In celebration of the 35^th anniversary of the animated classic, Wizards, FOX has released the epic fantasy film on Blu-ray, complete with a commentary by legendary filmmaker Ralph Bakshi, who was able to take the time out of his busy schedule to sit down with Geekscape.  This is the third and final part of the series, you can find part one here.

A: This has always been a point of curiosity for me: Avatar.  When he pulls out the gun and shoots Blackwolf, I was sitting there, because movies have a formula, you know.  He’s not supposed to do that, even though sometimes we wish they would.  But He’s supposed to fight with magic and then the power of love will come and suddenly he’ll get a big burst of rainbow unicorns or something.  But he shoots him.  Which left me sitting there going, “He… he totally shot him.  He shot him with a gun after backhanding that Viking.  He shot him.”  I didn’t know what to think.  What was behind that choice?

RB:  It was for a lot of reasons.  One of the reasons I went into it was your thinking, secondly, look— Avatar was old.  He was tired.  I set up the whole picture showing that he wasn’t sure what he could do.  He was brave enough to go through it and he would try to keep everyone together, but throughout the picture he wasn’t sure of himself.  He made mistakes.  And towards the end what with Eleanor and all that had happened to him, when he was popping the flowers around—he was out of it.  There was no way that he could magically beat his brother.  The only way to stop his brother was with what his brother uses to hurt everyone, and that’s the gun.  Avatar had to win for the sake of his species.  What I also say, technology for the right reasons is fine, it’s technology for the wrong reasons that’s bad.  Avatar getting rid of Blackwolf is a right reason and he blew his brains away.  He could not beat him magically.  That’s why he called him a son of a bitch.  But he did it and it worked.  He got him, which is more important than anything.

A: Do you think he felt guilt for using technology or because he was willing to take that sacrifice for everyone that would it taint him somehow?

RB:  You’re very bright.  I’m not putting you on.  Picture two starts: everyone’s happy, but Avatar is off in the woods and he’s depressed.  He killed his brother, he just shot his brother.  He hated him, but he was his brother.  He used technology which he didn’t want to use—he dirtied himself.  He’s in a very bad way.  So that’s how picture two starts.  He’s leaving the community, they’re going home by themselves and he’s leaving because of these issues.  I wanted to show that even though he hates his brother, killing him was not easy for him to do.  He took the hit for everybody.  That’s religious to some Christian people, I would suppose—not that I am pushing that.  But he had to stop the death of all those wonderful creatures.  But he had let himself down and one’s self is very important, so I’m going to be discussing how people let themselves down by selling out, by not whistle-blowing.  So yes, you’re very right, picture two starts with Avatar in bad shape.

A: And Eleanor, she goes with him.  What’s the connection between the two of them?  It doesn’t exactly seem like what one would typically expect.

RB:  I’m not sure.  I’m an old man, I was old then.  Old men and young girls—I would change that.  I wouldn’t have—I heard the end the other day—I haven’t seen the picture since I made it, and I won’t see it.  I won’t look at any of my pictures.

A: Why?

RB: I’ll tell you in a second.  But when they rode off together, I was surprised at myself.  I wouldn’t have done that today.  I’m not sure what their relationship is.  Well, he’s sexually attracted to her, but I don’t know what her reaction is.  She’s toying with him, she loves him, she’s playing with him, she’s funny, she loves him enough to play with him in a way that makes him feel good.  She’s a good girl, she likes him that way— that’s the best I could come up at the time.  Past that, I wasn’t sure where I was going with that.  And now today, as an old man, I won’t go anywhere with it.  In other words, she belongs with Weehawk or she belongs somewhere else.  And that might be how she grows up, when he tells her, listen, now you’re on your own without me, this is what is means to become a full-fledged fairy, not hanging on to me.  I’d play it that way.

A:  So why don’t you watch any of your own films?

RB: Well, I’m not sure they’re as good as people say they are,  and I’m not sure that if I looked at them, I would like them myself.  So the only way I can maintain a certain position of agreeing with people is to not to see them again.  And I’ve always done that.  It’s a question of fear—I’m not going to see Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings because I don’t want him to have done a better picture than I did.  It’s a way of hanging a certain curtain in front of yourself.  People enjoy my movies and they send stuff in and they love the films and I want to agree with them.  The only way to agree with them is by not seeing the movies myself.  It’s a thing I have, but listen, once in a while I will walk by a screen and take a peak, and it’s not bad, what I see.  The picture that I can look at over and over again is Coonskin.  Coonskin I could look at forever, it was the greatest picture that I ever made.  Because it’s got all these ideas– Miss America, imagine Miss America being Palin before she was Palin.  It’s amazing.  But that’s why I don’t look at them.

A:  You said you would change the ending, or you wouldn’t do the ending the same way.  What would you do now?

RB: I bet it would be very happy.  Everyone would be dancing in the firelight and Eleanor would be dancing and singing and they’d be playing music, a great Lawrence of Arabia scene.  Everyone’s singing and dancing and and Weehawk would say, “Has anyone seen Avatar?” and I’d roll the credits.

A:  You said it’s supposed to be a trilogy.  Do you know what the third one is going to be about yet?

RB:  The third one will have to depend on how the second one works.  What happens in there will inspire the third one.  It’s always worked that way, one picture will get me to the next.  Heavy Traffic got me to Hey Good Lookin’ so each picture was a progression of ideas I learned from before moving on.   So I’d have to see what the second came out to be.  It could be terrible.  I could do number two and it could be a piece of garbage.  I don’t know how I did one, I haven’t the slightest idea of how I wrote that.  I haven’t the slightest idea!  I just sat down and wrote it and I obviously was a different person.  But that’s what I wrote and that’s what came out.  I don’t know what I’d write today.  I don’t know that I’d be around physically for the third one either.

A: If you complete Wizards II and you’re not around for three, is there someone that you’d feel comfortable doing it, or would you just hope that the right someone comes along and picks it up?

RB: It would be somebody in the studio that would be able to do it.  If I did II, there’d be a lot of kids in there that would have to rise to the occasion.  Matter of fact, all the kids that work for Pixar right now I hired them out of school to work on Mighty Mouse.  All of them  Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, all the top names at Pixar trained on Mighty Mouse.  And all those guys, they all started from Cal Arts.  I yelled at them.  And they’re really yelling at this kid, Andrew Stanton— they’re blaming him for John Carter on Mars.  Everyone’s yelling at this kid.  All the press have been down this as the biggest failure in the movies because it cost three-hundred fifty million dollars to make, like it’s his fault.  But I like the kid, I’m saying get off his back.

A magical princess shows you two doors labeled “Part One” and “Part Two”.  If you choose the door labeled “Part One”, turn to page 43.  If you choose the door labeled “Part Two”, turn to page 18.

In celebration of the 35^th anniversary of the animated classic, Wizards, FOX has released the epic fantasy film on Blu-ray, complete with a commentary by legendary filmmaker Ralph Bakshi, who was able to take the time out of his busy schedule to sit down with Geekscape.  This is part two of the series, you can find part one here.

A: You don’t see anything in the world of animation right now that has some sort of real idea behind it pushing forward?

RB:  Well, I don’t know everything, I don’t see everything.  I see what people call adult animation, like Ren & Stimpy because of the vulgarity… but you got to tell me, I’m not out there watching it.  I live on a mountain in New Mexico, I paint pictures, I dropped out.  I came back because FOX was doing such a magnificent job on the Wizards Blu-ray and I do want to do Wizards II.  They’re doing a fantastic job.  They’ve gotten behind the film, for the first time, this new FOX and the people, they’re just taking the ball and running with it, and upper management is surprised at the great response we’re getting.

And Wizards II would have a lot of these ideas that I’ve been talking about because Wizards was about terrorists blowing up the planet and technology wiping away magic and right now, the planet is melting, the fish are dying, technology is ripping up everything.  I’m not against technology, unless it’s used for greed and bad purposes.  I love my cell phone, but I don’t like atom bombs.  So I think there’s a lot to say in Wizards II and, of course, the religion issue is big.  Everyone’s against everybody, Muslims against Christians, Christians against Hindus— it’s nuts, it’s just nuts.  After all these thousands of years we’ve been on the planet, look.  It’s all about religion and why?  Why is this?  It’s about people’s rights.  So Wizards II would have those kind of issues.  Now, if someone else was doing that in animation, then someone else would be doing it, but no one else is.  Those are the issues that I think should be discussed in animation, because it’s perfectly aimed to discuss issues.

A: So, you’re talking about Wizards II.  Is that something that’s in the works?  Is it going to be the same set of characters in the same world?

RB: It always was supposed to be a trilogy.  The fact that it took 35 years to get the next one started is not my fault. [laughter]  I’ve always been a slow learner.  Yeah, it’s the same set of characters but things have changed, you know.  Blackwolf dies, to give you a rough idea, and everything collapses, but then the mutants break off into separate little units with all these guys trying to become religious leaders of each group—they’re thinking they’re the new Blackwolf.  Then you have all the stuff under the ground slowly crushing together and forming this sort of internet of ideas but Blackwolf is dug up and put on a throne and wired to it.  So basically you have the beginning of the internet, the clash of religions, the various factions fighting, Avatar is trying to get home with the victorious people and is having a hard time, and Weehawk probably falls in love with Eleanor which gets Avatar furious.  And there’s old age.  I’m an old man now, and Avatar was always old, but now he’s really going to be old.  I have a hard time walking from here to my hotel and that’s affected the way I’m thinking, so I’ve been thinking about old men and young women, and I’m thinking there are some funny issues there to address.

But basically I want to discuss how the planet is dying and nobody cares and that there are certain people that say it’s not dying at all.  Rush Bimbo is on the radio every day lying to the American people for the rich companies and I’ll probably have a guy on talk radio like Rush Bimbo lying, because that’s all he does.  I get so mad listening to him.  He’s come close to calling my president a… never mind,  I think Obama is doing the best job he can under the conditions that he got and I’m going to vote for him again.  Yes, so Wizards II is in the works.

A: Are you going to be using the same animation style and team, or are you going to start hiring newer animators and designers?

RB:  All of the guys that did Wizards are dead.

A: All of them??

RB:  All of them.  My animators are dead.  You have to understand that when I came into the business, I was in my twenties.  The guys I hired were in their 60s and 70s.

A: I didn’t realize.

RB:  That’s why I’m telling you.  Some people you can’t tell this to—they don’t get it.  All the guys, when I came into the business, were all the older guys.  They had been laid off from Warner Brothers, MGM, and Disney.  All the studios closed down their film shorts—there were no more.  Animation in theaters was dead, so I hired these guys and they were unbelievably great and they understood what I was doing.  They supported my ideas and they supported my adult thrust.  The trouble I had was with the younger animators, believe it or not.  The younger animators thought I was toying with Disney and Disney’s legacy and the fact that they all adored Disney and loved Disney and worshipped Disney, then who was I to go in there with my accent—I’m from Brooklyn—and destroy that myth?  Because they all wanted to work for Disney and they all felt that they could only feel they were great if the Disney animators said they were great or if they animated like they did at Disney, so they were on the march to be another Disney.  I was on the march to kick Disney in his pants.  But Disney went to World War II in the studio but none of it represented the fact that Auschwitz was happening and that was nuts.  There was no Auschwitz.  It’s crazy.  With that kind of power you’ve got to do some films that mean something.

Yeah, I would hire new animators.  The technique would be the same, and the metaphor would continue to be technology versus magic, but now I think that all the technology would be computer animated.  But that’s perfect because it is what it is.  And all the magic would be animated just like the original Wizards but with new animators that would have to learn how to animate for real and stop using their machines.

I’ll have more money— Wizards was done on a million dollars!  That was almost undoable, if it wasn’t for my professional-grade animators, I wouldn’t have made it.  It was these guys that came behind me and I think that now the young kids would come behind me.  They didn’t then, which is hard—no one believes that, but it was the older guys who were tired of what they were doing!  They’d done all this stuff all their lives, they were grown men.  They couldn’t believe it, they were so happy at my studio.  They were so happy.  They’d come in and say, “Ralph, do you really want me to do this?” and I’d say, “Yep!” and they’d say, “You’ll really let me do this?” and I’d say, “Go do it, Irv, and leave me alone,” and they were great animators and they did it.  But they couldn’t believe that I was allowing them that kind of freedom.

So, yes, Wizards II would be done that way.  Old fashioned 2D animation, all new technology, and the internet which is so important.  We didn’t have the internet when Wizards was made.  It’s incredible.  Anything I want to find out, I push a button on Google and there it is.  It is mind-boggling—I do it all the time and it’s mind-boggling!  You go to the library and you spend a week trying to find the one book, and it’s such an unbelievable tool and, of course, it’s helping spread freedom in the world.  The whole Arab revolution is being done through the internet except the world doesn’t want to stop Syria from destroying those poor people because Russia enjoys that pain, Russia wants the oil.  It’s pretty sick.  Those are all the issues that I’ll bring up in Wizards II.  It wouldn’t be that blatant because the issues in Wizards were very nicely handled—you got the answers told in a magical story, so I won’t be heavy-handed, I hope, though maybe I would.  I don’t know.

A magical princess shows you two doors labeled “Part One” and “Part Three”.  If you choose the door labeled “Part One”, turn to page 43.  If you choose the door labeled “Part Three”, turn to page 36.

In celebration of the 35^th anniversary of the animated classic, Wizards, FOX has released the epic fantasy film on Blu-ray, complete with a commentary by legendary filmmaker Ralph Bakshi, a still gallery, and—much to my delight, a 24 page booklet featuring concept art of the film as well as a brief background telling the trials and victories in producing the picture.  Bakshi was able to take the time out of his busy schedule to sit down with Geekscape and bring us up to speed on his views of the world, answer some questions provoked by the movie, and shed some light on his hopeful next project, the long awaited Wizards II.  This interview will be spread over the course of multiple articles, so check back to keep up with the story!

A: I wasn’t lucky enough to see Wizards as a kid— an ex-boyfriend of mine introduced me to it and I thought it was just amazing.  It was everything I had ever remembered from leafing through old fantasy art books, and that style of art and animation is something that I rarely see anymore, not to mention the intense ideological content that it had.  I feel like we have lost so much meaning in our cartoons and now it’s stuff like Sponge Bob Squarepants— which I know has its own place, but it saddens me that animation just doesn’t seem to have the meaning it used to.

RB: It’s interesting you should say that, and I’m totally in agreement with you.  When I first started making cartoons, Disney didn’t have meanings either, cartoons were sort of the bastardized medium done for children to merchandise things.  And it has continued on without real ideas—I mean animation is the darling of the industry.  It wasn’t the darling of the industry when I was animating.  But even in my day there were no ideas at all and that was my whole point: why make a film without ideas?  And why make a film talking to children when you can’t give children ideas?  We talk down to children.

I remember when I was a kid, I didn’t understand everything, but I understood I didn’t understand so I tried to find out.  So many people come to me who have seen this film as children and have said that they weren’t sure about what I was saying, but they knew that I was saying something that they had to understand and everyone says that to me—that they knew it had ideas, they respected that, and they felt better about themselves that I wasn’t treating them like idiots.

I think that today, when I watch television animation and things like Cars 2 and Toy Story 3, I mean, why bother making those films when it’s all benign film or asinine bad toilet jokes?  You know, I was telling someone about Fritz, how you could take all the violence and sex out of the film— whatever there was—but the ideas were still there: the racist issues, white kids coming down to go to college from rich families and starting revolutions, and the minute the trouble really started, they ran away and whoever was left had to fend for themselves.  Black people, man, they had to fend for themselves.  It was all full of ideas and about revolutionaries and about greed.  Fritz had its own ideas—past the extranea everyone jumped on—that’s what all my films try to be to the best of their abilities.

Yeah, I don’t see it today and I don’t understand it.  But then again, I don’t understand what happened to the banking community, and I don’t understand why we spent ten years in Afghanistan and I don’t understand why we spent all that money and people are starving in America, and I don’t see what’s going on, I haven’t a clue anymore.  I grew up in a different time when money wasn’t the issue—ideas were.  In the fifties, when I grew up, my time, there were great things happening in art.  Pollack was painting, there was great music with jazz: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk.  It wasn’t about money— nobody was doing that for money, everyone was just doing it to do it.  So I grew up where the ideas were important but now everyone’s getting rich, and getting rich is important.  You know, you can’t get animators today, they’re making fortunes working at these companies and that’s great and they want to hold onto their money so they’re not rocking the boat.

A:  When do you think that shift happened, when it stopped being about ideas?  Was it immediate or more of a gradual move?

RB: Look, I don’t know everything, but I think the shift came at Kent State when those kids were shot, when the United States government opened fire on its own students that were protesting peacefully and that order was given to the National Guard to shoot.  When JFK was killed, when Martin Luther King was killed, when Robert Kennedy was killed, when Malcom X was killed—an awful lot of people were shot.  So the revolution stopped cold there, their ideas stopped cold there, and something changed at that point in the country, the country shifted somewhere else and— as with everything else—that’s been slowly, year after year, permeating until we have nothing left but money and greed to strive for.  Things don’t happen overnight, so that shift— to me— started then.  Now I’m not calling it a coup, but I would say it was.  In other words, you couldn’t put together all those people killed, who were all pretty much thinkers of people’s rights, without it affecting the country.  So all the young kids thought, whether they realized or not, that they better stop, they better stop revolting, they better sit down and shut up because they’re going to get killed and they can’t win anyhow.

So if you ask me when it shifted, which I think is a great question, and I’d get plenty of arguments on this, I’m sure, but that’s when I think it shifted and continues with a slow progression until today.  I mean, how could this country elect Bush in twice?  How could we be in Afghanistan for ten years?  How could only the poor people be fighting for this country?  I can’t understand it.   The same people keep going back on tours over and over and that’s crazy, I mean, no one gets out.  They keep sending the same people in and they’re mainly from the poorer class, so the poorer class is fighting these wars for the richer class, who are sitting there ripping off everybody, and the banks and everything are going crazy with the real estate market and the bad loans and blah, blah, blah.  I see Santorum trying to put church and state together and people are voting for him.  That’s what’s happening today, and that’s what Wizards II will be about.  I’m not politically minded, I’m just looking at it honestly and saying that, in the world I came from, I saw the soldiers come home from World War II and I saw how we felt proud of them, but the black soldiers still had to go to the back of the bus.  We kids said, “No!” and that taught us a lesson.  So, yeah, I think it changed when people started getting assassinated for their ideas, when people started getting killed for their ideas.

A magical princess shows you two doors labeled “Part Two” and “Part Three”.  If you choose the door labeled “Part Two”, turn to page 25.  If you choose the door labeled “Part Three”, wait until Monday to open the door.