“Necron 99 has destroyed himself!” With all the talk of Avatar these days, I find it curious that no one’s made note of that other Avatar (and not the Airbender). It’s the good magician Avatar from Ralph Bakshi‘s animated, post-apocalyptic science fiction/fantasy, Wizards.
And like the Cameron film, Wizards offers up an epic battle between the forces of nature and technology. On the side of nature, there’s Avatar with his good magic and hot fairy sidekick. On the side of technology, there’s Avatar’s bad-ass but anorexic-looking twin brother, Blackwolf, who’s just discovered the amazingly persuasive powers of Nazi propaganda. And for fans of Richard Elfman’s Forbidden Zone (who of you out there in DM-land isn’t?!), actress Susan “Queen Mona” Tyrell provides the narration.
Bakshi’s Wizards came out in ‘77, after Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic, and a year before his own take on Lord Of The Rings. I’ve seen that later film just once. I’ve watched Wizards nearly a dozen times. Part I follows, with links to the entire film below: