An animated film from 1981, based on the illustrated magazine HEAVY METAL. It was produced by Ivan Reitman and featured the voices of many Canadian pals such as John Candy ("I can't walk around with my dork hanging out!") and Harold Ramis. The soundtrack featured Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Devo, Donald Fagen, Don Felder, Grand Funk Railroad, Sammy Hagar, Journey, Nazareth, Stevie Nicks, Riggs and Trust.
All songs were written to fit the script. Many other songs were written for the movie but not used. For example, Blue Oyster Cult wrote 3 songs for the film, all of which appear on Fire of Unknown Origin. Veteran of the Psychic Wars appeared in the film, but the sequence it was written for was cut, so only an abbreviated version is heard. Vengeance (The Pact) written for the Taarna sequence was not used - a pity, since it's better than the music that is used IMHO.
Many other bands such as Judas Priest wrote tracks that were not picked up, but subsequently appeared on their own albums. (This is common - Priest's Reckless, for example, was written for Top Gun but not used.)
Anyway, back to the film ... Reitman and his Meatballs and Stripes screenwriters, Dan Goldberg and Len Blum, developed a story-line for the film: an omnibus linking eight individual episodes -- four from the magazine (Soft Landing, Den, Captain Sternn, So Beautiful & So Dangerous) and four original (Harry Canyon, Neverwhere Land, B-17, Taarna) with a common thread: Grimaldi. Grimaldi was a glowing green orb from outer space that spread destruction throughout the galaxy.
HEAVY METAL was produced in Montreal to enable it to be financed under Canadian tax shelter regulations.
Now in 2000 we have a second Heavy Metal feature to look forward to: Heavy Metal 2000 (aka Heavy Metal: FAKK2). The Heavy Metal site says (breathlessly):
Heavy Metal:FAKK2, a $15 million dollar R-Rated animated feature film is based on the graphic novel entitled "The Melting Pot" and characters created and designed by Kevin Eastman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Eric Talbot, and Simon Bisley (Lobo, Batman, Judge Dredd, Slaine). The main character of FAKK2, is based on real life superheroine Julie Strain, Queen of the B-Movies, Penthouse Pet of the Year, and the star of Playboys hit show, "Sex Court!"
The Heavy Metal 2000 Soundtrack (in stores now!) features songs by: Monster Magnet, MDFMK, Pantera, Zilch, Insane Clown Posse, Twiztid, System of a Down, Days of the New, Sinisstar, Queens of the Stone Age, Machinehead, Full Devil Jacket, Hate Dept., Puya, Apt. 26, Billy Idol, Coal Chamber, Econoline Crush, and Bauhaus.
1) The Magazine: In the mid-1970's publisher Len Mogel discovered a new French adult science fiction/fantasy comic magazine "Metal Hurlant" (Screaming Metal). Mogel was impressed with the concept, licensed an American version for it and named it Heavy Metal. The first issue was published in April 1977 and it introduced the work of Europe's greatest graphic artists to the American audience. The magazine was a huge success and still remains to be one of the most popular non-mainstream comics. It has also spawned two R-rated movies: "Heavy Metal" (1981, a remastered version published in 1996) and "Heavy Metal 2000" (2000).
2) The Musical Style: Heavy metal is a genre which originated from the blues-rock and psychedelia of the late 1960's. It is characterized by loud distorted guitar riffs, strong bass lines and powerful drum work, often combined with agressive vocals. Early influential heavy metal bands include Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, followed later by Iron Maiden and Motörhead. There are dozens of subgenres for heavy metal nowadays, ranging from dark styles of death and black metal to more melodious and technical ones like power metal.
There's some famous voices in it, including members of the cast of SCTV (John Candy and Eugene Levy). Not that you can tell, though. The sound quality in every version I've seen is quite poor.
Probably the coolest short (and the longest) is The Legend of Taarna, featuring a scantly clad kick ass female warrior. Last of her race, she fails to protect her peaceful allies from the barbarians and goes on a mission of vengeance. Actually, she fails pretty well at that, too. In the end, though, she lays the smack down on the barbarian ruler and all is put right in the world.
The whole thing is bizarre and abrupt, but pretty darn neat. I'm sure it's got a cult following out there somewhere.
The movie was released in 1981 and was recently remastered. Originally, the movie focused primarily on the animation and the music, with the dialogue often being somewhat difficult to understand, which worked very well for the overall effect. Unfortunately, the message didn't get passed along when it was remastered and now songs that should be blaring can barely be heard in the background, and in at least one scene, the softer music is out of mesh with the animation, which shows a man turning his stereo on and then the volume up.
The vocal cast, as listed on IMDb:
The track listing, courtesy of cdUniverse
The soundtrack is great for listening on it's own and makes excellent driving music for roadtrips.
With reference to Starcraft, heavy metal is the name for the Terran strategy that almost exclusively employs Factory-procuded units such as the Vulture and Siege Tank to both contain and atack an opponent.
Build Order:
8-supply depot 11-barracks 12-refinery 14/15-Factory 16/17-supply depot 18/19- Factory
With heavy metal, spider mines are your friends. They deal 125 damage to units unfortunate enough to cross them, have generous amounts of splash damage, attack cloaked units, and come three to a pack with a free vulture included in the bargain! Mines will be your best tool against the ground forces that can close to melee range, and are also potent weapons against units with high HP values such as Dragoons and Ultralisks.
The other half of the equation focuses on the powerful siege tank. An apt commander will often lay a minefield directly in front of where he plans on attacking, and then set up his tanks behind the line. As they open fire, any units commanded to attack will face the force of the minefield as well as the rain of arclite hell from above.
As a general rule, heavy metal is the hands-down best strategy for a Terran player to use against a Protoss enemy. Zealots, Dragoons, and Dark Templar alike are all eaten alive by spider mines, and the fact that there are almost always siege tanks backing them up doesn't hurt at all- usually, you can contain a Protoss enemy with mines until he techs to Observers and can spot the mines from a distance- but during that time, you've done some teching and likely expanding of your own, and can field more tanks than your opponent can deal with. Against Terran and Zerg players, this strategem suffers a bit- both races have detection that they can use to eliminate the mine threat, and both have the power to rush through a wallin before you can get set up. If your opponent is quiet, he can also obtain a group of air units and rain pain from above. The only easy answer to air units are Goliaths, and they are less than completely optimal against Mutalisks and cloaked Wraiths.
heavy metal n.
[Cambridge] Syn. big iron.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
Heavy Metal is a kind of Rock music with loud, distorted guitars, and often - harsh, angst - ridden vocals. Black Sabbath is said to have created the genre in the 70's. Over the years, many varieties, forms and sub genres of Heavy Metal have emerged. The following are the different forms (to my knowledge) of Heavy Metal:
printable version chaos
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