Rating the Sword and Sorcery protagonists

Deanna Booher, aka Queen Kong, aka Matilda the Hun (1948-2022) played the Amazon champion. Quite a character off-screen too, apparently.

(I do remember it being choc-full-o-breasts.)

Apart from Evil Princess Evie (and it is Monique Gabrielle, after all), I don’t think there’s any breastitude apart from the Amazon Queen’s see-through top. There’s plenty of cleavage, but this is a radically different tone to the first movie, right down to finishing with a blooper reel.

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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.

Fun fact; This was entirely due to Toni Naples, who played the Evil Lady, having an earlier flight out of Argentina than the rest of the cast, and them being unable to think of any other way to get her out of the final battle.

Fair play for them deciding they couldn’t just kill her a second time!

Incidentally, the movie was largely improvised, primarily because the filmmakers got to Argentina, found out the studio Roger Corman rented was between an airport and the local garbage dump… and there was less garbage in the garbage dump than their studio lot.

If you can find it, the DVD and Blu-Ray of Deathstalker 2 have a fantastic commentary track by the director, Toni Naples and John Terlesky, who played Deathstalker.

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Of course, we all know The Beastmaster would be the true victor.

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Apart from Evil Princess Evie (and it is Monique Gabrielle, after all), I don’t think there’s any breastitude apart from the Amazon Queen’s see-through top. There’s plenty of cleavage, but this is a radically different tone to the first movie, right down to finishing with a blooper reel.

More butts than boobs., thanks to the movie recycling the fur thong bikini costumes for the Amazon army from 1986’s Amazons. (A highly underrated movie with a script by the legendary Charles Saunders that deserved far better than to be rushed out by Roger Corman.)

The Evil Evie has a scene where she tries to seduce Deathstalker. Good Evie gets assaulted by the guards, before being saved by the Amazons. And, as you say, the Amazon Queen has a see-through top when SHE tries seducing Deathstalker. There’s also a scene where the evil sorcerer gets it on with the minion he resurrected, but the boobs reportedly belong to a body double under a strobe light.

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Hah, Amazon is selling that DVD for $170.

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More accurately, that’s the price it’s not selling for. :slight_smile: Some third-party vendors will crazily overprice out-of print items, perhaps to catch a windfall from someone desperate or careless.

Shout Factory sells both movies plus two others (Barbarian Queen and The Warrior and the Sorceress) in a “Sword and Sorcery” DVD combo set for $20. Says it includes commentary tracks on the Deathstalker movies.

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Once you’ve seen Cecilia North’s cameo in that, Lycia Naff 's role in Total Recall will always seem a little, erm, “uneven”.

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The Herc Abides.

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$170 is Amazon’s presented price for the item. And yes, even on that page, the Director’s Cut is only about $33, that isn’t the price that Amazon puts in boldface beneath the header, and which doesn’t even appear to be a third-party price. That is to say, Amazon’s enshittification continues.

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Amazon has the 4-pack @ArkhamNative mentioned for $18.

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Are we rating the Protagonists themselves or the MST episodes they were in?

If we are rating the protagonists, then what are the standards?

Even the ‘competent’ heroes in movies like Sword and the Dragon have ridiculous plans that only work because of the sheer incompetence of their antagonists. Ator for example gets captured like an idiot and takes 1.5 hours to cover the same distance the Great One’s daughter covered in 1.5 minutes. I’m going to need some standards to judge by. :slight_smile:

First blush impressions?

Ilya and Ator are probably near the top, though I’d argue that Hercules Against the Moon Men belongs up there with them for not falling for the standard Herc trope of getting drugged and sleeping with the evil queen. Most other protagonists in the fantasy movie set are milquetoast (like George and Sinbad) or they’re arrogant berks like Deathstalker. So I’d classify the heros into three groups…

  1. Mostly competent Uber-Men
  2. Mostly inoffensive Average Joes
  3. Mostly offensive jerkwads

Add heroes to preferred category at will.

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