Rock & Rule (1983) on Netflix

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Rock & Rule (1983)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

• Rock & Rule was Nelvana's first animated feature and the first Canadian animated feature produced in English; earlier Canadian animated features Tiki Tiki and Heavy Metal were disqualified because Tiki Tiki mixed animation with live-action footage and Heavy Metal was an anthology.
• Rock & Rule began production in 1978 as a children's film called Drats!, with the same post-apocalyptic premise but Mok turning Angel into a guitar instead of wiring her to a soundboard; the crew found cartoony characters easier to animate, but the designs gradually became humans with animalistic features as Hollywood acquaintances pushed the tone toward an older audience.
• Rock & Rule was produced without a well-defined script, so the crew developed sequences and left holes for story layers to be added later.
• Rock & Rule's $8 million production cost nearly put Nelvana out of business; over 300 animators worked on it and it ran $3 million over budget.
• Rock & Rule's glowing effects were made with "controlled streak photography", combining backlit animation with a computer-controlled camera, and a computer-controlled multiplane camera system was developed to add depth.
• MGM/UA disliked Greg Salata's voice as Omar and insisted he be re-dubbed by Paul Le Mat, a name actor; scenes were shortened, dialogue redubbed, obscenities toned down and the prologue altered, further muddying that the characters are animalistic humans.
• Rock & Rule's lack of release nearly bankrupted Nelvana, which sold half its interest in Nelvana Animated Commercials to survive; many major animators never returned, going on to Disney, DreamWorks and Warner Bros, and the company was saved by The Care Bears Movie.
• The original print of Rock & Rule was destroyed in a fire, so the second disc of the DVD used a VHS source for the original cut.