Western Animation / Fire and Ice (1983)

aka: Fire And Ice

Loincloth chic.

Fire and Ice is a 1983 animated Heroic Fantasy film.

From their stronghold in Icepeak, the evil Queen Juliana and her son Nekron send forth a wave of glaciers, forcing humanity to retreat south towards the equator. Nekron sends a delegation to King Jarol in Firekeep to request his surrender, but this is really a ruse for Nekron's sub-humans to kidnap Jarol's daughter, the Princess Teegra. But Teegra makes an escape and comes upon Larn, the only survivor of a village razed by glaciers, who offers to escort her back to Firekeep. As Teegra is recaptured, Larn teams with the mysterious Darkwolf to save Teegra and then travel to Icepeak to stop Juliana and Nekron.

This animated movie was neither financially nor critically successful, but later became a cult classic among fans of the film's two creators, Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta. Robert Rodriguez has begun work on a live-action adaptation, which was picked up by Sony Pictures, but there have been no new developments in years so it seems like the remake is trapped in Development Hell. Recently (as of 2022), it was announced that a prequel comic would be produced by Dynamite Entertainment.

Not to be confused with the game, the ski movie by Willy Bogner with the same name, or the second Warrior Cats book.

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Fire and Ice provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Teegra, in many instances. Almost every time she's captured, she's tough and resourceful enough to escape on her own before the heroes arrive.
• Aerith and Bob: Juliana is a perfectly normal name, but "Nekron", "Teegra" and others are not.
• Agony of the Feet: Averted, oddly enough. Princess Teegra remains barefoot through the film, as she was kidnapped while she was in her comfy home, but she seems weirdly nonchalant about having bare feet in the frozen wastes of Icepeak. Whether it is some kind of magical non-cold ice is never commented.
• All Animals Are Domesticated: Teegra has a pet black panther. Unfortunately, it is killed by the Sub-Humans.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Juliana apparently keeps interrupting her son's world-conquering to try to set him up with women, as she wants grandkids. Nekron is unamused.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: The subhumans are all dark/olive green.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: It's never said or shown what became Nekron or Otwa's fathers or Teegra and Taro's mother. It is vaguely implied that Darkwolf is Nekron's father, but that is the most for any of these parents.
• Ambiguously Bi: Roleil, the witch who half-saves-half-kidnaps Teegra, has a son, which implies she had a male mate at some point. However, she spends most of her onscreen time fawning over the almost-naked Teegra before slipping her a drink that makes her go to sleep and then literally kissing her while she's asleep (which leads to some pretty nasty implications of what she might have intended to do next if she hadn't been distracted).
• Ambiguously Gay: Nekron is disgusted by the thought of mating with Teegra, and it seems this isn't the first time he's had to tell his mother that he doesn't want a bride. Meanwhile, his reaction to seeing Larn is to comment on how much this nearly-naked male intruder interests him, slowly remove his shirt while his minions make sure Larn is held near enough to see, and initiate a strangely homoerotic sparring match. Granted, he might be Ambiguously Bi, as his "lesser beasts" comment about Teegra implies he might not have simply any interest in having relations outside women of his own ethnic group (which, considering his father doesn't seem to be of the same group as his mother, can be considered ironic).
• Ambiguously Human: Darkwolf's masked face shows up in some ancient ruins. It's unknown if he was somehow the guy the statues were modeled after, a descendant of him or his people, or someone deliberately imitating him. There's no sign Nekron or Raleil's son's fathers remain around. However, in the former case there's some implication that it's Darkwolf.
• Antagonistic Offspring: It is never explicitly confirmed, but the movie rather subtly hints at that Darkwolf might be Nekron's father. The first instance is when Darkwolf refers to Julianna as "that wolf-bitch". The second instance is when he screams "NEEEKKKRRROOOONNNNN!!!", which suggests that the pending conflict is far more personal than the need to off an infamous villain that everybody knows about. Third, Darkwolf manages to overcome Nekron's magic and bury his axe into the villain's torso. Who could resist such a mighty baddie's power but his own sire?
• "Arabian Nights" Days: Teegra's brother and his soldiers stop off at a very Arabian-looking city to take a ship to Nekron's fortress. It's a bit odd considering that the movie is almost entirely caveman-themed otherwise. The prequel comics have gone on to establish there are other cultures, perhaps to make this city look less odd.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Near the end, damsel in distress Teegra is brought into the throne room of the Big Bad, Nekron, by his mother Juliana. Juliana tells him that she has done this specifically so he can breed with Teegra. Nekron first refuses, at which point Teegra asks if they cannot even be friends for the sake of peace. Nekron embarks on a "screw you" rant, during which he states that he finds the ideas of peace and "mating" with Teegra (who by all reasonable standards fits the attractive female stereotype) to be repulsive, eventually throwing her in the dungeon.
• Battle Aura: Darkwolf gives off a vibrant blue aura just before powering through Nekron's magic attacks for the killing blow.
• Battle Strip: Nekron takes off his robe to fight Larn in a loincloth similar to Larn's.
• Big Guy: Darkwolf is physically larger than the other heroes and is shown to be a One-Man Army when it comes to combat.
• Big "NO!": When Teegra's brother died she gives a pretty classic example.
• Blood Knight: Surprisingly, out of all the barbaric looking characters (including Darkwolf), it is Nekron, who should be the Smug Snake and Squishy Wizard. Rather than use his magic to simply kill Larn on the spot, he takes off his robe, wields a sword and spars with him for a bit (though he does use magic in between this spar) and overpowers him this way. He even spares Larn so the latter might recover from his wounds, and is so intrigued by Larn that he wants to prolong their fight, which doesn't happen because Nekron is killed by Darkwolf. This would explain why peace and Teegra don't interest him.
• Bloodless Carnage: The movie has lots of fight scenes involving sharp weapons and some brutal-looking moments of violence, but outside of a few scenes there's little blood seen.
• Clothing Damage: Teegra starts the film wearing a short silk tunic over her bikini, but it gets torn off when she is kidnapped.
• The Coats Are Off: Nekron removes his robe before fighting Larn.
• Combat Pragmatist: Nekron actually enjoys opportunities to fight one-on-one, but against opponents who are physically equal or superior to him, he prefers to subdue them with his magic instead. Which doesn't work on Darkwolf.
• Damsel out of Distress: Teegra's length of time in captivity depends solely on how quickly she can pilfer a dagger from one of her captors, or even just a sharp stick. Once that happens...
• Death World: At many points, it seems the characters can't go ten feet without getting attacked by dire wolves, killer pillbugs, freshwater giant cephalopods, and giant iguanas. It is nothing short of admirable that people live in this world wearing just loincloths and wielding nothing more than spears and swords.
• Determinator:
  • Darkwolf. Getting blasted several times by Nekron's magic doesn't bring him down.
  • Teegra as well, counting all the times she escapes after being hopelessly captured.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Nekron looks like he's having an orgasm when he uses his magic to make his Ice Peak grow. Especially when you see long, phallic ice shafts rise out of the sea and spew white stuff over nearly naked men.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Julianna, as an evil sorceress, fits this trope well.
• Elemental Nation: Icepeak and Firekeep. Icepeak is ruled by the Evil Sorcerer, Necron who makes his glaciers gradually spread towards Firekeep. The people of Firekeep aren't magic but have their citadel built around a volcano and can open valves to flood lava over invaders and Necron's glaciers.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Dinosaurs, man-and-mook-eating insects, giant octopi, wandering packs of wolves... and that's before we even consider the actual bad guys.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: Doesn't get much more literal than the main villains' sorcerous powers constantly and rapidly expanding glaciers to the point of bulldozing hapless communities and causing an Ice Age.
• Evil Overlord: Nekron serves as one of these, if not the Evil Prince to his mother, Queen Juliana.
• Evil Sorcerer: Nekron again. Most of his on-screen magic is limited to making intruders kill one another, stopping the more resilient from landing a blow on him, or expanding his icy fortress across the world.
• Exposed to the Elements: Nearly every character is mostly naked, and in several cases barefoot, yet all of them stroll through ice as if it's nothing.
• Expy
  • Darkwolf is pretty much Conan (Frazetta used to draw covers for Conan books) combined with Batman.
  • Darkwolf is also an expy of Frazetta's Deathdealer. Many shots have Darkwolf in a specific pose where he's sitting on his horse with his axe held aloft, looking at the viewer. This is the very pose of the Deathdealer in Frazetta's painting. And like the Deathdealer, Darkwolf is a Physical God or at least an avatar of one.
• Eye Scream: With a conveniently placed sharpened bone, Larn stabs the Kraken in the eye.
• Fanservice: The entire film is a cavalcade of musclebound males and hot females, all of whom wear little clothing. It's expected given Frank Frazetta was the artist and he frequently included lots of fanservice in his work.
• Fantastic Racism: Nekron refers to Teegra as a "lesser beast", to her brother no less, while admitting she is attractive.
• Female Gaze: Inevitable given that every male in the film is a buff man in a loincloth. Larn's thong-clad tush is shoved into the camera every five minutes.
• Foot Popping: At the very end of the film, when Larn and Teegra embrace and kiss, she does this.
• Frazetta Man: Nekron's Mooks, who look like a cross between Neanderthals and orcs, as well as Otwa, the big, hairy lug who's the son of the red-haired witch. This is a work by the Trope Namer after all.
• Giant Flyer: Dragonhawks. They're pretty clearly pterodactyls, as well.
• Giant Squid: While swimming with Teegra, Larn is grabbed by some sort of giant freshwater cephalopod that tries to eat him.
• Glacial Apocalypse: The villains are conquering the world by pushing a giant glacier across it, turning subjugated kingdoms into icy wastelands and forcing humanity to retreat south towards the equator. The last kingdom in his way is situated on volcanic land and can resist his glacier by releasing a lava flow against it.
• Good All Along: The mooks turned out to have been slaves after the main bad guys are killed. It's implied they'll go back to living in the north and not bother the protagonists.
• Good Princess, Evil Queen: Princess Teegra of Firekeep gets kidnapped by mooks. She's taken ultimately to Icepeak, where wicked Queen Juliana makes a "gift" of Teegra to Nekron, Juliana's son and heir apparent. Teegra naively coos for mediation and peace between the two kingdoms, but neither Queen Juliana nor Nekron are swayed in the least.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: The good guys have pretty natural-looking hair, while Nekron's rocking a long white mane.
• Grim Up North: Juliana's lands are covered in ice, which Nekron is trying to spread over the world.
• The Hero Doesn't Kill the Villainess: Darkwolf attacks and slays Nekron, a wizard that used his icy powers to expand his realm. Hot lava released by Firekeep begins to dissolve Nekron's ice palace, which shudders and crumbles as though experiencing an earthquake. Nekron's mother, Queen Juliana, can't keep her footing and tumbles off a ledge to her doom.
• Heroic Fantasy: The primary magic-users of the tale, Nekron and Juliana, are the villains who are using their powers to Take Over the World. However, the plot is mostly focused upon how this affects Firekeep and the surrounding areas, so the conflict is limited to only to a small section of the world and a few individuals. A big chunk of the movie is also dedicated to the kidnapping and attempted rescue of Princess Teegra; the protagonists only set out to directly take down Nekron's forces in the climax. Two of the main heroes, Larn and Darkwolf, are pretty unambiguously the good guys, and they save the day through force of arms (although it's hinted Darkwolf may have preternatural abilities of some kind that enhance his combat skills, he's not shooting fireballs at people).
• Hollywood Prehistory: For all it's worth, cavemen riding pterosaurs and everything.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Darkwolf is better at basically everything than Larn. This is justified given Darkwolf is much older and more experienced.
• Ice Palace: Queen Juliana and her son Nekron live in an icy palace named Icepeak that resembles a human skull. Since Nekron is An Ice Person, he likely fashioned it that way with his powers, similar to the way he can expand his icy empire southward.
• It's Personal: Darkwolf makes it very clear that his involvement in the story is because of some personal gripe with Nekron and Juliana, but we never find out exactly what it is.
• I Want Grandkids: Juliana is very insistent that her son Nekron father children with someone, and is always trying to set him up. It really annoys him.
• Kick the Dog:
  • The first thing the Sub-Humans do when they kidnap Teegra? They kill her pet panther.
  • Despite rejecting the notion and expressing disgust at the idea earlier, when Teegra's brother comes to Nekron to attempt to negotiate for peace and her release, Nekron states that he just might keep her to mate with after all, purely just out of spite and to provoke her brother to aggression.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: The King of Firekeep pulls one lever that releases a river of lava that flows toward Icepeak. The stuff has the color and consistency of tomato soup, though it does calve off chunks of rock as well as melt ice.
• Lean and Mean: Nekron, a skinny, wiry bastard.
• Made of Plasticine: Either that or the knives in this movie are so sharp that they seem to totally ignore thick belts of muscle and bone.
• Magical Barefooter: Roleil the old crone goes barefoot. Averted with Juliana, who in fact is the only female character shown to be wearing shoes.
• Magic Is Feminine: The two male heroes, Larn and Darkwolf, are muscular physical fighters with no magic powers. The forest witch Roleil is a cunning woman whose magic allows her to communicate from beyond the grave, while Nekron is a Magic Knight with ice powers and an Ambiguously Gay vibe.
• Male Gaze: Teegra. If you do a shot every time you see ridiculous amounts of cleavage or she rams her butt into the camera, you'll be dead five minutes later (but don't attempt it with Female Gaze examples either, because this movie is surprisingly egalitarian at this). Mitigated in that she's more than capable of handling herself, at least.
• Mask Power: Darkwolf, the supreme badass of the movie, wears a rather wolf-like mask.
• Medieval Prehistory: There are kings, castles, and metal weapons in what is otherwise a Hollywood Prehistory world full of cavemen and pterosaurs.
• Mind over Matter: One of Nekron's lesser but deadly powers, second only to his presence as a Large Ham.
• Mr. Fanservice: The men don't wear anything more concealing than the women, and their musculature is drawn with attentive detail.
• Ms. Fanservice: Princess Teegra in spades, as she spends most of the film running around in a barely there bikini.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Nekron is, unsurprisingly, a bad guy.
• Neutral Female: Teegra zigzags with this one and Action Girl, going from crying and laying helplessly to stabbing people with sticks or throwing knives into their hearts (and then standing by watching her sort-of boyfriend get the crap kicked out of him for a minute).
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When the Sub-Humans kill Roleil they burn her hut with her in it. Larn sees the fire, and the jungle witch's skeleton is able to tell Larn where to find Nekron before she disintegrates.
• No Escape but Down: When Larn is cornered by the subhumans at the top of the jungle trees, he escapes by leaping into the cloud-shrouded chasm, despite not knowing how deep it is or what lies at the bottom.
• Offing the Offspring: Possibly, if one assumes the subtly hinted-at theory that Darkwolf is Nekron's father to be true.
• Older Sidekick: Darkwolf, to Larn.
• Orcus on His Throne: Nekron is not seen off his throne or even outside of his throne room for most of the movie. In fact, he is a good reason of why this trope and Blood Knight do not mix: he is a blood knight by nature, but being an Orcus on his throne leaves him bored, which is why he is so happy when Larn finally shows up.
• Plot Armor: Darkwolf requests the use of King Jarol's Dragonhawk fleet to attack Icepeak as a last resort, reasoning that one of the Dragonhawks might make it all the way into the fortress to face Nekron. Naturally, every single Dragonhawk carrying a Firekeep soldier is shot down, with the only survivors of the attack being main characters Darkwolf and Larn.
• Protagonist Title: In Spain the movie was titled Teegra: Fire & Ice, although it could be argued that Larn is more of a main protagonist than she is. It was probably done because of Teegra’s design.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The Sub-Humans who serve as Nekron's army appear to be this at the very end where, after the main villains are all dead, Larn is about to kill one by bashing his head in with a rock but instead of fighting back the Sub-Human cowers in fear and holds up his hands, crying out as if begging for mercy. Possibly cowardice, or possibly they were roped into doing the dirty work of the Big Bad against their will.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Nekron, despite lounging on his throne most of the time. Not only he's a powerful wizard, he's rather adept with a sword whenever he doesn't want to use his magic to deal with his enemies.
• Rasputinian Death: Roleil is stabbed, set on fire, and then lingers for a while as a talking skeleton before finally crumbling to dust.
• Rebellious Princess: Teegra resents her royal duties of lounging about her room all day and soaking up lessons from her tutor, her real dream is to go out and help her brother fight. She sorta gets her wish...
• Red Shirt: The soldiers of Teegra's kingdom.
• Rotoscoping: The style is very similar to Ralph Bakshi's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
• Sacrificial Lion: Teegra's brother. He falls before Nekron while trying to save his sister.
• Sexy Surfacing Shot: While being transported by the subhumans, Princess Teegra dives into the middle of the lake where they are resting and emerge; the water cascading down her body, her already tiny bikini now almost transparent, and her nipple clearly visible through the cloth. She uses the distraction this causes among the subhumans to escape.
• Shout-Out:
  • Although the film is typically advertised as being based in Robert E. Howard's works, its plot about dark forces seizing a Jungle Opera world by an apocalyptic glaciar and subhuman hominids seems rather a Whole-Plot Reference to Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea cycle. Now, given that Howard and Smith were friends and members of the pulp genre's big three along with H. P. Lovecraft, this is far from weird.
  • Roleil and her son remind of Grendel and his mother.
  • Being an apathetic, skinny, pale, white-haired sorcerer who suffers from violent mood-swings, can handle himself in a sword fight, and is pitted in battle against Darkwolf, Nekron evokes Elric of Michael Moorcock's The Elric Saga.
• Show Some Leg: How Teegra escapes her captors the first time round. She bathes in a lake in an alluring fashion, whilst the Sub-Humans watch, before slinking below the water and swimming off.
• Sissy Villain: Nekron. Surprisingly, he's quite a capable swordsman despite this, and loves the idea of a Worthy Opponent.
• Slurpasaur: Surprisingly, an animated example. The giant lizard that wipes out the first party of subhumans is clearly just an iguana with stegosaurus plates on its back... despite the animated medium completely negating any need for such cost-cutting measures. Presumably it was easier to rotoscope than animating an entire dinosaur from scratch. It also just fits in this kind of movie.
• Solitary Sorceress: The sorceress Roleil has a secluded hut in the steamy jungle.
• Sorcerous Overlord: Nekron actually refers to himself as an overlord at one point, and he seems to expand and maintain his territory mostly through sorcery. It's implied his mother was basically the same before he took over the job, too.
• Storming the Castle: This happens later in the movie but all the Red Shirts bite the dust.
• Stripperiffic: Both men and women in this world wear astonishingly little.
• Super Mode: Darkwolf does this twice in the film. Once when he was surrounded by Sub-Humans and later when he fights off the effects of Nekron's magic. You know you're in trouble when Darkwolf starts glowing...
• Tap on the Head: Larn is knocked unconscious several times, with no ill effects.
• Tentacled Terror: Larn has to fight a big octopus-like monster at one point.
• The Unintelligible: The Sub-Humans, most of them.
• Villainous Mother-Son Duo: Nekron and his mother Queen Juliana jointly rule the Kingdom of the North and plot to Take Over the World. However, Nekron is clearly the superior party, and is not amused by Juliana offering him a captured female slave in the expectation that he'll give her a grandchild.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Basically all the men.
• Warrior vs. Sorcerer: The warriors Larn and Darkwolf battle the wicked ice wizard Nekron. Larn is more focused on rescuing Princess Teegra, while Darkwolf is a full-on Blood Knight seeking to kill Nekron.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction: The Firekeep have their Lava Flow, a weapon where the Firekeep people activate a series of volcanoes and direct its flow with man-made channels. King Jerol is understandably loathe to use it, as the weapon destroys a vast tract of jungle, but it does destroy the Icepeak and roasts almost all of the Sub-Humans.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: There was a blonde woman that was seen captured by the Sub-Humans that appeared in a scene, but after that she wasn't seen or mentioned again. This is probably for the best.
• Why Won't You Die?: Uttered word-for-word by Nekron towards Darkwolf.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: A villainous and strange example as it isn't spoken to the person in question but rather to her brother. When Taro arrives to ask for Teegra's release, Nekron admits he was initially repulsed at the idea of mating with her but found her to be attractive for a "lesser beast."
• You Have Failed Me: Juliana to the leader of her Sub-Human Mooks, after Teegra pulls off one of her (numerous) escapes from them.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The forest sorceress Roleil means to turn Teegra over to Nekron's Sub-Humans for a price. Suffice to say that it doesn't end well for her.

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