Krull: the movie... and the wedding

In 1983, a dozen couples traveled to a Burbank soundstage to be married in a group wedding themed around the science fiction/fantasy film Krull. They had won a national essay contest by revealing “why their ‘Fantasy Come True’ would be to have a ‘Krull’ wedding in Hollywood." It's not clear what would have inspired that fantasy considering the film wasn't even released yet. From Tim Kirk's write-up in The Moving Arts on the Krull wedding promotion:

One after another, they walked past a pair of futuristic soldiers in fanciful armor, down a red carpet flanked by strangers in folding chairs, and up to an altar made of faux stone. These were the lucky winners of a national contest sponsored by Columbia Pictures. They had penned the winning statements describing, as the studio’s press release states, “why their ‘Fantasy Come True’ would be to have a ‘Krull’ wedding in Hollywood..."

This promotion was largely ignored by the press. The film had a poor opening weekend and suffered dreadful reviews. Variety called it a “blatantly derivative hodgepodge of Excalibur meets Star Wars.”  The BBC chimed, “a sub standard space opera with pretensions to being a British Star Wars.”  The idea of running a feature on the “Krull” Weddings, and photos of the participants, next to a scathing review of the film seems downright cruel. It is probable that the studio realized that rolling out some photos of folks getting married in the manner of a scene in a film that no one saw wouldn’t do much to resuscitate ticket sales. The promotion was dropped.

‘Krull’ Weddings: The Awkward Teenage Years of Movie Marketing (Thanks, Rodney Ascher!)

• [Anonymous]

  I highly recommend watching Krull on mute with the super slow Bieber playing instead. That was a captivating twenty minutes.

• [Jonathan Badger]

  I think Krull was quite enjoyable — and yes, I did see it as a child in the theatre, but a couple of years ago I netflixed it and found it quite watchable (unlike many movies I had fond memories of but which didn’t hold up to adult viewing).

  Okay, so it *is* derivative, but that’s part of its charm. It doesn’t know what it wants to be — Star Wars, The (original) Clash of the Titans, generic D&D fantasy — so it steals shamelessly from all of these.

  But, yes, it is very weird that people would want to get married in a Krull themed wedding (or in a group wedding at all — a bit too Moonie-ish)

• [mccrum]

  This may be the only form of wedding that Trekkie weddings look down upon.

• [Ronald Pottol]

  Worst movie I’ve ever paid to see. We walked out on it.

• [muteboy]

  I still watch Krull if it’s on. Good bunch of British actors. Liam “Pork Dim Sum” Neeson, Bernard “Carry On Camping” Bresslaw, Todd “Tucker Jenkins off of Grange Hill” Carty, Freddie “LIFE! Is full of surprises!” Jones, Lysette “Om Nom Nom” Anthony, Francesca “Bene Gesserit” Annis, Alun “pretty much everything ever” Armstrong, and the sadly missed David Battley as Ergo the magnificent (“short in stature, tall in power, narrow of purpose and wide of vision”)

• [kuanes]

  Actually saw this in at Drive-In theater when I was a kid.

  Yes, “Krull” is somewhat cheesy in retrospect, but I thought (and continue to do so) it was the coolest.

• [VICTOR JIMENEZ]

  Great cheesy movie. I saw it in the theater and I nearly shit my pants when they kill one of the bad guys and ooze slips out his broken helmet.

  “They look like humans but they are not! Holly Virgin! Shit!”

• [tim]

  The only good thing about Krull was watching Lysette Anthony. And that only just made up for the rest of it.

• [walkranrunning]

  I’ve got to wonder: how did their participation in this themed wedding affect their wedding success? More divorces or fewer? And were their teenage kids more or less likely to die of embarrassment when Mom and Dad, after a couple of merlots, would again pull out the romantic old story of cutting the wedding cake with that shuriken-like glaive?

  The truth must be out there. Statistics, anyone?

• [Anonymous]

  ohh I loved Krull as a kid!! My brothers and sisters used to throw ninja stars at each other and yell “Krull!” Thanks for the rewind.

• [Anonymous]

  “Krull” was as cheesy as it could get (with the exception of some nice costume designs & sets…), but it sure was entertaining, to say the least! I agree “Beastmaster” sucked (but it still has it’s quaint charm…), but “Conan” was great. It had a lot of great scenes (example: when Arnold rolls the giant pot over and ‘crashes’ the orgy…), and without a doubt had the baddest, beefiest, hardest, drum-pounding barbarian theme ever! Plus it was rated-R and didn’t hold back on sword play violence! Lol!

• [bobhughes]

  what a great arcade game it was. everything else about it, beh..

  • [bobhughes]

    All the ones for kids pretty much – Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Never Ending Story

• [Snig]

  Also interesting that society didn’t flinch with a group Krull wedding, but elements have a hissy fit with gay marriage.

• [rjmiller]

  Quick contest: Name an epic fantasy film that is better than Krull, made pre-2000, and isn’t LotR.

  Sure, Krull is pretty bad, but it’s still awesome. At least it isn’t Hawk the Slayer.

  • [Pantograph]

    Willow

    • [rjmiller]

      You win. Willow rocks.

      But let’s be honest about Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian: they kinda sucked. Bad acting, slow plotting, poor writing. The best scene in Conan is probably when Arnold punches out a camel (in fact, they recognize this and call back to it in Conan the Destroyer).

      Krull had some inventive stuff at least, like the black widow scene. You also had comic relief magician David Battley (of Rutland fame), who was probably the best thing in the film. The villain is pretty pathetic though, it’s hard to match up to James Earl Jones.

  • [Snig]

    Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards. Or so would have said adolescent Snig. Also Highlander.

  • [Anonymous]

    BEASTMASTER owns krull.

  • [Teller]

    Conan el Barbarian.

  • [knoxblox]

    Crow was the coolest elf EVAR!

  • [Anonymous]

    Beastmaster, oh yeah!

  • [Brainspore]

    Star Wars.

  • [abulaf1a]

    Easy: Ladyhawke.

    Awesome cast, good acting (although Broderick’s accent comes and goes), and occasionally lovely art direction. A good movie only let down by a god-awful ’80s synth score.

    For the record, I still like Krull for the cheese factor (and Lysette Anthony *sigh*), and I think the interior set design for the Beast’s castle/ship/big rock holds up well even now.

  • [bobhughes]

    The Princess Bride? and I see someone had just beaten me to Ladyhawke

• [Hassenfeffer]

  I worked for the bridal manufacturer that made the dress for the movie! LOL!

• [Anonymous]

  “Our dream is to get married in a way that makes a joke out of this important milestone in our lives. We hope to give birth to our first child while dressed up as cereal mascots for a Kellogs promotion.”

• [Lydia9]

  Wow. We got our first VCR back in 1984, and Krull was one of the five kid-appropriate videos we owned (TV movie “Arthur The King”, Beastmaster, Pirates of Penzance, and West Side Story rounded out the collection, so yup, musical-themed episodes of sci-fi/fantasy shows float my boat to a scary degree). I was ten, so I didn’t realize how bad this movie was, but I was JUST savvy enough to grasp that the love plot, wedding vows, and treatment of women in general were by far the most disturbing aspects of the movie. Liam Neeson, however, was fabulous as the psychic cyclops. Nothing but awesome as far as he’s concerned.

  That said in more recent history, Las Vegas’ Star Trek Experience offered wedding packages, and it seems that the Disney wedding packages are also wildly popular. Krull lacks the advantage of being as firmly ensconced in the zeitgeist as Star Trek and Disney, but looking at this from the age of reality shows, it does seem to be a pretty apt predictor of the weird choices people will make in order to get their faces in the media.

  • [David Pescovitz]

    If you read the full article, he addresses the Star Trek and Star Wars wedding scene. As I said, the thing that made the Krull example particularly odd is that these people tried (and succeeded) to tie a very important moment in their life to a movie that they hadn’t even seen.

  • [Anonymous]

    Wasn’t Liam Neeson playing the roll of Kegan?
    Bernard Bresslaw was Rell the Cyclops.

  • [toolbag]

    Actually Neeson wasn’t the Cyclops, he was the guy with the axe that shot lasers. One of my favorite movies as a child, next to Road Warrior.

    • [Zadaz]

      “Actually Neeson wasn’t the Cyclops, he was the guy with the axe that shot lasers.”

      How can any movie that this quote applies to not be awesome?

      • [noah django]

        exactly. I lol’d

        I loved this movie when I saw it as a kid, same with Beastmaster.

        speaking of, I came across Beastmaster on Telefutura the other day and didn’t change channels ’til it was over, despite the fact I speak almost no spanish. I wish it had been Krull. And now I’ve netflixed it, it is loading as I post this. suck it, haters.

• [MrsBug]

  I remember seeing Krull in the theater. Can’t remember if I liked it or not (I probably did – I have no taste).

  • [headcode]

    I most definitely remember seeing this in the theater. I was with my college work friends and we could not believe how bad it was.

• [eyebum]

  Oh wow, Krull sucked.

  Man, I loved Krull.

• [Anonymous]

  Dragonslayer was better than Krull. Hell, The Last Starfighter was better than Krull. The only good part about Krull was the silly weapon, which defied all laws of common sense in weapon design but managed to look cool.

• [Anonymous]

  We used to joke that HBO stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s On!”

  Seriously, they must have played that movie ten bazillion times.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    We used to joke that HBO stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s On!” Seriously, they must have played that movie ten bazillion times.

    That was the core of David Letterman’s opening monologue for several years.

    • [Anonymous]

      Coined by Dennis Miller

  • [Gyrofrog]

    Yeah, I remember out of all the weeks in the school year, I happened to be sick THAT WEEK.

• [cisco]

  Beastmaster, kid-appropriate?

  I saw it when I was 10 or so, but I recall it being a little “adult” in spots. OK, I’ll admit that I’ve watched it at least once more since then. ;-)

  And for the record, I remember liking Krull. And be honest, how many of you went home and immediately went about fabricating a large throwing “star” with razor blades at the tips and then immediately cutting yourself? Nobody? Really?

• [Anonymous]

  Flesh+Blood – directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Rutger Hauer and (occasionally very naked) Jennifer Jason Leigh. Better than Ladyhawke!