The new Paramount+ series Golden Axe is inspired by the retro SEGA video game franchise of the same name. In the show, a group of heroes take on their biggest quest yet as they face off against evil foes. But what really makes Golden Axe such a fun show is that it isn't just a fun fantasy adventure, it also pokes fun at the genre and its many tropes.
Winter is Coming was lucky enough to sit down with co-creators, American Dad producer Joe Chandler and Star Trek: Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan, to talk about the series and why sci-fi and fantasy are such fun genres to play with.
Keith Langston for Winter Is Coming: One of my favorite parts about the show is how it lovingly pokes fun at the fantasy genre and trope-filled quest adventures. I also feel like the genre has a lot of fans who don’t always let you call out how trope-filled it is, so seeing you guys lampoon it in such a loving, in-the-know way feels refreshing.
Mike McMahan: That’s exactly what we were trying to do. For the show, we obviously wanted to be faithful to the game while also expanding the world into its own thing. But me and Joe are comedy writers. It’s not often we’re given high fantasy, swords-and-sorcery properties like this. So when we get one, we really want to do it. Like, I want to do the tropes. I want them to fight the giant monster. But I also want to point out how ridiculous it is. The comedy comes from this just being the world these characters live in. It’s like their everyday experience. It allows me to do things like write in a talking green skeleton character who has opinions about things.
Joe Chandler: I also feel like there aren't many sci-fi or fantasy comedies that aren’t direct parodies of something. We knew we didn’t want to do that. We wanted a real fantasy show. We wanted to create the enchanted forest and find out what happens in it. But we also wanted to do it with a comedic approach. So it was about balancing creating a world that was real and matters to the characters, while also bringing in the humor.
WIC: Obviously, the show is inspired by the video game Golden Axe, but were there any other shows, movies, or books that you took inspiration from?
McMahan: Yeah, there was this era back when we were kids, where it was like Conan the Barbarian, He-Man, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Just all these giant, beefy men. We wanted to go with that vibe of those non-Disney cartoons from when we were kids. We also took lots of inspiration from the arcade game Dragon Slayer.
Chandler: Those were our visual references, and the vibe we went for. But I’ll give you a sorta weird one too. Right when we started working on this, I had just seen the Peter Jackson Get Back Beatles documentary. That scene where George Harrison quits the band was great, and I feel like I was really building off that idea with Gillius quitting the trio. I also loved the humor of Gillius being the third-best warrior in the world. But he’s paired with number one and two, so he never really gets his due.
WIC: If you guys could do a series adaptation of another retro video game, what would it be?
McMahan: Altered Beast! That’s such a no-brainer answer for me.
Chandler: Oh yeah, good answer!
WIC: Were you SEGA Genesis guys growing up? (Or Mega Drive for our European friends)
Chandler: Oh yeah, absolutely.
McMahan: I wish! I was an NES guy, but I did love the SEGA arcade games. Those always felt bigger and more mythic to me. My first SEGA console was actually that big handheld console, the Game Gear. I loved that thing! I played the hell out of the Game Gear. That thing took six batteries, it was crazy. But it looked awesome.
Thanks to Mike McMahan and Joe Chandler for taking the time to talk Golden Axe with us!
All 10 episodes of Golden Axe are streaming now on Paramount+.
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