Hoist the failure sails, we’re going home!
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Of course Sir George needs a lot of help from his friends. Only Sir Ringo can get by with a little hep from his friends. (Sir John and Sir Paul don’t need any help).
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Ator’s the man! He’s a philosopher, a master of sword play, a marrier of sisters… and boy, does he have a package!
I also like the Hercs. Steve Reeves is the greatest Herc of all, and Mickey Hargitay cracks me up, but I have a special fondness for the tallest and sleepiest Herc (edging Reeves in napping prowess), Reg Park. Who earns bonus points for having an entire day dedicated to his… uh, well, you know.
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Also, a shout out to the fighting, sword slinging, headband wearing ladies of Ator. Though cast as sidekicks, Mila and Roon were pretty cool. And come on, nobody rocks a hubcap like Mila!
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Doesn’t Quest of the Delta Knights count as a S’n’S movie?
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Sword and sorcery generally refers to fantasy stories that are more personal, following one or two characters on a smaller-scale adventure, which could be revenge, a heist, or just getting out of a crazy situation. The stakes are smaller, with no politics and more focus on action. Usually no one’s out to save the world or even a small part of it, unless they stumble on a cult that’s trying to summon Cthonizard the Unwashed. Magic is dangerous and usually for the bad guys, but the hero’s usually no angel themselves. The early ones tend to be weird stories and cross over with sci-fi and horror quite freely.
Conan and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are probably the best examples of the genre, although they both tend to drift into other fantasy areas at times.
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Sabrina Siani (Roon) had a whole S’n’S career of her own, in the movies Gunan il Guerriero, Sangraal: La Spada di Fuoco, Conquest and Il Trono di Fuoco.
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It didn’t occur to me until I saw your post that she’s also in the RiffTrax release Cannibal World.
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Without getting too deep into the weeds, I don’t want to offend anyone whose definition of the Sword and Sorcery genre includes works I see as belonging to other branches of the fantasy family tree. There is a lot of overlap, list and evaluate those you wish.
Though if it gets to the point that Bat-Woman or Gamera turn up, we may need to take steps. 
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it turns out that Maciste was -nobody’s- cheesesteak
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Hmm, I didn’t know that.
I don’t own that one but looking at the preview and hearing Bill and Kevin do “PACKERS!” again, makes me think that I should.
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If Gamera ever picks up a sword and fights a sorcery monster in olden times, and MST riffs on that movie? I think we’d be good to go. Especially if he wears a loincloth.
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I waffled on this, and eventually left it out of my list because there isn’t really a swordsman worth the name. Neither Da Vinci nor the boy are fighters particularly.
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P’shaw, Travis was fighting the urge to stare at cleavage the whole time!
Not only that, but anyone that can shoot a fat drunk in a pub is alright by me!
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THAT’S the kid’s name.
I can never, ever remember that. Travis. Huh.
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Ah, Travis. What a great fantasy name. He and Phil are going to pick up Billy and Steve on the way to fight Karen to take them to the mall.
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I’m more or less with @Pearls_Mint’s assessment, though I think Hercules should maybe rank a bit higher (Steve Reeves at least!). Ator’s a stand-up guy, sweet and friendly, and versed in many useful trades (cooking fish, building gliders), though his sibling love interest raises some eyebrows. Ilya’s good, he means well.
The Viking women are very no-nonsense, I liked seeing the damsel in distress trope turned on its head.
George indeed gets a lot of help from his friends, but I’d argue that’s not a deficiency. He’s exploiting the tools at his disposal. (Speaking of tools, he’s not the sharpest in the shed, but I think he’s alright.)
Sinbad’s pretty great I think, so selfless, out to help the downtrodden. Now that I write this out, I think he might be the best in fact because his plight is more relatable/universal: rescuing people from greedy oppression vs. saving a “geometric nucleus,” etc.
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I am shocked! Shocked that nobody on here thought to include the GOOD Deathstalker!
(Okay, his movie was riffed in the Live Tour, but surely that still counts?)
I’d put him up there with Ator for the following reasons.
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Competent - he can actually fight .
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Funny - unlike Dean Stalker, his smart ass remarks are honestly funny, to the point that the edit they used for the Live Tour had to cut a lot of his jokes to disguise the fact that Deathstalker 2 was a comedy. (Seriously. It’s like the Army of Darkness of the Deathstalker franchise.)
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Decent Guy - granting that he’s a self-described Prince of Thieves, tries robbing a tomb in the middle of the quest and and is an infamous enough philanderer to provoke the local Amazon nation into putting him on trial for crimes against women, he does enough good deeds over the course of the movie to make a firm case for his being Chaotic Good, in Dungeons and Dragons terms. To wit:
** He goes out of his way to help Evie the Seer for no reward as she’s being hassled by the guards.
** Despite his “one rescue per day” policy, he still starts a bar fight to save Evie after the guards come back for her.
** He’s nice enough to lie about Evie’s cooking being terrible.
** He refuses to kill the Amazon champion after winning his trial by combat
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I wish I could have seen the live show, we’ve seen Deathstalker 2 in our watch group and it’s definitely a lot of fun. The mood for the movie is struck right at the start, when Evil Lady shouts something like, “I’ll have my revenge, and Deathstalker too!” and the title DEATHSTALKER II appears immediately. Hah!
I also like how Evil Magic Guy outright brings Evil Lady back to life to serve him, but at the end she’s like, “nuh-uh!”, and deciding to use her resurrected life to just go off and do other things, abandoning him! That’s terrific! The movie never returns to her, she’s just off doing stuff. Maybe plotting to take over some other poorly-supported fantasyland regime, maybe going to Cinnabon.
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Oh, and the Amazon Champion is awesome. Their fight is outright played up as a title bout, complete with one amazon holding up round cards. At the end of the movie the champion is chowing down with everyone else at the victory celebration. The movie seems to have a good heart, although it has been a few years now since I’ve seen it so there may be a lot of things I’m leaving out. (I do remember it being choc-full-o-breasts.)
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