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Heavy Metal (Special Edition)

Heavy Metal (Special Edition)

List Price: $27.95
Your Price: $25.16
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Classic of Animation and Science Fiction
Review: I had been suscribing to Heavy Metal the comic magazine since its beginning and this movie was every thing I had expected. It is the only movie I had been willing to buy a possibly bootleg copy of (since replaced with definate legit copy) because it was not available otherwise. I may be a lttle bias, especially given I have three animation cells from the sequence, but the Tarnya sequence is one of the best animated stories ever; The B-17 sequence is one of the few scenes from any movie that ever creeped me out; and Harry Canyon is perhaps the template for Bruce Willis' character starring in "The Fifth Element"(another movie I like). It is my opinion that "Heavy Metal The Movie" is a must have for any animation or science fiction fans.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: best movie ever!!!!
Review: for those who don't have this movie, its a must if u are a movie collector! Very well written for its time and the soundtrack is awesome! this movie is very well written and the scene after the credits is very well explained as how the orb is connected into life.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Must see! Clasiic animation!
Review: As a child of the Regan/Bush years I must recommend this as classic punk genre must see! I still watch this to this very day even though my punk days are long gone. Classic tale of good and evil. I think everyone will come away from this movie with a different impression but ultimately will be generally the same. Even to this day I see this movie as a Standard for equality. Among gender, race, religion, and age. I insist you watch this movie seriously, not as a cartoon, for then you will see what lies below the youth oriented suface. A movie that defies any standard and tells a story that is told in many ways but is still the same. Fight against a greater evil despite the petty differences of a mortal world and we will all find below the suface we all find a common goal of greatness in a divine way.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Alright but still disappointing
Review: I first won tickets to the premiere re-release of this film in Toronto in 96 from a radio station but couldn't get to see it because I was only 16(restricted). I thought it would be a Pink Floyd The Wall type movie with awesome music and animation. But a lot of the movie was fairly boring. I'd stick with the soundtrack.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ME NO ENGLISH
Review: THIS MOVIE WAS SO COOL! mY FAVORITE PART WAS WHEN THE ALIENS WERE SNIFFING COCAIN. I LAUGHED SO HARD, IT GAVE ME A WET PANTS. I WISH MY MOMMY COULD LET ME SEE IT AGAIN. BECAUSE I WAS ONLY 5 YEARS OLD. i LIKED THE NAKED PEOPLE. i GOTTA GO CHANGE MY DIAPER NOW. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A cartoon ahead of its time!
Review: This movie is an all time classic! With such voices as Harold Ramis (Stripes, Caddyshack) and John Candy (Stripes, Plains, Trains, and Automobiles), this movie is a must buy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great movie
Review: This is a very good movie that catches the eye at first glance. I really enjoyed it. It goes on my favortie video shelf along with Aeon Flux.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This animated feature pokes fun at pop culture.
Review: This animated feature pokes fun at the drug culture, rock music, businessmen, politicians, criminals, robots, science fiction, and medieval fantasy in several flashbacks, which manifest themselves as episodes in the story of an evil green orb as it remenisces to its next victim. Adolescents will love this, but be aware there is some nudity (albeit animated), and most of the women are ridiculously buxom.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of my favorite movies of all time
Review: I saw "Heavy Metal" when it first was released in theaters. I think it is one of the best animated films ever made, along with, "American Pop," and "Lord of the Rings." No collection should be without it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Cult Classic HEAVY METAL Not a Clunker
Review: Some critics and film historians have labeled 1981's HEAVY METAL as the last film to genuinely reflect the mishmash sensibilities of the post-hippy 1970s counter-culture, and stylistically and thematically this appears to be true. Based on the adult counter-culture cult comic of the same name, HEAVY METAL definitely is a sort of spacey concatenation of disparate visual aesthetics and heterogeneous science-fiction/fantasy narratives. But despite being a hodgepodge as a whole, the film still manages to offer a very entertaining way to kill 90 minutes.

As with the magazine, the film is basically aimed at horny male adolescents, offering plenty of nude, amply bosomed women running around in the midst of stylized violence and gore; lots of rock music (though these ditties from popular metal bands of the late '70s may not appeal to the current generation of horny male adolescents); and references to the drug-oriented sub-culture (definitely not a cartoon for the pre-teen crowd). Each individual segment of HEAVY METAL was scripted and directed independently of the others, which likely accounts for the varying aesthetic and narrative styles. But many of these contributors were (and are now) some of the most talented people in the film industry, including writers Dan O'Bannon, Len Blum, and Daniel Goldberg, and directors John Bruno, John Halas, and Jimmy T. Murikami. (Gerald Potterton, listed in the credits as the film's director, was in reality the overseer for the project as a whole.)

Because the film does not contain a single cohesive plotline, it is best to evaluate each animated segment in its own right. Some of those individual stories are quite thought-provoking or humorous--or both--and even some of the more mediocre segments still offer some fantastic visuals. One of the most intellectually interesting is a story called DEN, in which a young bespectacled geek is transported into a parallel universe and transformed into a handsome, muscled barbarian hero. After falling in love with a curvaceous maiden, he helps her save her people from their draconian Caligula-like dictator. B-17 is probably the most earnest segment, though there seems to be no intrinsic logic to the sparse narrative. In it, the dead crewmembers of a WWII bomber plane are inexplicably resurrected as flesh-eating zombies, subsequently seeking to make a meal of the plane's still-living pilot. Visually, however, this segment is quite stunning, evoking the deliciously gruesome artistic style of the old E.C. comics of the '50s and early '60s. And in the funniest segment--entitled SO BEAUTIFUL, SO DANGEROUS--a gorgeous Pentagon secretary is inadvertently sucked into an alien spaceship that resembles a huge smiley face. After confronting the spaced-out druggie crewmembers, she ultimately becomes the lover of the ship's robot and decides to remain aboard.

After its initial release, HEAVY METAL attained a cult following of sorts and became a favorite of the midnight-movie crowd. Unfortunately, its release to the home-video market was delayed for years due to disputes over copyrights for some of the rock songs used in the soundtrack. Because of this, poorly produced bootlegged copies of the flick were illegally sold (usually at Sci-fi cons) and swapped among fans, and the inferior video quality contributed to the film's unfair reputation for being a mediocre film. But the music disputes were eventually resolved somehow, and the film became commercially available to the home market in the mid 1990s and regained its popularity as a cool cartoon. (Some statistics indicate that it is the most popular film in the Columbia/Tristar home-video catalog.)

Columbia/Tristar's Special-Edition DVD of HEAVY METAL offers a beautiful digital transfer of the film and soundtrack, along with some really cool bounus material. For animation fans, one of the best of the bonus features is a fascinating feature-length pencil-test version of the film (with optional commentary). Columbia/Tristar also offers a version of the HEAVY METAL in their SuperBit collection, but as with their other SuperBit films, the disc space required for the higher bit rate precludes the inclusion of any bonus material. Unless the buyer has a high-definition TV and can appreciate the increased picture quality of the SuperBit disc, the Special-Edition version is the way to go. Either way, HEAVY METAL offers enough entertainment value to make it a worthy addition to the DVD collection of any SF or animation fan.


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