Ralph Bakshi's Wizards (1977) - A Theatrically Released Saturday Morning Cartoon Fever Dream of Violence

The 1977 film Wizards is a film of contrasts. The story is about twin brothers, the titular Wizards, one good and one evil. Armies of elves and fairies vs the armies of mutants and monsters. Nature vs Science and Technology. 

But it's also a film of contrasts not just in it's story and themes, but in it's quality too.

  

A weirdly large amount of the film is shown in still frames like this. It opens with backstory and exposition about the world getting destoryed by nuclear war, and the birth of the twin Wizards, Avatar on the right and Blackwolf on the left in that above screenshot. But this technique isn't reserved for backstory. Later in the movie plenty of things are quickly covered by still frames and narration. A cost saving measure, certainly. It doesn't ruin the film, but it does somewhat detract from the parts that are good.

 

And there is good in Wizards. It is, occasionally, quite wonderful to look at. Here's just a few examples from within the first ten minutes.

And yet for as great to view as the few minutes of film these shots come from are, that contrast is also extremely apparent. Necron 99, that red robot character above and sort of mascot for the film, clashes greatly with the otherwise mostly-realistically drawn background art of the land of Scortch, where the evil wizard Blackwolf reigns. It's dark, harsh, and twisted, but depicted as if trying for photo-realism, or at least pseudo-realism. As Necron 99 and the other assassins venture out of Scortch on their mission of death, the landscape becomes a bit more surreal, almost impressionistic at times.

Necron 99 and the other assassins, and indeed all the characters, look more like they fit in a Saturday morning cartoon. It's hard to portray in stills here, but they squish and stretch like you'd expect a cartoon to look. Yet the world they inhabit is dark, harsh, or sometimes impressionistic, soft, and barely there at all.

But look at this sequence. This is genuinely beautiful.

One will keep watching the film to get more glimpses of scenes like all those I've screenshoted and shown you above. And you will get them. There is beautiful art, but it's interspersed with those bits of still images, and worse, Bakshi's signature bad rotoscoping. More on that in a bit.

I have to mention some of the character art. Neron 99 above is a simple but compelling design, and it works because of the cartoony nature of the characters, his distinct silhouette, and most importantly the hidden face. We never see his face, if there is one deep into that shadow with a yellow glow for eyes.

But some of the character designs are, while maybe no less memorable, kind of off-putting to look at.

Weehawk, the elf, one of our main characters. And below him, the princess Elinore, wizard Avatar, and the President of the Elves.

Sure, you can say I cherry picked a particularly bad frame of Weehawk. Cut him some slack, he's in the middle of a chase sequence through a forest, robo-assassin with a gun at his back. He doesn't look quite so much like a horrible gremlin all the time, right?

Well, he kinda does. And Elinore there, well she doesn't seem to like clothes. Saturday morning cartoon designs, but in a fever dream. Quick note, that fairy in the foreground there was voiced by Mark Hamill, his film debut. He took a break from filming Star Wars to voice his approximately three lines of dialog in Wizards before the character is shot and killed.

I don't mean to say any of this was a shock, by the way. The violence, the skimpy outfit, the dark tone. I knew going into Wizards what it was, who made it. A character wearing mostly skimpy clothing is a step towards modesty compared to the last Bakshi film I watched, Fritz the Cat, the first X-Rated animated film. A film which features full frontal cartoon cat nudity, multiple sex scenes, heavy drug use, and brief but extreme cartoon violence. Fritz was rated X. Wizards was rated PG (in the pre-PG-13 days, of course, but still not even an R). I don't mean to imply that Wizards is or was an entirely shocking movie, nor is it necessarily especially inappropriate. I just want to highlight that contrast. Cute fairy Mark Hamil: He gets blown away almost immediately. Saturday morning cartoon character designs, except for the skimpy clothes.

Ralph Bakshi is an interesting guy. He set out specifically to make art, not products. To make animated films that were aimed at adults, not children. He grew up poor in Brooklyn in the 1940s and 50s. Bakshi had an edge to him. He wanted animation to portray the world he knew, the things he grew up with, the life he and people around him lived, and the things he grew up loving. A lot of that portrayal of the life of a poor Jewish kid came out in his earlier movies like Fritz and Heavy Traffic. Wizards took that independent edge, animation for adults, but turned it back to the fantasy stories that Bakshi grew up reading and watching.

Contrasts. A fairy tale about magic and wizards and the purity of nature. A war film with brutal (cartoon) violence. 

A major plot point is that the armies of the evil wizard Blackwolf aren't motivated to do battle, in previous wars they got distracted or bored and give up easily. But Blackwolf found a secret weapon. Ancient film reels showing Nazi propaganda. Then the armies of evil are motivated to keep fighting, and they start to overcome the elves and fairies and other fair creatures.

And yes, the film does actually show clips of the Nazi propaganda. Bakshi doesn't shy away from, well, anything, but definitely not what appears to be one of the major themes he wanted to address. Indeed, the evil Blackwolf's throne is situated in the middle of a giant red swastika.

Yes, that is cartoon mutants and freaks watching footage of Adolf Hitler.

A film of contrasts. A weird film. Almost a trip, or a fever dream. And despite the late 70s weirdness, it's message is more than a bit on the nose. Bakshi was intentionally trying to make a Good vs Evil Saturday morning cartoon type of movie... just with typical Bakshi edge.

Who would I be to deny a Jewish boy a bit of on-the-nose commentary about Hitler and Nazis? But then again, historical context, creator intent, and a (supposed to be) good message don't make up for sub-par film making. Is Wizards sub par? Do the extended narration sequences, janky rotoscoping, weird designs, etc, take away from the good that is there in Wizards? Another pertinent question is what good is there, aside from the aforementioned occasionally very good art.

Is the writing excellent in Wizards? Maybe not. Maybe it lacks subtlety. It's serviceable enough. But it's at it's best when it isn't talking, I think. When it lets you soak in the atmosphere, like those screenshots above.

I gotta talk about the rotoscoping, though. Rotoscoping is when animators take footage that was previously shot, usually live-action footage, and draw or paint over the top of it, basically copying the movement but creating an animated image or video. The technique had been in use for decades by this point, but the way Bakshi does it is strange, though he had reasons for it.

Basically, Bakshi took live action footage from various war movies previous (I've seen Alexander Nevsky cited most, but also Zulu and El Cid, others) and in his rotoscoping seems to have just painted the vague shapes and outlines of characters and objects, as opposed to actually tracing details, as was the usual use.

You end up with stuff like this, where we have blobs moving around on the screen, but at times it's hard to even tell what you're supposed to be looking at.

Wizards now has at least four distinct art styles. The clash, the contrast. This time, not intentional.

Bakshi was deep into production on the film, but he was running out of money. He had a meeting with Fox executives. George Lucas was also in attendance, making Star Wars at the time as previously mentioned. Bakshi and Lucas both asked for fifty thousand dollars. Fox said no to both. Lucas still made Star Wars. Bakshi used a photocopier to copy film from old movies and then painted over it. A lot cheaper than hand animating the final battle.

Here's Bakshi from the audio commentary: "I thought that if we dropped all the detail, it would look very artistic, and very beautiful, and I felt, why bother animating all of this? I'm looking for a way to get realism into my film and get real emotion."

Did it work? Does it add realism? Does seeing blocks of color vaguely shaped like riders on horseback bring real emotion to the film? Of course it doesn't. It was a cheap way to finish the movie, like the still-frames with narration. I don't fault Bakshi for it, I applaud that he went out and found a way. Like Lucas, Bakshi still made his film. But it clashes. It kind of takes away from the charm of the cartoony bits.

The final battle, where the rotoscoping is most heavily featured, does luckily feature hand-drawn parts as well. And it's pretty brutal. It goes on for minutes, elves and mutants fighting, tearing each other apart.

I have to show you at least one sequence.

The elf then picks up the cyclops's gun and blows away another demon.

Both sides suffer heavy casualties, and we see it. Boy do we see it.

There are dozens of quick shots of action like this. Both sides brutally hacking or shooting away at each other. There are almost no backgrounds, it's character animation in front of rotoscoped blobs, or even raw footage of a storm, or pulsing lights.

Shortly after this brutal death of a character that looks like he belongs in a kid's show, the rotoscoping really takes off. Footage of tanks and airplanes come to dominate the battle, and wait. Is that a shot of elves getting blown away on top of real tank footage?

Ah, yes. Yes it is. I'm trying to give Bakshi and the film the benefit of the doubt here. I'm trying to get into the movie, to feel the I believe intended feelings. That is, sadness at the elves getting blown away, horror at the violence and war in general. A hope that the good guys can prevail and beat this sick twisted reincarnation of the Nazi regime. But I keep getting sucked out of it for a second by weird rotoscoping and now seeing live-action footage.

I've skipped so much of the exact whats and whys here, I'm not writing a summary after all, so I don't know if it's worth getting into detail about how the showdown between the two brother wizards goes. There is an element here that's worth preserving for anyone that wants to watch the film themselves, so I don't want to take that away from you. Leave a comment or otherwise message me if you wanna know specifically what I'm talking about, and will never watch the movie yourself.

But suffice it to say, good triumphs over evil. Blackwolf is killed, his projector of propaganda is destroyed. To quote the film "Hitler was dead again." 

The forces of darkness fade away.

 

And then you're left pondering. Hoping that that's true. Wishing that it were as simple as a good Wizard defeating a bad Wizard.

As a film, Wizards is interesting. It's a curiosity. It's not amazing as a film. If you're a fan of animation history it is interesting enough to watch. It's better as a film than Fritz the Cat, IMO. But if you're just a casual movie-goer, should you see Wizards? You don't need to.

But I do keep thinking about it. No one was clamoring for my thoughts, no one is demanding I write this. Nothing compels me, except that I keep thinking about the movie. And so, despite just saying that the movie ultimately isn't that great and you probably don't need to see it... I can't help but think maybe it's better than I seem to want to give it credit for. It is flawed, it is janky, it is a fever dream but not in the best ways. Maybe it's more interesting because of all that.

Whatever the case, it is, occasionally, very nice to look at, and in a way you just don't see in feature films anymore, so that has to be worth something too.

The Endless Stairs

I huddle in a corner, back against the hard, cold cement walls, exhausted from another day of climbing the stairs. There are others all around, fellow climbers, covering this small landing between sets of stairs, those closest to me butting up against my legs which I hold close to my chest. I do not know what floor we're on, if such a concept even exists here.

It's hard to remember what life was like before this. Conceptually I remember life. I remember driving a car. I remember home. I remember working in an office, and a retail store before that, and going to school before that. I remember that those things must have happened. But those things don't exist here.

There is up. There is down. There are places like this, landings between flights, places where one, if they desire to sit and rest, can sit on a smooth floor instead of the edge of a step. There are metal railings along the edge of the stairs and the landing. There is a gap, large enough for someone to leap to their death, an event I've not seen, but have heard others speak of. I've stuck my head into the gap and looked down, down from whence I came. I could see nothing but stairs until I couldn't see anything at all. I looked up, and it was the same.

I awaken. My body is stiff. I must have drifted off. I was not assaulted in my sleep. I was not hauled away and my corner taken. I was not shoved down a flight of stairs. I was not beaten and left to bleed. Not this night. Not most nights, anymore. Once things were worse, people more desperate for answers, people less accepting that this was their reality. Down on the lower floors people are more savage. I started climbing in large part to try to escape the violence. Now I climb because that's what we all must do.

What is night? Conceptually, I know. When the Earth is facing away from the Sun, the surroundings darken. Most man and beast grow tired, sleep. The Earth continues to rotate, we face the Sun again, and light awakens man and beast once again.

But here there are no windows. There is no sun. I don't even know if there is an Earth. There is light, everywhere there is light. I sleep when I can't walk anymore. Most of us seem to lay down for sleep and arise to continue walking at roughly the same time. It's consistent enough that I wonder how much of it is just the suggestion of stopping that makes everyone else want to stop too. That can't be it, not entirely, since some people stop for rests during the "day" and the rest of us keep walking onward.

Now I'm awake, and though my body is sore, my mind is slow, and it hurts to move, I still get up. Most of the people around me stir, though many stay where they are. Whether they're just slow to get up or if they've given up entirely, I couldn't say. I'm not going to wait around to find out. The longer I wait here, the less time I have to climb.

So I climb.

The first step of the day feels like most. Lift my foot, place it on the step, push, continue lifting the other foot and place it on the next step, and push. Up and up I climb. Soon I reach the next landing. There are people here too, of course. I have to step over one person, but most people are awakening too, and even if they haven't begun their climb they're at least getting up and out of the way.

I keep walking. Keep taking steps. It's slow going at first, but soon I get into a rhythm. Step, step, step. Up the stairs. The longer I go the more people join me. Some are familiar faces. We've walked together before. But everyone has their own pace, people come and go. Most of these people are not familiar to me.

We don't talk. People talk, sometimes. I've heard stories. Some people talk about their life before, things they accomplished, dreams they once had. Some people talk about what's at the top. Some people doubt there is a top. Some people talk about others they've met. There are stories told. Some have religious fervor. I've heard about God and Christ and Allah and others. I find it hard to really grasp these concepts anymore. I think I once knew about these things. But here, on the stairs, on the climb, it's hard to let these ideas into my mind. They don't seem... real. I don't remember if I ever thought they were real, but here, they aren't.

Some people talk of hell. Of eternal punishment. This idea... something about this is easier to understand. I don't think I am -- or was -- a bad person. Maybe I was. Maybe I am a sinner. Maybe God is punishing me. My body aches. Sleep is never all that restful. Maybe the monotony, the pain, is punishment. Yet still I walk, still I climb the stairs.

I understand what they mean when they say we're in hell. But I don't believe it. If I thought this was hell, why do I still climb? Why even try?

People give up. Oh yes, they give up. I reach another landing and look at the bodies here. There's an old man sitting in the corner. He's got wispy white hair and an unkempt beard to match. He looks me in the eyes and I can see in him the same despair that I feel in my heart. He's had enough. He hurts. He's tired. He's an old man, he's frail. I feel how he feels, but I'm not frail. So I leave him, I keep moving, I climb another set of stairs.

I don't remember if a day has passed or not. Things bleed together. When did I last sleep? I keep walking, keep climbing, step after step.

There are people who talk of other things. Not of the religions of the place before. There are new thoughts, new ideas, a new spirituality. I hesitate to call it a new religion, as I don't think any of these beliefs are all that formal. There is no Pope of the staircase. But there are those who preach of what the top is. A paradise. Rest, true rest. Not sleeping on cement floors or stairs. Being allowed to stop, and not feeling guilty about it. It's a nice idea, but I don't really buy into it. I climb because... because I have to. If there is a paradise, great. But I don't think there is. I'm not even sure there is a top.

I reach the next landing and there is a woman here I recognize. We walked together, climbed together for a while, long ago. I had a problem. I had to stop, wait to heal, which took some time. She continued on without me. Seeing her now reminds me how I felt then, when she left. She had to keep moving, I had to stop. I couldn't hate her, I couldn't blame her. I knew I would have done the same. But it still hurt.

Seeing her again, after so long, made my heart jump, just a little. This surprised me. We climbed together, yes. We held each other when we slept. We were stronger together, back when we needed strength to resist others. But she left me behind. I thought I'd let her go. I think about just continuing on, ignoring her. I must continue climbing, after all.

I'm shoved out of the way by someone coming up from behind. A rusher. He doesn't say anything, he just runs on up the stairs. I don't understand these types. He won't get anywhere faster. He won't get anywhere at all. He's just going to tire himself out, or worse injure himself. He is just a fool.

But in the slight commotion, she looks up. She sees me. Our eyes meet. I see shame in her eyes. It's too late to flee, too late to keep climbing. And so I step over to her, I sit down. I put my arm around her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. I pull her close and she rests her head on my shoulder. It feels good to feel someone next to me again, not just a body shoved up against me in a pile as we all sleep, but a real human actually leaning on me.

"It's alright," I whisper back. "You needed to keep climbing. We all do."

"I don't know if I can anymore."

It hurts to hear her say that. The thought has crossed my mind, sure, but I always keep climbing. I have to. I can't become one of those people who sit and let the day waste. One must continue climbing. That's the way of things.

In fact, that thought tugs at my mind as we sit. It's only been a minute or two, but I start to get restless. I feel it, I feel the need to keep moving.

I turn and look at her. She looks at me. I see that same agony in her eyes. I know I feel it too, but I can't give into it. Not yet.

"I have to keep moving. You should come with me."

Tears well up in her eyes, and a few slip out and roll down her cheek. She isn't coming. She can't. I don't know why. I don't know if she doesn't feel the need anymore, or if she denies it. Maybe she's decided that this is hell and she won't participate anymore. I'll never know why if she doesn't tell me.

I close my eyes and touch my forehead to hers. She cries silently. I kiss her forehead and then I rise. She holds my hand, tries to keep me there. She doesn't want to let me go.

One last time I invite her to come, but she just closes her eyes and lets go of my hand.

So I continue to climb.

I hope she can find peace.

I hope I can find peace. 

Is anything waiting for us at the top of the stairs? Is there even a top of the stairs? Conceptually, according to the rules of reality, there has to be. But I don't know if this is reality anymore or not. Others debate this. I stopped trying to philosophize a long time ago. This is where I am. The stairs. There was a bottom. There might be a top, there might not. Either way... I have to keep going.

I climb.

Eventually I tire, but I push myself a little further on. People around me start to try to find spaces to lay down and sleep. Like most nights (or whatever it is) there are some fights over locations. Usually they don't get too violent, not anymore. This far up even a shout and a shove is rare.

I keep moving though. I want to make up for the lost time of sitting with my old friend. It wasn't long, but I need to keep moving. A part of me wonders if I fight through the tiredness if I'd eventually catch a second wind. Something about this feels like a bad idea, but regardless I keep moving.

I want to stop, I want to rest. But the greater need propels me. Making up for lost time is a convenient lie to tell myself, but it isn't the real reason I keep moving, is it? Seeing her again, seeing how she stopped climbing scared me.

I move faster. A part of me remembers how I silently ridiculed the man who shoved me. The thought of rushing up the stairs was silly then, but now I do it. Now I'm compelled, not the normal compelling of life in the endless stairs, but by my own fears. I don't want to stop. Or worse, maybe I wish I did want to stop.

Maybe we could have rested. So now, I cannot rest. 

I step over people. I leap over people. I stumble into people and they curse at me and tell me to stop moving. "It's time to sleep," the voices echo behind me.

But I don't. I keep moving.

I reach a landing that's empty. That's rare enough to give me pause. I'm breathing heavy, so I stop to catch my breath. I look down. There is one person at the bottom of these steps, laying across them, I leapt over them to get up here. There are people on that landing, laying down, sleeping. Looking up, there are no people on these stairs.

I start to climb again, slowly this time. One step at a time. My breath has mostly returned to normal, but still my body is tired from climbing all day, all week, all... year? How long have I been here?

The next landing is also empty. I almost panic. I almost scream. I haven't seen two empty landings in a row, ever. Seeing a landing with less than three people on it is rare enough that seeing two in a row would create a panic.

This is... unprecedented.

Mind reeling, I grasp the railing and look down. The stairs wind down, ever down, a squared off spiral deep into nothingness. I slowly turn my head to look up. The same endless spiral... or is it? Is there an end in the black up there? 

Do I see the hint of an ending up there? Is my mind playing tricks on me, or does the endless black feel a little less endless than usual?

My first thought is of her, actually. I want to go find her. Sure, I'd lose a day's progress going all the way back to her, and then back up to here. But if there's an end? If she's but days away from it, I have to go get her, right?

Maybe I should confirm that there is an end first though. If there is a top, if those who preach of paradise at the top of the stairs are correct, then spending a few days going up to confirm is better, right? Then I can come back and look for her, take her to the top knowing what's to come.

So I head back to the stairs. I climb another set, reach another empty landing. I'm tired. I'm so tired. I force myself up the next set of stairs.

I stop. I lay down in the middle of the landing, I stretch myself out, taking up more space than I think I ever have. A laugh escapes my lips, but I stiffle it. I don't want others to hear me and then come up and see what someone could be laughing about, and then beat me for the audacity of taking up a whole landing. I don't think anyone this far up would be so violent, but it's not a risk worth taking.

Soon I find myself curled up into a ball in a corner anyway. It's comfortable, or as comfortable as it's even been, and better now to not have a throng of bodies all around.

My eyelids are heavy, my mind begins to slow. Sleep has nearly overtaken me. I hope to awake early, get a head start on the climb. 

I awake. I hear sounds below. I get up and stretch as quickly as I can, and then... I begin again. I must climb the stairs. I climb.

Step after step 

after step 

after step

after step

after step

after step

after step

after