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Post by Horsie on Jul 26, 2018 8:03:30 GMT
Likewise, I don't really have any free time during the week and I've either been busy or dead tired every weekend, it kind of slipped my mind.
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Post by Harkovast on Aug 2, 2018 1:09:20 GMT
This show seems both silly and quite expensive, perhaps not a wise combination! If the show was made more recently the side kick would have totally been played by Jack Black.
How have I never heard of this? I had literally no idea what it was.
There's something wonderfully hokey about a fantasy medieval kingdom where everyone talks with American accents. The fact these guys also keep using modern turns of phrase and jokes makes it very amusing to me. English accents makes it all serious and 'Game of Thrones' and who can be bothered with that crap?
Lightning Hawk...I like it! I should have a monster that's a flying thing that shoots lightning in Harkovast in its honour.
HAHAH They blew it up! That's great! And then there's this awkward silence. I like the princess and her sass. She sounds like she should be hanging out at ye olde shopping mall.
"Whats the sword for?" "Nothing, I just like to wave it around." I respect the honesty.
"We're out numbered!" "Yeah but their short." Some of the dialogue is so on the nose that it really amuses me.
Hahaha the fat guy got dropped down a hole and we can still hear him screaming while they talk. That's awesome.
I'm enjoying this show but I can see why it did badly. Its strange nad I think audience at the time probably just didn't understand what it was meant to be. Its not completely a comedy as they are having a proper adventure, but its all just very silly and light hearted, especially the silly things they keep saying. People probably just didn't know how to categorise it. Watching it, it took me a minute to figure out what was going on. I feel like I've heard of "the wizard Vector" before, that name seems strangely familiar.
This feels like it should have more of a cult following.
I know on the RPG thread I was going on about my "muddy-eval" warhammer rpg, but that was more of a change of place. I prefer my fantasy a bit more bright and optimistic. Stabbing the ceiling was awesome because it was so stupid. "Well under circumstances thats a pretty dumb question...but I'll let it go. You've been under terrific strain." Why do I like this dialogue so much?
And he gives them swords with some extra whammy...awesome.
Yeah this show is really really strange, but I like it. For the time the special effects are pretty good. This must have cost a fair bit.
This show is glorious nonsense, I approve.
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Post by Harkovast on Aug 2, 2018 1:10:12 GMT
Also I liked at hte end when sassy princess says "we'll talk about bhow beautiful I am more later." That made me chuckle.
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Post by Harkovast on Aug 2, 2018 1:17:04 GMT
For the record, Kurgans swords would have chopped through the ceiling and made the whole castle fall down! (they do destroy a castle with their swords at one point in Highlander, after all...)
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Post by wordweaver3 on Aug 2, 2018 4:57:20 GMT
I remember absolutely loving this show as a child. I was devastated that it only had such a short run. I don't think it ever made it to home video and I'm assuming this was recorded when the show aired. It's a pity cuz it's unlikely that there are any better quality copies of it.
It's very ambitious for the time period. There's lots of sets, location shots, costumes, creature effects, pyrotechnics, etc. I'm guessing budget combined with excessive time needed for shooting tanked the show. I'm not sure how well it was received by audiences, but unless it was the most popular show on tv at the time it would have found it difficult to stay afloat. Even if it was a popular show the execs might have canned it anyway due to expense. This is the kind of show that might take a season or two to find an audience, but in that time period shows came and went on a weekly basis. Probably if it came out ten years ago it would have found an audience.
I'd have loved to be on the committee that made the show.
"Okay, when they reach Blackpool's castle they find it's guarded by a dragon!"
"Um, we kinda blew this episode's budget on the slime monster pit."
"Oh... hmmm... when they reach Blackpool's castle they find it's guarded by an invisible dragon!"
"Eh, we can do that."
I like the decisions made with the characters. Marco especially would normally be relegated to a comedic, and somewhat pathetic, side kick, but he's kinda OP. He's the nephew of the world's greatest wizard, can talk to animals and he's stronger than Prince Graystone. He actually strangled a slime monster after swimming up from the bottom of a bottomless pit. Granted, it was during a commercial break, but Graystone makes it clear that should be impossible. He also tosses around people in the bar fight like they're rag dolls while Graystone was tied up fighting one guy.
Graystone is also pretty great. He's the clever one with all the castle training so he tends to have all the useful info on whatever problem is at hand. When Marco's strength fails Graystone has the solution.
Both of them have their share of being the butt of the joke and being the one who saves the day. They're the perfect two man RPG party. And yes, they are playing a game. Occasionally they drop references to levels and the game.
The bad guys are wonderfully outlandish. Blackpool is your standard mustache twirling villain with HUGE shoulder pads. Vector is the evil wizard bound to him because he wants some medallion back. Vector is stupidly powerful but for some reason keeps failing to kill Graystone and Marco.
The big deus ex, Tranquil (Trayquil?), steals the spotlight when he shows up, spouting witty quips like an old Jewish comedian. His staff also looks like a hockey stick with some shit hanging off of it. I love that.
The world building is interesting. The map of the kingdom is just an outline of a dragon, which is so lazy it's funny. There's references to "The Book", which seems to be the Wizards and Warriors version of "The Force".
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Post by Harkovast on Aug 2, 2018 20:51:55 GMT
I am going to be the bringer of good news!
There IS a DVD of the series. It was released in 2014, as part of the Warner Archive collection. Have a look around and I'm sure you can get hold of it.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Aug 3, 2018 1:06:32 GMT
I'll have to look into that.
Apparently there was a Wizards and Warriors board game, a Wizards and Warriors table top RPG, and a Wizards and Warriors arcade game. None of which were related to each other or this show.
You know what I really appreciate about the show? No laugh track. Man, did they use the fuck outta canned laughter in the 80s.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Aug 18, 2018 6:00:12 GMT
Oh. My. God!
This is amazing!
I don't blame you if you don't watch the whole thing, but just try to get through the first five minutes.
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Post by Canuovea on Aug 18, 2018 19:02:41 GMT
Sweet pandas, what the fuck.
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Post by Horsie on Aug 18, 2018 21:56:32 GMT
At 2:45 seconds you can hear the voice actor flipping the page on his script. I can't find anything on this film, I'm thinking it's an English dub of a German film, and I'm going to assume it's ripoff of Disney's Aladdin, but I can't find anything about it.
I've never heard a worse dub.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Aug 19, 2018 0:21:02 GMT
The dub is amazing.
You can hear them turning pages quite often if you listen closely. It sounds like they just grabbed some neighborhood kids to do the voice acting and they're talking like it's the first time they've read the dialogue. There is zero attempt to match the voices with the animation. It's such a blatant display of incompetence I was sure that it was a mock dub done by some random 12 year olds on the internet. I'm still not entirely sure it isn't.
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Post by Horsie on Aug 19, 2018 0:58:50 GMT
I found some more info about it, apparently it was made in the early 90s by a German called Dingo Pictures that consists of some guy and his wife, they made around 30 movies, and according to what I read some have even worse dubs, as in there's one voice actor for all of the character, young and old, male and female.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Aug 19, 2018 1:47:33 GMT
You kinda have to applaud a small scale amateur operation that can be that productive. I mean, the end result is junk, but they did all that by hand. There doesn't look like they had much cpu assistance.
But you'd think that even an amateur would be able to spell and pronounce Aladdin correctly.
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Post by Horsie on Aug 19, 2018 2:18:45 GMT
This page has a list of their films and most of the release dates, if it's right they were averaging 3 films a year.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 7, 2018 5:39:59 GMT
Fuck it.
We're watching Willow.
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