Krull

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"The ancient prophecy: that a girl of ancient name shall become queen, that she shall choose a king, and that together they shall rule our world, and that their son shall rule the galaxy."

A princess has been kidnapped by an Evil Overlord, her father has been killed by evil minions, and it's up to The Hero to gather a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits to save her and avenge his father's death.

Sounds sickeningly derivative, doesn't it?

Well just because the plot is a Cliché Storm, doesn't mean it's bad.

It was originally supposed to be the official Dungeons and Dragons movie (under the title The Dragons Of Krull), but the license was somehow lost before the film was released. Krull has a similar reputation as Hawk the Slayer, another D&D kind of film; both were made in Britain. But this may simply be a persistent rumor, given that it has been officially denied by Gary Gygax himself.

Has nothing to do with the island state of Krull from Discworld

Tropes used in Krull include:

Lyssa: Power is fleeting. Love is eternal.

Ergo: If I had my wish, I'd be out of this gloomy place...if I'd really have my wish, I'd be sitting on a gooseberry pie as big as a mountain. No, that's a bit greedy...I'll settle for one as big as a house. What'd you wish for, Titch?
Titch: (ponders) A puppy.
Ergo: Only one? Why not a hundred?
Titch: Only want one.
Ergo: Well, that's a foolish wish...what about you, Rell, what'd you wish for?
Rell: (gloomily) Ignorance.

  • Nothing Is Scarier: Thanks to the Special Effects Failure in how the Beast was portrayed, rather like the shark in Jaws and the creature in Alien it is more frightening when unseen, only sensed or heard breathing. The unsettling, surreal interior of the Black Fortress doesn't help.
  • The Obi-Wan: "The Old One"
    • "Well, not as old as all that!"
  • One-Winged Angel: Near the end, Ergo decides "if my Baleful Polymorph spells always backfire, why not turn myself into a tiger?"
  • Pet the Dog: Literally, but inverted: the moment where it's first shown that Ergo has a heart and a more selfless side is when he turns himself into a dog for Titch to pet and hold.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Ergo
  • Poke in the Third Eye: The Beast pulls this on the Emerald Seer, shattering his scrying gem in the process. This necessitates the Seer having to travel to the Emerald Temple where he will have enough power to break through the Beast's barriers...a trip during which the Seer just so happens to be very vulnerable.
  • The Power of Love: Which is considerably less metaphoric than in other examples. Part of the marriage ceremony in this story involves the female taking a literal fire from a ceremonial pool and holding it in her immune-to-this-flame bare hand. Lyssa literally carries this flame for Colwyn through the entire film until the Final Battle, where it proves to be more than the Big Bad can handle.
  • Princess Classic: Lyssa. Though in her opening scenes she shows courage, strength of heart, and more than a little independence (for one thing, it's made quite plain that the alliance by marriage was her idea and she bullied her father into it), and when she is captured it's clearly due to lack of fighting skills and training, not lack of desire to fight back.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits
  • Quicksand Sucks: In a surprisingly tense and desperate scene with one of the thieves. Considering this whole moment existed as one big distraction for the Beast to replace the Emerald Seer, the quicksand may well have been magically generated, thus explaining why it didn't act like the Real Life version.
  • Red Right Hand: Combined with Glamour Failure, the Beast and his servants could take any shape, but their eyes always looked demonic and evil. At least, when they opened their eyes, or used their powers in any other way. the one impersonating the Emerald Seer got away with it through the simple expedient of never opening his eyes when the heroes were looking at him, the one trying to seduce Colwyn only blew her cover when she manifested her claws.
  • Red Shirt: All but two of the brigands who join Colwyn, as well as all of the Slayers.
  • Refuge in Cool: The Glaive, the slayers' weapons, the Black Fortress, the Fire Mares, the twin suns, the cyclops, the translucent giant spider, and a marriage ceremony that gives the groom temporary but powerful pyrokenesis.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Colwyn and his father are knights fighting the invaders.
  • Rule of Cool: Krull is a planet full of cool things.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Colwyn and Lyssa's love makes a literal flame that can destroy the Beast. The Black Fortress (evil) can appear anywhere. The Widow of the Web's hourglass sands not only can briefly stop time, allowing someone past the spider, but they also represent the span of her life--and thanks to Mindlink Mates, Yynr's too, so that spilling them ends their lives. Torquil not wanting to have his manacles removed until the end of the quest (when he'd earned it), only to keep them even after he does remove them as a reminder of the past he'd atoned for.
  • Save the Princess
  • Shapeshifting Seducer: Or at least would-be lover, at two points. The Beast assumes Colwyn's form, and at least one of his minions can do so as well by impersonating the Emerald Seer. Whether the Changling sent to "make [Colwyn] betray her; if not, kill him" had a similar ability or was somehow assigned the form is not revealed.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Ergo definitely has shades of this, considering his Overly Long Name is clearly Compensating for Something. It turns out by the end, though, that much of this is a pose.
  • Super Speed: Fire Mares can travel "a thousand leagues in a day." The definition of "league" differed according to era and location, but it refers to the distance a healthy horse can most efficiently travel in an hour - about five and a half kilometers. Fire Mares thus have a cruising speed of 231 kph or 143 mph!
  • Teleporters and Transporters: The Black Fortress vanishes from one location during a sunrise and appears in another (never the same place twice), to thwart enterprising young heroes. Figuring out where it will appear next so it can be intercepted is one of the major plot points.
  • Troperiffic
  • The Walls Are Closing In: Includes the spiked walls version, and a gruesome death for one character who could have escaped but went back for his cherished knife.
  • Wangst: In-Universe it's both justified and defied.

Colwyn: You haven't lost a father, and a bride on the same day!
Ynyr: Nor have I become king on that day.