YMMV / Rock and Rule

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Mok a spoiled man obsessed with getting what he wants and hates the world for not having a sold-out concert? Or is he a Mad Artist who is obsessed with making bigger and better shows, at the expense of all that is around him? His AI advisers telling him that this will bankrupt him and Mok not taking their advice is evidence of the latter.
• Animation Age Ghetto: This movie isn't for kids in the slightest; the target audience is teens and young adults. It was, however, rated PG because it was released before (as in, just a year before) the PG-13 rating was created. This was also a major factor in the movie's financial failure. Its distributor, believing that an animated movie directed at an older audience wouldn't be successful, under-promoted it. The results didn't exactly prove them wrong.
• Anvilicious: "Believe in your heart Omar, not your eyes!" Bricks through windows are more subtle than Dizzy's kids show's moralizing.
• Awesome Ego: Mok's ego is through the roof — he's planning to kill all of his loyal fans just because his last concert didn't sell out completely, and one of his songs is literally called "Triumph To The Glory of Me" — but he's so enjoyably full of himself and so awesomely bombastic it's hard not to agree every word of outrageous praise thrown his way.
• Awesome Music:
  • Say what you want about the film in general, but the soundtrack has some serious bops:
  • The final number, "Send Love Through", is pretty dang sweet.
  • "My Name is Mok." It's just so deliciously self indulgent.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The musical hologram sequence qualifies, as does Mok's Villain Song which turns out to be a dream, also worth noting he appears to be high once the latter finishes so that explains a lot.
  • The scene where the Club 666 doorman kills a bunch of "mutants" as Cindy and Angel arrive. Not only is it the only scene where blood is shown in a rather non-violent movie, the exact reason the mutants exist is never addressed and they are never brought up again.
• Complete Monster: The aging, utterly self-absorbed rock singer Mok Swagger intends to use the powers of an otherworldly demon to destroy his loyal fans for the crime of not loving him enough. Mok forces the female lead Angel to sing the song through which he intends to summon the demon by torturing her bandmates, threatening to kill them before her and smirking when he sees the torture leaves them as drooling vegetables. His first attempt to summon the demon foiled, Mok finally uses Angel's voice to summon the horrible demon onto a packed crowd at his own concert, gleefully watching it devour his fans and staying apathetic even when the demon kills one of his loyal minions.
• Cult Classic: Isn't very well known for obvious reasons, but still retains a small following nonetheless who appreciate the animation, songs and plot.
• Designated Hero: Omar, being a self-interested, egotistical, antisocial and apathetic Jerkass, is this for the majority of the film, arguably only stepping up and being heroic in the climax. He's a bit more likable in the American cut of the film, which added a few scenes to give him some more heart of gold aspects, but even then, he still showed signs of this.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Cindy's not in the movie very long, but she's pretty well-liked due to her fun-loving, energetic personality that contrasts with most of her brothers.
  • Dizzy is very popular with people who have seen the movie a few times or are going back to critique it years later - due mostly to his being the Only Sane Man among the movies' good guys, especially in the midst of Angel and Omar's bickering and Stretch's frantic reactions.
• Evil Is Cool: Mok is the thing most remember this movie for, and for good reason. In addition to being exceptionally animated, with a wicked-cool voice, Mok is bombastic, entertaining and so wicked that he's just plain fun to watch.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "Pain and Suffering" must have inspired GWAR, especially if you hear the full lyrics. (Being sung by Iggy Pop doesn't hurt.)
  • Either this or Harsher in Hindsight, depending on your point of view. It's doubtful Mok was supposed to look like what Michael Jackson would look like later in life.
  • Mok's name is Mok Swagger, and is based on the single - but Mick Jagger threatened to sue, so it was just Mok. In short, he's part Jagger, part Bowie, part Lou Reed, part Iggy, and part Jacko. Awesome.
    • Mok also wouldn't be the last character to have the surname "Swagger" and be based off of Mick Jagger.
  • Many of the stranger elements of the movie, such as magic intertwined with science and humanoid animal people living on earth After the End, would later be used in a much more comedic way in Adventure Time. In fact, one episode of Adventure time, What Was Missing, shares even more elements with the movie. Both that episode and this movie focus on synergy and harmonic singing, albeit for different reasons.
• Inferred Holocaust: The first concert burnt down the music hall, killing nearly the entire audience (a news interview with a survivor shows piles of dead bodies in the background). It also caused a total blackout in Nuke York, likely leading to more deaths and chaos throughout the city. It was described as "Whoa Bad Karma, Man".
• Memetic Mutation: Mok's lips are the subject of quite a lot of memes, such as joking that half the film's budget was spent animating them or that they're basically a separate character themselves. Humorously, as detailed in Visual Effects of Awesome, both of these statements are technically true.
• Moral Event Horizon: Mok's entire plan is to summon a demon to kill everyone just because people weren't loving him enough.
• Narm: Half the dialogue at the film's climax, especially Dizzy and Zip's, is intolerably corny and uselessly expository and ruins the atmosphere. At least Mok's over the top hamminess feels appropriate for the sequence.
• Narm Charm: Mok's motivation being that his last concert wasn't completely sold out. An extremely petty motive, but nonetheless fitting for a character as over-the-top as Mok.
• Nausea Fuel: The close up of a dead mutant melting due to the heat at the start of the Club 666 scene. One of it's hands even curls into a tentacle!
• Older Than They Think: Was this the first use of light bridges?
• Paranoia Fuel: Mok can appear in your bedroom in a wink, in front of the middle of a thirty-foot-wide wall of glass (as in, pretty hard to sneak in conventionally). Oh, and singing a random selection of notes, unknowingly, may lead to the creation of a monstrous demon from beyond. Pleasant dreams. Fortunately, the demon also requires a specific sort of voice, an obscene amount of electricity, and whatever equipment said electricity is supposed to power.
• Popular with Furries: All the characters are Funny Animals and it's a Mature Animal Story, so a number of fans are furries.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Mok was voiced (except when singing) by Don Francks. Along with being the first actor to voice Boba Fett (which he did in the Star Wars Holiday Special), he is also the voice of Sabretooth in X-Men: The Animated Series. Francks is also the reason that Dr. Claw sounded a little different in some of the 1980s Inspector Gadget episodes, filling in for the very busy Frank Welker. His incarnation of Dr. Claw sounded a lot like Mok, especially in his more genial delivery than Welker's more scary Claw.
  • The peg-legged sailor communicating to Toad is voiced by Maurice LaMarche. He had moved to the United States sometime around the film's release.
• Spiritual Successor: To The Devil and Daniel Mouse, which the animation company did before this film, both of which end with a demonic entity defeated by The Power of Rock.
• Ugly Cute: Uncle Mikey's Cartoon Show.
• Viewer Species Confusion: The opening narration says that the characters are descended from dogs, cats, and rats, but it's really hard to tell which of the characters are which of the three species.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Mok's facial structure, animated by Robin Budd, is one of the most complex ever designed for a character in an animated feature. His distinctive lips in particular are drawn flexibly and organically but in such a way that they never feel like they're floating in an arbitrary space as is the case with some other characters in the field.

---