The divisive animated sequences Walter Hill wanted in ‘The Warriors’
With its depictions of gritty urban environments and storytelling that toys with the nature of the great old myths, Walter Hill’s 1979 action thriller The Warriors remains a true classic of American cinema. Based on Sol Yurick’s novel of the same name, The Warriors delivered one of the most fascinating and violent versions of New York City.
By taking place over a single turbulent night, Hill’s film tells of the titular gang as they try to make their way back to their Coney Island home after being framed for the murder of a powerful gang leader, chased down by all manner of dangerous and nefarious characters. With its unique style, frantic action, and narrative worth, The Warriors is an action movie masterpiece with its very own identity.
However, The Warriors serves as one of those instances in which the studio took creative reins from a movie’s director and a further, even rarer, instance where it was the right choice to do so. Hill was well known to be a huge fan of comic books and envisioned his film paying homage to them.
He wanted to have the story chopped up into chapters and have each chapter marked by a short comic book sequence. However, Hill had already stretched Paramount’s $4million budget to its last penny, so, straight away, the studio had a solid excuse to turn down Hill’s comic book-style idea.
Throw into the fact that Paramount had also been in a rush to release The Warriors before the similar The Wanderers rival film was set to come out the following year, and Hill had no choice but to accept the studio’s decision. In 2005, though, Paramount released the ‘Ultimate Director’s Cut’ of The Warriors, which saw the film re-edited with a new introduction and comic-book style sequences between scenes.
However, the results show that perhaps Paramount were right all along, as the comic book sequences just appear rather ridiculous and cheesy. The opening sequences see Hill portray The Warriors‘ story as analogous to a mythic story from Ancient Greece, but it seems to take away from its overall tension.
By occasionally reverting to a completely different style, The Warriors suddenly becomes overly kitsch and dramatically departs from the grit of the original. Though Hill indeed wanted to pay his respects to the kind of comic books that had informed his childhood with a handful of animated sequences, ultimately, the right decision was made, and The Warriors was turned into the 1970s action classic that it still is today.
