Movies - The Twelve Tasks of Asterix

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	Movies - The Twelve Tasks of Asterix

The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (Les Douze travaux d'Astérix) is an animated featured film released in 1976 starring Asterix, the Gaul. Unlike the other Asterix animated movies, it was not based on a published comic book, although later it was made into a book by its own. It divides fans — some like its inventive story, and others criticize the limited animation.

Plot outline

After a group of legionaries is beaten up by the gauls, they imagine: "With such a huge strength, they can't be human... they must be gods". Julius Caesar is informed, and laughs. He makes a decision with his council (trivia: it features Brutus playing with a knife, and Caesar says: "Stop playing with this knife, you can hurt someone") and goes to the Armorica, to give Vitalstatistix a series of 12 Tasks, inspired by Hercules (but new ones, since the 12 Labours are outdated). He assembles their best warriors, Asterix and Obelix, to do the job. The Roman Caius Pupus was sent to check their job.

The Twelve Tasks

#Run faster than Merinos, champion of the Olympic Games. Asterix, impulsed by the magic potion, follows Merinos until he becomes a rocket and exceeds the speed of sound, before hitting an apple tree. #Throw a javelin farther than Kermes, the Persian. Kermes' javelin hits North America (still only inhabited by Indians, including another Goscinny-Uderzo character, Oumpah-pah), but Obelix's javelin performs a complete Earth orbit and ends up heading directly for Kermes, who flees with the javelin still pursuing him into the distance. #Beat Cilindric, the German Cilindrinc turns out to be an unexpectedly diminutive man wearing a kimono – but he quickly beats Obelix with a "fight he learnt in a distant land", which is extremely similar to Judo. Asterix defeats Cilindric by tricking him into giving a lesson and asking for demonstrations that eventually end up in Cilindric knotting his own arms and legs. #Cross a lake The problem being that in the middle of the lake was the "Island of Pleasure," inhabited by beautiful Sirens. Both Asterix and Obelix are enchanted and drawn to the island, but Obelix comes to his senses quickly after discovering that there were no wild boars on the island, has an incandescent argument with the Sirens, and storms off calling Asterix behind him. #Survive the hypnotic gaze of Iris, the Egyptian Iris uses hypnosis to cure his clients of their psychiatric problems. He tries to make Asterix repeat the phrase, "I am a wild boar," and when Asterix replies, "You are a wild boar," Iris gets horribly confused and ends up hypnotising himself and bolting out of the building on all fours. #Finish the meals by Manenkempex, the Belgian Obelix devoured several boar, fish, a cow, a bull, veal ("we can't separate families"), an omelette made with 3 dozen eggs, a camel, caviar and an elephant, leaving Manenkempex in tears with an empty kitchen. #Survive the Lair of the Beast In possibly one of the strangest sequences in the film, the pair encounter (amongst other sights) tennis played with a skull, bats ("birds flying low. It's rain" said Obelix) and a subway before meeting the beast. After they left, Caius Pupus asks, "How was the beast?" Obelix replies, "Delicious." #Find permit A-38 in "The Place That Makes You Go Mad" This was a mind-numbing multi-storey building founded on bureaucracy and staffed by clinically unhelpful people who direct all their clients to other similarly unhelpful people elsewhere in the building. Asterix eventually beats them at their own game by dreaming up an imaginary form that nobody knows about, sending the place into disarray. Eventually permit A-38 is given to Asterix just to make him leave and stop causing trouble. #Cross a cliff on an invisible tightrope, over a river full of crocodiles. Eventually the heroic duo decide to give up on the rope and go the easy way round, jumping off and fighting the crocodiles. #Climb a mountain and solve a challenge made by the mountain's elder The challenge was to determine, with eyes shut, which pile of clothes was washed with "Olimpus," the soap of the gods. Asterix performs this task easily and its only purpose in the film seems to be as a parody of washing detergent advertisements. #Spend a night on the haunted plains The plain, haunted by the ghosts of fallen Roman soldiers, is not an easy place to sleep. Eventually Asterix gets fed up with all the noise from Obelix trying to fight the ghosts and furiously confronts the ghosts, scaring them off. #Survive the Circus Maximus - When the pair wakes up after a night on the plains, they find themselves in Rome with their fellow villagers, who have been brought to fight in the Colosseum. After the gladiators were beaten (with the help of Getafix's potion, of course) the animals were sent in, and the Gauls turned the Circus Maximus into a modern day circus...

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