Fire and Ice
Short description
Fire and Ice is an animated fantasy adventure set in a prehistoric world locked in a struggle between fire and ice. The evil Lord Nekron and his mother, Queen Juliana, rule a frozen realm and use dark magic to drive glaciers across the land, destroying everything in their path. The last refuge against the cold is the Fire Keep of King Jarol, so Nekron's forces abduct Jarol's daughter, Princess Teegra, to break his resistance. A young warrior named Larn, whose village was wiped out by the ice, sets out to rescue her, joined by the mysterious fighter Darkwolf and the army of the Fire Keep, as the two sides move toward a decisive battle.
Ralph Bakshi directed the film, which followed American Pop in his filmography and came before Imagining America and Cool World. The screenplay was written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, and the film was produced by Bakshi, Lynne Betner and artist Frank Frazetta, whose painted style shaped its look. Randy Norton voices Larn, with Cynthia Leake as Teegra, Steve Sandor as Darkwolf and Sean Hannon as Nekron among a credited cast of thirty.
Made for about one million dollars and released in March 1983, the film runs eighty-two minutes. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.7 from roughly 370 votes, while a small set of critics' reviews puts it considerably lower at 4.3, a gap that suggests audiences have been kinder to it than reviewers were.
What's left behind the scenes
- Over a thousand painted backgrounds were created for the film, produced at a rate of 8-10 per day.
- The backgrounds for the film were created by Thomas Kinkade (1958-2012), known as the "Painter of Light," and James Gurney, author of the illustrated book series "Dinotopia." They painted the backgrounds imitating the style of artist Frank Frazetta, who became one of the film's producers. According to Ralph Bakshi, the animators admired Frazetta so much that some of them even fainted when he appeared on set.
- The stunt performers in the film found Frank Frazetta to be overly demanding; he always gave very specific instructions on who should move, how, and at what exact moment.
- The film was shot with actors and actresses dressed in black and white, after which the footage was rotoscoped (an animation technique involving the frame-by-frame redrawing of live-action film with real actors and sets) using so-called frame animation (a process where several frames sequentially replace one another, remaining visible for a short period). This achieved an animation effect that was more realistic than usual. During the rotoscoping process, following the filming of the real actors, director, screenwriter, and producer Ralph Bakshi ordered several characters to be redubbed.
- The filmmakers struggled to find an actress with the appropriate physique for the role of Princess Tigra. Frank Frazetta drew Tigra from two angles—front and side—enlarged the drawings, printed them, and hung them in the office. Ultimately, Cindy Leek was cast in the role, and her breasts were enlarged during the animation process.
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