The LOTR of B-Movies?

[renegadefury]

What do you guys think it is? What is the most epic b-movie of all time? Army of Darkness I say. Want some more suggestions though.

[chris]

STARCRASH!... well probably not, but still my favorite bad movie of all-time.... chris

[Fearless Freep]

If by "epic" you mean an attempt at an epic scope then there are a lot.

A lot of 'sword and sandle" b-movies try for such a scope.  The Ator series from Italy beng some.  Also maybe the Gor movies.  "Yor: Hunter From The Future" could qualify

[nshumate]

Especially if we could get a copy of "Yor" as it was originally presented -- as a four-hour TV miniseries.

[i luv dolma]

RAPTOR!

[Cullen]

nshumate wrote:

> Especially if we could get a copy of "Yor" as it was originally
> presented -- as a four-hour TV miniseries.
>

::whimpers::

[Eirik]

Actually, Army of Darkness is probably the best answer...  

But since you want alternatives, how about The Sword and the Sorcerer?  Or even better - Beastmaster?

[peter johnson]

Krull!!  Krull!!
K R U L L !!!
Get me, daddio?
Major cheese, beautiful princesses, etc. etc.  B blood through and through --
peter johnson/denny crane

[Daniel Johnson]

   What about Caligula?

[nshumate]

When you stop to think about it (because, really, who wouldn't want to stop and think about Yor a little longer?), a large part of the movies slap-dash episodic plot stems from having been trimmed down from twice its running time.  The full version probably makes a lot more sense, or at least induces a lot less vertigo.

[Fearless Freep]

Yeah, Nathan, but are you willing to risk finding out?

[Yaddo 42]

Yor as a four hour TV miniseries? Well the kid who lived across the street from me when the film was released would probably be happy to here that, since he thought that the film version was better than "Star Wars" as he used to tell me on a regular basis. Glad I don't know what happened to him.

As for suggestions to the OP:

"Battle Beyond the Stars"
The Lone Wolf and Cub series: While a series of films they are part of one long story: Ogami Itto vs. the Yagyu clan. Plus the films paid enough attention to detail -probably from being shot so close together- that major battle wounds Ogami Itto received in some battles would show up as recognizable scars in later films and you could notice the son getting older as the series went on.  
"Solar Crisis"
"Forbidden Planet"
"The Stand" miniseries
The Godzilla series
The "Once Upon a Time in China" series

Romero's Dead series. When the fourth film is finished, the argument for these will be even stronger.

Maybe the Phantasm series?

Are "The Road Warrior" or even the whole Mad Max series considered too mainstream for this? They certainly started out as b-movies.

Some would suggest the complete "Kill Bill" saga.

Every review of "Keoma" I've read refers to it's epic scope as one of the last great spaghetti westerns.

[nshumate]

You bet!  I laugh in the face of Yor, thusly:  HAH!

I have seen films which seem to have crawled unbidden from the cloaca of Satan himself.  What fear does a ditzy little Italian sci-fi knockoff hold for one such as me!

To reiterate:  HAH!

[Fearless Freep]

I thought you would say that :)

[BoyScoutKevin]

I agree. Of all the B-fantasy films out there, the one that I can remember that comes closest to "LOTR" is probably this one. Read the review for it, at this site.