Good to know. Interesting that the studio suddenly seems to have interest in it after dumping it to Mill Creek for years. I don’t do 4K, but if the Blu-ray included the supplements along whatever restoration might be on the 4K disc, that would be very tempting down the road. Not sure I see Sony ponying up for additional features on a film like that, though, which is why I assumed it might be on the radar of some boutique.

I still have my DVD tucked in with my BD because of all the extras on the DVD. Would love to toss both for the 4K but I doubt that will be likely. The steelbook is gorgeous though.

And I know these aren't comic books but since we are talking about Krull...












Gorgeous artwork for the 2600 game box.

And then the letdown of 2600 graphics.

How dare you, sir!

It looks better than E.T., I'll give it that, but I have no idea what's happening in those screens. There's a horse race? Then a fight outside a castle? Then, um, he goes to a disco? Then....I got nothing!

You got the first two pretty close. Horses with feet of fire. Then the fight in the castle with the weird looking storm troopers.

But disco? That's the Spider Web/Hour Glass scene, obviously! And the last one is the big fight with the monster thingy with the glaive. How could you miss those? For shame, for shame!

Actually, I think E.T.'s graphics were better. You could at least tell what was what, even though the gameplay was shit.

I didn't know anyone who had the Krull game as a kid and I don't think I ever played it. And we had a TON of Atari 2600 games between myself and all my friends and we all liked the movie.

One of these days I am going to by a life-size replica of the glaive. Such an awesome movie weapon that got so underutilized in the film. And no sequels so never seen again.

And to finish out the Krull topic, here are the last two books I can find about Krull. Was there a requirement for Alan Dean Foster to adapt every action, sci-fi, fantasy movie into a novel back then?





And now to get it back to comics again:

To be fair, I haven't seen the film since the 80s.

True, and I read a shitload of those Foster adaptations when I was a kid, including the Star Wars books, Alien, Outland, plus the Star Trek Logs, that were adaptations of the animated series. I loved them all, but I don't think I ever read his Krull adaptation.

You are quite the Krull fan!

Ha. None of the stuff was mine, just pix I found on the interwebs though I did own a lot of it way back when.

But yeah, I was definitely a fan as a kid. Had the comics, some of those activity books and I am pretty sure I saw it in the theater, though I cannot swear to it. Krull, along with Flash Gordon, Popeye, The Pirate Movie and a few other choice weird flicks were staples of HBO, Cinemax and other pay TV channels as a kid. Those movies were literally run several times a week at all times of the day, all during the year since they were PG and could be shown at any time. I have probably seen the movie in bits and pieces easily over a hundred times, if you count all those partial childhood viewings.

A buddy and I got high and rewatched it just a year or less ago and we had a blast. He had the same memories of it, and we sat there and quoted half of the film. Look for Liam Neeson in a very early role for him. He doesn't do a lot, but he is memorable. There also many truly terrifying scenes in this if you saw it as a young child. They did not play down to their audience like kids' movies do today.

Besides the practical and optical effects, the big brag on this movie is the music score, in my opinion. It is an excellent early score by James Horner, and he shows the talent that proves why he had a long career in film. While not as memorable as Star Wars, you can definitely tell he is aping it without 100% copying it. It stands on its own and doesn't get enough attention today. I always prefer thematic movie scores, and this one does not disappoint as it is in the same family as a John Williams or John Barry score.

"We lost McFarlane! Larsen isn't a proven talent! Throw everything you can at this book! Hulk! Ghost Rider! Deathlok! What are the Punisher and Wolverine doing this month?"

Oh, we’re not done with Krull just yet.

A buddy of mine in Toronto before I lived here found a replica glaive at some kind of arts & crafts street fest here in the late 90’s. I believe the maker was one of those metalwork/jewelry types who would occasionally make bigger objects for kicks. I think the blades were plastic – I hope – and the ‘body’ was metal with all the ornamentation. It’s was bang on. I’m sure now they’re probably made in China and available all over the place for pop culture collectors, but it was cool that he got a one-of-a-kind.

Prior to that he got an officially licensed, full-size Phurba dagger reproduction from THE SHADOW (1994). I actually spotted it in the window of a kitchenware / knife store in the Toronto Eaton Centre when we were cutting through the mall for whatever reason, and he went back and bought it the following week. I think it was like $150 or $200. There are some replicas online now that are resin, but this thing was solid metal, possibly cast iron, even the blade end. You could kill somebody with it, but man did it look cool.

But again, back to KRULL.

Don't forget Patrick Stewart, too.

Also, I second the recommendation of the Krull soundtrack. It’s in my soundtrack collection, albeit with the theatrical poster image rather than the cool one you posted.

I’m not one to indulge, but I can see where KRULL would work well on an, umm, elevated plane.



Being in Canada we didn’t have US pay channels (unless we pirated them), but I would imagine MEGAFORCE probably played in rotation down there as it certainly turned up occasionally here on the pay channels.

In fact – and to get back to comics – the movie seemed to be promoted on the back covers of every Marvel comic book that year (and maybe in 1981 as well?), so much so that to this day, I’ve always remembered a comic book adaptation that never happened (although there was an Atari 2600 game, apparently).



And come on, it doesn’t get more 80’s than this:

Funny thing is I remember that ad on everything as well and you are correct, it was that seemed that the pay channels did show a lot...but I swear to you that to this day, I have never sat and watched the whole movie. I saw little bits and pieces as a kid, but it never interested me enough to try to watch the whole thing. I need to remedy that. But if I recall, it was overall pretty dull and flopped big time at the box office.

The artwork and ads they had for it are extremely cool, though. The outfits...not so much.





The picture below was taken from the foreign movie posters I believe:

I wanted to see it as a kid, but it flopped and disappeared relatively fast, and those comic ads kept appearing for a while as I recall. I saw most of it on TV a few years later but in pan/scan and full of commercials it didn’t look so hot. I revisited it earlier this year and oddly enough, it aged better than I thought it would, if perhaps for all the wrong reasons. It’s bombastic and stupid and loaded with (very big) ‘splosions and (very good) stunts and it’s clearly the work of a director playing with his biggest toy box ever but undermined (I suspect) by his own infantile reading of the Reagan-era political climate, but it does seem to have its tongue at least somewhat planted in cheek. (the whole concept seems like something a certain current administration would dream up, actually)

However, if you do decide to view it – perhaps while high, which could help immensely – there’s no better option than the Australian Blu-ray from Umbrella. Barry Bostwick contributes a really fun 40-minute taking-the-piss interview and a commentary (the latter of which he rarely does, which tells you something) in which he has an absolute blast goofing on the film, dishing on the production and his career, and even finding many things to praise. As I recall, he’s also in a featurette with a ‘Megafan’ who rebuilt one of the vehicles from the film and even that’s got some laughs in it, too. There’s a ton of other stuff on the disc as well, including footage from the 2600 game.

And of course the theme song has actually gained some notoriety for arguably being better than the film deserved, in an overblown, wailin’ guitars, thoroughly 80’s kind of way :

More like "let Larsen do whatever he wants." This was the storyline where he famously had a spat with Peter David over Doc Ock and the Hulk, right?

Ah, Megaforce, the movie that bombed so badly that Golden Harvest refused to use an English title that started with "M" on their subsequent films. I've never actually watched the film but definitely remember the ads being plastered on the back of seemingly every comic book for months. (how much did it cost for all that ad space, especially on prime back cover real estate??)

I had totally forgotten about that and had to look it up.

https://community.cbr.com/threads/30...n-feud.137943/

I was reading both titles at the time and did pick up some shade from David, though all of the "name withheld" business I didn't learn about until well after the fact. I didn't even know Comics Buyers Guide existed back then, though I'd read the occasional thing about Erik Larsen's "name withheld" letter without context. (Even now, I don't think I've even looked at a single issue.)

On a similar note, I also remember Peter David taking a potshot at John Byrne in X-Factor over the time he had Lockjaw talk.

And before that, Byrne took a full page out his Fantastic Four to retcon Claremont having Arcade strike a match on Doctor Doom's armor in Uncanny X-Men.

Then there's also the infamous Ms. Marvel (Danvers) story that Chris Claremont completely retconned (for good reason).

Also I know PAD has recently tragically passed and I want to make sure people don't pile on Larsen for their feud: it seems like they at least buried the hatchet, with PAD acknowledging when he had IRS troubles that Larsen suggested to him selling some of the artwork he had collected to pay the bills.

Worried about anything these days?

Why would you ever think that???