The Power of Krull

Ah, 80s fantasy, what sense did you make? Everyone's seen this, it's just one of those things. And not just me, also Peter and Paul.

In a fantasy setting comes the Black Fortress from Outer Space. However, the planet is in medieval times, and so aren't much against swords... with lasers! After a wedding goes red (heh, I see what I did there), the bride is napped, and the groom must go on a Quest, an Epic Fetch Quest as he very conveniently meets an old man who can lead him through the plot. First he gets the MacGuffin we all remember, then goes after a person, but that ends in death, so they go to another person, that also ends in death, before finally going somewhere else... where there is a lot of death. The MacGuffin proves to be rather crap, but fortunately the day is saved by the power of luv. Then quick exit pursued by everything falling.

While there are names in here I recognise, I can't say I've seen the two lead lovebirds before. That said... Ken Marshall went on to be in Deep Space Nine, although with somewhat less hair. Freddie Jones as the amazingly useful Ynyr (get a vowel, man!) is a credible performance, unlike, say... the prisoners who are hamming harder than a pig farm (including a Robbie Coltrane with a different voice... and Liam Neeson!). David Battley deserves special mention as not Peter Cook.

One element from this I remember is from Alan Dean Foster, who wrote the novelisation. He was puzzled by why the Seekers would use swords, when they have LASERS! He added an element in the book of them having honour or similar that says they had to use the swords for close combat. Or maybe the lasers take distance to properly charge up? Or maybe it was bad writing. And whenever I looked at the Black Fortress, only one thing came to mind. The 'glaive' itself is very pretty looking, and I like how it is ultimately proven useless. It seemed rather easy that "bad guy is defeated by MacGuffin", and then he wasn't! Nice!

This is classic fantasy, although nowadays the idea of "medieval knights encounter spaceship" reminds me more of The High Crusade. (Which I don't plan on watching again.)

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