Nytrodioxide

The GIST of it

 

Rock & Rule is an animated film released in 1983 by the Canadian animation company, Nelvana. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world centered around drugs, sex, and rock & roll. The plot is about an aging rockstar-magician named Mok, who, enraged after seeing his declining fanbase and raised suspicion over the legitimacy of his magic, strives to summon a demon for his final concert - the show to end all shows.

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In order to do this, however, he needs a special voice to allow the beast into their dimension, and so he kidnaps the one with the voice for his evil goal. A small, start up band that the girl is a part of travel to save her.

HISTORY
 

Rock & Rule was the lovechild of Clive A Smith, Michael Hirsh, John Halfpenny, and Peter Sauder's ideas and stories all into one big movie. This film came out right about the same time as its much more successful counterpart, Heavy Metal, which it is often compared to. They are both 80's made rock-based animated adult movies with some of the same voice actors and bands, but that's where the similarities end. Rock & Rule's plot, characters, and animation were all distantly inspired off of Nelvana's 1978 Halloween short, The Devil and Daniel Mouse, which was based off of the short story, The Devil and Daniel Webster.

 

1. It is the first fully English language Canadian-made animated film.
    

2. The production was extremely rocky and confusing, beginning with the audience goal to be for children - it slowly progressed into a darker, more adult territory. However, when it finally came out, it was still unclear as to who the intended audience was, as you have goofy looking Disney styled animal-people in the same place as a terrifying demon and an unholy coke-snorting old man... It was still marketed for children.
    

3. The most enraging thing? $8 million was spent on the film. It got $30k in box office sales. Metro-Goldwyn Meyer and United Artists hated the film and changed a lot up in it, redubbing the male protagonist, adding goofy sound effects and changing around some of the script to make it more 'child friendly' --- yet still, for some reason, keeping the sexual, drug taking, boob bouncing scenes.
   They only released the movie to one theater in Chicago and didn't market it at all, forcing Nelvana to do the hard work themselves with little return.
   
   This essentially doomed the movie into being played on 3 AM reruns on some obscure TV channel. To many people, Rock & Rule was just some barely remembered fever dream, a figment of their imaginations.
    

4. Because of it being released around the same time as Heavy Metal, it had competition that entirely blew the movie out of the water. Heavy Metal had a definite audience and wasn't afraid or hesitant to be crude, unlike Rock & Rule, which somewhat tried to hide its more mature subjects, despite the entire premise being demonic and adult in nature, and the villain being extremely adult in nature.
    

5. The studio in which the movie was created was an old fish refinery, which made the place smell extremely ripe during the summer. A while after the movie was released, the studio mysteriously burnt down, destroying a majority of the original tracks, animation cels, and more... I suspect this movie is extremely cursed.
    

6. Nelvana went bankrupt from the film, and moved on to making only children's shows and cartoons afterwards. They had previously animated the animated portion in the infamous 'Star Wars Holiday Special', and went on animating young children's series such as The Care Bears, Pippi Longstocking, Max & Ruby, and Fievel's American Tails.
   
    

PREVALENCE TO ANIMATION

Rock & Rule is mostly known for its amazing visuals and soundtrack. It featured the voices of Deborah Harry, Robin Zander of Cheap Trick, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and a special performance by Earth, Wind, & Fire. But what it also excelled at was using old Disney film techniques to make the movie truly come to life yet retain a very unique 70s/80s atmosphere.
In my opinion, I believe Nelvana was more focused on showing off what they could do in terms of animation techniques and technology, and, of course, the music, over the plot, characters, and story, which was one (of many) reasons why it never succeeded as much as it could. 
 

1. Rock & Rule was one of the first animated movies to incorporate three dimensional, computer generated animated graphics and text. This was far before PCs and Macs were even a thing, and when computers were anything but user-friendly. Everything had to be input manually... Just think about that for a second.
    

2. Each character had a different animator assigned to them - the villain's animator was the most experienced, and he went on to animating the Beetlejuice series and Captain Hook in the second Peter Pan movie. The only two characters in the entire film - the male and female protagonists - were animated using rotoscoping.
    

3. In the final scene, a lot of the budget was spent on making the demon look as damn scary and awesome as possible. What they did to create the texture on the demon in a unique way was by rubbing slices of cow brains on the camera lens with a light illuminated underneath to simulate a demon-like texture.
    

4. A lot of the city shots for the film were taken using an old Disney technique of having a giant painting of the shot and using a massive panoramic camera to pan over the city, using specific holes cut underneath the painting with preprogrammed lights to create realistic city flickers and flashes during these scenes.

5. For vehicles (most notably the police car), they had actual models and used the rotoscoping technique to draw them as accurately as possible without losing consistency of shapes and details. They also had massive models of the Ohmtown Power Plant and Mok's head.
    

THE CHARACTERS & STORY

The big thing Rock & Rule was NOT known for was its amazing story and writing. By amazing, I mean really, really bad. The characters are flat and hard to relate to, there's a lot of obnoxious side characters, the writing is choppy, uneven, weird, lot of nonsense, and at points the movie just doesn't know what it wants to do or be.

One thing I know is that it certainly has potential to be a lot more than what it was, and if more time were spent with the writing and character development as was on the visuals and music, the movie would have done more than decently. 

I have an interest in developing and adding more to the characters of the movie and answering all of the many, many questions Rock & Rule failed to answer for people. A lot of what is under this cut is simply my own portrayal of what the world and characters are and/or should have been.

 

I sound hateful and salty about how they're portrayed in the film, simply because they could have been something better than what they were, but were just not given the context and backstory needed to make them truly likable characters.
 

1. Mok is the true main character of the film. He was written the most realistically and is the only character that really has reasoning - an explanation - for what and why he does what he does, and has a true agenda.
   He's also the only character most people can really sympathize with - he's desperate for attention in the last years of his life, and will do anything to get what he thinks he's rightfully deserved all along. And rightfully so, since he's likely worked from the bottom to get to the top and essentially solidified/created what is rock in the R&R universe. Of course, he goes above and beyond what any sane person should do in such a situation... But y'know, gotta emphasize that he's The Bad Guy(tm).
    

2. Angel in the movie is the dictionary definition of poorly written, eighties blonde, plot element, damsel in distress type character. I know I just sound salty when I say it, but they tried really hard to make her this independent, feminist type role model of a character; which is a noble goal, but executed very poorly on Nelvana's part. 
   Which is sad, because, being based off of Debbie Harry and all, you'd definitely expect her to have a lot more character. Disappointingly enough, she really only exists in the film as eye candy and a plot element.
   In the end, she still is the damsel who's kidnapped, and everything she does to try and escape is effortlessly negated by Mok.
   In the end, Omar's still the hot stuff boyfriend hero, and Angel is still tied up, in scantily clad Satanic robes, and drugged for the final concert, and of course, with side boob showing. Overall, she wasn't anything more than a plot element to the whole movie.
    

3. Omar is additionally another very poorly written character. Omar and Angel, as protagonists that are meant to be the important duo of the film, meant to be in a relationship and have chemistry, have ABSOLUTELY NONE.
   Omar is generally perceived as a dislikable character, so much so that MGM tried to write him on their own (and, in the making, made him EVEN WORSE, if that was even possible...) - he's selfish, inconsiderate of others, only looking out for himself, stubborn, a smart ass, jerk, I mean, he really goes above and beyond until the very end where he suddenly appears out of nowhere and decides to save Angel for absolutely no reason other than he wants a warm place to stick it in.
   He's just bland and dislikable without context to WHY he is the way he is... Oh, did I forget to mention there's absolutely no context given as to why any of the characters do anything they do, other than Mok? Yeah, doesn't work well for a movie that's supposed to be about doing what your heart tells you, when you can't tell what their hearts tell them.
    

4. Speaking of Omar and Angel, I mentioned that they have no chemistry. I'll add some reasoning to that claim - they're both fiery personalities that are constantly striving to be the biggest and the best, to 'get everything' - In essence, they both want to be rockstars and want everything now. Impatient young adults (or teenagers, that was also not specified, which makes a big difference when it comes to the scenes where Mok is loving up on Angel) looking out for theirselves, nobody else.
   They are together purely out of lust and desire, and are constantly butting heads to be the best. Additionally, Omar is a hotheaded man that seems to have the capacity to be abusive both physically and verbally, and Angel seems more like the bisexual independent 'I do what I want' type that wouldn't stand for that crap. I mentioned bisexual not out of some random Tumblr forced sexuality insertion, but because she is. based off of Debbie Harry, who is openly bisexual.
   I would like to believe that Omar and Angel, much like Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, are in an open relationship, but even then, that would have to mean that they somehow get along well together... Which they clearly don't.
   
   Their whole 'make up and kiss' scene was written as if 4th graders wrote the script.
   
   "I dunno, things just got weird"
   "Yeah, I know what you mean"
   "I just want everything now"
   "It takes time"
   They hold hands and then suddenly whoop!! They're fucking.
   
   Relationships - at least, the healthy kind - don't work like this, and Angel herself as a fiery character that stands up for herself wouldn't just accept that, no matter how much love is between them. And it seems there isn't any, considering how much more concerned Omar is over himself and his own reputation and everything over Angel's. To conclude my essay, they don't work. 
    

5. Despite the half assed explanation given in the American version, I'd like to say that I believe (with proof) that the characters in the world it takes place in are, in fact, human.
   They have mutated animal-like characteristics over generations of exposure to unique radioactive compounds, hence the extreme variety in people. Mutants, however, are considered different than normal people in that they are discolored, disfigured, and have extra limbs. They are usually hated by society and cast out.
   There are multiple references to this in the movie - Omar mentioning he has a pet gerbil, multiple sights of dogs, cats, and rats, all clearly unaffected by the radiation, Dizzy saying "can't we all behave like rational human beings?" and Mok in Pain & Suffering saying multiple times "Human race, you're gonna run..."
    

WHAT'S SO IMPORTANT ABOUT THIS MOVIE TO ME?

When I was suggested this movie to watch a couple years ago by a friend - who is also my favorite artist (love ya Alex)- I instantly fell in love with the atmosphere, the characters (Particularly Mok), and the whole idea of the story and film.

Well, not instantly, first time I watched it I actually was really close to turning it off because I couldn't handle Mylar's damn annoying ass voice.

Beforehand, I had a big obsession with Mettaton from Undertale, but was increasingly growing tired of the way the community treated him, and was desperate to find some sort of new obsession that was obscure enough not to be tainted by a massive and harmful, violent fanbase, which was when Alex told me her Mettaton (which was always my favorite interpretation of him) was inspired off of Mok from Rock & Rule.

Then came the questions, and eventually, the link to what changed my life thereafter. I got hooked. Yes, specifically I enjoy and have a particular attachment to Mok, his everything vibed with me in a way I can't exactly describe, but I just knew he was the one.

After doing a good bit of studying about the movie and why I've never heard of it, I read about how it was a box office bust.

It upset me immensely.

Seeing how much of a horrible failure it was, due to being released in the eye of the storm for animation, its very rocky production, and living in the shadow of Bakshi's films and Heavy Metal. 

I saw how much love and care went into this film from the animation to the music, to even the lackluster writing, there was something they were trying to achieve that just didn't become as big as they expected it to. It made technological strides that were unimaginable at the time for so many people yet was almost entirely forgotten to history.

I personally feel that, as an artist, it has a lot of potential to become something greater and to be a lot more appreciated in this century as it would the last, as so many more people have come to love and appreciate that grungy, synthetic, post-apocalyptic hellscape; mixed with literal hell and rock & roll, nonetheless.
People now can see the parallels between this world and the Rock & rule world - narcissistic New York based celebrity-dictators, people trying to be the next big thing in the world of music, the decline of classic rock overall, the dark truths behind celebrities, and a lot more themes that really, are extremely relevant in our day and age.

A big reason I came to Platt College was to pursue my dream of seeing this movie be revived and remade into something that can truly get the honor, glory, and attention that it's deserved all along.

 

Of course, a goal as large as mine is extremely farfetched and realistically speaking, it's going to take a lot of time and patience until we can actually see this come to fruition. I don't plan for it to be some garage made passion project. It has the potential to be something Hollywood quality and made with the right people and the right ideas.

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In a way, I'm Mok, and Rock & Rule is the demon I'm summoning.

 

Until then... It's worth getting everything about it out there, to get people on board, to see where it all started.