Zardoz is neither a mindless sci-fi action movie nor a serious SF-as-ideas film
a la Tarkovsky or
Kubrick. It's... hard to describe, on account of the fact that it
really doesn't make a lot of sense. Still, some sort of plot description might help.
It is the year 2293 AD. A post-apocalyptic Earth is inhabited mostly by the "Brutals", simple soil-tilling serf types, who are in turn overseen by Exterminators. These Exterminators worship the god Zardoz, a huge, flying, hollow stone head that dispenses weaponry and ammunition by the truckload. One day, an Exterminator named Zed gets swept up into the hollow stone head and finds himself under possession of the Eternals, an elite class who long ago discovered the secret to immortality and removed themselves from all that penis-having to the rarified heights.
Life has become so meaningless that Zed is hailed as manna from heaven. Some, however, see him as a dangerous threat to their status as higher beings. As it turns out, a lot of the Eternal scientists are female. They argue all this for awhile. Then others start clamouring for Zed to kill them and end this awful tedium.
Fun fact: Boorman wanted to adapt
The Lord of the Rings, but that fell through. It's that project which inspired
Zardoz. It's a trippy dystopian fantasy full of psychotropics, philosophical something-or-another, and lots of gratuitous female nudity. It's definitely a
Cult Classic, and frequently considered
more 70's than
That '70s Show.
Zardoz has examples of:
- Actor Allusion: In his first appearance onscreen, Sean Connery aims his gun at the camera and shoots it.
- Age Cut: The final shot takes it further than most, aging two characters and their newborn son repeatedly until the adult son walks off and the parents remain until they're nothing but skeletons.
- Age Without Youth: The exiles.
- After the End: Apparently this takes place after a nuclear war.
- And I Must Scream: The Apathetics are a subset of the Eternals who have become so tired of immortality that they literally cannot do anything anymore.
- Blessed with Suck: The Eternals' immortality. At first that seemed like a good idea until boredom set in and with no way to end it.
- Body Horror: The immortals punish the criminal by speed-aging the offender. The more you resist, the closer you get to endless senility...
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Arthur Frayn's opening prologue.
- Cargo Cult
- The Chessmaster: Arthur Frayn, if we are to believe the opening prologue.
- The Chosen One: Zed.
- Creator Cameo: Boorman appears as one of the Brutals that gets shot in the head.
- Crossdresser: The Renegades need to get Zed away from rioting Eternals that want to kill him....so they dress him up in a wedding dress.
- Crystal Spires and Togas: Subverted, in that the film presents this as a Dystopia, too.
- Cultured Badass: Zed is quoting T.S. Eliot by the end of the film.
- Dating Catwoman: Zed and Consuela.
- Defector from Decadence: Friend.
- Domed Hometown
- Dude, She's Like, Apathetic!
- Dystopia
- Fan Disservice: Sean Connery spends much of his time wearing a red speedo with matching crisscrossing bandoliers and black thigh-high boots. And then there's a scene where he disguises himself by wearing a wedding dress...
- Fanservice: In that very special 70's but-nudity-is-just-natural sort of way.
- Gambit Roulette: Arthur Frayn's plan as Summed up by Oancitizen:
"So his plan was... herd a bunch of working class Brits into, breeding someone genetically able to think on the Eternals level; lead him to a library. Hope, that he taught himself how to read properly. Hope, that he came across the one specific book that inspired the whole Zardoz shtick. Hope, that he would stow-away on the Zardoz head and shoot him. Then hope, that the head would crash back inside the vortex. Hope, that the other Eternals didn't kill him immediately, and teach them all that they know; in the hopes that he would figure out how to destroy the tabernacle an therefore all the Eternals. In other words, the exact kind of plan you expect for a man who draws on his goatee."
- Go Out with a Smile: Friend. "It's all a joke."
- Gun Porn
- Hall Of Mirrors: The Tabernacle.
- Immortality Hurts: Because no Eternal can die, the only available punishment is aging the offender into senility.
- In Medias Res: The scenes after the prologue. It cuts to Zed after he's gained knowledge and shed his Exterminator identity.
- Jerkass: Friend...before turning into a Jerkass Woobie.
- Kill 'em All: No sooner do the immortals get their immortality mechanism destroyed than they mostly get slaughtered by a bunch of Exterminators. They couldn't be happier.
- Kill the God: Zed was programmed to shoot Frayn.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: The gun is good.
- Large Ham: Arthur Frayn.
- Low Culture, High Tech: The barbarian class.
- Mind Rape: This happens to Zed.
- Mind Screw: The whole movie, from beginning to end.
- Mishmash Museum: The Tabernacle.
- Nietzsche Wannabe
- Planet of Hats
- Playing Against Type: Connery did the film purely to get people to stop thinking of him as just James Bond. And boy, did it work.
- Prophetic Name: Friend.
- Rage Against The Reflection: Zed shooting his former Exterminator self inside the Tabernacle.
- Rage Helm: The Exterminators wear grimacing Zardoz masks.
- Real Men Eat Meat: According to Zed, the brutals hated having to start cultivating wheat for the Eternals.
Zed: Zardoz betrayed us! We were hunters, not farmers!
- Revolvers Are Just Better: As noted, Zardoz is very big on this, to the extent that his version of 'showering blessings' involves automatic rifles.
- Ring of Power: All the Eternals have them.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You
- Scenery Porn: The rolling Irish hills sure are gorgeous.
- Science Fiction: A very broad use of it anyway.
- The Seventies. Very much so.
- Sex Is Evil:
Zardoz: The penis is evil! The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was.
- Shout Out: A salute to The WiZARD of OZ becomes a pretty major plot point.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: More or less the film's entire attitude to romance.
- Straw Feminist: The future women (and possibly men) who speak constantly about how horrible and violent sex was, but at the same time, obviously want to get into Connery's pants.
- Stripperiffic: What else would you call Connery in this movie? Striphorrific?
- Technology Marches On: The immortals are said to have been in this state for 300 years, and the year is 2293, which means they started in 1993...
- Trickster: Arthur Frayn.
- Trrrilling Rrrs: Arthur Frayn.
- Two-Faced: Friend is either half-geriatric or slowly succumbing to being aged. Half of his face is old while the other is unchanged.
- Turned Against Their Masters
- Twist Ending: Zardoz is... The WiZard of Oz.
- Unintentional Period Piece: Even though the movie's set in a Post Apocalyptic future, its 70s influence shows everywhere.
- Watch It Stoned: Boorman admits he used drugs during filming.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: The Eternals long ago succumbed to ennui.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle: The scene where Zed reveals how he learned Zardoz was actually The WiZard of Oz makes you think the movie's wrapping up when, in fact, there's still almost an hour to go.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Grade B Male Example.
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