Les 12 travaux d'Astérix
Tags: historical fiction

Plot synopsis:
After a group of legionaries is once again beaten up by the gauls, they imagine: "With such huge strength, they can't be human... they must be gods". Julius Caesar is informed, and laughs. He makes a decision with his council and goes to Armorica, to speak with Vitalstatistix. He gives the Gauls a series of 12 tasks, inspired by Hercules (but new ones, since the 12 Labours are outdated). Vitalstatistix assembles their best warriors, Asterix and Obelix, to do the job. The Roman Caius Tiddlus is sent along with them to guide them and check they complete each task.
=== The Twelve Tasks ===
Run faster than Asbestos, champion of the Olympic Games. Asterix, helped by the magic potion, follows Asbestos until the latter hits an apple tree at a moment of incaution, and loses the race.
Throw a javelin farther than Verses, the Persian. Verses' javelin hits North America (still only inhabited by Indians, including another Goscinny-Uderzo character, Oumpah-pah), but Obelix's javelin enters a stable orbit and pursues Verses around the world, into the Native American village.
Beat Cilindric, the German. Cilindric quickly beats Obelix with a "fighting technique he learnt in a distant land"; but Asterix asks for demonstrations that eventually leave Cilindric's own arms and legs tied in knots.
Cross a lake. The problem being that in the middle of the lake is the "Isle of Pleasure", inhabited by beautiful Sirens. Obelix comes to his senses after discovery that there are no wild boars on the island, and calls Asterix to follow him.
Survive the hypnotic gaze of Iris, the Egyptian. Iris tries to make Asterix act the phrase, "I am a wild boar"; but when Asterix constantly breaks his concentration by not taking things seriously, Iris inadvertently hypnotizes himself.
Finish a meal by Mannekenpix, the Belgian. The chef is famous for cooking gigantic meals for the Titans - the task is to eat one of his massive three-course meals "down to the last crumb". Obelix devours a boar with fries, a flock of geese, several sheep, an omelette made with eight dozen eggs, a whole school of fish, an ox, a cow and veal, a huge mound of caviar (with a single piece of toast), a camel, and an elephant stuffed with olives. This exhausts the kitchen, but disappoints Obelix, who considers it "starters".
Survive the Cave of the Beast. In a distinctly abstract sequence of the film, the pair must enter a cave that no-one has ever emerged from alive. They encounter, among other sights, a skeletal hand that directs them, tennis played with a skull, bats, and a subway (on the Paris Métro station Alésia), before meeting the Beast (which is not shown on-screen). After they leave the cave, Tiddlus asks what the Beast was actually like - Obelix happily replies that it was "very tasty".
Find Permit A 38 in "The Place That Sends You Mad". 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 asking for an imaginary permit, A 39 supposedly required by a new decree, "circular B 65", making the staff victims of their own unhelpfulness and sending the place into disarray. Eventually Asterix is given Permit A 38 just to make him leave and stop causing trouble, while the Prefect who gives them the form goes insane from the shock of his own unthinkable helpfulness. This task is a joke about French administration.
Cross a ravine on an invisible tightrope, over a river full of crocodiles. Eventually the heroes fight the crocodiles and cross the river.
Climb a mountain and answer the Old Man's riddle. After a tough climb of the snowbound peak, the Old Man of the Mountain's challenge is to determine, with eyes blindfolded, which pile of laundry was washed with Olympus, "the detergent of the gods". Asterix performs this task easily in a parody of washing detergent advertisements. This last actually impress the Olympian gods themselves, until Venus suggests to grant godhood to the Gauls; but Jupiter refuses to do so.
Spend a night on the haunted plains. The plain, haunted by the ghosts of fallen Roman soldiers, is not an easy place to sleep. Obelix tries to fight them, but cannot harm the ghosts. Asterix is woken by the commotion and finally complains, until the ghosts depart.
Survive the Circus Maximus. When the pair wakes after a night on the plains, they find themselves in Rome with their fellow villagers, who have been brought to fight in the Circus Maximus. After the gladiators are beaten, the animals are sent in, and the Gauls turn the Circus Maximus into a modern-day circus.
After the Gauls succeed in every task, Caesar agrees that they are gods, gives them control of the Roman Empire, and retires to live with Cleopatra in a little house in the country. Caius Tiddlus takes his reward by retiring to the Isle of Pleasure. In the village's celebration, Obelix asks Asterix if the Gauls really did conquer Rome. Asterix tells him that everything that happened to them was a mere cartoon, in which everything is possible. Obelix takes advantage of this and teleports himself and his wild boar meat to the Isle of Pleasure, to enjoy himself.

Review: The best of the several movie adventures of Asterix, Obelix, Vitalstatistix and Co., our heroes are given a series of increasingly difficult tasks by Caesar, with the future of the village at stake - ranging from crossing a ravine by an invisible bridge ("Which you do not see over there") through avoiding the lures of the sirens, combating a champion javelin thrower and getting a permit for the next task (something that will strike a chord in anyone who's ever had to face red tape) to facing a celestial challenge by a god who asks them to...
actually, that last one is so funny you have to see it for yourself.There is a book out, but it's the adaptation of the movie, making "The Twelve Tasks Of Asterix" the only one to date actually written for the screen first.
(Or is adapting them properly beyond 'em?) Sheer pleasure throughout, with moments that still make me laugh years after seeing it and some surprisingly strong satire, all the movies should have been like this.
Asterix faces 12 tasks, one more daunting than the other (I can't remember why, it was over 20 years ago), building up to the last one, the most difficult of the lot.
This animation film isn't an adaptation from one of Astérix' albums, it's an original screenplay that inspired from the Greek mythology with Hercule's works.
The movie is a pleasant surprise because the animation is more careless than in Astérix' previous adaptations for the cinema, although it's a bit basic.
Besides, the anachronism is a common thing in Astérix' adventures.The best moments of the movie are the pantagruelian meal, the sequences of the hypnosis and the crazy flat.
At the end, in spite of tiresome sequences, peculiar to Astérix's adaptations, I think about the (useless) battle against the Romans at the beginning, the movie is a happy entertainment and the best animation film with Astérix..
I've been laughing at "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" for about 20 years now.
So you see, like all the best children's entertainment, this can be enjoyed on several different levels - some for the kiddies, some for the adults.(The slapstick comedy is still cool to my adult self, by the way.
Nothing beats watching an unruly mob of Gaulish villagers tear through a phalanx of hapless Roman dudes...) The plot is very episodic, centering around the efforts of wily Asterix and oafish Obelix to perform twelve tasks and, if successful, become gods in the eyes of the Romans.
Probably the lamest task involves alligators and an invisible string, but even that's okay.The animators did an excellent job capturing the style of the Asterix comic books.
However, the task set in the Beast's cave is undeniably very well-animated and even a bit creepy.The ending is outrageous, and therefore brilliant.
It's a good, naughty sight gag.This movie was my first exposure to Asterix, and thus I have a soft spot for it.
Sentiment aside, though, I do think it's easily the best of the Asterix films, and is only rivaled by the very best comic adventures.
Enjoyable cartoon movie with original story featured by ours immortals heroes.
In the village are our friends : ¨Asterix¨,the hero of this adventure,he's a shrewd , cunning little warrior ,all perilous missions are immediately entrusted to him.¨Obelix¨ his inseparable friend,he's a menhir delivery-man by trade and addicted to wild boar,he's always ready to drop everything and go off on a new adventure with Asterix,so long as there's wild boar to eat, and plenty of fighting.¨Panoramix¨,the venerable village druid,gathers mistletoe and brews magic potions,his speciality is the potion which gives the drinker superhuman strength although also has other recipes up his sleeve.¨Abraracurcix¨,the chief of the tribe,majestic,brave and hot-tempered,the old warrior is respected by his enemies,he has only one fear,he's afraid the sky may fall on his head tomorrow,but as he always says,'Tomorrow never comes'.
The film concerns about Julius Caesar who offers the Gauls a covenant ,they must prove which they're Gods by making twelve extremely difficult works, similar to 12 works of Hercules which are the following: vanquished to the Amazonas,captured wild boar and bull of island of Crete,killed the Hydra,swept the stable of Ujias,murdered to Gerion and Diomedes,took apples of garden of Hesperides,won a race against the clock to a deer,strangled to Lion of Nemea,shot arrows to birds of lake Stinfano,got out at Teseo of the inferno.
Asterix and Obelix will must be able resolve twelve similar tasks that Caesar chose and if the fail they will converted slaves and the Gauls village will hand over the Roman empire to them .
Between the dangerous missions our friends must suffer are the followings : the fighting a winner javelin thrower and against a judo-man, the lures of mermaids , taking a celestial challenge with a God, combating a ghosts army, the crossing an invisible bridge and confronting public officials with a extremely critic to the bureaucracy ,among others.
The picture will appeal to Asterix and Obelix comic-books fans..
Time goes so fast, it seems like yesterday when I asked my uncle if he could tape "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" for me.As a child, I was already an avid reader and watcher of Asterix' adventures, I collected the albums and videotapes, and knew almost every film by heart.
It didn't affect my appreciation of the film, but I love it even more because it's forever connected to this childhood memory.Now, 22 years after, I don't look at "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" just as THE touching gift from my uncle, but as a tremendous gift from a giant of humor named René Goscinny to a whole generation.
The film is the consecration of a talent never equaled ever since, a mix of originality and creativity appealing to both kids and adults, and a level of humor and slapstick responsible of unforgettable laugh-out-loud moments.
The purpose is to determine whether Gauls are Gods which would explain why the small village always beat up Caesar's powerful army.
Apparently, Romans seem to have forgotten the Magic Potion but who cares when it is the pretext to a series of twelve hilarious sequences involving physical and intellectual challenges, with adversaries from every place in the world: Greece, Egypt, Beligum, including a monstrous creature named the Beast, and ghosts from the Dead plain, although the unhelpful public servants of the 'Place that Sends you Mad' are the scariest of all.The merit of the plot is to never be short of original ideas, while it starts with sports, the tasks take a new turn where the two Gauls must cross a lake near the island of Pleasure, where voluptuous big-lipped long-legged sirens tempted the two Gauls for a frenzied samba, and when the game looked over, the ensuing dialogs between Obelix and the Great Priestess worked on an anachronistic level.
While the first two Asterix films were adapted from written material, "The Twelve Tasks" is the only original creation from Goscinny, as if he sensed there was a great inspiration for gags from new ideas, especially if the film is meant for the big screen.
They produced "The Twelve Tasks" and "The Ballad of the Daltons" one year later, an original adventure of Goscinny's other great creation Lucky Luke.It's interesting that the two films follow the same pattern, Asterix must accomplish twelve tasks, the Daltons must kill eight juror who sentenced their uncle, it's the same episodic structure that allows to create micro-universes and different inspiration for gags.
"The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" marks the end of the first period that includes "Asterix the Gaul" and "Cleopatra", before his all-time friend Pierre Tchernia would take the torch in the 80's, the Gaumont period.
It's our luck that Goscinny let his creativity implode on his last years, creating one of the funniest French animated films ever, that never lost their cultural significance.You'll enjoy the Warner Bros-like race with the Greek marathon runner, a javelin discovering America before time, a small German fighter dressed in kimono, Preasure Island priestesses with sexy samba moves but narrow-minded views on marriage, a hypnotic Egyptian, a scary journey in a dark cave hiding the strangest stuff, a dangerous mountain climbing, a riddle, a hilarious climax in the Circus Maximus, but the Place that Sends you Mad, is the highlight of the film.
And as Asterix told Obelix: "it's a cartoon, so no holds barred".And Obélix' reaction is the greatest demonstration of why animation can sometimes surpass movies, as the ultimate escapism, the common link between kids and adults, it's the perfect dream-like universe, were anything can happen  for the sake of a gag.
There is a lot of fourth wall breaking and to also conclude on a childhood episode, the film enriched my knowledge on the Twelve Tasks of Hercules.
God, my sentimental weakness while remembering the film and the good old days.I'm not surprised that in my teenage days, the first comic I wrote was a parody of Hercules' story, who said mythology couldn't be an inspiration for laughs?.
"Twelve Tasks" was always a favorite of mine and watching it now, close to 20 years later, it's still as funny and imaginative as it ever was.As an Asterix movie it's a bit of an anomaly.
But since it's by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo themselves you could hardly call it unofficial.Julius Caesar calls a truce with the village and says that Gaul can rule Rome if they can win Twelve impossible tasks in the vein of Hercules a few thousand years ago.
But with Asterix and Obelix as their chosen champions do you really think they will fail?
How can a kid's animated movie have this much depth and wit and still be relatively unknown in the wider world of Toy Stories and Ups?
It's insane.Definitely a great treat for Asterix fans and the perfect way to introduce new people to the franchise..
Once again, in the year 50 BC, the Romans are having the holy hell beat out of them by a small village of defiant Gauls, who have inhuman powers, thanks to a magic potion.
Bad news for Emperor Julius Caesar, who offers chieftain Vitalstatistix a deal: the chief's most capable men (obviously Asterix and Obelix) must complete twelve tasks.
Hence, our heroes must run faster than Greek marathon-runner Asbestos, beat Verses (the Persian) at javelin, beat Cilindric (the German) at a fistfight, cross a lake that is the home of sirens, survive the hypnotic gaze of Iris (the Egyptian), eat an enormous meal at Calorofix' (the Belgian) tavern, make it alive through the "cave of the beast", retrieve Permit A38 in "The Place that sends you mad", cross a ravine filled with hungry crocodiles via an invisible tightrope, answer the question of an old man on the mountain, spend a night on the haunted "plain of the dead" and finally survive a fight in the Colosseum in Rome.Let me start off by saying, in Germany the "Asterix"-comics always had something of a family-tradition.
(Don't laugh: In Germany it was not uncommon to see people sitting in the "Hendl-Shop", a German version of KFC, chowing away while reading "Asterix" and it wasn't even considered bad manners).Having dropped that nostalgic tit-bit, I'm not the first to point out that "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" is considered by many fans the best of all the many cartoon-adaptation.
The first two movies, "Asterix the Gaul" and "Asterix and Cleopatra" kept close to the comic, but missed the satire and cultural references that made the comics appealing not only to kids but to adults as well.
What came later was clearly produced entirely for kids."The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" on the other hand could be enjoyed by both young and old, in fact, seemed to have been geared more at an adult-audience.
The scene with the nymphs was rather raunchy for "Asterix"-standards, the task in the Madhouse (a pun on modern bureaucracy) probably wouldn't even make sense to younger kids, while the task with the ghost-legion was rather spooky.
The animation remains the most pedestrian of all Asterix-films, but it's the seemingly careless painted backgrounds that give the film its charm and (thanks to the xerographic process) almost psychedelic feel, that at times remind of Ralph Bakshi cartoons like "Heavy Traffic", "Wizards" or many other 'artsy' 70's cartoons.Producers often don't seem to understand that cartoons and comics are two different medias, which have only one thing in common: they're both painted.
Most of the 'twelve tasks' (perhaps with the exception of Obelix versus the Belgian cook; in German called Mannekinfix) wouldn't work well on paper, nor would they fit into the Asterix (comic)-formula.
This is probably the reason why "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" work, while most other Asterix-cartoons fail at capturing the magic of the comics, or – at best – appear like a pale adaptation.The third Asterix cartoon (there would be five more, including numerous live-action films and a computer-animated cartoon) would remain the last for almost ten years.
Whether that was because "The Twelve Tasks" was a box-office bomb or not, I cannot tell – but like many other hardcore Asterix-fans I felt sorry that future films would take the direction they did, and that "Twelve Tasks" would remain a unique experience.
This was one of the first films I actually remember watching and I had already read a few of the comics and loved them.
Asterix and Obelix are selected to perform the tasks with hilarious consequences.Although a non original story unlike the other Asterix films this film brilliantly captures the charm and the humour of the comics.
With jokes about the ancient world and the modern day (the take on bureaucracy is side splitting), coming up with a few modern inventions on the way and a musical number thrown into the middle you won't keep a straight face throughout.Admittedly compared to recent animation this film doesn't look or sound as good as it might but it was made on a low budget 30 years ago.
This is one of the best Asterix-movies, but it isn`t as good as "Ceasar`s surprise"(my favorite).
The Gauls must prove that they are gods by doing 12 extremely difficult tasks, and they will become Ceasar`s slaves if they fail.
The best Asterix animated movie..
However, Asterix's animated outings have been largely disappointing, and the live movies abysmal.
Made by Goscinny and Uderzo's (Asterix's creators) ill-fated animation Studio (Studios Idefix) in 1976, the cartoon is a modern take on the Herculean tasks.
Asterix and Obelix are required to successfully perform 12 tasks, upon which Caesar will surrender to them.
Failure in one task means surrender, certain imprisonment, and probably death to the Gaulish villagers.This Asterix movie outshines all others in several aspects.
Firstly, the animation (although dated) is lush and very true to the comic books; in fact it feels like Uderzo drew some scenes himself (I wouldn't be surprised if he did).
Secondly, the screenplay by Goscinny drives the clever humour in the movie (and in the comic books, which have suffered greatly since his death in 1977).
The movie is brilliant in the way it presents tasks aimed at the universal child in people of all ages (ie.
The Isle of Pleasure and the Place that sends you Mad) without alienating children too young to understand the themes presented.I highly recommend this film.
The best Astérix film.
Most of the by now many Astérix adaptions are based on the comic albums, this film has its own script - maybe that's why it works better than the other ones.
The story is much more fantastic and postmodern than usual and most of the gags center more on sight than on wordplay - which is a good thing for a movie.
Everything an Asterix animated movie needs to be.
Yeah, that's pretty much one of the best animated Asterix classics..
When the Roman soldiers are defeated yet again, a rumour starts that the Gauls must be gods of some sort.
Asterix and Obelix are selected to complete the tasks and set out with a Roman administrator to record the tasks.Although some of the little tasks in this bitty film are imaginative and funny (the admin one for example), the majority of this film is deeply flawed.
The fragmented nature of the plot should have made it easy to have some tasks be slapstick and others be very smart, but instead it goes for an unfunny sort of jaunty humour that doesn't work.The actors hurt the film more than I could have imagined.
The humour is far to basic to bear the name Asterix and all in all this is a fairly painful film for all but young kids and Asterix fans who have the patience and grace of a saint..
Thank providence for YouTube, where I have discovered that several animated films based on various "Asterix" iconic novels actually exist.
More recently I viewed the even more diverting "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" (hereafter TToA), which adds understated but piquant British humor and attitude to ancient Greco-Roman themes.TToA begins from the beginning, introducing us to the stalwart Gaulish village which is the sole hold-out against Julius Caesar's hordes and especially the village's cleverest warrior, Asterix, and its most powerful, Asterix's friend Obelix.
They have repelled Caesar's forces so decisively for so long that many of the Roman military and senate leaders start to believe the villagers are immortal gods (or at least demigods) against which resistance is futile.
Caesar angrily scoffs at this and personally travels to the village to propose a contest: if Asterix and Obelix can complete 12 excruciatingly difficult tasks, Caesar will admit that the Gauls are gods and will let them be.
But if they fail even one task, the village must accept defeat and absorption into the Roman Empire.
The animated movie is also a deft parody of the twelve tasks of Hercules (which are briefly referenced) and an unexpected showcase for droll, unflappable behavior in outlandish situations in the Monty Python vein.