins to excavate the old war technology of humanity.  So Avatar sets out with his companions the fairy in training Elinore, the warrior elf Weehawk and the reformed robot assassin Peace to try to put a stop to Blackwolf’s plans before he can destroy the world again.

Every aspect of Wizards is informed by an anything goes, collage heavy sensibility.  The film itself is a combination of live action, stock footage, rotoscoping and traditional animation.  It’s a strange viewing experience (I’m sure it would go well with certain hallucinogens) and I really can’t think of many major studio films that feel this experimental.  Of course, some of this varied approach is due to budgetary reasons (supposedly they ran over budget and Fox wouldn’t give them any more money, and rotoscoping is cheap), but overall the crew just seems more open to combining differing styles to achieve different emotional states.  And it’s kind of exhilarating to watch.  Hey, here’s a ‘fun’ game!  Watch Wizards and then watch any studio animated film from the mid ‘90s on and see how long it takes you to become depressed.  Every time you lose a bit more faith in humanity take a drink of your favorite alcoholic beverage until you die from poisoning.  See, the difference here is that Bakshi and crew are willing to do anything in the service of the film, even if that results in something so outside of the mainstream.

The collage inspiration also extends to the many differing styles of traditional animation.  On the one hand, you have the evil wizard Blackwolf, who is rendered in a more realistic style befitting the seriousness of the themes that he represents.  On the other hand you have Avatar the good wizard, who looks a bit like Yosemite Sam with a Peter Falk voice.  He’s got oversized feet and Mickey Mouse gloves and doesn’t wear any pants.  The two styles (serious fantasy and Loony Tunes like cartoon) seem to be complete opposites but here work together well, perfectly encapsulating their respective characters.

Fox’s new Blu-Ray of Wizards improves on the previous DVD edition in almost every way.  It’s presented in it’s original aspect ratio of 1:85.1 in a new AVC encoded 1080p transfer that gives the film a much more natural look than the standard definition version.  It doesn’t look to me like there has been any real restoration work done to the film but it’s in pretty good shape considering.  There’s a tiny bit of damage here and there but nothing that I think deters from the viewing.  The added detail and depth really helps with the varied animation styles and drives home the collage feeling.  You also get the choice between a newly mastered DTS-HD 5.1 Surround mix and the original Mono mix.  Both sound fantastic.  Also available is a Spanish audio track.  All the extras here seem to be ported over from the last DVD, but they are great extras so I’m not going to complain.  First, you get a feature length audio commentary with Bakshi.  Next up is a half hour interview with Bakshi called “Ralph Bakshi: The Wizard of Animation”.  Bakshi talks about his time with Terrytoons and the production of Wizards.  Bakshi’s a fun character so the interview is an interesting listen.  Anyway, his thoughts on Disney made me laugh.  You also get a couple of trailers and a substantial still gallery.  Fox should also get some credit for the nice packaging for this disc.  The film comes with a 23 page hardcover book filled with illustrations and a new forward from the director.