braincell soup

For those of you not familiar with Heavy Metal it had to be the quintessential magazine of the 1970’s. It was also later made into an animated movie that even to this day gets mixed reviews. I remember both the magazine and the movie, even with its faults, quite fondly. High Times and Heavy Metal – my two magazine expenditures of my youth I always looked forward to each month.

Now according to the coverage over at FirstShowing.net there is another remake in the works of Heavy Metal with such luminaries as James Cameron having signed on as co-executive producer along with David Fincher. As interesting as that could be I was kind of captured by a thought as I read my buddy Jason’s review of Pixar’s Up over at his blog webomatica.

While he gave the movie a solid 5 stars it was something that he said about Pixar that prompted this post (emphasis mine).

Pixar is on an unprecedented roll of ten excellent animated films with some outright masterpieces. Personally, Up is the best installment since The Incredibles. And what I loved most about Up is its glimmer of tantalizing potential – based on the movie’s exquisite first half, Pixar is on the cusp of doing a straight-up, animated drama. I’d love to see Pixar further destroy the stereotype that mainstream audiences will only watch animation that is funny, frentic, and geared for kids. At this juncture, the public will gladly join them on whatever journey they choose – the sky’s the limit.

On the cusp of doing straight-up, animated drama … hmmm … and if you tossed in some science fiction?

Given the immense talent at Pixar and their willingness to break the mold around our perceptions of what can be done with animation I think it would be interesting to see what they could do with something like Heavy Metal.

What do you think?