80s epic Krull turns 42 today


Why, just the other day, I found myself in a veritable fog of cinematic nostalgia, at a suburban cineplex showing a midnight screening of…Krull. Yes, Krull, that 1983 fantasy flick that, for a brief, glorious moment 42 years ago today, convinced a nation newly-blessed with Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, and pay television that there was still room in the cosmos for a prince named Colwyn, a five-bladed love child of a boomerang and throwing star called the Glaive, and a supervillain so dastardly he could get away with being named The Beast. And, wouldn’t you know it, this wasn’t just some dusty old VHS tape we were talking about; no sir, this was a genuine, honest-to-goodness *theatrical* revival, complete with the requisite gaggle of ironic hipsters, aging Gen-Xers misty-eyed with forgotten childhood wonder, and at least one character who showed up in full cyclops regalia.

Now, I’m not about to sit here and tell you Krull was "King Lear." The dialogue...well, let’s just say it had a certain…earnestness that occasionally bordered on the unintentionally-hilarious. The special effects, while groundbreaking at the time, now possess a certain charmingly clunky quality, like a well-meaning but slightly inebriated robot trying to perform ballet. And the plot? A kidnapped princess, a quest across a psychedelic landscape featuring fire mares and a shape-shifting beast… it was pure, unadulterated, glorious Saturday morning cartoon fuel, pumped directly into a slick, celluloid package.

But that, my friends, is precisely the point! Krull wasn't trying to be Citizen Kane in space. It was unapologetically, gloriously itself – a vibrant, if slightly daffy, concoction of sword and sorcery tropes filtered through the lens of early 80s cinematic ambition. It had a certain joie de vivre, a wide-eyed enthusiasm for its own fantastical premise that, frankly, is rather refreshing in our current age of gritty reboots and deconstructed mythologies. In short, such a script would never be greenlit by the Hollywood void today.

So, as I emerged from that midnight screening, the strains of James Horner's soaring score still echoing in my ears, I couldn't help but smile. Krull, both the movie and its Atari arcade counterpart, represented a certain kind of unironic escapism, a willingness to embrace the fantastical without a hint of cynicism. Which sounds a lot like the 1980s themselves. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I hear the faint call of an old Atari machine…

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