History Film / Hercules1983

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:The Glaucia duplicate]], after having served King Minos's purpose, is ordered to commit suicide due to this trope -- and promptly obliges.

* HeroesWantRedheads: Cassiopeia, who is Hercules's true love -- at least in this movie -- as opposed to Adriana (blonde and evil) and Circe (brunette and mostly in this for herself).

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Cassiopeia isn't so much as ''mentioned'' in the sequel.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Once [[spoiler: the Glaucia duplicate]] has served their purpose for King Minos, they are ordered to commit suicide due to this trope -- and promptly obliges.

* {{Stellification}}: At one point, Hercules throws a bear into the sky with such force that it turns into a constellation. At the end of the movie, Hercules becomes a constellation himself.

* SadlyMythtaken: A complete list of examples in these films would go on for a while, due to the near-random mixing-and-matching of elements from the original myths, but here are a few representative examples: The planets, moons, etc. originate as fragments of [[PandorasBox Pandora's Jar]], the explosion of which effectively created the universe. No Pandora actually appears, because ''lifeforms don't exist at that point''. Hercules isn't a demigod but a mortal human who becomes a vessel for a light being. Rather than Mount Olympus, these gods live on the moon. Daedalus, the human inventor who with his son Icarus was exiled to an island and created wings of feathers and wax for them to escape it (with a tragic outcome for Icarus), is here an embodiment of science and knowledge who provides King Minos with aid -- and female. And Athena, the goddess of wisdom traditionally clad in armor, is here a "fairy goddess" of witches who dresses like a fairy godmother.
** Ironically, for all the liberties the two films take with Myth/ClassicalMythology the first one contains some of the only cinematic recreations of some of Hercules' greatest feats, such as killing two serpents as an infant and his cleaning the infamously filthy Augean Stables by redirecting a river.

* RapidAging: As [[spoiler: Arianna]] dies, they undergo this and ultimately crumbles to dust.

Movies about the strongman of Myth/ClassicalMythology are legion, and Creator/TheCannonGroup threw their hat into the ring with this Italian-mounted 1983 production, a starring vehicle for Creator/LouFerrigno, the bodybuilder who'd come to television fame as Series/{{The Incredible Hulk|1977}} a few years earlier. Playing ''very'' fast and loose with Greco-Roman myths, it's a perfect reflection of the company's FollowTheLeader tendencies -- imagine a cross-breed of ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'', ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|1981}}'', and ''Franchise/StarWars'', and that's a start.

* StockFootage: Where the first film used stock footage from unrelated Italian productions, this movie's opening credits feature a montage of highlights from the first film. From there, stock footage of Hercules is used twice in-story: his first appearance is recycled from his initial creation, and [[spoiler: the Size Shifting sequence turns up again when he stops the moon from crashing into Earth at the end]]. Much of the music is recycled as well, and would be recycled again for a later Cannon production, ''Outlaw of Gor''.

* RecycledAnimation: Some of the action footage blatantly stole from other films; Anteous is a traced Id Monster from ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'', while the final battle is traced from Film/KingKong's fights with a tyrannosaurus and a giant snake.

Movies about the strongman of Myth/ClassicalMythology are legion, and Creator/TheCannonGroup threw their hat into the ring with this Italian-mounted 1983 production, a starring vehicle for Creator/LouFerrigno, the bodybuilder who'd come to television fame as Series/TheIncredibleHulk a few years earlier. Playing ''very'' fast and loose with Greco-Roman myths, it's a perfect reflection of the company's FollowTheLeader tendencies -- imagine a cross-breed of ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'', ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|1981}}'', and ''Franchise/StarWars'', and that's a start.

Zeus gifts humanity a being made of light itself and incarnated in the body of a man, a man stronger and more clever than any ever known, to fight for good: Hercules! As infant son of the king of Thebes, he is rescued from usurpers collaborating with King Minos of Atlantis and his equally wicked daughter Arianna, and raised by poor farmers. He grows up mighty, but loses both adoptive parents to the wrath of Zeus's wife/rival Hera and those who serve her. Trying to figure out why he is powerful yet dogged by woe, he seeks his fortune and falls for the beautiful Princess Cassiopeia -- but they are quickly separated by the gods; Arianna captures Cassiopeia and she and her father intend to sacrifice her to Hera. Hercules, with the aid of the beautiful sorceress Circe, must now make his way to Atlantis to save his beloved, a journey that literally sends the pair to Hell and back, and even into the stars.

The film did well enough to warrant a 1985 sequel, ''The Adventures of Hercules II'' (alternately known as either ''The Adventures of Hercules'' or ''Hercules II''). An uprising of gods led by Hera leaves Zeus without his seven mighty thunderbolts, and the universe is falling into chaos. On Earth, Urania and Glaucia are women whose society has become a human-sacrificing cult, and are advised by the Little People they call upon to seek the help of Hercules. The resultant trio must retrieve the thunderbolts from a variety of exotic creatures before the moon crashes into Earth. Hera resurrects King Minos to fight them, granting him powers comparable to Hercules -- not realizing until it's too late that he is now capable of taking her and the other gods down too...

* SadlyMythtaken: A complete list of examples in these films would greatly extend the length of this page, due to the near-random mixing-and-matching of elements from the original myths, but here are a few representative examples: The planets, moons, etc. originate as fragments of [[PandorasBox Pandora's Jar]], the explosion of which effectively created the universe. No Pandora actually appears, because ''lifeforms don't exist at that point''. Hercules isn't a demigod but a mortal human who becomes a vessel for a light being. Rather than Mount Olympus, these gods live on the moon. Daedalus, the human inventor who with his son Icarus was exiled to an island and created wings of feathers and wax for them to escape it (with a tragic outcome for Icarus), is here an embodiment of science and knowledge who provides King Minos with aid -- and female. And Athena, the goddess of wisdom traditionally clad in armor, is here a "fairy goddess" of witches who dresses like a fairy godmother.
** Ironically, for all the liberties the two films took with Myth/ClassicalMythology, the first one contains some of the only cinematic recreations of some of Hercules' greatest feats, such as killing two serpents as an infant and his cleaning the infamously filthy Augean Stables by redirecting a river.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Arianna is a blonde, Circe is a brunette, and Cassiopeia is a redhead.

* FountainOfYouth: There's more than one way to be de-aged here. Circe is initially a wizened crone, but consuming ten drops of Hercules' blood (which confers his mythic strength to him) de-ages her to a beautiful sorceress. King Minos has imprisoned a phoenix in a volcano to serve as a power source for Atlantis and this trope for him and (apparently, given her RapidAging fate) Arianna. Too bad periodic human sacrifices to it are required...
* HeroesWantRedheads: Cassiopeia, who is Hercules's true love -- at least in this movie -- as opposed to Arianna (blonde and evil) and Circe (brunette and mostly in this for herself).

* RapidAging: As Arianna dies, she undergoes this and ultimately crumbles to dust.

* ActionGirl: While certainly far from Hercules' level, Urania and Glaucia put up a good fight against several {{Mooks}}

* StockFootage: Where the first film uses stock footage from unrelated Italian productions, this movie's opening credits feature a montage of highlights from the first film. From there, stock footage of Hercules is used twice in-story: his first appearance is recycled from his initial creation, and [[spoiler: the Size Shifting sequence turns up again when he stops the moon from crashing into Earth at the end]]. Much of the music is recycled as well, and would be recycled again for a later Cannon production, ''Outlaw of Gor''.
** In the fight between Minos and Hercules, many shots are recognizably traced from ''Film/KingKong1933''.

* VillainTeamUp: Hera resurrects King Minos so that she and the other three rebelling gods have someone who can fight Hercules once they've granted him their abilities, not realizing until it is too late that this is the perfect way for him to destroy them as well.

* KissOfDeath: A rare platonic example is administered by [[spoiler: Hera to her daughter Urania, to reveal the seventh thunderbolt,]] in the denouement, with the trope name used to describe it.

* KissOfDeath: Administered by [[spoiler: Hera to her daughter Urania, to reveal the seventh thunderbolt,]] in the denouement.

* StockFootage: Where the first film uses stock footage from unrelated Italian productions, this movie's opening credits feature a montage of highlights from the first film. From there, stock footage of Hercules is used twice in-story: his first appearance is recycled from his initial creation, and [[spoiler: the Size Shifting sequence turns up again when he stops the moon from crashing into Earth at the end]]. Much of the music is recycled as well, and would be recycled again for a later Cannon production, ''Film/OutlawOfGor''.

* StockFootage: Where the first film uses stock footage from unrelated Italian productions, this movie's opening credits feature a montage of highlights from the first film. From there, stock footage of Hercules is used twice in-story: his first appearance is recycled from his initial creation, and [[spoiler: the Size Shifting sequence turns up again when he stops the moon from crashing into Earth at the end]].