Review of Wizards (1977) by Mitch S — 11 Sep 2014

Wizards is another one of my all-time favorite movies. What makes this movie great, to me, is the fact it remains the only openly, creative, free, family-oriented animated movie in the market today. Everything I have seen since 1977 is artificial and commercialized. My son and I have seen nearly every single Disney, DreamWorks, and Pixar movie made since 2000. Some of them are great movies. But all of them are "reined in" by the artificial, morality-tales, CGI-drive designs, and predictable sarcastic narrative Disney has cultivated in animation the last 20 years. Ralph Bakshi's Wizards is so different; the last of its kind.....an truly original fantasy animation that is born of the creator's imagination and free from the lies and deception of children's animation today.

Born in the 1970's, when the last of the great creative movies were being made, this film seems to preface a Blade Runner, Star Wars, or Alien in its depth and imaginary world. I love Ian Millers fantastic, dark, dystopian castles and worlds, the wide variety of animation types by so many young artists, and the overall fantastic and imaginative story Bakshi tells in Wizards. You can feel the depth of his world in Wizards and as goofy as parts of the film can be, still get a sense of depth. I saw this as a kid at the theater in 1977. And I remember going back again and again to see it as I was fascinated by the expanse of the imaginary world in this movie and the fantastic imagery of the monsters, stormy backdrops, and rototyped imagery. My only disappointment was the Nazi propaganda motif and the tech vs magic idea, which I understand now but as a child did not connect to. I would have liked for Bakshi to have explored his own fantasy world a bit more. This film had the freedom to do that, which LOTR did not.

We need more kids to get free of the computer and free from Disney, so that we can unlock the same level of imagination in them that is found in Wizards. This movie reminds us of how narrow and closed are minds are and how slick commercialized kids films are today. It makes you depressed, if you think about it. Wizards reminds us that allowing artists and creative, imaginative, writers and illustrators to make their own works, free of the influence of Anime and Disney's commercialism, is the single most important thing we can do for the future of kids films.