Catching up with what I call Appendix N Cinema that helped form the 80s fantasy look D&D
Silent stuff like Nosferatu, der golem and some of those Russian dragon fighting films or killing german sword order are worth a mention.
Older Harryhausen films like original Sinbad, king kong and gave us some monsters
70s & 80s was the shiz though we had
1 Beastmaster
2 Sword & the Sorcerer
3 Dragonslayer
4 Legend
5 Sinbad Golden VOyage
6 Sinbad Eye of the tiger
7 Lady Hawke
8 Excalibre
9 Conan
10 Conan the Destroyer
11 Red Sonja
12 Krull
13 Hawk the Slayer
14 Willow
15 Labyrinthe
16 Dark Crystal
There are some terrible barbarian ones im not including or have never seen outside a video case in a rural vhs vcr rental in 80s
Im not touching anything from post 80s here cept...
Id Add some good Psuedo History Films
Flesh & Blood
The Last Valley
The Seventh Seal
Troy
Seven Samura
Kingdom of Heaven
Gladiator
Red Cliff
Centurian
master & Commander: Far Side of the World
All the Sharpe's Rifle series/films
Baahubali the beginning and the conclusion films
Ran
Throne of Blood
Sure I will think of more
300 is nasty trash and slander on democracy so nope
Oddly I like the Noah Film - weird gnostic post apocalypse
Lots of giant bug and lizard movies and b sf helped too
Suggestions welcome
I wonder how much of ~80s-90s era games spun up by teens were influenced by cartoon series - I would definitely count He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Galtar and the Golden Lance and Thundarr the Barbarian as inspirations, even before expanding out to steal ideas from other less directly related shows like Mysterious Cities of Gold. Certainly I was spending a lot more time watching those types of shows than any movie.
ReplyDeleteNeverending Story (1984)
ReplyDeleteThe Last Unicorn (1982)
Black Death (2010)
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011) -- this is the most D&D film I've ever seen
neverending story yes
Deletelots of animation we missed here
a whole post on animation possible
even toys that were influential
Those are good ones. I am probably the only D&D grognard who thinks Hawk the Slayer is too awful to watch. But then again, I would add 13th Warrior to this list as well as Kull the Conqueror. No accounting for taste, or lack thereof.
ReplyDeletei think plenty verge on terrible and helped nobody take genre seriously
DeleteI would like to add Spartacus: Blood and Sand. I understand that it is trashy, exploitative and only got made because 300 performed well at the box office. And I don't care. The characters are consistant, it scratches the sword and sandal itch real good, and Marcus Licinius Crassus is an excellent final villain.
ReplyDeleteAlso I would like to second The 13th Warrior. I need those missing 20 minutes, but I'm worried they might ruin an otherwise nearly perfect film.
13th warrior feels later and a notch better
DeleteMonty Python & the Holy Grail - it has certainly inspired many quotes at many tables over the years, if not the same level of silliness
ReplyDeleteIt has influenced gaming but not swords and sorcery
Deletei was raised on python and goons and mostly people repeating gags verbatim has mostly sucked out all the comedy especially people who don't get joke only the signifier of the joke