All The Tropes

The Flight of Dragons: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

The Flight of Dragons (view source)

Revision as of 10:18, 9 January 2014

74 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (remove unneccessary quote box template)
m (Mass update links)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[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]].
Line 6:
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.
 
{{tropelist}}
----
=== This film provides examples of: ===
 
* [[The Archer]]: Danielle.
Line 17 ⟶ 16:
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: The Shield of Saturn and Flute of the Muses, given to the heroes at the beginning, each come in handy exactly once to overcome an obstacle.
* [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]]: Inverted; Peter Dickinson defeats Ommadon by denying the existence of magic.
* [[Color -Coded Wizardry]]: The four brothers each have an assigned color and element. Carolinus -- green and earth; Lo Tae Shao -- yellow and air; Solarius -- blue and water; Ommadon -- red and fire.
* [[Cyclops]]: The giant [[Our Ogres Are Hungrier|ogre]] whose castle is the gate to Ommadon's kingdom.
* [[Daddys Girl|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 in 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.
Line 30 ⟶ 29:
** [[Ambiguously Brown|Is Solaris black? He could be Indian.]]
* [[Even the Subtitler Is Stumped]]: The closed captioning regularly confuses a dragon's ''hoard'' for a dragon's ''horn''.
* [[Everythings Better With Princesses|Everything's Better With Princesses]]: Princess Melisande
* [[Evil Is Hammy]]: Ommadon.
* [[Evil Sorcerer]]: Ommadon.
Line 47 ⟶ 46:
* [[Heroes Want Redheads]]: Both played straight and averted. There are two heroes, and one ends up with the redhead, and the other gets the blonde.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Smrgol.}}
* [[Hey ItsIt's That Voice]]: Fans of [[The Seventies|Seventies]] TV will not only recognize John Ritter (Peter) as Jack Tripper from ''[[ThreesThree's Company (TV)|Threes Company]]'', but also Harry Morgan (Carolinus) as Colonel Potter from ''[[MASH|M*A*S*H]]'' (if not as [[Dragnet|Joe Friday]]'s partner) and James Gregory (Smrgol) as Inspector Luger from ''[[Barney Miller]]'' (if not as the Gorilla General from ''[[Planet of the Apes]]''). Going back a little farther, Victor Buono (Aragh) was the villainous King Tut on ''[[Batman (TV)|Batman]]''. And need one even mention [[James Earl Jones]]?
* [[I Fell for Hours]]: "Actually, it's been more like ten centuries!"
* [[Improbable Hairstyle]]: Melisande's long blonde hair is beautiful...except for the part where it looks like she's wearing gigantic seashells on either side of her head.
* [[Kill 'Em All]]: Bryagh slays Aragh, Giles and Danielle, and then [[Mutual Kill|Mutual Kills]] Sir Orrin, leaving Peter alone with Ommadon for the final confrontation. {{spoiler|Of course, [[Death Is Cheap]], and they're resurrected when the Magic Realm comes into being.}}
* [[Knight Errant]]: Sir Orrin Neville-Smythe. Guess "Sir Brian" was too boring of a name...
* [[Knight in Shining Armor]]: Sir Orrin Neville-Smythe.
Line 67 ⟶ 66:
* [[New Powers As the Plot Demands]]: When Ommadon causes Carolinus to lose the ability to track the quest through one magical means, the image of his brother Lo Tae Shao appears and reminds him that Melisande has the previously unmentioned ability to do the exact same thing by entering a trance.
* [[Not Quite Dead]]: Averted with Aragh. He DID die drowning, but was revived by Solarius, in exchange for killing the Sandmurk queen and joining the quest.
* [[The Obi -Wan]]: Smrgol, almost exactly.
* [[Obi -Wan Moment]]: An obvious consequence of the above.
* [[Off -Model]]: There are minor animation flaws throughout -- ''e.g.'' the dragon-rose, described by Peter/Gorbash as "that small golden flower," is quite clearly deep pink.
* [[One -Winged Angel]]: Ommadon does this for the final confrontation and it ain't pretty.
* [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping]]: Sir Orrin, who clearly has never been any closer to England than Liverpool -- [[Actor Allusion|East Liverpool, Ohio]], that is.
* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]: Dragon biology is discussed rather in depth, including their need to eat limestone to generate gas, which enables them to fly and breathe fire, as well as their use of soft metal for bedding, as it will not catch fire.
Line 79 ⟶ 78:
* [[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.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/516003"