Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing you
Speaker 2: an older episode of Weird House Cinema. This originally published
Speaker 2: November eighteenth, twenty twenty two, and it is the episode
Speaker 2: you did with our old friend Seth on Flight of Dragons.
Speaker 1: That's right. I thought to rerun this one because the
Speaker 1: theme song out of Nowhere was suddenly stuck in my
Speaker 1: head this morning and I was like, well, we've got
Speaker 1: to do Flight.
Speaker 3: Of Dragons again.
Speaker 1: Then this one's a little under the radar, I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, but if you saw it
Speaker 1: back in the day, it probably has a very important
Speaker 1: place in your heart.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and I'm Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Joe is still out on parental leave, so Seth
Speaker 1: is joining me once again, and we're going to discussing
Speaker 1: a wonderful slice of early nineteen eighties animation. We're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about nineteen eighty two's The Flight of
Speaker 1: Dragons from Rankin in Bass Seth, what's your history with
Speaker 1: this film?
Speaker 3: So I assumed this was pretty common in the eighties
Speaker 3: and nineties when I was a child, But my family
Speaker 3: had a large collection of VHS tapes that, you know,
Speaker 3: contained movies that were recorded off of television, especially Gosh,
Speaker 3: I think ever since the beginning of television, a big
Speaker 3: way to like kind of fill that time was just
Speaker 3: to play old movies. And then ultimately someone was like, hey,
Speaker 3: what if you make new movies for television. It's like
Speaker 3: wow even more, you know. So yeah, I think most
Speaker 3: parents when they had when they got their first VCR,
Speaker 3: they just taped movies off of television perpetually, and they
Speaker 3: just had these amassed collections of two or three movies
Speaker 3: on a single blank VHS cassettes. And back when this
Speaker 3: first premiered on television in nineteen eighty six, I presume
Speaker 3: one of my parents corded it. And then as I
Speaker 3: got older, and I was like, you know, going through this,
Speaker 3: you know, collection of black spine tapes with no description
Speaker 3: other than maybe a few hastily scribbled words on on
Speaker 3: like a label, I was just seeing, what are these things?
Speaker 3: And one of them that I came across was the
Speaker 3: Flight of Dragons, and it really fascinated me as a child.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I could really articulate as a
Speaker 3: child what really made me, you know, gravitate towards it.
Speaker 3: But now as an adult, I can go like, wow,
Speaker 3: you know, this animation is actually really complex and really
Speaker 3: special and really compelling. You know, the stories actually really
Speaker 3: kind of deep but also shallow enough for a child
Speaker 3: to understand it. It's got a nice kind of like,
Speaker 3: you know, balance there. And yeah, I just watched it
Speaker 3: perpetually as a child, and then ultimately, as we shifted
Speaker 3: into the DVD world, I bought a new DVD copy
Speaker 3: from the Warner Archives and I still watch it pretty regularly,
Speaker 3: but mostly honestly for its visuals. Its visuals are really
Speaker 3: pretty stunning in places.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this this one is. It's a real joy to watch.
Speaker 1: I had not only had I never seen this before.
Speaker 1: It was really off my radar for most of my life.
Speaker 1: I don't know what was I don't remember exactly what
Speaker 1: all was going on in nineteen eighty six, but I
Speaker 1: know that we were watching TV, so I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how I missed this one. Because there are certainly plenty
Speaker 1: of other films from the Rank and Bass catalog that
Speaker 1: have an important place in my television and film childhood.
Speaker 1: But this is one that I don't think I heard
Speaker 1: of until I guess many years ago. I think Ben
Speaker 1: Bolin of stuff they don't want you to know in
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History. Casually mentioned it to me once. He's like,
Speaker 1: do you remember a film called The Flight of Dragons?
Speaker 1: And he gave me some brief description of it. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, no, I haven't heard of that, but
Speaker 1: that sounds interesting. And then more recently, I knew that
Speaker 1: you were going to be guest hosting a couple of
Speaker 1: episodes of Weird House, so I started looking around at
Speaker 1: various animated features from this time period, and I ran
Speaker 1: across that title again and watched I don't think I
Speaker 1: watched a trailer, but I watched some segment from it,
Speaker 1: and I was then instantly interested.
Speaker 3: No, it's a fascinating thing, and I think it's got
Speaker 3: something to do with the structure of replaying things on
Speaker 3: television when we were younger, because, like, you know, something
Speaker 3: like another Rank and in Bass classic, like Rudolph the
Speaker 3: Red Nose Reindeer, there's a built in structure for that.
Speaker 3: Every Christmas season you play it again, and you know,
Speaker 3: people kind of get like an attachment to it. The
Speaker 3: late seventies early eighties did have this kind of like
Speaker 3: fantasy boom and other things really happened. Like I'm going
Speaker 3: off the top of my head here, But in eighty six,
Speaker 3: I believe the other two big animated features that came
Speaker 3: out that year, or this might have been eighty two,
Speaker 3: either way, the year this premiered one way or the other.
Speaker 3: I looked this up. It was the same year as
Speaker 3: Secretive Nim and The Last Unicorn. Those were like the
Speaker 3: three big features that year, and I was like, oh wow,
Speaker 3: Like that really was like a vibe at that time
Speaker 3: because all three of those they are beloved, but they're
Speaker 3: also like cult favorites, like they are none of them
Speaker 3: are mainstream, but they are all well known fantasy things.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I just think it was a weird time
Speaker 3: for latching onto the public consciousness and trying to capitalize
Speaker 3: upon high fantasy as mainstream entertainment that maybe it wasn't
Speaker 3: quite as successful as they were hoping it would be,
Speaker 3: you know, as a moneymaker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned those films in particular, because
Speaker 1: on one hand, even if you haven't seen The Flight
Speaker 1: of Dragons, and I had not. It's easy to enter
Speaker 1: into it if you've seen certainly other Rank and Bass
Speaker 1: animated features from this time period, but even just sort
Speaker 1: of stuff that was also populating the waters of major
Speaker 1: animated fantasy at the time, and then specifically mentioning The
Speaker 1: Secret of Nim and The Last Unicorn, both again both
Speaker 1: beloved films with very strong following. I could sit down
Speaker 1: and watch either of them. However, I do feel like
Speaker 1: both of those films have their own issues as well,
Speaker 1: depending on where you're coming from. Like for me, I
Speaker 1: absolutely love like the first half of The Last Unicorn,
Speaker 1: and then it starts kind of to drag.
Speaker 3: For me, I think that's perhaps a element of fantasy
Speaker 3: that perhaps some I don't want to call it lazy,
Speaker 3: but I do feel like there was like a pattern
Speaker 3: to it where it's like set up the interesting world
Speaker 3: for the first half and then just let it play
Speaker 3: out for the second half. And I think actually that's
Speaker 3: part of this film as well, which which we'll get into.
Speaker 1: Yeah, though this one I think does pick back up
Speaker 1: in a major way, but yeah, there is sort of
Speaker 1: that lag period perhaps here as well. Secret and Him
Speaker 1: I'll just say real quick, I never had this particular attachment,
Speaker 1: but I know that the source material does not have
Speaker 1: rat wizards in it. I think they added all of
Speaker 1: that for the film, and that's the stuff I love
Speaker 1: the most. So I am certainly not offended by it,
Speaker 1: but I could understand where there would be some weirdness
Speaker 1: there for viewers who had a stronger attachment to the
Speaker 1: source material. Interesting, all right, So, yes, this is a
Speaker 1: film that I believe debuted in the UK direct a
Speaker 1: video in nineteen eighty two, and in nineteen eighty six
Speaker 1: it aired as an ABC movie special. It was the
Speaker 1: ABC movie Well I don't know if it was ABC
Speaker 1: Movie the week, but it was an ABC movie special.
Speaker 1: And I think we're going to play the TV spot
Speaker 1: for that in just a second. But first of all,
Speaker 1: the elevator pitch. What's your elevator pitch for this flick? Here?
Speaker 3: Seth straightforward, I would say an animated Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 3: campaign about science versus magic.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's good. It is a fantasy adventure
Speaker 1: that kind of sneaks a fair amount of pro science
Speaker 1: propaganda into it, but in a way that I absolutely love.
Speaker 1: And I should also note I'll keep coming back to this.
Speaker 1: But when I watched it for the first time, I
Speaker 1: also got my son to watch it with me. My
Speaker 1: wife was out that evening, so we had the TV
Speaker 1: to ourselves, and I said, Okay, let's watch this Dragon
Speaker 1: show together. And so he ended up really enjoying it
Speaker 1: as well, and certainly was on board for all of
Speaker 1: the scientific messaging. Nice. All right, Well, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and listen to that trailer. Well TV spot audio, and
Speaker 1: I believe this is a long time ABC announcer Scott
Speaker 1: Vincent doing the narration.
Speaker 5: Tonight an ABC premiere presentation somewhere in another time, in
Speaker 5: another place, Sizuma lives a realm of magic.
Speaker 1: Man will never inherit mine to me.
Speaker 5: Well, wizard's rule, we want none of your dark magic.
Speaker 1: We're good battles.
Speaker 5: The voices of email enter an enchanted kingdom from mystical
Speaker 5: tale of Unforgettable Adventure. They'll flight of rackons.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm a sucker for a good TV
Speaker 1: spot like that most definitely. Now, I would say word
Speaker 1: of warning if you're if you're out there and you're interested,
Speaker 1: and then you go and look at a listing for
Speaker 1: this on wherever you get your films, you may find
Speaker 1: that the box art or the thumbnail for this movie
Speaker 1: looks really bad. And I just want to to assure
Speaker 1: you that the quality of the picture is not entirely
Speaker 1: represented by that very cartoony image.
Speaker 3: Not only is the art style completely wrong, like the
Speaker 3: characters barely even look like the characters they're supposed to represent,
Speaker 3: Like the main character Peter almost looks like the page master,
Speaker 3: you know. Like it's just it's that's not the art style.
Speaker 3: That's not from the film. That's someone trying to cartoonify
Speaker 3: it and sell it to a younger market I presume,
Speaker 3: I don't know, but unsuccessful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wait until we've talked a little bit about the
Speaker 1: some of the other films that Rank and Bass were
Speaker 1: putting out of the time. Wait until we've talked about
Speaker 1: the the source material here, because I think that does
Speaker 1: a better job of setting the stage and preparing your
Speaker 1: expectations for what the film is like visually. And speaking
Speaker 1: of yes, where can you get this film? I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty widely available right now. Certainly you can get
Speaker 1: it on DVD or Blu Ray from the WB collection,
Speaker 1: and then you can you can rent or or buy
Speaker 1: it digitally wherever you get your films online. All right,
Speaker 1: well let's start with the really the most obvious point
Speaker 1: that we've already hinted at several times. This is a
Speaker 1: Ranking in Bass joint.
Speaker 3: I love Ranking and Bass. I own so many Ranking
Speaker 3: and Bass films late. Like we mentioned previously, I love
Speaker 3: stop motion, and they did a lot of stop motion,
Speaker 3: so I own a lot of Ranking and Bass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's it's hard to not
Speaker 1: have a connection to something they put. They produced, something
Speaker 1: that they had a hand in if you grew up
Speaker 1: with access to a TV for a number of decades.
Speaker 1: So Rankin and Bass we're talking about author Rankin Junior
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty four through twenty fourteen, and Jules
Speaker 1: Bass who lived nineteen thirty five through twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: They both have director and producer credits on this. They
Speaker 1: founded the company known as Videocraft International in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: that went on to become Rank and Bass Productions, Inc.
Speaker 1: They were known, of course, for all those holiday films,
Speaker 1: many of which were quote unquote anti magic. I believe
Speaker 1: that was their term for the stop motion they were using.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was because they weren't clay, so they couldn't
Speaker 3: use the Will Vinton phrase claymation. And they also weren't
Speaker 3: Let's see who was it someone coined the term puppet tune.
Speaker 3: I think that was the guy that invented gumby. But yeah,
Speaker 3: everyone had to had their own individual name for what
Speaker 3: they were calling stop motion at the time. And yeah,
Speaker 3: they used AnimagiC.
Speaker 1: Why they were the revulsion to stop motion? Was it
Speaker 1: just like stop motion? We can't. That just sounds so negative.
Speaker 3: It's too much of an oxymoron that people just won't understand.
Speaker 1: But anyway, there's stop motion productions include the likes of
Speaker 1: Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, which I think many many,
Speaker 1: many of you are familiar with, maybe most of you
Speaker 1: are familiar with, but also a number of lesser known
Speaker 1: stop motion films. There's some. Looking at the list of them,
Speaker 1: some were ones that I vaguely remember catching part of
Speaker 1: on TV and maybe even as a child, being like,
Speaker 1: I don't think this one's for me. And then some
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of, like this particular one, the Life
Speaker 1: and Adventures of Santa Claus.
Speaker 3: I love that one. Yeah, this was one of the
Speaker 3: ones that we were possibly gonna do for today's episode,
Speaker 3: High Fantasy, written by L. Frank Baum. Is that his name?
Speaker 3: The Wizard of Oz guy? Right? Yeah? And oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: High Fantasy about a bunch of demigods debating amongst one
Speaker 3: another whether or not to make the human man Santa
Speaker 3: Claus immortal for all the good deeds he's done in
Speaker 3: his life. Fascinating, real, fascinating, really beautiful. You got to
Speaker 3: watch it if you're interested in very strange holiday movies.
Speaker 1: There does seem to be an entire genre of holiday
Speaker 1: films where folks decide to flesh out the Santa Claus mythology,
Speaker 1: sometimes to great results, other times to kind of you
Speaker 1: get into kind of weird areas when you have to
Speaker 1: build all this like support structures to hold this idea.
Speaker 3: Up, especially I think as a youth, when you watch
Speaker 3: these and it's not like, you know, they're all working
Speaker 3: from the same blueprint. So you have let's say, five
Speaker 3: or six different origin tales for Santa Claus that never
Speaker 3: really match up. They don't really kind of lay over
Speaker 3: one another, so it just muddles the whole idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they all end up feeling a little bit
Speaker 1: like heresy. Yeah, especially if you're still if you're still
Speaker 1: a believer in Santa, or you still are holding on
Speaker 1: to some of those beliefs, you're gonna look at something
Speaker 1: like and then be like, I don't know about this
Speaker 1: line of faith. I think they've pas perhaps lost track
Speaker 1: of them, so yeah, for sure. Now, Rankin and bass
Speaker 1: Rolls are responsible for some beloved non holiday animated films
Speaker 1: of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, which I think these
Speaker 1: probably deserve more of our attention here, at least for
Speaker 1: this film. These include the likes of and Stop Me.
Speaker 1: If you have thoughts on some of these here seth.
Speaker 1: But Willie McBean and his Magic Machine from nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 3: No thoughts on that one, okay.
Speaker 1: Oooh, This next one I've only seen parts of, and
Speaker 1: i've every year at Halloween. I'm tempted to play it
Speaker 1: in full. But Mad Monster Party question Mark from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven.
Speaker 3: That one is beloved. I love that one, dearly. It's
Speaker 3: a bit dated at this points, but love it, love it,
Speaker 3: love it. I mean, it's a bunch of stop motion
Speaker 3: monsters throwing a party. It's a really good time.
Speaker 1: Oooh. The next one is one of my personal favorites,
Speaker 1: and definitely a film I grew up with. Nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven's The Hobbit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one, The Hobbits, and the follow up Return
Speaker 3: of the King. I still, to this get confused with
Speaker 3: the Ralph Bakshi, you know, token adaptations, very confusing. They
Speaker 3: all kind of blend together in my head. I'm not
Speaker 3: really sure how to parse them apart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, It's The Hobbit is a film that I know,
Speaker 1: as a child I loved, and then later on, when
Speaker 1: I was reading and rereading the novels for the first time,
Speaker 1: I had a strong dislike for them because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to picture the characters as they appeared in the
Speaker 1: animated film while I was reading it. But then I've
Speaker 1: subsequently come back around and really really embrace nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: sevens The Hobbit. I think it's I think it's tremendous.
Speaker 1: John Houston, I think is my Gandalf. As much as
Speaker 1: I love Ian McKellen, I've got to go with John
Speaker 1: Houston for my Gandalf. And also it's just the pacing
Speaker 1: in seventy sevens The Hobbit is just so good, like
Speaker 1: they managed to take one book make one film out
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, they cut out some great stuff to
Speaker 1: do it, but you end up with a very watchable
Speaker 1: film and you're in and out in seventy eight minutes.
Speaker 3: It also feels good that I feel like the material
Speaker 3: it adapted much smoother than it did in the Jackson films,
Speaker 3: because it went from this is a short children's book
Speaker 3: to this is a short children's film. It was a
Speaker 3: one to one. It was very easy.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 3: There was no flourish, no no no gilding to lily
Speaker 3: like they did on the Jackson one, which I enjoyed
Speaker 3: to a certain extent. I think they're fine. They're just
Speaker 3: not as good. Obviously the other trilogy.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're fun as well. I don't dislike those.
Speaker 1: And certainly when you get into the adaptation of The
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings you have to give a lot
Speaker 1: of Lord of Rings itself, you have to give a
Speaker 1: lot of credit to Peter Jackson. I mean, those are
Speaker 1: pretty terrific films. On the other hand, the animated attempts
Speaker 1: to bring that trilogy to the screen were a little
Speaker 1: a little rough around the edges. You have the Ralph
Speaker 1: Bakshi film, and then of course Ranking and Bass comeback
Speaker 1: around and finish what Bakshi started with the Return of
Speaker 1: the King, which I also remember enjoying. It also has
Speaker 1: some nice Orc songs in it, something that I think
Speaker 1: has largely been lacking. I don't remember if the Orcs
Speaker 1: sang at all on the Peter Jackson films, but I
Speaker 1: haven't seen all the cuts all right. On top of those,
Speaker 1: we also have The Last Unicorn from eighty two, which
Speaker 1: we already mentioned, certainly a classic, great vocal performances in that,
Speaker 1: for my money, terrific music by America. There are at
Speaker 1: least a couple of tracks in there that I will
Speaker 1: absolutely go out of my way to listen to on
Speaker 1: their own every now and then.
Speaker 3: That was also an element of the early eighties late
Speaker 3: seventies animation was they worked in popular musicians, I think
Speaker 3: for the first time, and I think we're better for it.
Speaker 3: So we'll have a little theme song by a popular
Speaker 3: musician later for this film. Well, we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1: On the TV end of the spectrum. There was also
Speaker 1: ThunderCats and silver Hawks. Silver Hawks was basically ThunderCats remixed
Speaker 1: the same basic concept but in space, and instead of
Speaker 1: cat people, they were like metal bird people. And instead
Speaker 1: of mom Raw you had Monstar The Space Crime Boss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I definitely remember watching those shows. Ranganabass also had
Speaker 1: their hands in some mostly live action films that are
Speaker 1: also worth noting. One is nineteen seventy seven for The
Speaker 1: Last Dinosaur, which is Japanese co production, and then there's
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight The Bermuda Depths. This is another Japanese
Speaker 1: co production that featured a young Carl Weather's Burro lives
Speaker 1: and I believe a giant psychic sea turtle. Joe has
Speaker 1: seen this one. I have not, but he tells me
Speaker 1: that it's amazing. It sounds amazing. I haven't seen it either.
Speaker 1: Now one more quick note about the animation here. As
Speaker 1: with other as with various other Rank and Bass productions,
Speaker 1: you'll note a number of Japanese animators in filmmakers credited.
Speaker 1: They worked with a company called Topcraft on this one,
Speaker 1: a Japanese animation studio that did hand drawn animations on
Speaker 1: this picture. Topcraft win on to make one of the
Speaker 1: greatest animated films of all time, Miyazaki's Nausica of the
Speaker 1: Valley of the Wind and When top Craft folded. Miyazaki
Speaker 1: and others formed Studio Ghibli, and you can tell.
Speaker 3: You can tell there are a number of shots in
Speaker 3: this film that you may want to like just because
Speaker 3: it looks dated, because it looks very seventies. You might
Speaker 3: just want to dismiss the whole thing and be like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's old and no, no, no, this isn't good. But no,
Speaker 3: there are multiple shots that when you look at them,
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, they weren't lazy, they weren't. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: went to extremes to make this shot successful. One for example,
Speaker 3: that it'll come up later, we have a wizard and
Speaker 3: our protagonist Peter, both sitting on a die. We have
Speaker 3: a pair of dice, each of them sitting on one,
Speaker 3: and they rock it up into the air like a
Speaker 3: little rocket ship and spin while they're doing it, and
Speaker 3: we see their bodies full three hundred and sixty degrees
Speaker 3: from going because they're spinning in a circle and going
Speaker 3: up from beneath us two above us. And when I
Speaker 3: was watching that recently as an adult who has made
Speaker 3: a career in animation, I go, oh, no, that is
Speaker 3: so much time like that. That is weeks, weeks and
Speaker 3: weeks for that one very quick shot. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: they weren't being lazy, you know, were there were a
Speaker 3: lot of ways to do that shot lazy and they
Speaker 3: didn't do it.
Speaker 1: Do you think something like that is a case when
Speaker 1: you're looking at, especially a collaboration like this co production.
Speaker 1: Is that a case where the animators are hungry to
Speaker 1: do something like cool and maybe that requires more work,
Speaker 1: or is it a situation where others are like, no,
Speaker 1: this is what we need, this is the shot we
Speaker 1: need to make it happen.
Speaker 3: I think it's both. I think someone who's a storyboard
Speaker 3: artist would originally put that in because they think it
Speaker 3: would look cool, and then when it gets handed off
Speaker 3: to the animation director or to the animators, they would
Speaker 3: look at it and go, oh, no, this is gonna
Speaker 3: take a lot. And then they would go, yeah, but
Speaker 3: it would be pretty cool. They're like, yeah, that would
Speaker 3: be pretty cool. All right, do we have time for this?
Speaker 3: Do we have the money for this? Okay, Okay, let's
Speaker 3: do it. Let's do it. So I think it's a
Speaker 3: combination of both.
Speaker 1: All right, getting into the writing on this one real quick.
Speaker 1: Romeo Muller, who lived nineteen twenty eight through nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: was a long time ranking bass writer. He was a
Speaker 1: writer on this. There's also Jeffrey Walker that is credited
Speaker 1: with writing additional material. Not exactly sure what the additional
Speaker 1: material was, but they were an actor and writer as well.
Speaker 1: Now getting into the source material here, they are really
Speaker 1: a couple of things. The main one seems to be
Speaker 1: this book, The Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickinson, who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty seven through twenty fifteen, and illustrated by
Speaker 1: Wayne Anderson who was born in nineteen forty six. And
Speaker 1: I believe as if this recording is still very much alive.
Speaker 1: I actually got a copy of this book. You can
Speaker 1: pick it up used for a relatively cheap I mean,
Speaker 1: basically very little more than it would have cost fresh
Speaker 1: off the shelf back when it came out. But this
Speaker 1: was a nineteen seventy nine book. Pick it up if
Speaker 1: you were at all interested in this topic. I'll talk
Speaker 1: more about it in a bit. But of these two individuals,
Speaker 1: Dickinson was an English children's author of numerous books, including
Speaker 1: Tolku from nineteen seventy nine and City of Gold from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. Anderson is a splendid illustrator and artists whose
Speaker 1: work has shown up just all over the place. Has
Speaker 1: a very distinctive style, which you can see if you
Speaker 1: go to his website. It's Wayne Anderson art dot com.
Speaker 1: And I know I had previously run into some of
Speaker 1: his dragon illustrations because they were used or reused in
Speaker 1: the Time Life Enchanted World books, I believe, specifically in
Speaker 1: their Dragons book. So a lot of some of the
Speaker 1: cooler elements and the science the elements and also the
Speaker 1: monster science of the dragons is all right out of
Speaker 1: this book. And there's even more of it, Like there's
Speaker 1: stuff about dragon blood and the chemical composition of dragon blood.
Speaker 1: So I haven't had time to just devour it all,
Speaker 1: but it's a really cool book, definitely worth picking up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's one of these where it's it's not
Speaker 1: real history and it's not real science of dragons, but
Speaker 1: it is it is all sort of speculative science of
Speaker 1: dragons that I love it.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's always fun stuff. I mean that stuff
Speaker 3: you and Joe have done on this podcast often, which
Speaker 3: is here's something unexplainable, let's explain it. Let's find a
Speaker 3: way to make it work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a theory of dragonflight in this that we'll
Speaker 1: describe when we get into the plot, and it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I'd never thought of it before. My son was very
Speaker 1: amused by it. It's great now. In addition to this,
Speaker 1: because this is not a really a narrative book, this
Speaker 1: is more of a here's the world of dragons and
Speaker 1: how it works book. Apparently some story material also came
Speaker 1: from the book The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dixon,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty three through two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: author of the Dragon Night series, of which I believe
Speaker 1: this was the first volume the Child cycle, as well
Speaker 1: as such novels as The Forever Man from nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: He also wrote a whole bunch of short stories. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get into the voice cast on this picture. It is,
Speaker 1: as you might expect from this time period, rather interesting.
Speaker 1: It's a mix of folks that might surprise you that
Speaker 1: they're here at all, and there are also some just
Speaker 1: really great voice actors that pop up as well. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, there is a wizard in this by
Speaker 1: the name of Carolinas who's very important. He's essentially our
Speaker 1: main good wizard, and he is voiced by Harry Morgan
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen fifteen through twenty eleven, and I have
Speaker 1: to say this bit of casting feels a bit weird,
Speaker 1: but also totally spot on for late seventies or early
Speaker 1: eighties casting, for sure. He was an accomplished actor of
Speaker 1: stage and screen well before TV's Mash. But Mash is
Speaker 1: probably where a lot of people would recognize this guy from.
Speaker 1: And if you hear his voice, he has that very
Speaker 1: dry voice, kind of crackly American accent in this picture,
Speaker 1: then you know exactly who this guy is. He was
Speaker 1: also in Dragnet, so yeah, very much a Dragnet cop
Speaker 1: voice for our weird nature wizard, which again feels kind
Speaker 1: of strange, but all right. Morgan was also in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two Is High Noon, nineteen forty two is the
Speaker 1: ox Bow Incident, in nineteen sixties Inherent the Wind. He
Speaker 1: was also just in a ton of TV over the years,
Speaker 1: often doing little guest spots, showing up on such shows
Speaker 1: as Night Gallery. He was in a segment on Night Gallery,
Speaker 1: and he was also on an episode of The Simpsons,
Speaker 1: just to name a couple of his many appearances. So
Speaker 1: that's our main good wizard, but we also have an
Speaker 1: evil wizard, as one tends to have in pictures like this.
Speaker 1: This is the Wizard Ohmadon? Who and Ohmadon is voiced
Speaker 1: by James ear Old Jones born nineteen thirty one. This is,
Speaker 1: of course, the legendary actor of stage, screen, TV, and
Speaker 1: more legendary is the voice behind Darth Vader in the
Speaker 1: Star Wars franchise. He originated the role of Jack Jefferson
Speaker 1: on Broadway in the Great White Hope, and gave a
Speaker 1: really electric performance of that role in the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: five film adaptation. He's been in so many things we
Speaker 1: can't even begin to list them all, including playing King
Speaker 1: Jaffy in Coming to America, voicing Mufasa in The Lion King.
Speaker 1: And there's also no shortage of weirder, smaller roles that
Speaker 1: he did as well. And he needed TV work, but
Speaker 1: he also pops up in things like Grim Prairie Tales
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety. There's a nineteen eighty two monster movie
Speaker 1: that I was recently looking at called Blood Tide, where
Speaker 1: he plays like a kind of suspicious archaeologist who may
Speaker 1: have awakened a monster in Greece. I believe it's the plot.
Speaker 1: He has a memorable role in nineteen eighty seven's May
Speaker 1: Twan And the role that this performance I think mostly
Speaker 1: made me think of is another performance from nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: Hep of course, played the villainous wizard cult leader Thulsa
Speaker 1: Doom in Conan, the Barbarian.
Speaker 3: There's even a part in this film where he starts
Speaker 3: saying doom, doom, doom, and it definitely connects the two
Speaker 3: in my mind.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love that part all right. We also have
Speaker 1: a kind of befuddled writer character from our world, from
Speaker 1: the normal human world, the world of science, who get
Speaker 1: sucked into all of this. This is the character Peter Dickinson,
Speaker 1: and this is yes, the same name as the actual
Speaker 1: author of the Flight of Dragon's book, and he's voiced
Speaker 1: by John Ritter. John Ritter, of course, lived nineteen forty
Speaker 1: eight through two thousand and three, beloved TV and film actor.
Speaker 1: He made a splash on the small screen for the
Speaker 1: sitcom Three's Company, which I weirdly grew up watching a lot.
Speaker 1: I think that was like a show that would be
Speaker 1: on TV and syndication, and we generally, I think while
Speaker 1: my mom was cooking dinner and we the kids, would
Speaker 1: just watch Three's Company.
Speaker 3: Did oh, I have no reason in my mind other
Speaker 3: than the fact that it was on all the time. Like,
Speaker 3: I didn't really care or even understand about the dynamics
Speaker 3: of this household, but they were funny and John Ritdard
Speaker 3: in particular, it was kind of a goofy, cartoony guy,
Speaker 3: so at least he appealed the kids in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was weird because like, later on I would
Speaker 1: learn that, oh yeah, this was like supposedly a risque
Speaker 1: kind of TV show, and it was supposed to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, breaking down boundaries, Like here's this guy and
Speaker 1: he lives with these two women and they're keeping it
Speaker 1: a secret from the landlord. All of that just completely
Speaker 1: washed over me as a kid, and you just take
Speaker 1: it at face value. It was like, oh, yeah, he
Speaker 1: lives there with these these two women, and I guess
Speaker 1: the he has these goofy, wacky landlords that they just
Speaker 1: try and keep out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, he worked on two levels.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, he also did a lot of
Speaker 1: film though he did Sling Blade, Problem Child, Bride of Chucky,
Speaker 1: and also a lot of TV shows, popping up in
Speaker 1: guest spots, usually in episodes of stuff like Buffy, Tales
Speaker 1: from the Crypt and News Radio of course, we also
Speaker 1: have some dragon voices in this. The dragon r Rog
Speaker 1: is voiced by Victor Bueno.
Speaker 3: Oh wait a minute, a minute, I thought Rog was
Speaker 3: the wolf.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, oh, of course is the wolf. Yes, I
Speaker 1: know we're getting ahead here. Yes, a wolf will show
Speaker 1: up in this and he talks. Ag is voiced by
Speaker 1: Victor of Bueno. This is the last role for this individual.
Speaker 1: Longtime TV and film actor, probably best known for films
Speaker 1: such as nineteen sixty two Is Whatever Having a Baby
Speaker 1: Jane and nineteen seventies Beneath the Planet of the Apes,
Speaker 1: in which he plays one of the mutants. I included
Speaker 1: an image here for you, Seth in case you have
Speaker 1: flashbacks to Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
Speaker 3: Now, now, was he also King Tut in the Batman
Speaker 3: Live action series? Or am I completely making that up?
Speaker 1: I think this is true. Yes, one of the stills
Speaker 1: that I grabbed shows I think images from both of these.
Speaker 1: I think he did play King Tut. I've just been forbid. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: that is him. That is him.
Speaker 3: A very strange character in the history of Batman. I
Speaker 3: believe he was a college professor who was hit on
Speaker 3: the head and then suddenly believed he was King Tut
Speaker 3: and then would commit crimes befitting King Tuts trying to
Speaker 3: exist in this modern twentieth century world of nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: six Gotham City.
Speaker 1: One of the most beloved Batman villains of all time,
Speaker 1: right up there with a joker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll start it right below Egghead.
Speaker 1: I'm not really a Batman comics guy, but I do
Speaker 1: seem to recall there have like Batman is never going
Speaker 1: to end, and so inevitably creators have come back to
Speaker 1: some of those villains from the Batman TV series and
Speaker 1: found new things to do with them. And I think
Speaker 1: I read something about like one where you had a
Speaker 1: faction that had these sort of forgotten characters like King
Speaker 1: Tut and Egghead.
Speaker 3: I have read it. I have read it. It was
Speaker 3: a complete series exclusively based on the nineteen sixty six
Speaker 3: Batman television series, as if it continued on after the
Speaker 3: television show. And no, it's wonderful. If you like Batman
Speaker 3: sixty six the TV series, which I do very much,
Speaker 3: it's fun just to have more adventures in that campy
Speaker 3: world with these characters that never really got much attention
Speaker 3: outside of that world.
Speaker 1: All right, We also have Briog and Smurgle. These are
Speaker 1: are these both dragons?
Speaker 3: Smurgle definitely is Briog. I think that's the evil red
Speaker 3: dragon and Smurgle is like the elderly good dragon. I
Speaker 3: believe that's the two. But just like our God, there's
Speaker 3: gonna be a lot of like just guttural noises. That's
Speaker 3: just mythical creature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess this is draconic. This is the dragon language.
Speaker 1: It all sounds like growling. But both of these characters
Speaker 1: were voiced by James Gregory, who lived nineteen eleven through
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, New York actor. He had a
Speaker 1: long running role on TV's Barney Miller. He was in
Speaker 1: sixty two Is the Manchurian Candidate, he was in sixty
Speaker 1: six Is murders Row. And he was also in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies Beneath the Planet of the Apes, in which he
Speaker 1: played the ape general Ursus.
Speaker 3: The Planet of the Apes franchise. Whenever anyone even just
Speaker 3: starts talking about it, I always feel the poll just
Speaker 3: to watch them all again. It's just there's something very
Speaker 3: comfort about them, and I'm not quite sure what that is,
Speaker 3: but but yeah, those are those are enjoyable films. The
Speaker 3: original series, of course, is what I'm speaking of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I need to REWI guess I'm kind of waiting
Speaker 1: until my son's ready for them, and then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: definitely watch the first one, and I really want to
Speaker 1: watch the second one again. I have a weird attachment
Speaker 1: to beneath the planet of the Apes. If that is
Speaker 1: the second one. There's not a one in between those two,
Speaker 1: is there?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: No, that's the one. Yeah, that's the one where they are, like,
Speaker 3: you know, worshiping the atomic bomb and all that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's a fun one. I also
Speaker 3: really like the one where the two apes go into
Speaker 3: our modern world and are kind of like wandering around
Speaker 3: to being like the toast of the town. I forget
Speaker 3: which one that one is. It's like the Creature Walks
Speaker 3: among Us, except it's about two ape creatures. It's fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, same energy as that for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right. Getting into just a couple of smaller roles here,
Speaker 1: Larry Storch plays the pawnbroker in this which is a
Speaker 1: fun little role we'll discuss. But this guy lives nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty three through twenty twenty two, actor and comedian but
Speaker 1: I only really wanted to highlight him because he also
Speaker 1: played the scout Master in nineteen eighties Without Warning, which
Speaker 1: of course was the first episode of Weird House.
Speaker 3: Cinema classic for that reason alone.
Speaker 1: We have a voice in this film. It's sort of
Speaker 1: a power, almost a deity. It is known as Antiquity,
Speaker 1: and it is voiced by Paul Freese, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty through nineteen eighty six. He's actually, I believe, uncredited
Speaker 1: on this film, but this was a long time voiceover
Speaker 1: voice actor that frequently popped up and rank it in
Speaker 1: Bass productions.
Speaker 3: Also, Paul Freese did the voice, also uncredited, of Soilarius
Speaker 3: the Blue Wizard, another role which once again in the
Speaker 3: credits for no reason, he just doesn't get credited, but
Speaker 3: there he is. He plays one of our main four
Speaker 3: wizards as well, but one of the lesser ones, one
Speaker 3: of the ones with fewer lines.
Speaker 1: I do always find it interesting when you look back
Speaker 1: at at voice acting in the nineteen eighties and earlier,
Speaker 1: like sometimes you would find situations where they just have
Speaker 1: one voice actor to just do numerous voices in ways
Speaker 1: that you, I guess you certainly don't see as much
Speaker 1: on modern animated pictures. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and here's actually, to me the worst part about that.
Speaker 3: Think about Looneytun's shorts. For example, Mel Blank did almost
Speaker 3: every cartoon voice almost all of them. However, there are
Speaker 3: two other actors which are very prominent in that world.
Speaker 3: One is June Foray and one is Arthur q Brian.
Speaker 3: Arthur q Brian is mostly known for the Elmer Fudd voice.
Speaker 3: That was not Mel Blank, that was Arthur q Brian
Speaker 3: and June Foray. Basically most of the female characters, like Witch, Hazel,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, they often were never credited in
Speaker 3: these old Looney Tunes shorts. All the voice credits always
Speaker 3: just went to Mel Blank for the longest time. And
Speaker 3: there's no particular reason other than you know, ego or
Speaker 3: I don't know, perhaps trying to fool people into thinking
Speaker 3: he did more than he did. It's it's just a
Speaker 3: weird practice, and it still happens. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: that of people not getting credit for work that they
Speaker 3: have done, or it's just a strange practice that still
Speaker 3: exists in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: All Right. Finally, on the music front, first of all,
Speaker 1: the score we tend to highlight the score of the
Speaker 1: score is by Marie Laws, who lived nineteen twenty three
Speaker 1: through twenty nineteen. Also scored The Last Dinosaur as well
Speaker 1: as The Hobbit from seventy seven and other various ranking
Speaker 1: and bass joints. But the real juicy part of the
Speaker 1: music is, of course, the theme song to the Flight
Speaker 1: of Dragons. This has really just gotten its hooks into
Speaker 1: my brain ever since I watched this film last week.
Speaker 1: If I even see the book The Flight of Dragons
Speaker 1: on the shelf, my brain will just automatically go Flight
Speaker 1: of Dragons. And it's the voice of Don McLain born
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, American music legend singing the Flight of
Speaker 1: Dragons theme song.
Speaker 3: I mean mister American Pie himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now he didn't write this one, I believe, but
Speaker 1: he does perform it, and it's it's a fun, little
Speaker 1: little theme song. It's it. At first, it might feel
Speaker 1: kind of weird because it it does not feel medieval.
Speaker 1: I don't know not. I mean not that the theme
Speaker 1: song to The Less Unicorn by America feels medieval either,
Speaker 1: but that's a great one as well, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it absolutely works here. I absolutely can't get
Speaker 1: it out of my head.
Speaker 3: That's the tone for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it gives it like an airy, dreamy vibe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it totally works.
Speaker 3: All right. Are we ready to talk about the actual
Speaker 3: the plots of this film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 3: So we begin with a shot of mountaintops and they
Speaker 3: are crusting through a sea of clouds. The sun is
Speaker 3: low on the horizon, and we slowly move in on
Speaker 3: a figure dressed in green robes standing up the precipice
Speaker 3: of the highest mountain. This green cloaked figure shouts out, gorbash, gorbash, Come,
Speaker 3: and a large green dragon, maybe like ten times the
Speaker 3: size of the shouting figure. He just kind of pulls
Speaker 3: up next to the mountaintop and allows what we can
Speaker 3: now see as an elderly looking man with a long
Speaker 3: white beard to step onto its back. The man of
Speaker 3: the dragon take off into the sky and join an
Speaker 3: already established thunder of dragons. Now I had to look
Speaker 3: this up. I was like, what is a group of
Speaker 3: dragons called? And, because of course they are fictional, I
Speaker 3: actually found many, many different words to describe a group
Speaker 3: of dragons. My favorite was thunder, So I'm going to
Speaker 3: refer to that a thunder of dragons just sounds very
Speaker 3: cool to me. However, another explanation for a group of dragons,
Speaker 3: another word for that is a flight of dragons, which
Speaker 3: will be brought up multiple times actually in this movie.
Speaker 3: So I suppose I should use that term. But thunder
Speaker 3: of dragons just sounded so cool to me.
Speaker 1: That does. That sounds good.
Speaker 3: So the figure in green monologues to himself a bit
Speaker 3: about how the world is in a transition period between
Speaker 3: magic and science, and he just kind of wonders to
Speaker 3: himself what he's gonna do about that, you know. So
Speaker 3: so from there, the epic theme song from Don McClain begins,
Speaker 3: and there's a long credit sequence showing this group of dragons,
Speaker 3: this thunder of dragons in flight.
Speaker 1: Long.
Speaker 3: This was just a thing they did back in the
Speaker 3: late seventies, early eighties. This is the kind of moment
Speaker 3: that when I was a child I would fast forward through,
Speaker 3: but as an adult I appreciate.
Speaker 1: If memory serves this is actually a sequence from later
Speaker 1: on in the picture, right, that they just went ahead
Speaker 1: and front loaded to just give you a give you
Speaker 1: a lot of dragons to look at while you listen
Speaker 1: to this wonderful Do McClain song, so you know, fair enough?
Speaker 3: Yeah, why not? It is beautiful, so why not? But
Speaker 3: much like a cheer up Charlie in a Charlie in
Speaker 3: the chocolate factory, or let's see, would the other one be?
Speaker 3: It was a candle on the water in Pete's Dragon.
Speaker 3: These were those eighties seventies ballads that were they put
Speaker 3: in children's films that I just fast forwarded through.
Speaker 1: Now at this point, since we've mentioned the dragons and
Speaker 1: we've seen multiple dragons, should point out that, yes, the
Speaker 1: dragons in this film are as my son described them, chonky.
Speaker 1: They are big chonky dragons, and at first you might
Speaker 1: look at these and think, I just can't. I did
Speaker 1: not feel in these big chonky dragons. But I would
Speaker 1: just advise you to stay seated until the film can
Speaker 1: reach its cruising altitude because this will make perfect sense
Speaker 1: in a bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's necessary. They're chunk is very necessary. So after
Speaker 3: this montage of dragons flying through the sky, several of
Speaker 3: the dragons land on a river bank, and we see
Speaker 3: a few other mythical creatures, including some pegasi, which I
Speaker 3: presume is the plural for pegasus. Do you think so pegasi?
Speaker 1: I guess you get into that weird situation where is
Speaker 1: Pegasus an individual or is Pegasus a species.
Speaker 3: And so forth. So more than one Pegasus is on
Speaker 3: this bank amongst some fairies who are riding down the river,
Speaker 3: floating on the back of a swan. But oh no,
Speaker 3: this swan that the fairies are riding on, and the
Speaker 3: fairies themselves are suddenly sucked into a water wheel attached
Speaker 3: to a mill, and they are mangled and presumed dead.
Speaker 3: They are lifeless. But this green cloaked figure who we
Speaker 3: have seen flying around in the back of the dragon,
Speaker 3: he lays his hands upon the swan and the fairies
Speaker 3: and he revives them. We must assume bringing them back
Speaker 3: to life. And this is like the first like visual
Speaker 3: metaphor for kind of the overarching thesis of this film.
Speaker 3: You know, can this technology, this water wheel exist in
Speaker 3: the same world as this magic these fairies, Like can
Speaker 3: they coexist or is one destroying the other?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: So the man is upset and he yells at the mill,
Speaker 3: you know, be careful if you're technology. And then the
Speaker 3: mill workers come out and they start belittling the man
Speaker 3: in green and he says, no, I am Carolinas I'm
Speaker 3: the protagonist of this film. I am the Green Wizard.
Speaker 3: You know. My domain is the green world, nature itself
Speaker 3: and all of its inhabitants. You know. The mill workers,
Speaker 3: they're like whatever, and they start throwing large rocks at
Speaker 3: Carolinas and just tell them to go away. Now, Carolinus
Speaker 3: is mad, so he casts a spell to destroy their
Speaker 3: water wheel. But as he casts it, the spell just
Speaker 3: kind of fizzles out and just kind of plops into
Speaker 3: the river and has no effect. Thus the ridicule from
Speaker 3: the mill workers increases, and he's just having a bad day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this this was unexpected because when this looked like
Speaker 1: he was going to really come down hard on these
Speaker 1: awful mill workers, and my son was like, well, they
Speaker 1: brought this on themselves. He was ready for it, and
Speaker 1: he was totally supporting anything he was about to do.
Speaker 1: But then the spell fizzles out and he just kind
Speaker 1: of has to walk away.
Speaker 3: So Carolinas walks home dejected. He actually lives nearby. These
Speaker 3: are his neighbors, you know, and he's comforted by his daughter,
Speaker 3: Princess Melissandra. And we'll see here more and throughout the story.
Speaker 3: And so Carolinus is thinking to himself, what am I
Speaker 3: going to do about this? So he summons his three
Speaker 3: brothers to a meeting. This is the first time they've
Speaker 3: all come together in four hundred years, because they need
Speaker 3: to have a discussion about the state of magic. So
Speaker 3: he sends off the letters on owls as you do. However,
Speaker 3: one thing I learned recently. Did you know that owls
Speaker 3: are actually the slowest birds? So there are four terrible
Speaker 3: conveyance for messages. You know, he's a quicker bird, please,
Speaker 3: But anyway, magic.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. Joe and I did an episode
Speaker 1: a while back talking about the idea of using things
Speaker 1: other than pigeons as messengers, like ravens or owls, and
Speaker 1: we talked about some of the possibilities and limitations with
Speaker 1: these different species. But yeah, we somehow didn't touch on
Speaker 1: the flying speed of the common owl.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know, there are more important things than speed.
Speaker 3: You know, there's all kinds of aspects we could look into.
Speaker 3: But let's meet our three other wizards. So they're all
Speaker 3: color coded to keep everyone straight on these. So we've
Speaker 3: met Carolinas. He's the green wizard, Nature Grass, all the creatures,
Speaker 3: you got it green. Next, we have silarious the Blue Wizard.
Speaker 3: He is the lord of the depths and the heights.
Speaker 3: His realm is outer space, deepest ocean, and highest mountain.
Speaker 3: So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he's he's kind of almost like a sea deity,
Speaker 1: but in the like in the older sense where you know,
Speaker 1: you have a situation where you know, the Greek god
Speaker 1: of the ocean beside and is not limited at the sea,
Speaker 1: like he's the sea is like one of his domains,
Speaker 1: but he has domains beyond the sea as well.
Speaker 3: I love the combination of outer space and deepest ocean
Speaker 3: because it does make a lot of sense in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways. No air, big murky, bluish black voids,
Speaker 3: like you know, it's a fun juxtaposition. I dig it.
Speaker 3: Next up we have Lota Jao. This is the Golden Wizard.
Speaker 3: His realm is light and air. He's the lord of transcendence, healing,
Speaker 3: and contemplation. Once again, love it. I also love that
Speaker 3: because he is designed as like you know, more of
Speaker 3: like an Eastern wizard. His dragon is the only one
Speaker 3: in the whole movie that is like an Eastern style dragon,
Speaker 3: which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this is a cool dragon. And my son
Speaker 1: for the most part like this one. But he did
Speaker 1: point out, well, it does have tiny wings, and you
Speaker 1: tend not to find wings of any sort on Eastern dragons.
Speaker 1: I had to look it up in the source book.
Speaker 1: Here there is an illustration of a Chinese dragon, and
Speaker 1: then there's a bit about Chinese dragons, and they don't
Speaker 1: have tiny wings on it.
Speaker 3: So interesting. I wonder if they were trying to maybe
Speaker 3: perhaps patch a plot hole, because later on we do
Speaker 3: find out the importance of the wing when they start
Speaker 3: discussing the science of how dragons fly. So yeah, I wonder,
Speaker 3: I wonder what kind of thought went into that. But well,
Speaker 3: I guess we'll see.
Speaker 1: Well, even the book seems a little conflicted on this,
Speaker 1: because the picture of the Chinese dragon has no wings,
Speaker 1: but then the text says that that they do have
Speaker 1: wings that are just not as noticeable. So huh, I
Speaker 1: guess fair enough. If you try and put those two
Speaker 1: together and come up with some version that can work
Speaker 1: on the screen, you just throw some tiny wings in
Speaker 1: there and call.
Speaker 3: It a dead Well, we'll discuss that when we get
Speaker 3: to the science of dragons flying. Because I have a
Speaker 3: thought about the differences between the Eastern and the Western Dragon,
Speaker 3: but we'll get there.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Now our fourth wizard, this is the evil one we
Speaker 3: mentioned to the James Earl Jones wizard. This is Ohmadon,
Speaker 3: the Red Wizard, Lord of the Devil's Domain, seducer of Darkness,
Speaker 3: master of black magic. He's our villain. And man, he's beautiful.
Speaker 3: I love the design of oh Maadon.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Like he's robe, he's of course wearing red
Speaker 1: and dark colors, but he has stars on his robes
Speaker 1: as well as opposed to skulls or anything. They are stars.
Speaker 1: And then his face too, he's like he's not really
Speaker 1: he's either beyond human at this point or has some
Speaker 1: sort of hybridity going on, because he has like this
Speaker 1: kind of beastly, almost rat like catlike face.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And he morphs at various times throughout
Speaker 3: this film, and it's all gorgeous. He's he's the one
Speaker 3: to watch for visual splendor.
Speaker 1: And the James Earl Jones voice performance on this character
Speaker 1: is just absolutely great. I mean, James Earl Jones is
Speaker 1: not just laying back in his chair or sitting in
Speaker 1: a hammock reading lines on this He's just chewing every
Speaker 1: bit of dialogue. Up and spitting it out and it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, per So these four wizards, just to remind everyone,
Speaker 3: we got a Green Wizard, we got a Blue Wizard,
Speaker 3: we have a Gold Wizard, we have a Red Wizard.
Speaker 3: Those are the four. They will come up, but mostly
Speaker 3: we're focusing on Green and Red. Those are the primary antagonist.
Speaker 3: Protaganis so at their meeting the four brothers, they discuss
Speaker 3: that magic is getting weaker because humankind is choosing logic
Speaker 3: over magic. But Carolinas has a plan though. He wants
Speaker 3: the four wizards to consolidate their power and create a
Speaker 3: realm of magic, sealed off from the rest of the
Speaker 3: world where magic can live and survive, almost just like
Speaker 3: you know, a little terrarium of like all the magical creatures,
Speaker 3: all the magic, where it's like, hey, we don't own
Speaker 3: the world, but in this zone we have full magical power.
Speaker 3: That's his plan. The Blue Wizard and the Golden Wizard
Speaker 3: agree and pledge their help. The Red Wizard Omadon no, no, no,
Speaker 3: he disagrees. He calls this proposed magic realm a retirement
Speaker 3: home for magic, and he would rather destroy humankind. And
Speaker 3: his method is really fascinating. Basically he says, like, I
Speaker 3: will take their worst instincts and basically use them against themselves,
Speaker 3: you know, more or less kind of like playing into
Speaker 3: the idea of like, oh, you want to build a bomb,
Speaker 3: I will help you build the biggest bomb humans. You know, Oh,
Speaker 3: you want to distrust each other, you should distrust everybody
Speaker 3: And really just like leaning into the worst aspects of
Speaker 3: humankind and using it to destroy ourselves. That's his magic plan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, inviting omadan really couldn't have gone worse here for everyone,
Speaker 1: And I do love the villainous take he has on
Speaker 1: all of this. It reminds me a lot of some
Speaker 1: of the concepts that Michael Inda explored in the book
Speaker 1: The Never Ending Story, because in this work, in the
Speaker 1: Flight of Dragons, there is this idea that they discuss
Speaker 1: a lot where magic is kind of the inspiration for
Speaker 1: humans to do great things but also potentially terrible things,
Speaker 1: as Omadon is channeling here. And in The Never Ending
Speaker 1: Story we get this idea that's particularly presented by the
Speaker 1: gomorph and discussing the motivations of the nothing and the
Speaker 1: powers beyond the nothing that like the same energy that
Speaker 1: gives a child imagination and gives imaginative individual the chance
Speaker 1: to dream and create these magical worlds. It also is
Speaker 1: the same energy that can be twisted into the domain
Speaker 1: of lies and deception. And so I think that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of echoed in this work as.
Speaker 3: Well, most definitely. And there is even a point just
Speaker 3: in case a kid is watching this and thinking to themselves,
Speaker 3: you know, this doesn't make any sense. Princess Melissandra, she
Speaker 3: says to Carolina's her father and goes, why are you
Speaker 3: even inviting this guy? You know, Oh, Maadon's a jerk.
Speaker 3: Don't don't invite him. And Carolinas has a stock answer,
Speaker 3: but he's just like, hey, you know, good can't exist
Speaker 3: without evil. He is necessary, you know. And it's like,
Speaker 3: all right, all right, I'll buy that. In a fantasy realm,
Speaker 3: we'll take that. So Omadon wants to destroy humankind. He
Speaker 3: does not want to, you know, hide his magic away.
Speaker 3: So the three good Wizards Blue Green, and they decide
Speaker 3: that they must stop the Red Wizard from destroying humanity.
Speaker 3: But because there is a rule with their like wizard God,
Speaker 3: which we will get into, it's it's it's an entity
Speaker 3: known as antiquity. Well, we'll get there. There is a
Speaker 3: wizard law that says you are not able to fight
Speaker 3: against another wizard and Antiquity this this wizard god will
Speaker 3: basically ensure that. I believe, they start getting mad at Omadon,
Speaker 3: and Antiquity starts causing like an earthquake and dropping like
Speaker 3: giant stones near them and stuff like that. So they
Speaker 3: can't do it. They cannot fight Ohmadon. So they decide
Speaker 3: to use their magic to inspire a quest to go
Speaker 3: take Omadon's Red Crown to basically destroy Ohmadon. So again
Speaker 3: with the wizarding laws which will come up, and we
Speaker 3: almost have to go, you know what, just go with it.
Speaker 3: You know, when the wizarding laws come up, we'll just go, Okay,
Speaker 3: that's the wizarding law. I don't know this wizarding world.
Speaker 3: I'll take your word for it. So another wizarding law
Speaker 3: says that a magic quest must have three core members.
Speaker 3: Carolinas picks an old knight that he knows, someone who
Speaker 3: he knows to be trustworthy and brave, Sir orn Neville Smythe.
Speaker 3: He also picks his dragon that we met at the
Speaker 3: very beginning, Gorbash, who is young and perhaps a bit
Speaker 3: of foolhardy, but very brave, very strong. So Gorbash the
Speaker 3: Green Dragon he'll go to, but he doesn't know who
Speaker 3: to pick is the leader. He can't really figure that out,
Speaker 3: so he goes later that night to talk to Antiquity
Speaker 3: once again. This is like the wizard God more or less,
Speaker 3: and it's represented by a silver tree that just kind
Speaker 3: of grows out of the ground. Again just go with it,
Speaker 3: and Antiquity tells Carolinus that the leader of the quest
Speaker 3: is in the future and that he is Peter Dickinson.
Speaker 3: He is the correct choice for this quest and the
Speaker 3: only choice for this quest because he is the descendant
Speaker 3: of a great dragon master, but he is also the
Speaker 3: first in this line that is also a man of science.
Speaker 3: Carolina is confused about this. He's like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know, why do we need that? By Antiquity is like,
Speaker 3: come on, I'm god, you know, and he's like, all right, fine,
Speaker 3: I'm fine, fine, we'll do this. So Carolinus is given
Speaker 3: a silver acorn by Antiquity the silver tree, and he
Speaker 3: throws it into a limpid pool under the direction of Antiquity,
Speaker 3: and now he can see Peter Dickinson in the future,
Speaker 3: specifically they say, I think it's like they call it
Speaker 3: like the final you know, death rattle of the twentieth century. Here,
Speaker 3: however they phrase it, but anyway, the end of the
Speaker 3: late twentieth century. So we can assume it's probably nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty two, just like you know, just like it was made.
Speaker 3: And so we meet Peter. He is developing a D
Speaker 3: and D style board game called Flight of Dragons, and
Speaker 3: he's showing it to a friend of his who runs
Speaker 3: a pawn shop, and he's discussing, Oh, I really want
Speaker 3: to get this game made, but I need money, so
Speaker 3: maybe I can pawn this watch, and the pawnbroker's like,
Speaker 3: that watch isn't worth anything. And then he also explains
Speaker 3: that he's also writing a book called Flight of Dragons,
Speaker 3: and that basically he's just obsessed with dragons. He really
Speaker 3: wants to figure out how dragons fly, how they breathe, fire,
Speaker 3: et cetera. He's just he is. He's a dragon fanatic.
Speaker 1: However, does not seem like really would be your first
Speaker 1: pick to lead an adventuring party into the heart of
Speaker 1: darkness to stop an evil sorcerer. But antiquity knows better
Speaker 1: than we do.
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, because every character mentions that. Every characters like,
Speaker 3: are you sure this guy you know? And so yeah,
Speaker 3: Peter and the pawn broker are playing their D and
Speaker 3: D style board game together and all the figures on
Speaker 3: the board are all of Carolinas's brothers and himself and
Speaker 3: Princess melissand and the dragons. And he's like, Okay, that's
Speaker 3: that's a pretty big sign like something's going on here.
Speaker 3: I better come get this guy. So he uses his magic. Now.
Speaker 3: Now remember Carolinas doesn't actually have a lot of magic
Speaker 3: these days, so this is a pretty this this is
Speaker 3: an expensive use of his magic to go get Peter
Speaker 3: in the future and bring him back to his time.
Speaker 3: This is where I mentioned is that really beautiful shot
Speaker 3: of them both riding on top of a of a
Speaker 3: pair of dice and spinning through the air and then
Speaker 3: they're falling blah blah blah. It's it's it's quite beautiful.
Speaker 3: So yeah, there's that. So we're now introduced to ay
Speaker 3: that go back in time. We are we are with
Speaker 3: them back in the magical age where our story is,
Speaker 3: and we're introduced to a b story where Peter is
Speaker 3: now in love with Carolinas's daughter Princess Melissandra doesn't really
Speaker 3: affect the story. It's just it's a subplot. Don't really
Speaker 3: worry about it. It's just there. Uh So at this point,
Speaker 3: it turns out that almost all of the dragons have
Speaker 3: joined Omadon because he used black magic on them. The
Speaker 3: only remaining dragons on the hero's side are Gorbash and
Speaker 3: smurgle U. Smergle is Gorbash's elderly uncle. He's not quite
Speaker 3: as spry, but he's he's very knowledgeable.
Speaker 1: So now Omadan has not only one fierce dragon, but
Speaker 1: also an entire army of dragons at his disposal.
Speaker 3: Yes, we will see later that the other two wizards
Speaker 3: still have control of Oh yeah, I guess we should
Speaker 3: mention this. Each of the four wizard brothers, each of
Speaker 3: the four colors, they each have their own more or
Speaker 3: less pet dragon. They're familiar dragon. However, the other two,
Speaker 3: the Gold Wizard and the Blue Wizard, theirs don't join Omadon.
Speaker 3: And yet they don't. They also don't help, so I
Speaker 3: don't know why. Maybe they're just too far away. Who knows.
Speaker 1: They contribute magical items.
Speaker 3: Seth, that's true. We do, get, of course, some magical items.
Speaker 3: This is actually my favorite part of this movie, especially
Speaker 3: to me as a child. Peter, as the fish out
Speaker 3: of water character, he makes a lot of discoveries throughout
Speaker 3: the film that kind of like define like the canon
Speaker 3: of being a dragon. You know, this was his goal.
Speaker 3: He wanted to learn more about dragons. Now he gets
Speaker 3: to do it firsthand. And so now he gets to
Speaker 3: learn about this biology of dragons and how they work.
Speaker 3: And this will occur throughout the film, but I'll point
Speaker 3: them out as dragon can in facts when they do
Speaker 3: so dragon can in fact number one. He just kind
Speaker 3: of hears this in conversation amongst the dragons. A dragon
Speaker 3: having a horde of gold is a pretty common thing.
Speaker 3: It's it's in all the fantasy literature that you come across,
Speaker 3: whether it be a Tolkien or oh gosh, what's his
Speaker 3: name of the guy that made the Chronicles of Narnia.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, Lewis C. S. Lewis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, A dragon's horde of gold is a pretty
Speaker 3: common thing. Why well, in this they describe that it's
Speaker 3: because dragons need somewhere soft to sleep that won't accidentally
Speaker 3: catch on fire, because even while they sleep, they could
Speaker 3: actually you know, spark it you know, with with their
Speaker 3: fire breath and they just need somewhere that's you know, unflammable,
Speaker 3: not flammable.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3: Why not?
Speaker 1: I never I'd never thought about this sort of thing before.
Speaker 1: When it comes to the gold and this is Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a perfect explanation. Granted, it does raise questions
Speaker 1: like why don't they sleep on lead and so forth,
Speaker 1: and then gold is soft into being shiny and prize,
Speaker 1: so I absolutely buy it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And I remember we mentioned this a long
Speaker 3: time ago about a child's love for learning canon facts.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it is, but like like hearing,
Speaker 3: like the definitive version of like classic creatures, classic tales,
Speaker 3: et cetera, is something that children just love. Myself included.
Speaker 3: So therefore I really loved these when I was watching
Speaker 3: this movie as a child. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my son really started getting into the dragons at
Speaker 1: this point when when this film, when they start explaining
Speaker 1: how they work within the context of.
Speaker 3: The film, So Carolinas, before this big quest kicks off,
Speaker 3: he gives Peter two gifts. Now, these aren't really that important,
Speaker 3: but they do help in the trials later, so I
Speaker 3: got to mention them. One is the Shield of Saturn.
Speaker 3: It's a big golden shield, and the other is the
Speaker 3: flute of Olympus, and uh yeah these will aid in
Speaker 3: trials later, but don't worry about it. Meanwhile, Omadon sends
Speaker 3: is big dragon familiar to kill Peter, and Carolinas tries
Speaker 3: to save him, but in using a magic spell, he
Speaker 3: accidentally merges Peter's mind into Gorbash's body. Gorbash, if you remember,
Speaker 3: is the big green dragon from the beginning. So yes,
Speaker 3: our hero is now a giant dragon. So fun right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think this is a point in the
Speaker 1: film where I think everything really picked up for us
Speaker 1: as viewers, because now we don't just have Peter the
Speaker 1: sort of fish out of water character. Now he is
Speaker 1: in the body of a dragon. So now all the
Speaker 1: things he's learning about dragons is also him trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to function as a dragon, and it
Speaker 1: just makes everything a lot more entertaining.
Speaker 3: It's a great way to kind of like dole out
Speaker 3: some exposition is like you know, a newbie learning the ropes.
Speaker 1: It's great and it introduces a lot of room for
Speaker 1: comedy too, Like, oh am I doing it right? I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm falling out of the Sky.
Speaker 3: And so forth exactly. But like we said, wizard laws
Speaker 3: dictate that there must be three members on a magic quest.
Speaker 3: And now since two of our members are merged into one,
Speaker 3: Peter and gorbash, we're back to two again. We need
Speaker 3: a third member, so we have the night we have
Speaker 3: Peter in Gorbasch's body, and so Smergle, the elderly dragon,
Speaker 3: joins the quest to make up for that lost member.
Speaker 3: So we're back to three again. The magic quest can begin.
Speaker 3: So on the quest, Smergle is now instructing dragon Peter
Speaker 3: on how to be a dragon, so we get more
Speaker 3: dragon can in facts. I love these, This one's fun.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed this. So dragon can in fact number two,
Speaker 3: Dragons eat diamonds and to get them into their craw.
Speaker 3: In the film, we see them actually like bullying some
Speaker 3: dwarfs to make them look force them to bring them
Speaker 3: out giant sacks full of diamonds, and then they just
Speaker 3: gobble them up right away. Peter actually feels a little
Speaker 3: bad about this. So picture that a dragon eats a
Speaker 3: sack full of diamonds, puts in in his craw much
Speaker 3: like a bird, and then they start to eat limestone,
Speaker 3: which will then be ground up by the diamonds, much
Speaker 3: like a bird uses a grit to grind up feed
Speaker 3: because they don't have teeth. Okay, so limestone is high
Speaker 3: in calcium, which mixes with the stomach acid to create hydrogen.
Speaker 3: So then hydrogen is lighter than air and expands their bodies,
Speaker 3: giving them that chonky look and giving them their ability
Speaker 3: to fly much in the same way a blimp does.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my goodness, I absolutely love this. And again
Speaker 1: this is out of the book as well, that the
Speaker 1: dragons of the Flight of Dragons are essentially hydrogen airships. Yeah,
Speaker 1: self powered hydrogen airships. It's fabulous.
Speaker 3: So that's where the wings factor in and their long
Speaker 3: like snake like bodies or I should say, you know,
Speaker 3: lizard like. Either way, that's how they propel themselves is
Speaker 3: with these wings much like an airplane, much like a blimp. Yeah,
Speaker 3: just just they are just floating and then they're they're appendages,
Speaker 3: their wings, tail, arms, whatever. That's what actually guides them
Speaker 3: through the air. So how are they going to get down?
Speaker 3: That's an important aspect to this. They need to expel
Speaker 3: the hydrogen. So for a dragon, expelling the hydrogen is
Speaker 3: done by breathing fire. Now they don't fully explain this
Speaker 3: in the movie, but I think the logic in my
Speaker 3: mind goes, you need to It can't just be like
Speaker 3: a balloon letting off hydrogen, because if that's the case,
Speaker 3: it'll push you in a different direction because they'll be
Speaker 3: forced coming out. What you need is a way to
Speaker 3: expel it in a controlled way, which is why they
Speaker 3: ignite the expelled hydrogen to breathe fire. Doesn't quite make
Speaker 3: sense in my mind, but that's they don't really explain
Speaker 3: it either. In fact, Peter asks Smirgle, he goes, wait,
Speaker 3: so why is it fire? He's like, cause we're dragons,
Speaker 3: we'd breathe fire now here. This is the part I love.
Speaker 3: Smirgle explains that the hydrogen is ignited because dragons have
Speaker 3: something in their mouth known as a thor's thimble. It's
Speaker 3: in the roof of their mouth and has the ability
Speaker 3: to spark, and we'll basically ignite the hydrogen much like
Speaker 3: an electric stove ignites you know, gas. And that's fun too.
Speaker 3: More dragon facts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this this was all all pretty fabulous and
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about the potential plot holes in
Speaker 1: any of it because it was just while watching the film,
Speaker 1: you're just completely like, oh my goodness, this this is it. Yes,
Speaker 1: I buy it. And then you have the fun banter
Speaker 1: between the the dragon mentor and Peter in dragon form
Speaker 1: because he keeps asking obsessive, science leaning questions, and the
Speaker 1: answers are often along the lines of because we're dragons.
Speaker 3: Yes, Smirkle has not thought about this very much, and
Speaker 3: he's okay with that. Peter should think, yeah, less about this,
Speaker 3: so says Smirkle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't don't think about it, just do it. Just fly.
Speaker 3: Uh So at this point, basically this turns into a
Speaker 3: D and D campaign. That's the that's the remainder of
Speaker 3: this movie. There's not really much to talk about from
Speaker 3: from from here on out, so we'll go through it quickly.
Speaker 3: But along the way they face various trials and meet
Speaker 3: new allies that joined them. One ally is named Orog.
Speaker 3: That's the wolf character they talked about. He's an undead
Speaker 3: talking wolf. They describe it briefly, but basically he drowned
Speaker 3: and then one of the wizards was like, Hey, if
Speaker 3: you do me this favor, I'll bring it back to life,
Speaker 3: and so he does. He comes back and saves our heroes,
Speaker 3: which just works. Another is Danielle of the Woodlands. She's
Speaker 3: a very skilled archer and warrior. Another one is Giles
Speaker 3: of the Tree Tops. He is the leader of the
Speaker 3: wood Elves. They all join this magic quest and the
Speaker 3: party looks more and more Tolkien as time passes. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a variety of trials they go through. There are
Speaker 3: these sonic rat things which were really beautiful. They were
Speaker 3: just kind of these odd like goblin rats that let
Speaker 3: off a real high pitched noise that drove the listener
Speaker 3: to be very ill tempered, and they had to destroy them.
Speaker 3: It was fascinating.
Speaker 1: Oh, that sequence was great because I didn't really know
Speaker 1: what was going to happen. I wasn't sure what they
Speaker 1: kind of they presented this threat slowly and you're not
Speaker 1: sure what. You know, you they're about to run into something,
Speaker 1: but you can't really tell what it is. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's this weird concept of screeching rat things that
Speaker 1: like destroy your mind and so forth.
Speaker 3: It was done very well and very fun to watch.
Speaker 3: The next trial I also really enjoyed it was this Ogre. Oh,
Speaker 3: this ogre other than Omadon was probably my favorite thing
Speaker 3: to look at, just just beautifully depicted. And they also
Speaker 3: threw in some like fun ogre facts about like why
Speaker 3: ogres are like so sturdy and kind of almost invincible
Speaker 3: in many ways, And a big part of it I
Speaker 3: really loved was that ogres have very very thick bones
Speaker 3: that they don't have much flesh. Most of their body
Speaker 3: is boned, and I was like, Oh, that's fun, like
Speaker 3: just picturing that ogre skeleton in my mind. You know.
Speaker 1: He also has three eyes, but only two are functional,
Speaker 1: like one lost sight.
Speaker 3: I love it. The one of the one in the
Speaker 3: middle of his head is is his additional eye, but
Speaker 3: one of his like traditional eyes, I believe it was
Speaker 3: his left eye, was was gone. So it's just just gorgeous,
Speaker 3: really gorgeous, real meaty fella, you know. Uh. Then then
Speaker 3: there's this worm thing, also very beautiful to look at,
Speaker 3: but it is pretty quickly dispatched. And then then Omadon's
Speaker 3: getting involved because they're getting much closer to his home base,
Speaker 3: and he casts this doubt spell that basically just makes
Speaker 3: everyone depressed and everyone just has imposter syndrome, like oh,
Speaker 3: I'm no good, you know, And that's that's pretty fun.
Speaker 3: They overcome that along with this giant dragon swarm by uh,
Speaker 3: let's see here, what's what's the order of it. I
Speaker 3: believe the doubt spell is dispelled by the magic shield
Speaker 3: that he was given earlier. And then there's a giant
Speaker 3: dragon swarm that comes soon after that, and that's dispelled
Speaker 3: by the magic flute, which the the gosh the wood elf.
Speaker 3: He he plays the magic flute, and this makes all
Speaker 3: the dragons fall asleep, including Peter, you know, because he's like, hey,
Speaker 3: we got to do this quick play that flute. I
Speaker 3: know would make me fall asleep, but it's got to happen,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: This is this is weird how this one lined up
Speaker 1: because we watched that, My son and I watched this
Speaker 1: film while we were also watching the new season of
Speaker 1: The Dragon Prints. Both of these have plot elements involving
Speaker 1: magical musical instruments that put dragons to sleep.
Speaker 3: Nice. Nice, Yeah, So this this works, and then we're
Speaker 3: into the final battle. Now here's where it's going to begin.
Speaker 3: With Peter facing off against Omadon, and the first thing
Speaker 3: he does is he breaks the spell of his dragon
Speaker 3: merge through logic, so when he falls asleep, basically when
Speaker 3: he awakens, he's man Peter again, and someone asked him, like,
Speaker 3: how'd you do that? He's like, oh, well, two objects
Speaker 3: can't you know, occupy the same space. That's just logic.
Speaker 3: So I logiced my way out of that dragon. And
Speaker 3: everyone's like all right, you know, sure, But at.
Speaker 1: This point it's is Peter the human against Ohmadon, this
Speaker 1: all powerful wizard. So already this is a point where
Speaker 1: we're suddenly I feel like an uncharted territory because we
Speaker 1: were setting everything up for more of a traditional high
Speaker 1: fantasy battle and now we're somewhere else, like all the
Speaker 1: big flight of dragons has been put to sleep, and
Speaker 1: let's see, have we I think we've at this point
Speaker 1: lost a few characters as well.
Speaker 3: Right, yes, some folks have have definitely not worked out,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a scene where our our Night bites it
Speaker 1: battling a dragon, the big bad dragon that serves Omadon. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a we lose our archer. I think we also
Speaker 1: lose our wood Elf.
Speaker 3: I think he gets thrown against a stone cliff and
Speaker 3: is at least passed out, if not dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there, at any rate, they're all taken out
Speaker 1: of the equation. So instead of getting this continuation of
Speaker 1: the fantasy battle that we seem to have been set up,
Speaker 1: it is this standoff between a sorcerer and a game design.
Speaker 3: And first of all, Omadon rerupts into this giant, multi
Speaker 3: headed dragon and it's the prettiest thing of this whole movie.
Speaker 3: It's so so beautiful. Like, Omadon looks cool when he
Speaker 3: was just the Red Wizard. Now he is a he's
Speaker 3: a red Wizard hydra.
Speaker 1: Like it's yeah, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 3: I love, love, love the look of this.
Speaker 1: Then it's also perfect because it's so nonsensical, it's so chaotic.
Speaker 1: It's like he is because basically this becomes a standoff
Speaker 1: between logic and chaotic imagination. And so it makes sense
Speaker 1: that Omadon would just defy all logic and just be
Speaker 1: this swirling amalgam of humanoid and dragon features.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so since the only tool that you can
Speaker 3: fight chaos with is logic, that's what Peter does. Peter
Speaker 3: just starts basically talking his way out of this battle,
Speaker 3: much in the same way that like, oh, let's say, Sarah,
Speaker 3: you know, talks her way out of Jerreth in Labyrinth
Speaker 3: or I forget the protagonist's name in Nightmare on Elm Streets,
Speaker 3: where she's like, I'm not afraid of you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's just like that that simple thing of just like, hey,
Speaker 3: your power rests in this If I you know, you
Speaker 3: have no power over me. If you just kind of
Speaker 3: declare it, you get to you get to kind of
Speaker 3: just like move on. So that's what he does. He
Speaker 3: just starts like quoting scientific principles and equations and then
Speaker 3: he just starts listening like digital like just different branches
Speaker 3: of scientific study.
Speaker 1: And just and it works.
Speaker 3: It just kind of knocks knocks the wizard down one
Speaker 3: by one. One of my favorites, there are many examples
Speaker 3: of like him just like kind of like spouting book
Speaker 3: learning at this wizard to kind of like make him
Speaker 3: kind of lose power. My favorite was that Omadawn was
Speaker 3: like calling on the power of the Sun, and Peter's
Speaker 3: response was like every child knows that it takes this long.
Speaker 3: I think he says eight minutes for the sun Sun's
Speaker 3: raised to travel to the Earth, So you're not even
Speaker 3: calling upon the sun. You're calling upon where the sun
Speaker 3: was eight minutes ago. And Obadon's like, what, no, No,
Speaker 3: the Sun's right there, and it's fun things like that,
Speaker 3: and ultimately, without even like, you know, laying a single blow,
Speaker 3: Peter beats Omadon with just logic, you know, just saying
Speaker 3: science terms out loud.
Speaker 1: And yet it works so well. Like, for instance, the
Speaker 1: Labyrinth scene I think is a great comparison. I have
Speaker 1: no power, you have no power over me, a thing
Speaker 1: with Sarah and Jared, and yet I'd never have I
Speaker 1: love Labyrinth, but there I have questions about various things
Speaker 1: in the plot, and that whole scene never felt completely
Speaker 1: earned for me, Whereas in this film, I feel like
Speaker 1: they do a great job of laying everything out, Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, there's the whole part of it where Omadon
Speaker 1: is just you know, calling up on forces of darkness,
Speaker 1: saying these evil sounding magic words, some sort of incantation,
Speaker 1: and Peter's like, yeah, I have incantations too, and He's
Speaker 1: like bam equals MC squared and so forth, and like
Speaker 1: these are actually like hurting Omadon, Like the logic is
Speaker 1: cutting into him and taking away his power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's earned and it works. It's a fun
Speaker 3: little ending. So he doesn't he beats Omadan, he is destroyed,
Speaker 3: turns into just dust on the ground. It's mostly a
Speaker 3: visual scene, so we can't really go through it entirely.
Speaker 3: But then Peter is sent back to modern Boston and
Speaker 3: he's back where he left off. He's back in the
Speaker 3: pawnbroker shop with his friend playing his D and D
Speaker 3: game that he invented. Now, remember earlier, way in the beginning,
Speaker 3: Peter wanted to pawn his watch so he could get
Speaker 3: his board game created. Well, now suddenly he has the
Speaker 3: Shield of Saturn with him, this big golden shield, and
Speaker 3: he's like, hey, pawnbroker, how about this? And he's like, wow,
Speaker 3: this is great. This will give you so much money
Speaker 3: you could You'll be able to do whatever you want,
Speaker 3: you know. And then here here's the nice part where
Speaker 3: it all ties up melissand to the Princess, the daughter
Speaker 3: of Carolinas. She enters the pawn shop in this modern
Speaker 3: world because she has fallen in love with Peter, and
Speaker 3: she brought Omadon's crown with her and she pawns that too,
Speaker 3: and it's like, hey, no, he gets love. Also, yay
Speaker 3: the end, that's the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's so good. I deny all magic. It
Speaker 1: was another one of the rallying cries of Peter in
Speaker 1: the final battle. Yeah, and there's as it's.
Speaker 3: A fun thing because the balance between I love magic
Speaker 3: and magic isn't real is really on display here. And
Speaker 3: then that's that's why they needed Peter. He was a
Speaker 3: guy that loved dragons and really cared about magic and
Speaker 3: had a great knowledge for it, but also knew the
Speaker 3: science and so therefore he could both respect the magic
Speaker 3: as well as cut it down a peg. But I
Speaker 3: think I like almost ultimately Carolinus like sealed his own
Speaker 3: fate by inviting Peter into his realm because in many ways,
Speaker 3: what he didn't want to happen happened very quickly, which
Speaker 3: was that that science destroyed magic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they get their magic refuge where they get
Speaker 1: to keep all their magical creatures running around, right. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know it's it's it's not an unhappy ending
Speaker 1: for them as well.
Speaker 3: It works out.
Speaker 1: I do want to also point out, because I'm always
Speaker 1: a sucker for these sorts of scenes, when Omandan is
Speaker 1: finally defeated, he does like sort of shrink and melt
Speaker 1: and then wither away to nothing, like turns to dust
Speaker 1: and blows away in the wind and it's a fabulous
Speaker 1: animated sequence.
Speaker 3: Good stuff, good stuff all around. And that's that's this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, The Flight of Dragons. Yeah, just a just a
Speaker 1: real delight. This one I think holds up so well.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I didn't. I had never seen it before,
Speaker 1: so I didn't have anything to compare it to in
Speaker 1: my memory that it did resonate with my love for
Speaker 1: these other pictures from this time period, like the Ranking
Speaker 1: and Pass Hobbit film.
Speaker 3: If you're a D and D person, not only will
Speaker 3: you recognize basically the structure of this, but you'll also
Speaker 3: probably really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, we're going to go ahead and
Speaker 1: close this one out here, but we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from everyone out there, especially for those of you who,
Speaker 1: like Seth, have definite childhood memories of the Flight of Dragons.
Speaker 1: If you want to share how or when you saw
Speaker 1: this for the first time and what your impressions were
Speaker 1: right in, we'd love to hear from you. And if
Speaker 1: you're like me, if you just saw it for the
Speaker 1: first time as an adult or recently introduced a child
Speaker 1: to it, right in and let us know how that went.
Speaker 1: A reminder that stuff to blow your Mind is primarily
Speaker 1: a science podcast, but every Friday we set aside most
Speaker 1: serious concerns. You just talk about a weird film in
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. If you want to follow the various
Speaker 1: films that we cover on Weird House Cinema, well, I
Speaker 1: mean they're all in the feed, but also I blog
Speaker 1: about them at some immunomusic dot com and I also
Speaker 1: list all of them on our letterboxed profile. If you
Speaker 1: go to letterboxed dot com that's l E T T
Speaker 1: E R b O x D. You can look us up.
Speaker 1: We're Our username is weird House. There have all the
Speaker 1: films that we've watched so far, and sometimes they'll be
Speaker 1: a peek ahead at what's coming next. Speaking of all this,
Speaker 1: of course, Seth is not just the producer of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. He is also a podcast host.
Speaker 1: Tell us what's happening right now on Rusty Needles Record Club.
Speaker 3: Yes, Rusting Needles Record Club. It is a book club,
Speaker 3: but for music instead. It's a weekly podcast. Find it
Speaker 3: wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Now this week we
Speaker 3: are doing Grace Jones Nightclubbing, very fun hits. Everyone loves
Speaker 3: Grace Jones and if you're looking for just some great
Speaker 3: fun music discussion, something just kind of, you know, make
Speaker 3: you feel less lonely as a music nerd, Or if
Speaker 3: you're looking for some really good music, recommend check out
Speaker 3: Rusty Needles Record Club. It's a fun show all right.
Speaker 1: So if you want to reach out, if you have
Speaker 1: thoughts for Joe, if you have thoughts for Me or Seth,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuffdwlow Yourmind dot com.
Speaker 4: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 4: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.