Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lammin. This is the Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing in non mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
Speaker 2: Our recent Weird House Cinema episode on the nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: one film Dragon Slayer got me thinking once more about
Speaker 2: dragon flight. In this film, noted for its superb dragon effects,
Speaker 2: we get to see Vermathra's pejorative soar terrifyingly across the
Speaker 2: sky like a fighter jet, as well as swooped down
Speaker 2: from craggy Peaks, but we don't see the creature engage
Speaker 2: in vertical takeoff. In the special features for the excellent
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three remastered Blu Ray release, the effects team
Speaker 2: indicated that they intentionally avoided depicting the dragon taken to
Speaker 2: flight in order to avoid challenges in making the feat
Speaker 2: seem believable, because, of course, dragons, while creatures of fantasy,
Speaker 2: should feel believable on the screen, and that may often
Speaker 2: mean choosing what to depict and what to leave to
Speaker 2: the audience's imagination. But in raising the specter of believable
Speaker 2: dragon flight, I was reminded of an older episode of
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema in which I discussed the nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: two animated film The Flight of Dragons with Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 2: The film from Rankin in Bass was based on the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine book by Peter Dickinson and illustrated by
Speaker 2: Wayne Anderson. Part coffee table fantasy art book and part
Speaker 2: speculative natural history of dragons. The book is an absolute delight,
Speaker 2: and affordable used copies are still very much in circulation.
Speaker 2: Dickinson lays out one of the more intriguing models for
Speaker 2: dragon biology and flight, which I'll briefly summarize here. For starters,
Speaker 2: the dragons of flight of ddragons are quote flying bricks.
Speaker 2: They have thick bodies and short wings, but are very
Speaker 2: capable of flight. The wings for starters are too small
Speaker 2: to support their weight and are not proper limbs, but
Speaker 2: rather webbed spines that evolved from their ribs. The dragons
Speaker 2: only use these wings for propulsion and maneuvering because their
Speaker 2: large bodies contain lighter than air gas, specifically hydrogen, which
Speaker 2: the dragon produces via digestion of limestone. The fiery breath
Speaker 2: then is a byproduct of their mode of flight. They
Speaker 2: must regularly vent hydrogen as a means of lowering their
Speaker 2: altitude when in flight, or as a matter of course,
Speaker 2: when not engaged in flight. Via structure known as thors
Speaker 2: thimble and the roof of their mouth, the dragons are
Speaker 2: able to ignite the hydrogen as a great burst of flame.
Speaker 2: The film does a fine job relating all of this,
Speaker 2: and the book ruminates on the speculative evolution, life cycle,
Speaker 2: and biology of fire breathing dragons as well as dragon slayers.
Speaker 2: It's a great deal of fun, but also rather insightful
Speaker 2: and clever. I highly recommend it to anyone with an
Speaker 2: interest in the monster sciences. While we don't have any
Speaker 2: terrestrial organisms that engage in this mode of flight, science
Speaker 2: fiction contains numerous other examples of creatures that fly via
Speaker 2: bladders of lighter than atmosphere gas. Artist and author Wayne Barlow,
Speaker 2: a legend in his field, for example, envisioned the Eosapiens
Speaker 2: in his nineteen ninety book Expedition. Barlow envisioned them as
Speaker 2: the most advanced life form on the planet Darwin four,
Speaker 2: floating in the atmosphere via two bladders of methane in
Speaker 2: the planet's oxygen rich atmosphere. Tune in for additional episodes
Speaker 2: of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Anamalia Stupendium each week.
Speaker 2: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.
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