Introduction
Heavy Metal was originally released on August 7, 1981, and in several respects was a ground-breaking piece of animation.  The movie consists of eight stories linked together by the "Loc-Nar," a glowing sphere, unbounded by time or space, that represents "the sum of all evils."  In each story, the Loc-Nar demonstrates its capacity for evil, and its malevolent influence and manipulation of human affairs.
The plethora of reviews of this movie have been far from uniform (see reviews and user comments at the Internet Movie Database), but many viewers have expressed the opinion that the longest and final story, The Legend of Taarna, directed by John Bruno, was well-executed and entertaining.  I concur in this judgment.
Taarna captivated me when I first saw Heavy Metal at the impressionable age of seventeen. My interest, which had remained dormant for twenty years, was rekindled when the DVD was released in 1999.  
To some, even perhaps to most of those who have reviewed the movie, Taarna is merely an overly endowed sex object in a dominatrix outfit.  This conclusion could easily be justified if one considered only the undeniably male, adolescent orientation of Heavy Metal, with its liberal dosage of sex, drug use, and rock music. I feel, however, that Taarna cannot fairly be bound to this shallow image. In her I perceive certain qualities which, in my opinion, cause her tale to eclipse all of the others, and make her character worthy of praise.  Hence, perhaps being a lone voice in the wilderness, I have constructed this encomium to Taarna, and herein set out the elements that shape my views.
First, The Legend of Taarna was dramatically juxtaposed against the other stories in the film.  The humorous aspects of earlier segments, such as "Den," "Captain Sternn," and "So Beautiful,  So Dangerous" disappeared, and the movie got down to business in a savage conflict between good and evil. The sequence's lack of frivolity dovetailed well with the somber attitude of its main character.
The Loc-Nar's seemingly unstoppable trail of death and destruction climaxed with the devastation of a peaceful city at the beginning of the sequence. By the time this was over, I was primed to see someone who would finally defeat the Loc-Nar. Taarna was the proffered challenger, but her identity was at first concealed. 
Initially, all that is seen is a cloaked, human figure riding a bird-like creature across a barren and ever-shifting landscape. This was the second thing that grabbed my attention: the flight sequence, which ends in a spectral, underground temple, simply blew me away.  In 1981, no one had ever done anything like it in animation.
Furthermore, Elmer Bernstein's score during this portion of the story is awesomely uplifting.  To me, it was spine-tingling, a piece of music that makes you shiver from head to toe.  This is most particularly true of the driving chorus as Taarna passes through a gargantuan maze of pipes to reach her hidden destination.  The