Welcome back, my fellow creatives!

This being summer and all, I thought it’d be fun to do an activity unique to the season: camping. When I was a kid, camping meant living in a magical woods, going on endless adventures among the fireflies beneath the stars. It was campfires and song, lake swims and long hikes through an endless forest. On this blog, though, we’re taking a different road with camp.

campy

adjective

ˈkam-pē 

campier; campiest

: in the style of camp : absurdly exaggerated, artificial, or affected in a usually humorous way

Or, we can use this definition by my daughter Blondie:

“It’s so campy, you could roast marshmallows on it.” -Blondie

Last summer, we camped in multiple genres with Flash Gordon, Death Becomes Her, and Dungeons and Dragons. This year, I’ve got a fresh list of possible camping sites for us to visit.

At first, I considered changing up the genres like I did last year, but I teased this particular film too often earlier this year to NOT talk about it. Let’s travel across the galaxy to…

Krull.

I remember seeing this film once as a kid and being completely confused. Why are there knights with swords and things, but also laser spears and armor from a Star Wars rip-off?

And that is part of it–not ripping off Star Wars per se, but that scifi was HUGE at the time, and Krull was originally supposed to be a “sword and sorcery” epic with lots of dragons. But that would have been a very expensive endeavor, and the scifi/fantasy blend wasn’t out of the norm thanks to the likes of Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, and plenty of Saturday morning cartoons.

But it takes a special kind of blender to blend those genres well, and Krull…um…doesn’t quite mix.

First, the highlights.

James Horner’s in total Star Trek-Meets-Swashbucklers mode. Everything’s epic, romantic, and adventurous. You half expect Kahn to pop any time there’s a battle and hear Kirk yell, “Kaaaaaaaaaaaahn!” Still, you can’t go wrong listening to the score for fun.

The special effects are not bad, considering the budget. You’ve got a special effects spider, an amphibious-style red-edy Beast. A wizard who transforms into a bunch of animals. A cyclops. And, of course, fire-mares.

Another plus comes with the cast. There are no sluffers here: Prince Colwyn and Princess Lyssa are both pretty and dashing. When Prince Colywyn loses men in battle, you see how much he feels that loss. The ragtag thieves and magic-users have their times to shine, and if you’re very lucky, you’ll see young Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane in the mix.

The guide/healer/narrator Ynyr is a compelling actor, too, gruff and kind when necessary. Ynyr guides Colwyn to the legendary Glaive, a weapon capable of taking on The Beast. With the help of their ragtag crew, they travel through a bunch of perilous locations (losing a thief or two at stop), hop on some Fire Mares, and they reach the fortress before it vanishes. They invade, fight everyone, and leave.

(Yes, I whipped through the plot. It’s 4th of July weekend, and my family has no patience for this film, lol.)

What’s a writer to get out of this camping trip?

Death should always raise the stakes.

Character death has often been used to raise the stakes, but it’s especially fitting in a fantasy epic. When the audience experiences the death and pain inflicted by the villain, they WANT to see the hero overcome all the odds and defeat the evil. When it comes to the band of thieves that help Colwyn, we do feel their losses, especially when Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane are shot. (Sorry, spoilers)

But when the audience never sees anyone but the cast, it’s hard to feel like the planet’s got any population. We hear that the Slayers are killing all sorts of people, and we hear that hundreds of soldiers were decimated before the opening scene of the film, but we see none of it. The most mayhem we get is when Colwyn and Lyssa’s wedding is interrupted and the guests are killed. Otherwise, aaaaaaaaaaaaaall the plains and mountains and forests have, like, five people. This planet has a smaller population than the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and that is saying something. So it’s hard to feel the decimation of The Beast when we don’t see that for ourselves. Writers, if you choose to use death, make sure folks see it and feel it for a reason.

Always provide a clear sense of time.

Apparently, Colwyn travels all over this planet, and it’ll take 1000 leagues on the fire-mares in order to reach the fortress in time. So, how far apart are these places? They spend a chunk of this story on foot, and no one’s going to get too far on foot in a single day. And while hours and hours will pass for Colwyn as he travels great distances (supposedly), Lyssa doesn’t move from a single spot in the fortress while the voiceover Beast talks about making her his queen. Time doesn’t seem to mean bupkiss in that fortress. That could be made to work, but the story would have to establish the different passages of time somehow. Even Lord of the Rings, which had the Fellowship all over Middle-Earth for months, made sure you understood that passage of time. If time isn’t passing, that can work, but make that clear, writers!

The fantastical aspects need to make sense. 

The marriage magic with the mixture of fire and water is interesting, and the story calls back on that so Lyssa and Colwyn can defeat The Beast. And who doesn’t love a horse who gallops fast enough to leave a trail of fire behind? Even the Slayers’ bug-like bodies beneath the armor emphasize their alienness in the lush world of Krull. The Beast apparently has some level of magical powers in controlling others and moving his fortress around, and in a sword-and-sorcery story, that’s fine.

Plus, there is nothing wrong with combining lasers and swords, and no, I’m not just saying that as a She-Ra fan. One can combine technology and magic to create something otherworldly and impossible. Mountains that also serve as fortresses and spaceships? Awesome. Is it cool that the fortress’ interror looks like a monster’s ribcage and the portals are shaped like eyes? Sure!

But other aspects require at least some justification. For some reason the guide/healer/narrator Ynyr knows The Beast has visited all sorts of worlds before reaching the planet Krull. Krull shows no signs of interstellar technology, but they also have a prophecy about the child of a princess with ancient name who would rule the galaxy (even though, again, they’ve never left the planet). The movie opens with the Slayers already overrunning the planet (just like the opening of the 80s Masters of the Universe) and everyone seems to already know a bunch of things about The Beast even though he never leaves the fortress, and again, there’s no interstellar communication with worlds he would have conquered.

And there are other fantastical set pieces, like the Widow of the Web, that sound and look neat, but if one thinks a smidge about it, make very little sense. And yes, I’m including the Glaive here. I think it looks AWESOME–it’s a magic, multi-bladed spinny thing that whirls all over and can slash up anything. Perfect for a movie like this, right? But it can’t be used until the very end because…reasons.

There’s a reason Krull is considered a cult classic. The adventure is a timeless one–a prince and his merry men rescue his princess from a growling evil–and the magical and technological mixture here gives that timeless tale a fresh take. That mixture just needed more time in the oven so the worldbuilding wasn’t so underdone. I think about this often as I develop my own Dieselpunk WIP, asking myself how all the cogs of the Pegasun Empire fit so the story clicks along smoothly. I don’t want readers scratching their heads and mumbling “Huh?” a lot. No writer does. And Krull is a good reminder that all stories, including the fantastical fun ones, deserve a deeper lore to explain their machinations.

Coming up, I’ve get yet another interview, highlight from Story Empire, and more. Stay tuned!

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!