Party First, Ask Questions Later

Friday, 19 August, 2005

I just watched this movie for the first time in about ten years. And it's just as much fun now as it was then.

Before, it was fun because of all the cool sword fights, the moving dialogue, the fact that there was a kid about my age, the redheaded woman in next to no clothing.

Now, it's cool because of the cliche'd swoardfighting, hilarious dialogue, heavy lesbian theme ... and redheaded woman in next to no clothing.

The more things change, the more they stay the same ...

I laughed my ass off, I really did. But not in a *bad* way, and a lot of the dialogue is actually rather good, but the acting leads a bit to be desired. To be honest, as is the case in far too many movies, the best acting came from the 'seconds' -- notably Sandahl Bergman, Pat Roach (who I admit I love from Willow), Paul Smith, and Ronald Lacey. To me, Sandahl (Gedran) and Falkon stand out above the rest as being the performances that I bought into the most, even now.

A funny little tidbit ... a friend of mine once watched Red Sonjia, then came on line to ask me what happened to Gedron's daughter. SHe apparently missed the beginning ... plus any interaction with Gedren and Sonja. So I had to explain to my very straight friend that it wasn't Gedren's daughter.

Even at the tender age of around 6 when the movie came out, I had worked out that Gedren didn't want Sonjia as a tiddlywinks partner.

I've often heard that clothing means a lot as to whether someone's a good guy or a bad guy. Like how the good guys in Buffy (particularly the Wish-verse) are called "White hats" ... It can be concluded then, from this movie, that clothes are evil. Cuz Gedren had all that lovely skintight/shiny flowy stuff and Sonja had ... some scraps of metal. And a big fur lined red robe.

Oh, oh! ANd something else that I found hilarious right from the getgo. If you've ever seen Heavy Metal you'll get what I mean by saying that the plot of Red Sonjia involved destroying the lock-nar. Er, I mean the Talisman. Big green pulsy glowing thing that inevtably leads to evil ... No, that's not the lock-nar, not at *all* ...

And Ahrnie's character wasn't Conan, either. (Actually, he was *supposed* to be Conan, in the books, they take place in the same world but they couldn't get the copyright so they just changed his name)

A few especially memorable points ...

Sonja wants to get to Burkubane ("The Land of Perpetual Night") and is told that "There's the long scenic route, and there's the short way through Brytag's Toll Road." (Some of the cool dialogue is Falkon telling her that the toll road is "Straight north of here, you can't miss it ... but it's worth a try.") So she rides off to the toll road, kills Brytag, fights her way out of his hundred or so guards with the help of Conan, sorry, Kalidor, who stays behind to fend them off. Then, she runs smack into ... the prince and Falkon! If they - being a snotty litle prince and his flunky -- can get on *the other side* of the toll road in the same amount of time it took her to get *through* why didn't Falkon just ... tell her the way he would ahve gone?

The three arrive in Burkubane, The Land of Perpetual Night. And it's not just a name, this point was illustrated quite clearly when they arrived at the border, because it was very bright midday on one side of the Standard Lava Moat o' Evil (tm) and very dark night on the other side.

So they've gotten into Burkubane ... And after fighting the mechanical croc, they take a little break (where Sonja puts a bandage, apparently, on Conan's *armour* but I digress) ... then they have a little fight ... all of this in borad daylight. Normally not a problem, but they're in Burkubane .. The Land of Perpetual Night. know that shooting at night is tricky but I also know that it's not very hard to filter the footage a little to at least make it look like you're *pretending.*

At the beginning, the high priestess, who has this spiffy gold thing on her robe, is killed by a throwing star. In and of itself not unrealistic. but the star honestly doesn't look like it penetrated her clothing, let alone enough of her skin that she keels over dead, on the spot.

And I have to say that for a woman of obvious lesbian tendencies, Gedren doesn't take nearly enough hot, sexy priesty prisoners. I mean, meow! The priestesses could *fight* which means they have wonderfully toned bodies. now, granted, they'll probably never make good pleasure slaves but damn, chain them up and just look at them, woman! Sheesh. Just wasteful. (Seldom does a movie pass up a chance to show off hot woman-flesh)

And while I said above she didn't wear much ... Well, she doesn't, BUT ... this is a rare case where the MOVIE version is actually more conservitive. In the book, she really did wear a skimpy mockery of armour -- in mockery of those who wore sixty pounds of plate and still got skewered.

Given the number of folks we see when we see, supposidly, Gedren's Army, I have to conclude that the talisman is powerful enough to reduce her own required fighting force to about twenty schmucks. And it shrinks gold, too, becuase if you were to take over an entire kingdom, it would take more than twenty geeks on horseback to carry your booty home, especially if prisoners are involved.

Links

Red Sonja @ The Internet Movie Database
Some Red Sonja Screen Caps
Not a kind review at all, but sadly accurate. -- THis person obviously has no love for the movie, so why did they waste their time on a page?