The Flight of Dragons: Difference between revisions

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[[File:TheFlightOfDragons.jpg|frame|"Ugh, department store seersucker, all charred with dragon exhaust."]] '''''The Flight of Dragons''''' is a [[Rankin/Bass Productions]] animated film, produced in [[The Eighties|1982]], but not aired until [[The Eighties|1986]]. It is loosely adapted from [[Gordon R. Dickson]]'s fantasy novel [[The Dragon Knight|''The Dragon and the George,'']]. However, it replaces the main character with [[Peter Dickinson]], the real life author who wrote ''The Flight of Dragons'', an art book that proposes scientific reasons for the [[Here There Were Dragons|prior existence of dragons]]. Got all that?
 
The film is a [[Heroic Fantasy]] in which a twentieth-century "man of science", [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|named Peter Dickinson]], [[Time Travel|travels back in time]] to defeat [[Big Bad|Ommadon]], an evil wizard who isn't happy that humans are [[Magic Versus Science|choosing science over magic]]. Due to an accident, Peter ends up [[Sharing a Body]] with a dragon and he thus has to learn about how [[Our Dragons Are Different]] in order to survive. In the end, it turns out that the [[Powers That Be]] selected Peter because they needed someone who ''wouldn't'' [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]].
 
It's [[Better Than It Sounds/Film|Better Than It Sounds]] -- unless you were a fan of both books before you saw it. In particular, the film features a remarkably effective voice cast: the late John Ritter is highly sympathetic as Peter, Harry Morgan an amusingly eccentric Carolinus, Victor Buono a convincingly growly Aragh, James Gregory surprisingly lovable as the elderly dragon Smrgol -- and [[James Earl Jones]] sonorous and magisterially evil as the Red Wizard Ommadon.
 
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* [[Cyclops]]: The giant [[Our Ogres Are Hungrier|ogre]] whose castle is the gate to Ommadon's kingdom.
* [[Daddy's Girl]]: Melisande, to Carolinus. It doesn't really become evident until she's in her weird coma, at which point he calls her "my darling, darling child" and weeps copiously. Possibly the most genuinely moving scene in the whole film.
* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: Peter's ''[[Title Drop|Flight of Dragons]]'' fantasy role-playing game reflects the [[Dungeons and Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons]] boom of the early [[The Eighties|Eighties]].
* [[Doing inIn the Wizard]]: Peter's specialty, and the whole reason he was chosen to lead the quest.
* [[Doomy Dooms of Doom]]: Invoked by Ommadon, along with a [[Title Drop]], when [http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=rkeoqVP4N9g sending Bryagh forth] to battle the heroes.
* [[The Dragon]]: Bryagh, who is a literal dragon as well.
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* [[Rule of Three]]: When Carolinus first decides to inspire the quest to bring about his idealized magic realm, Lo Tae Shao reminds him that there must be three warriors at the start of a quest, because "the laws so command it."
* [[Samus Is a Girl]]: Danielle the archer
* [[Science Destroys Magic]]: The central premise is a sort of [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] in which magical creatures can't exist in a world where science dominates, and civilizations based on science are destroyed by fear and superstition.
* [[Shaped Like Itself]]: Why do humans prefer logic over magic? In the words of Lo Tae Zhao "[because] Logic is so... ''logical."''
* [[Sharing a Body]]: Peter and Gorbash
* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: Peter's confrontation with Ommadon is basically one big series of these... Scientifically-themed, of course.
* [[Sleeping Beauty]]: Melisande, for about a third of the film.
* [[Small Annoying Creature]]: The Sandmurks, ratlike animals whose screechy noises will literally drive the listener mad.
* [[Sssssnaketalk]]: Smrgol
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[[Category:Fantasy Animated Films]]
[[Category:Films of the 1980s]]
[[Category{{DEFAULTSORT:The Flight of Dragons]], The}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]