Krull (1983)

“Small people need large names to give them weight.”

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I have a proposal. Anyone who complains about The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey should be immediately locked in an oak-panelled rec room and forced to watch Krull. Over and over.

And over.

I was able to watch Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit in 3-D on the big screen, and Krull on the small screen within days of one another.

It was during Krull‘s climatic castle siege scene, polystyrene boulders flying, that I got some perspective.

I loved The Hobbit. I’ll go so far as I’m grateful to have movies like The Hobbit. While watching Krull, I think I was extremely grateful. Whimperingly grateful.

Now I know – Hobbit-haters need a Krullonoscopy. Stat.

Why?

Oh, I don’t know… Why don’t you say hello to my new friend Cyclops (Bernard Bresslaw)?

But for director Peter Jackson (The Fellowship of the Ring) working his Middle Earth fingers to the bone, perhaps we’d still be watching films like Krull.

In keeping with GeekvsGoth.com’s theme this month, this film is more sci-fi than straight-up Hobbit-y fantasy. Think King Arthur’s court with (fricking) laser beams.

Pew-pew.

I fully realize this is yet another act of geek heresy committed by this site. In my humble goth opinion, Krull is not um, good. Like at all.

Here’s the premise: there are some mean space aliens, led by a lizardy guy in a big flying castle-y fortess-like space ship. They wreck up a planet called Krull.

But there is hope, for some reason, in the form of a marital union between two ruling families. (Now that’s the real miracle of this film, a marriage equaling hope. There’s a first for everything…)

The mythic marriage in question is between two bouffant-haired royal types: Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall) and Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony). Here’s what they look like.

Remarkably lifelike, non? The trouble is their marriage ceremony is crashed by a bunch of folks in black biker outfits, I mean alien Slayers.

Pew-pew.

Everyone is killed including the Prince’s dad and his fair princess is carted off to the lizard guy. The Prince, the sole survivor of the attack, is told to stop his blubbering by a cranky guy named Ynyr (Freddie Jones). They go off on a hero’s journey to save the princess. But first they need to go collect an ancient weapon called a Glaive that initially looks a little like a charred, dead Patrick Star of SpongeBob SquarePants fame.

Lots of people join the quest along the way including Liam Neeson (Exalibur) and Robbie Coltrane (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone).

They meet many bad special effects along the way.

Like this one.

How about those wacky Fire Mares? (At least Liam Neeson seems really happy in this part).

I think this last photo of earnest, dull Prince Colwyn sums things up nicely.

To all you who boo and deride The Hobbit, see these pictures, view these videos and read my words.

If The Hobbit is considered a disappointment, these are glorious times indeed.

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121 minutes

Rated PG