The Flight of Dragons
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| The Flight of Dragons | |
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| Directed by | Jules Bass Arthur Rankin Fumihiko Takayama Katsuhisa Yamada |
| Produced by | Rankin/Bass |
| Written by | Romeo Muller (Screenplay) Peter Dickinson (Novel) Gordon R. Dickson (Novel) |
| Starring | John Ritter Bob McFadden Don Messick James Earl Jones |
| Music by | Maury Laws Don McLean |
| Distributed by | ABC Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | 1983 Video Release (UK) August 3, 1986 (USA) |
| Running time | 92 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Flight of Dragons is a 1982 animated movie produced by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. and very loosely based on the speculative natural history book of the same name by Peter Dickinson and the novel The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dickson. Released direct to video in 1982, it was finally aired as an ABC 'Movie of the Week' in 1986.
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[edit] Plot
Peter Dickinson (voiced by John Ritter) is a poor, dreaming scientist/inventor who is transported into the failing world of magic. He meets three wizards, two dragons, and the beautiful Princess Melisande (voiced by Alexandra Stoddart), who is a Wizard's foster-daughter. The green wizard Carolinus (voiced by Harry Morgan), his brothers Lo Tae Shao (voiced by Don Messick), and the blue wizard Solarius explain that the world of magic is dying. To save it, they must join together to create the 'Last Realm of Magic' -- a protected place where magic will live on after humans stop believing. The red wizard Ommadon (voiced by James Earl Jones) has refused to aid his brothers, and vows to dominate humanity by infesting humans with greed, in an attempt to stop magic's death by force. The only way to stop him is to take his Red Crown, the source of his dark magic. Twentieth Century Peter, being descended from an ancient hero, is asked to begin a quest.
But before the journey begins, a magical mishap leaves Peter in the body of the house-dragon Gorbash (voiced by Cosie Costa when not voiced by Ritter-as-Peter). Knowing nothing about being a dragon or about magic, Peter travels with two other companions, a knight called Sir Orin Neville Smythe, (voiced by Bob McFadden) and the dragon Smrgol (voiced by James Gregory). During the journey, it is Smrgol who teaches Peter the finer points of being a dragon.
At their campsite, Ommadon sends the Sand Merks to attack the party with their insanity-inducing cries. The blue wizard Solarius persuades the undead wolf, Arak (voiced by Victor Buono), to kill the Sand Merk queen in exchange for another chance at life. He agrees to join the quest. Princess Melisande is put into a deep sleep by the cries while using her magical abilities to see the party. The group presses on, and they are attacked by Giles of the Treetops and his elves because they are mistakenly suspicious of the dragons. The archer Danielle (voiced by Nellie Bellflower) saves the group because she recognizes Sir Orin. Learning the truth, Giles agrees join the quest along with Danielle.
They rest at an inn, and but in the night, an enormous ogre, much bigger than any dragon, attacks, destroying the inn, murdering the innkeeper, and kidnapping some of the party. Peter and Smrgol must rescue Sir Orin and Danielle from the ogre's castle. Peter takes some lessons in fighting as a dragon, but ultimately, Smrgol must defeat the ogre. Smrgol succeeds but unfortunately, his heart gives out.
They move on to Ommadon's Red Realm and defeat the gigantic Worm of Sligoff. They use magic gifts, a shield and a flute, to defeat Ommadon's spell of despair and to put a flight of dragons to sleep (including Peter occupying the body of Gorbash). The magic flute does not defeat Ommadon's dragon Bryaugh (voiced by James Gregory, who also voiced Smrgol) who kills Danielle, Arak, and Giles. Sir Orin slays Bryaugh with his sword while being burned alive with his dragon fire. He dies. Ommadon magically appears claiming victory. Peter reappears when he realizes that two things cannot exist in the same place at the same time. He uses his scientific knowledge to deny all magic; in a dramatic conclusion, Peter alphabetically lists a many branches of science, and Ommadon, whose teachings and power is based on superstition and the ignorance of others, tries to match Peter's list with his own list of foul creatures (harpies, witches, demons, etc.) but cannot withstand Peter's onslaught of science.
The death of Ommadon allows the party to return to life. Carolinus arrives along with the remaining two magic brothers and succeeds in creating 'Last Realm of Magic' but sadly concludes that Peter is gone from the realm of magic. Princess Melisande awakens from her slumber and informs them Peter appeared, gave her a kiss, and woke her. Perhaps he is not completely lost to the world of magic, concludes Carolinus. She asks to join him in 20th century Boston, and Carolinus reluctantly agrees.
Peter, free of the debts he had incurred in his own time, mainly because he brings back the magical gold shield he, as Gorbash, used to defeat Ommadon, marries Melisande and goes to live in a house much like the one wherein Carolinus raised her.
[edit] Memorable quotes
- "Yes Bryaugh, it's your turn now! You and your legions, attack, demolish, devour, burn, grind them to dust... Go forth and death be thy destination! Doom. Doom. A Flight of Dragons! I COMMAND IT... A FLIGHT OF DRAGONS!! Doom. Doom..." --Ommadon to Bryaugh.
- "Man hears of the dragons invulnerable skin and lo, he makes armour, battleships, tanks! A fairy flies and, furiously jealous, man himself defies gravity with machines he will call airplanes. A magician looks into his crystal and sees and hears halfway across the world. "Ah," says man, "if only it could be so." And centuries from now he conjures up miracles, but calls them radio and television. If man is to surmount the insurmountable, there must always be magic to inspire him. The world needs magic! Magic cannot die..." --Carolinus to his brothers.
- "I'll teach man to use his machines! I'll show him what distorted science can give birth to. I'll teach him to "fly like a fairy". And I'll give the ultimate answer to all his science can ask... And the world will be free for my magic again!" --Ommadon accompanied by visions of bulldozers destroying forests and the atomic bomb.
- "Man will never inherit my domain, because I'm making man mine." --Ommadon to the other Magic Brothers.
- "Is the dragon not a wonderful creature?" -- Smrgol, said when Peter/Gorbash starts to recover after Carolinus has merged the two.
- "Blade with whom I have lived, blade with whom I now die, serve right and justice one last time. Seek one last heart of evil, still one last life of pain. Cut well old friend, and then farewell." --Sir Orin's prayer as he faces Bryaugh.
- "The irony of all existence is that good would be completely impotent without the contrast of evil." -- Carolinus to Melisande.
- "(devilish laugter) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!. I have gathered the sum total of the world's evil in one place... And that place is me! I am invincible! No magic STRONGER! I... am the world. And the world... is Ommadon." --Ommadon to Peter when transforming.
[edit] Notes
- The four wizard brothers clearly represent the four classical elements. Carolinus ("The Green Wizard") is Earth, Solarius ("The Blue Wizard") is Water, Lo Tae Shao ("The Golden Wizard") is Air and Ommadon ("The Red Wizard") is Fire.
- The twentieth-century scenes in Boston do not seem to take place in the present day. Antiquity says it is the "closing decade" of the century, indicating the Boston scenes take place in the 1990s, which were still in the future at the time the film was made. However, the characters' style of clothing in the twentieth century seem to set the scenes in the late 1940s or early 1950s, which would be somewhat consistent with the age of the real-life Peter Dickinson. However, the real Dickinson was English while the fictionalized Dickinson of the film speaks with a distinctly American accent.
- The voice actors for Solarius and Antiquity were not credited. Antiquity was voiced by Paul Frees, but it is not known who supplied Solarius' voice.
- The original score was composed by Maury Laws. He also composed television music for (among many other works) "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" starring Burl Ives in 1964, 1969's "Frosty the Snowman," 1970's "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town," 1974's "The Year Without Christmas," the animated "The Hobbit" from 1977, 1979's "Jack Frost," and the animated "The Wind in the Willows" from 1985. A notable film credit includes his 1981 score to "The Bushido Blade."
- Ironically, though the movie was not widely seen, it received extremely positive reviews from IMDB and Youtube. Many fans of the book liked the movie as a child, and still liked it as adults, making this a childhood movie. Also, any of the reviews said "Kids will be drawn by the storyline and the animation. Adults will enjoy the jokes about science and aeronautics of dragons' wings".
[edit] Availability
Various VHS editions of the film have been released since its debut in 1982. To date, the film has not been released to DVD. Some online auction sites claim to have DVD copies available; these are likely illegal copies of the VHS edition.
There was also a Laserdisk release from which some VHS copies was produced. The Laserdisk release was made by PolyGram Video.
[edit] Differences from the original source
Though generally popular with fans of the book, the films portrayal of dragons, though well reconstructed from the illustrations of Wayne Anderson, bare little similarities to how Peter Dickinson invisioned them.
- In the film, dragons are shown to have nigh invulnerable hides, whereas in the book, it states that dragons couldnt afford to evolve natural armour for fear of reducing their flight capacity.
- The film shows dragons to be born fully developed. In the book, dragons begin life as gigantic tadpoles living in calcium rich lakes.
- Peter Dickinson explicitly wrote that the dragons fire igniting abilities were purely chemical in nature and had nothing to do with electricity, as shown in the film.
- The book mentions that female dragons were not airborne, nor could they breathe fire. Lunarian, the only female dragon shown in the film has wings and therefore presumably breathed fire.
- The film shows dragons with the ability to speak, whereas Peter Dickinson mentions that dragons were intellectually no different to average reptiles.
