Well, for some it did since Luc Besson eventually adopted it for THE FIFTH ELEMENT… In terms of style, pith and pitch, “Harry Canyon” is probably the best cartoon in the movie, and might have worked as a whole feature. This section is also responsible for unleashing Journey’s “Open Arms” on an unsuspecting public. Harry Canyon is your typical jaded cab-driver with attitude (perfectly voiced by Richard Romanus) who ends up trying to save a beautiful woman hiding the Loc-Nar from some evil gangsters. “Harry Canyon” – This segment alone is incredibly influential if only for the very BLADE RUNNER look of New York and for its sci-fi-noir underpinnings. This loose narrative hook easily allows the stories to flow in and out with little trouble, albeit with little structure. Before the eyes of his young daughter, the Loc-Nar melts her father and orders the child to witness the dark history of the emerald orb. The auto-naught (sic) turns out to be a scientist bringing home a canister holding the Loc-Nar, a glowing green ball that apparently is the source of all evil.
Soundtracked by The Rigg’s “Radar Rider,” the animation here is pure rotoscoping and can’t compete with Thomas Warkentin’s delicate original art, but the tunage and startling imagery kick-start the movie in high gear. “Soft Landing” – The film starts with this clever bit of whimsy by Dan O’Bannon (ALIEN TOTAL RECALL) featuring a space shuttle dropping a Porsche from its belly and the car’s journey to Earth. And like a comic, the only way to retro-view HEAVY METAL is to break it down, story by story. HEAVY METAL achieved that risque quality by just being itself, ripping the pages from the magazine. Though Ralph Bakshi aspired to create adult animation, and on many levels he did, I always thought his Saturday Morning Style got in the way (but I dig WIZARDS of course). I recall the audience bursting into laughter and applause during the naughty bits, and for many, this was the first time they’d seen cartoon characters swear, fuck and kill. I loved the grinding metallic sound as the title appeared onscreen. I saw HEAVY METAL opening night at the Birdcage Walk Theatre with a group of stoner friends (cue “Subdivisions”), the perfect screening at a time when people would light up the contraband during the movie itself. The fact that the film was animated and not done in live-action situates it on a whole other esthetic level from other comic book features - and staggeringly, this is the one thing that studios haven’t figured out. What distinguishes HEAVY METAL from other comic adaptations is that it captures the spirit of the print version, not only in sex violence counterculture tone, but by featuring stories from the magazine, along with a terrific voice cast (made up of SCTV regulars due to producer Ivan Reitman’s influence) and one of the great eclectic rock soundtracks of all time. The fast schedule doomed the film from being a truly groundbreaking animated work, but what was lost in cartoon glory was made up by other factors. This led to a mad scramble with animators around the world working on the same episodes under the direction of Gerald Potterton, who guided the YELLOW SUBMARINE to pop-art cartoon fame.
Suffice to say, Columbia Pictures wanted the film pushed ahead to summer instead of the projected Christmas release. The chaotic, rushed production of HEAVY METAL: THE MOVIE is worthy of a whole book so I won’t even try. So I was thrilled when the magazine announced a animated film version. Morris even confiscated a copy in my high school science class as possible pornography (he wishes). I was drawing my own strange comix and the magazine was a major inspiration. The only two magazines I ever had a subscription for were “Fangoria” and “Heavy Metal.” To say it was an influence would be an understatement.
Each issue had great book, film and music columns, with one of the best interviews I’ve ever read with Stephen King on the cusp of over-exposure while Harlan Ellison ran pointed essays and openly critiqued the readers. I first saw Charles Burn’s shadowed retro-pop grotesques in the pages of “Heavy Metal” with his wonderful should-be-a-movie, “El Borbah,” along with Drew Friedman’s devasting celebrity dissections. Yes, the stories were filled with excessive breasts and blood, but they also had the most dynamic, influential artists of the era, from Bilal to Richard Corben to Moebius to Berni Wrightson. It was the popular graphic distillation of the 1960’s underground comix movement, funneled through its French cousin, “Metal Hurlant” or “Howling Metal.” The American distributor, National Lampoon, provided a more above-ground slickness and accessability.