(PART 1) Episode Summary:
In this episode of The Fandom Portals Podcast, Aaron and Brash take a deep dive into Dragonheart (1996), the fantasy adventure that revolutionized CGI with its pioneering work on Draco, voiced by Sean Connery. They explore how motion capture technology was first used, the film’s box office success, and how Sean Connery landed the role of Draco.
Plus, they share community reactions from Threads, Instagram, and Reddit, where nostalgic fans discuss why Dragonheart remains a cult classic.
⏳ Timestamps & Topics:
03:16 - First Takes: Our First Encounters with Dragonheart
05:09 - Brash’s First Viewing – The Corner Store VHS Discovery
06:19 - Aaron’s Cinema Experience at Age 6 & Childhood Obsession
08:42 - Community Reactions: Nostalgia & Modern Viewpoints
09:35 - Does Dragonheart Still Hold Up? Reddit & Threads Discussion
12:38 - Fandom Fact Face-Off: Trivia Battle Begins
13:26 - Dennis Quaid’s On-Set Injury – What Did He Break?
14:58 - The Academy Award Nomination That Surprised Everyone
16:06 - The Lord of the Rings Connection – Hidden Scene References
17:52 - Who Almost Played Bowen? Surprising Casting Choices
19:47 - Sean Connery’s Role as Draco – Why He Was the Only Choice
22:27 - Set Secrets: The Groundbreaking CGI That Changed Hollywood
27:05 - Animating Draco – The First Fully CGI Character with Motion Capture
30:17 - Why Sean Connery’s Facial Expressions Were Key to Draco’s Success
33:16 - How Actors Performed Against Tennis Balls & Cutouts
35:25 - Jurassic Park vs. Dragonheart: Which CGI Holds Up Better?
41:46 - Why Dragonheart Was a Pioneer for Future CGI Films
42:46 - Sign-Off & What’s Coming in Part Two
Key Takeaways:
- Draco was the first fully CGI character with advanced motion capture technology.
- Sean Connery’s voice performance added emotional depth, making Draco feel real.
- The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects but lost to Independence Day.
- Jurassic Park’s blend of CGI and animatronics holds up better, but Dragonheart was a technical milestone.
- The film’s mix of medieval adventure and humor created a cult following despite mixed reviews.
📢 Apple Podcast tags: Dragonheart, Sean Connery, Dennis Quaid, fantasy movies, medieval films, cult classics, CGI history, motion capture, movie trivia, film
Contact Us:
Website: https://www.fandomportalspodcast.com/
Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals
<
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome to the Fandom Portals
podcast, the podcast thatexplores how fandoms can help us
learn and grow.
This week we are looking atDragonheart.
Brash and I dive into the CGItechnology that was used to
bring the dragon of Draco tolife back in 1996.
This revolutionary technologywas one of the first times that
(00:22):
motion capture was used, and wealso explore how they landed
Sean Connery in the role ofDraco.
Make sure you also tune in topart two of this Dragonheart
episode, where we go into areally deep dive on the film.
Thank you so much for tuning into the Fandom Portals podcast,
as always, and we hope you enjoy.
Hello everybody and welcome tothe fandom portals podcast.
(00:57):
I'm here joined by brash, asalways.
How you going brash badyourself, not bad at all.
That's to hear.
That's good to hear.
Today we are here to talk abouta movie made in 1996, directed
by Rob Cohen.
It is indeed Dragonheart.
It's written by Patrick ReedJohnson and Charles Edward Pogue
, starring Dennis Quaid and SeanConnery.
Do you like my accent?
It?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
actually wasn't too bad actually, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You'll hear a bit of that through the episode, ladies
and gentlemen, but before we dothat, we're going to jump into
our gratitudes and growthsegment Now.
Each week, we begin by sharinga personal gratitude for the
week or something we need growthin, and I might go first.
This week, I'm grateful for mymom.
She came over and spent sometime with the grandkids, which
she does quite often, and justwatching her with them is really
(01:41):
nice to see.
My kids adore and she's stillin her late 60s and she still
plays the Floor is Lava withthem, which is amazing because
I'm 35, and some days it's astruggle for me to do that.
So shout out to mum, shout outto mum Shout out to mum.
What about you, Brash?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I've got a gratitude and that is for your average
everyday corded vacuum cleaners.
That is a good gratitudeBecause I had the robot vac.
The battery died on it.
It's getting sent away to getfixed.
I also had one of the stickvacuum cleaners, like the
cordless ones where you chargeit up, the batteries never last.
(02:21):
It lasts like two seconds andit's like dirt or small rocks,
it just doesn't even pick themup.
So and I'm like I need a vacuumcleaner because my house is full
of dog fur.
The cordless vacuum cleaner isjust not doing it, it's just
jamming up.
It just sucks $100 Kmartaverage.
But bagless bagless is alsobetter bagless vacuum cleaner.
This house has never lookedcleaner.
(02:43):
I absolutely love it.
I just need to get a dogattachment now so I can brush
Ace and get all these fluff offof him with the brush attachment
and I think we'll be golden.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
We'll be good to go yeah, look at him over there
waiting for his.
He doesn't know what's coming,brash, he doesn't know how clean
he's gonna be.
But, yeah, good gratitude.
That's awesome, becausesometimes the simple stuff is
all you need, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
And it comes with like five different attachments.
But do you know how?
I know we're old, we're talkingabout vacuum cleaners On a
podcast.
And I am just smiling ear toear talking about this vacuum
cleaner.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And you know what else?
It has five attachments.
We digress, we digress.
We are indeed talking aboutDragonheart today, and if you
have not seen it, it was indeedmade in 1999.
It actually had a budget of $57million, and do you think it
was profitable, brash?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I want to say, I want to say like just purely out of
nostalgia, I want to say, yes,it was Because I think at the
time there wasn't much more likeit.
Like the closest thing I couldthink of in the 1990s sort of
range of this sort of fantasykind of movie would be like the
Dungeons and Dragons movie.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, some part.
I mean, there was likehistorically accurate, epic ones
like Braveheart and things likethat.
But you're right, this was veryunique in its genre in 1996.
It actually did make a prettygood profit.
It.
It was $115 million, which isconsidered a success on a $57
million budget.
Most films around that timewere being made for around $60
million-ish, so it was on thecheaper side of that.
(04:10):
What do you think?
Most of the budget went to CGI.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Absolutely CGI 100%.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yep, as opposed to other action blockbuster films
thinking about today.
But most of the time in thatsort of era in the 90s, the
budget of $60 or so millionwould go to the leading actors'
salaries, because there was amassive bump during that time.
But let's get into our firsttakes segment.
(04:34):
All right, no-transcript, as wealways put a post every week on
our Instagram and Threads andReddit that you can react to on
(04:55):
what you thought of the movie.
So, brash, you can start outfirst Now.
Remember this is Dragonheart.
It is a movie about the lastdragon and a disillusioned
dragon slaying knight that mustunite to stop an evil king who's
granted partial immortality.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, I first came across this because I'm a nerd,
first and foremost One of us,that's it.
The corner store is where Icame across this movie first.
Vcr.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Was it in the bargain bin?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
No, no, no, no, it was on, because this would have
been back in the 1990s.
It was in.
We had a corner store a fewcorners around from where we
lived in my step-by-less and weused to go there once a week and
the corner store we used to buya 50 cent bag of lollies and we
used to be able to pick out Ithink it was two movies for the
weekend from the shelf.
Because the corner store hadnot like your selection that you
used to get from like videoeasy and stuff like that,
because there wasn't really wellthere was like, yeah, corner
(05:48):
stores got the, the, the weeklyreleases that they'd then put on
their shelves for you to to goand have a little little peruse
through.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It was like a little side hustle that the corner
stores were going through.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, they had like they'd have one you can hire for
a week or one the ones you canhire for a night.
So we used to.
We used to get one that we'dhire for a night.
So we used to get one that we'dhire for a night and one that
we'd hire for a week.
And yeah, Dragonheart was oneof the ones that I saw and was
like I want that one.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Was it an overnighter ?
It was an overnighter At thetime.
Yeah, what did you think aboutit when you first watched it in
1996 or 97?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
when it came out on VCR time, like everything I know
we're talking about later andall that, but like just the way,
like the cgi and everythinglike that, just for me at that
time period was amazing becausewe were used to like 2d mortal
combat yeah, or jim henson'spuppeteers, yeah, worth of
monster shop and like you couldcompare it to, like the
never-ending story in falco likeyou've got that sort of realism
(06:40):
there and and that dragon alsotalked like draco does in this
movie, but they look extremelydifferent, yeah because you've
got the CGI dragon of Draco andthen you've got Falco, who looks
like one of those Chinesedancing dragons.
So, yeah, what do you mean?
Back in 1996, when I was 6years old, getting the video
(07:01):
from the corner store?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
yeah, well, me for my first takes.
I actually saw this movie inthe cinema and I was six years
old and it was probably theoldest movie that I'd seen for
my age at the time Now we talkedearlier about your first movie
or when you were six years old,seven years old, you saw the
Crow, I saw Dragonheart and Iwas like taken away by the
action of it, fully immersed inthe story world where it was
(07:23):
just like a medieval night sortof setting.
It was definitely my first thatI can remember.
I was taken by my grandmabecause she always used to take
us to the movies every here andthere with her money and, yeah,
fully grateful for that becauseI reckon it fully installed my
love of movies, but for this onein particular, my love of, like
dragon and night kind of movies, and I remember it having a
(07:43):
pretty significant impact on mebecause I used to get obsessed,
like when I go and see a movieI'd get completely obsessed and
I'd go home and I'd try andremember, scene by scene, what
happened and I'd write it down.
Like it was a play which isembarrassed to admit, but um,
like I'd write down thecharacter's name and then the
dialogue that I remember.
So even back then, it was likeit was a pretty significant kind
of movie for me.
It held a lot of nostalgia.
I cried at the end, yeah, Ithink for obvious reasons, but
(08:08):
most notably the amazing scoreand yeah.
So it definitely holds thisawesome place in my heart and I
loved it and I'd seen it again,probably like I don't know 10 or
so years later and then 15years later after that, and I
haven't seen it for a very, verylong time.
And then we did it for thispodcast and then, yeah, yeah, we
might get into that today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see howthat.
(08:31):
That's the thing I want toreally sort of dive into today
the fact of what it looks likenow in a 2025 sort of atmosphere
.
But, yeah, we'll flick to oursocial medias because this one
we put up on Reddit and itactually kind of blew up.
There's a lot of people thatfeel pretty powerfully about
this one.
We've got 317 upvotes and 130commenters.
One person said Ludic Bath.
I loved this film as a kid.
(08:52):
I suspect it's one of thosefilms that if you watched it now
, I'd think it was foolish, or Iwould think that I was a
tasteless check trick.
Ned replied to them and saidnah, man, go and watch it.
I and said nah, man, go andwatch it.
I feared the same thing until Iwatched it last year and I had
a genuinely great time HavingSean Connery as the dragon was a
masterstroke in casting.
And then they went on to saythat they hope that they gave it
a chance.
Check yourself on Reddit, saidI'm in my 40s and I recently
(09:16):
watched it with my 11 year olddaughter.
I echo the above comments.
It 100% holds up and I waspleasantly surprised at how good
the entire movie was, not justthe effects.
What's more is I watched itwith my daughter, who absolutely
loved it, so I highly recommendit.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And that's kind of something that I would like to
do when my kids get older iswatch it and see it through the
lens of a child again, Just tosee, like look on their face on
certain parts and be like, oohyeah.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It still brings joy Exactly.
Ooh, yeah, it still brings joyExactly Because then I think if
it doesn't hold up like ifthat's the verdict we come to,
whether that's just an effect ofgrowing up and the magic of
movie going is like a childhoodexperience.
It's really funny to see thatpeople all over the world would
kind of experience it the sameway that you did, which is like
the communal thing about moviesthat I like.
We also had Enlowski who said Iremember when it came out it
(10:02):
was revolutionary for the CGIthat they used.
I haven't seen it recently, butI remember being amazed by how
realistic the dragon looked.
When I was a kid we had Frankon our threads from Geek Freaks
that said I cannot tell you howmany times I rewatched this
movie.
Billy D915 from Threads saidthis was my introduction to
David Thouless.
He played Aynan.
He did play Aynan we're goingto get into.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I love him as an actor.
Him in Harry Potter, just himin anything is just amazing.
However, I have to point outthis it's just who he is.
There's no stabbing him oranything like that.
He's still amazing andeverything like that, but his
voice is very whiny, yes, verywhiny voice, which is incredibly
(10:50):
suited to this character,absolutely it suits this
character to a T oh man.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Maybe that was a conscious choice which
incredibly suited this character, Absolutely Suited this
character to a T yeah and thenoh man.
Maybe that was a consciouschoice, I don't know, because
we're definitely meant to feellike we hate Iron in this movie.
It's not a hidden fact, but yes, I definitely agree.
I think he does have a verysignificant or a very noticeable
voice.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, and like, don't get me wrong, I love him, don't
get me wrong, I love him and Ilove him as an actor.
He's a phenomenal actor, justthe voice.
When he was playing Iron man Iwas like, oh, it just made the
fact that he's a Prince TurnKing always Bratty as well.
Yeah, bratty.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, and he is a brat.
Nope, I 100% agree.
Oh man, we have some otherpeople in our threads community.
We had mbrawly88 that said thismovie was such a staple of my
childhood, I loved it so muchand always cried at the end.
Same M same.
We also had Benjamin Raffi whosaid I was obsessed with this
(11:45):
movie but now it looks weird butalso it has dragons in it, and
I stand by my child's opinion.
So your younger self's opinion,so me too, benjamin Raffi,
thank you very much for all ofour threads and Redditors for
commenting on our podcast.
So just to get a bit of a scopeon what this movie and a bit of
a scale on what this movie meansto some people, it seems like
it definitely.
The word nostalgia hits mebrash when I'm sort of thinking
(12:07):
about this one and looking at itthrough a modern lens, all
right.
And um, looking at it through amodern lens, all right, we
might jump into our fandom factface-off.
All right, our fandom factface-off is where one hosts ask
the other a series of triviaquestions associated with the
movie.
The host with the mostcollected points from the fandom
(12:29):
fact face-off segment willshout their opposing co-host to
to an all-expenses paid trip tothe movie cinema.
Now, last time, brash, you won.
You've won two times in a rowand we're starting a new round
right now.
We went and saw sonic and thenlast time we haven't done an
episode on it, but we sawcaptain america, the brave new
world, and while we were therethe movie was okay, it wasn't
too bad.
But there was an earthquake.
Like we were, all was all okay,everything was fine.
(12:51):
It was like a 4.3 magnitudeearthquake in our town and it
happened while Harrison Ford wasriding on an elliptical, yeah,
and then the earthquake happened.
I was like man, he's reallyriding that thing.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I was like well, did this theater become 4D?
Are we getting effects?
Is it like if you get sprayedwith water?
Do?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
we actually get wet.
If you get sprayed with water,you actually get wet.
Yep, exactly, yeah.
So just so everybody knows thatdid take place.
We may do an episode on it thismonth or, you know, it depends
on how much time we have.
But we are starting a brand newfandom fact face-off scoring
card.
So scores are currently 0-0.
Brash, do you want to kick usoff with the first question?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Okay, so in a duel between David Quaid's character
Bowen and David's characterEinan Quaid broke something.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
What was it?
Dennis Quaid, while fightingDavid Lewis, they had a couple
of sword fights.
I know they probably did somechoreography for it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
They probably broke about a million swords.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
David broke something on his body in a duel, oh, like
Aragorn broke his toe.
Well, I know, when I was swordfighting with my brothers we'd
always hit knuckles, so I'mgoing to go finger David broke
something on his body in a duel,oh like.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Aragorn broke his toe .
Let's go Well, I know when Iwas sword fighting with my
brothers.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
We'd always hit knuckles so I'm going to go
finger.
It was his finger and he spentthe last two weeks of filming in
a plaster cast.
Oh man, I didn't even notice.
I think it was filmed out oforder.
Yeah, so picking up thosescenes might be hard to do do.
But yeah, I did notice a lot ofsword fighting scenes in this,
this movie, and you know,especially at the start.
I don't know how many moviesstart with a master dueling an
apprentice with play swords inan area that has lots of rock
formations.
I can think of at least.
Troy is one.
(14:23):
Yeah, this movie is another.
Yeah, it's amazing how common.
You know, if I had a nickel,for every time it happened I'd
have two to three nickels andthat's not a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I mean a lot of people fight and like just look
at law of the rings, how manytimes they fight in like broken
down places, like in nearlyevery single movie.
Pretty much, yeah, there's aruin that they fight in all
right, let's go to my question.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yes, so it is one.
Nil brash, this is yourquestion.
We know that this movie for thetime had some pretty
revolutionary cgi to it, someanimation and some creature
design.
This movie was celebrated forthat in this manner.
What was it?
Did it win?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
an Emmy Award Close.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Academy Award.
Yes, there, it is Okay.
So this movie was nominated foran Academy Award.
It was nominated for an Oscarin 1996.
It was nominated for BestVisual Effects.
It did was nominated for bestvisual effects.
It did not win.
It was beaten by independenceday I mean for its large-scale
destruction scenes and um.
But it's funny to say, you knowif you introduce the movie
(15:23):
dragonheart to people and yousay I'm just watching the
academy award nominated moviedragonheart imagine that.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Oh yeah, saying that now yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So I thought that was interesting to bring up because
you know you've got to look atit through the lens of the time,
in 1996.
When you're looking at thisit's actually like a really
revolutionary piece of work,100%.
But you know, I'm glad thatwe're reviewing the Academy
Award nominated movieDragonheart today I thought that
would be an interesting one togo.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So the scene where Bowen shoots an arrow the
ballista arrow at Draco and hefalls in the river is an homage
to another scene from a verypopular novel series no, I'm
thinking Moby Dick.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
There's harpoons that shoot a big whale, that go into
the water there when he'sflying through the sky.
That's like yeah, and you cantell that when it happened twice
.
The first time he moved overand he got shot.
He caught the ballista and thenfell into the water, and then
the second time they literallyjust flipped the CGI footage and
he was flying the other way.
Is it the Lord of the Rings?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It is the Lord of the Rings when Bard shoots.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Smaug.
Oh, bard, the bowman from Smaug, yes, in the Hobbit Perfect,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Because I think in the books Smaug pretends to get
hit and falls into the water.
It does the same thing and thencomes back out afterwards.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yep, yep, but they don't show that in the actual
movies.
In the movies he just gets shot.
He just gets shot in the directright spot for the black arrows
to pierce his amazing dragonscales.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yes, so yeah, on shooting an arrow at Draco above
the lake and is in homage toBard shooting the arrow at Smug
in the Hobbit.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Very nice.
Do I get the points for that?
I can't get it.
Very good, yes, I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Draco yeah, Draco even falls into the lake and
plays dead.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, I love that scene because especially when he
doesn't sink and he's watchingall the people fucking.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, it's like a swamp.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, you think they'd test that beforehand.
But yeah, funny thing, and thenyou know those cannibals go and
try to eat the people.
So, yeah, all right.
So the movie dragonheart was,uh, originally pitched to be
directed by someone calledrichard donner uh, you might
know them because they're famousfor directing superman, the
original movie, and LethalWeapon in 1987.
(17:32):
However, he departed theproject due to a particular
reason.
What do you think that was?
Why would he depart the project?
And then Rob Cohen, thedirector, came onto the project.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I have no idea.
Why would he leave?
Would it appear to go on?
Because he had another projectthat he had to do?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Not quite.
No, I'll give you a clue.
So Richard Donner had doneSuperman the movie, which was
pretty light-hearted and comedic, and then he'd done Lethal
Weapon a little bit after.
So he'd done a light-heartedmovie and then a really sort of
serious, sort of toned movie oh,was it meant to be more serious
?
And it wasn't Exactly right soand it wasn't Exactly right so
he wanted to perform it as alittle bit more of an epic.
(18:13):
Yeah, which actually I probablywould have maybe even preferred
.
Yeah, yeah, well, he definitelywould have.
And the studio Universal Studiowas holding out on the budget
of like they weren't going togive them the budget, unless you
know, it hit a certain sort ofbenchmark in terms of it has to
be suited for kids or something.
Well, yeah, yeah.
(18:34):
So because of that reason,because it was those creative
differences and those challenges, he, he left the project
respectfully and then rob cohentook over and directed a
brighter and lighter and morecomedic sort of fantasy like
tone that was more suited for afamily-friendly sort of audience
.
So two for two is the scoreright now, two to me and two for
you, and there's one questionfor you remaining and one
(18:54):
question for me remaining okay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So my question now there's so many of them and
they're actually all really wellknown, so I'll just get you to
name three of them out of Ithink there's like 12.
So the lead role of bowen wasit was rejected by one famous
actor but also had aconsiderable part was a whole
(19:18):
bunch of other famous actors.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
He named three of them.
Three of them, okay.
So I did read that possiblyLiam Neeson was in the running,
so Liam Neeson was the one whowas offered the role and
rejected it, declined.
Yeah.
So the others in that sort ofvein during this time let's go
with, I mean, sylvester Stallone.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
No, but close to like there's someone who's close to
that vein.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Not Arnie.
No way, arnie, yep ArnoldSchwarzenegger.
I'm assuming because he playedHercules, and he played Conan as
well.
Yep, and then Christopher Reeve.
Was that one of them who playedSuperman?
Ah, no, no, hmm here's anotherhint.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Okay, you've got a friend in me, tom.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Hanks, tom Hanks, wow , I couldn't imagine him with
that wig on yeah, yep, well,that's three.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So you got three Arnie, liam and Tom.
What were some of the others?
Some of the other ones?
So we had Pierce Brosnan.
I'd see that, kevin.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Bacon Look, I love Kevin Bacon in anything.
Harrison Ford I could also seethat.
Mel Gibson Well, look afterBraveheart.
Probably not, but I could seethat definitely.
And Patrick Swayze, and PatrickSwayze.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
All of them seem okay to me.
All of them seem like, really,and they're all fairly big
actors along with Dennis Quaid.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
It's funny how they had a whole plethora of actors
ready to play or pitched to playBowen.
To me, in my unprofessionalopinion, that kind of screams
like they're throwing a cast netout and whoever will take the
script, they'll take.
You know what I mean.
You know how some people writea screenplay and they're like it
is written specifically for forthis intended person.
I did watch the the making ofthis movie, and the director,
(20:59):
rob cohen, actually said, youknow, when he was talking about
the dragon of draco and thevoice, and he knew that it had
to be an a-list kind of actorand somebody whose voice was
recognizable, he said heconsidered one actor and one
actor only for that, and thatactor was sean, sean Connery.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
So, um, to be fair, all the dragons in all the
series is not quite all, butpretty much like in another,
another, another, two of themovies the dragons voice played
by, like big stars, really, yeah, ben Kingsley is one.
No, he plays.
He plays it in the second movie, mate, and in the third movie.
(21:31):
Third or the fourth movie Ithink it might be the fourth
movie it's played by PatrickStewart.
Oh my gosh, in these low-budgetmovies you'll find that the
voice actors, like the peoplewho do voice acting especially
for dragons, like even in theMerlin TV show, yeah, john Hurt,
john Hurt.
Yeah, these low-budget moviesthey get these really well known
actors that voice the dragons.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
There must be something really appealing to
actors to come in and play sucha majestic creature like a
dragon like you got like comeback for Smough, smough yeah it
just, yeah, it seems like.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
It just seems like a thing where, like creatures that
are voiced by people, it's onlysomeone like sort of famous.
I don't know how many timesPatrick Stewart's voiced
Something.
That is mythological too.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah exactly right, and Sean Connery actually did
say as well this is probably hiseasiest role that he's done
because he didn't have to dohair and makeup.
He sat in a studio deliveredhis lines.
They did do some capturingstuff on him but yeah, pretty
easy payday for him, which isvery appealing for voice actors.
So keep it going in that vein, Ithink, because, yeah, he was
definitely a drawcard for thismovie, dragonheart, and I think
(22:32):
also Dennis Quaid would havebeen a drawcard as well.
Might talk about hisperformance a little bit later
on.
All right, so the current scoreis three to two, with my
question to Brash left to go.
All right, so there are quite afew real-world elements in this
and also some mythologicalelements in this movie of
Dragonheart.
What mythological tales werethe inspiration of some of the
(22:54):
elements in dragon heart, interms of, in particular, bowen
and the knights of the old code?
uh I don't come a lot, surely?
Yep, yep, absolutely so.
It's king arthur and theknights of the round table.
Uh, they even go to sit at hisresting place or his spire.
That's right In the movie.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
That's the Avalon we're going to find is yeah, is
based off it, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
And then you know that awesome scene which tugs on
the heartstrings, where Bowengoes and recites his new oath
and he thinks he's doing itabsolutely alone.
And you know, out of theshadows comes this 25-foot
dragon.
That was completely hidden andhe just absolutely comes and,
just you know, puts the wingover him to shelter him from the
rain, and you know that'sworded as you know, the dragon
(23:39):
hug, I guess you could sayApparently.
That was storyboarded in thescreenplay and there's actually
a novelization as well of thisbook and it said that in that
sort of moment.
That scene was in there too andit sort of plays on that
timeless fairy tale quality andit resonates with those fantasy
fans where it sort of ties it tothe real world.
One thing that I did notice thatalso tied it to the real world,
if you notice what happened atthe very start of the movie,
(24:02):
that it said when the king wasraiding the initial village,
just across the bottom of thescreen, randomly, it just said,
you know, 1934, ad.
Like why do we need to knowthat?
Sure, why not?
Yeah, okay, but yeah, that wasjust another, another sort of
element that tied it into to therealism for people.
But yeah, I really liked that.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
It was that that sort of honor and discovering moral
redemption was central for thoseArthurian legends and that sort
of brought it back into thiswith Bowen's character too well,
I do, like later on, where theystart they bring in in the new,
because I haven't watched themyet, because, yeah, I'm probably
gonna watch them because I'vebeen reading up the synopsis but
one of the movies I'm not sureif it's the second one or the
third one actually brings druidsin which, like Merlin all that
(24:43):
was famously meant like nowbecause called them.
But like, say, if you'vewatched the King Arthur movie
with Clive Owen where Merlin andhis faction are actually like
druids and stuff like that, andeven in the Merlin TV show I
think they were called druidsand stuff like that- yeah, Well,
even Aynan's mother sort of hasa connection to dragons in this
(25:05):
movie and you can see she's gotlike some accoutrement and
various different sort ofsymbology of dragons in her
space at the start.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So you can kind of tell of symbology of dragons in
her space at the start.
So you can kind of tell andDraco also mentions the Kelts
are people who believed in thedragons and people that sort of
held their kind in esteem.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, and druids are a big thing in there.
And yeah, druids are very sortof.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Celtic in nature and origin too.
So yeah, one thing I'm veryworried about with those sequels
because I'm interested inwatching them too, having never
watched them before is I don'twant them to go too mystical,
because I kind of like the, therealism nature of these movies
as much as dragons aren't quotearen't real yeah, I understand
in saying like there's druids, Idon't really suspect it being
(25:43):
much of like too magic involved,though I believe the one with
the druids in there, the evilking curses the dragon, there's
curses at least well, thosecurses at least.
Well, I guess in this one, youknow we say it's grounded, but
you know a dragon shares a heartwith a man and brings him back
to life.
So that's kind of you know, alittle bit of magical sort of
you know who do magicianhospital stuff in there too.
So all right.
(26:04):
So with that, I all yeah.
So we're all tied up, whichmeans that the next time we do
the fandom fact face off, wewill be.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
So no more clues, no more clues, yeah, no more clues
all right, if we're gonna do it,give a clue maybe to make it so
easy.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
All right, let's move on to our set secrets segment.
All right, the set secretssegment, which is hard to say,
is where hosts take a lookbehind the scenes of our focus
movie to give you all theinformation on what went right
and what went wrong and what wasinteresting about the way that
the movie was made.
This is where we kind of lookat some behind the scenes and
some technical aspects of themovie.
(26:41):
So you guys can, you know, tellsome facts to all your friends
about the movies that you loveto see.
So this time, brash, Ispecifically want to kind of
talk about the revolution thatwas dragon bringing Draco to
life and bringing Draco to thescreen.
So when we're talking aboutthis, it was actually the first
time that a fully CGI characterwas on screen.
(27:03):
How do you think the CGI heldup?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
To be honest, I didn't mind it, like I've seen
movies nowadays that are worse.
Absolutely 100%.
I fully agree.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I've seen movies nowadays that are worse,
absolutely.
A hundred percent.
I fully agree.
And you know, when this scriptwas initially pitched, when it
was first created, they thoughtit was amazing story, fully
heartfelt, great characters,good relationship between dragon
and you know night.
The only thing that held a lotof people back from jumping onto
it was obviously the technologyhadn't been invented to fully
realize that dragon character ina meaningful and very visual
(27:31):
kind of way.
So they were actually doingthings in this movie using
technology that hadn't reallybeen invented yet, and even
things like face mapping.
So when you're looking at Dracoand he's doing some very
expressive scenes with eyebrowsand lip syncing and the movement
of his tongue and the movementof his jaw and things while he's
speaking, it's actually thefirst time that that's ever been
done and those motions andmovements were modeled off of
(27:54):
Sir Sean Connery himself.
But the amazing part for me wasthat they also had to be all
done manually on the computer.
So they actually had tophysically move the eyebrow
muscle and they had to move thelips to match the words, because
the dots that they'd put onpeople's faces to do face
mapping that technology hadn'tbeen invented yet.
Yeah, yeah.
(28:15):
So they used this softwarecalled Elias Power and they
really tried to focus on reallife textures and the structure
of his body, and the mostamazing part for me, though, was
that facial muscle andexpression when he would be
talking, and making him almostlike a human kind of character,
(28:36):
because I think that if you weregoing to portray a relationship
between Bowen and a dragon, himbeing a dragon slayer, if the
dragon was too monstrous, theaudience wouldn't be able to
connect as well as they did.
That being coupled with thefact that the dragon's voice is
Sean Connery, who is, you know,very honorable His Scottish
heritage plays well into thelegendary mythos of dragons.
He sounds like he belongs inthe part and the way that he can
(29:00):
convey anger, but also gravityand compassion.
He does an amazing performance,I think, in this, and it's
mirrored on Draco's face very,very well.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So, for me, it's a double-edged sword, because I
don't know if we're going totalk about this later, but for
me the story wasn't quite how Iremembered it, Mm-hmm.
So there was parts there likespoiler alert, when the female
dragon's killed and Bowen tellsDraco that ah, that was me, and
Draco gets upset about it, andthen two seconds later he's like
(29:32):
hey, let's be friends.
But like that initial anger andthe facial expressions coming
from Draco Sean Conner, like isjust like you feel it like
reverberate through your bodywhen you like, you feel like
you're in trouble.
Almost it's like damn.
I'd hate for Sean Connery to beangry at me.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, you can see it as well, because they use that
downward facing shot, so youfeel powerless as he is like
talking and roaring down to youshot.
So you feel powerless as he islike talking and roaring down to
you.
But also the way that theyanimate his eyebrows, and you
know the expression on his jawas he does that as well.
You know, using those earlysculpting and 3d modelings.
Yeah, I thought it was reallysort of awesome how they could
portray so many emotions,because it would have taken so
(30:13):
many, oh, so long, so many hoursof manpower.
Yeah, that's probably why it'sso expensive, though.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Absolutely yeah, and that's why it still is so
expensive.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, and I think you know, even in moments in the
movie where he was being likesarcastic for example, where
they're sitting by the campfireand Bowen talks about his trauma
with Draco and he says, youknow, a long time ago there was
a dragon he's like why do youhate us so much?
And he says, well, long timeago a dragon gave his heart to
my friend iron and poisoned himbasically and corrupted him and
(30:41):
drake, who got really angry andreactive and then he pulled it
back and you can see all ofthose emotions on this dragon's
face.
And you know, in this day andage when you see that kind of
thing we kind of take it forgranted.
But this was the first timepeople saw on screen, on camera,
an actual, imaginary creaturedoing those kinds of things and
reacting in those kinds of ways.
Another scene that I reallylike that shows a lot of emotion
(31:02):
and loyalty from sean conneryis like the absolute charisma
that he shows when he meets caraand she's sitting on the rocks
and he's singing her a song
Speaker 2 (31:10):
and then you know, you see, that sean connery bond
kind of like, that kind of likeseemed like, like I wouldn't be
surprised if that was ablib fromsean doing that.
Yep, yep, I would not besurprised as well that like
because we, when there's asinging to it on the rock, I'm
like drake actually be doingthat with serenading a few of
the song, and then I'm like thatjust seems like something sean
(31:32):
connery would do.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, I think, for that part at least, they would
have probably been trying toplay on that, that mythological
element where dragons are reallyenamored by maidens, yeah, uh,
and that sort of uh connectionthrough that.
But what I really loved aboutthat sort of aspect was I I read
through the um, through some ofthe articles that were created
at the time, and the thedirector, rob cohen, during post
(31:55):
production he still had 13months of post-production after
filming Wrapped because heobviously had so much work to do
with CGI.
So he actually went to work onanother movie called Daylight,
which starred Sylvester Stallone, and he would actually
satellite conference call intohis animators in Los Angeles
which was also revolutionary atthe time and he would try to
talk them through how he wantedthem to animate the scene and he
(32:18):
found it really difficult to do.
So what he did was he hired aneditor and he got that editor to
go through like 40 of SeanConnery's films and he said what
I want you to do is find allthe times that there is a close
up on Sean's face and edit thoselittle clips out.
So the editor did that and hesaid OK, now that you've done
that, put all of these clipsinto groups where Sean is happy,
he's angry, whether he issurprised, whether he's being
(32:41):
suave, put them all together aslittle sort of clips and videos.
So then when he would talk tohis animators and he said, okay,
in this scene Draco is going tobe angry, so they'd pull out
the angry group of clips andthey'd play those clips and then
they could use Sean Connery'sface to actually map how Draco
would look in those kinds ofemotions.
So I think from listening to RobCohen talk about that, this was
like his baby, his film that hewas so impassioned with and I
(33:04):
think that sort of shows on thescreen in terms of how much care
was taken in Draco and how muchemotional resonance the story
has as well.
But I think without hisdedication it definitely would
have.
He knew at the time as well hewas working on a revolutionary
piece of cinema.
Another really awesome thingabout the production of this
movie in terms of draco was alot of the actors were actually
(33:25):
performing against cutouts andsilhouette heads and two tennis
balls that look like eyes.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
You can imagine how difficult that would be and you
hear that in any movie wherethey've had to, that, where
they're like that's the mostdifficult part is trying to like
act against something that'snot there and try and portray
the emotions when you're justlooking at nothing that's
exactly it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, because some of the scenes, especially with
dennis quaid and bow and he getsa bad rap for his acting
sometimes, but he has to deliversome of the most emotional
scenes in this to like twotennis balls and sometimes that
can be extremely difficult forhim to do and he also said he
found it pretty difficult aswell.
I think that, um, in terms ofhow dragons have been animated
(34:06):
from here on out, likedragonheart was the first cgi
creature that had that facialexpressions and those
personalities.
When we're looking at othersort of dragons in motion
capture we talked earlier aboutsmalg, benedict cumberbatch did
the same thing, but I think hisphysical performance could be
mapped and so could his facialexpression.
So you know?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, because he's behind the scenes of that one.
He's got the full suit on andeverything like that and he's
fully like, like moving his headand everything around, like
he's like a snake and dragon.
I always look at that out ofcontext.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah, yeah, and he just looks like he's so into it.
One thing that this film doesget a little bit of a criticism
towards, in terms of why thisCGI sort of can look a little
bit here and there at points, isone way that CGI creatures look
really at home in theirenvironment is the lighting and
the shadowing techniques thatthey do to blend them in, and
(34:56):
sometimes I don't think thathits quite right with Draco and
I think the CGI and the lightingtechniques that they do to
blend them in, and sometimes Idon't think that hits quite
right with Draco and I think theCGI and the lighting techniques
that they used.
They just weren't consistentand there was no technology to
assist them in the time and inthat way, so that blending
didn't really happen.
So you know the the people thatwere doing it could only do
what they could do with thetechnology they had at the time.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, which, like if this movie was to be made
nowadays, like it'd probably besomething pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, I think, especially if as much care was
taken to animate the dragon asthey did in this one, because
you knew that that was the pullfor the movie.
You know there was thosesweeping shots that sort of
combined with the CGI thatreally sort of helped it get
pushed across.
But also landing that actor ofSean Connery to do that voice
role was definitely a big pushtoo.
But this was a CGI pioneer, youknow, and we're probably going
(35:46):
to go into it with our devil'savocado question coming up.
But there was some CGI and someelements that sort of came
before this that very muchinfluenced it in the way of
Jurassic Park.
But then after this, you know,years later, we have Reign of
Fire.
Have you seen Reign of Fire,Brash?
Yes, I have seen Reign of Fire,I do like Reign of Fire and that
one has like a better lookingdragon, but I think it's like
(36:07):
less of a less personalityobviously through that.
It's just like a monstrous kindof dragon and then it
culminates in Smaug and theHobbit in 2013.
But I'm going to give you ourdevil's avocados question now,
and it has to do with jurassicpark.
you ready yeah, here we go.
All right, our devil's avocadoquestion segment is where hosts
ask us, ask a series ofquestions designed to analyze
(36:29):
alternate aspects of the film orthe media.
This may be an alternate ending, a casting choice, it could be
a story beat altogether or abrand new thing altogether.
So today, brash what I wantyour opinion on, and our devil's
avocado question is, uh,jurassic park, looking back at
that, that was made in 1993,this was made in 1996.
Which animation do you think isbetter?
Jurassic park?
(36:49):
I have to say, yeah, a lot ofpeople mirror your opinion.
Jurassic park holds up todayand is considered to be like a
work of art.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah, um, I suppose with with Jurassic Park, though
they've used full onanimatronics.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Absolutely, and that's, yeah, that's the thing
we kind of wanted to get intohere.
You know, jurassic Parks, they,they, they blended, they did a
blended approach.
So the question being you know,why is Jurassic Park so
celebrated as having CGI thatholds up today, while Dragon is
often looked at by some and seenas a clunky sort of
representation of CGI?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, I think the problem is it being a dragon.
It'd be hard to do ananimatronic of a dragon that can
fly and all the rest of it.
Just trying to make that happenjust boggles my mind for that
time period, whereas when Bolinwas in Draco's mouth, that scene
(37:41):
there I reckon that's probablythe best scene involving the
dragon and his look.
For me, all the rest of them,like you can tell, cgi.
But it wasn't too bad, but itwas still old school CGI.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, and I think a dragon character interacting
with human characters orinteracting with the environment
, that's the hardest thing to do.
School CGI, yeah, and I think adragon character interacting
with human characters orinteracting with the environment
, that's the hardest thing to doin CGI nowadays.
Doing it with those sort ofrough technology, that's
probably even harder.
So the way that they were ableto incorporate Bowen into some
of those scenes with Draco wasreally, really awesome.
Just some statistics I'vepulled up.
(38:17):
With Jurassic Park in 1993,they did blend CGI with the
animat really, really awesome.
Just some statistics I'vepulled up.
With Jurassic Park in 1993, theydid blend CGI with the
animatronics, like you said, andthat realism really sort of
sticks out.
The T-Rexes and theVelociraptors were like a new
standard in photorealism andlighting integration.
The way that they blendedshadows was really good there.
But there's only six minutes ofCGI in that whole movie and you
can probably tell which onesthey are like in dragon heart
(38:38):
there.
I think what the the producersaid was there was 26 or 23
minutes worth of draco screentime, or 218 scenes that they
had to animate, which is waymore than six minutes, and they
didn't have the the benefit ofrelying on animatronics as well,
to really ground the charactersin in that sort of environment,
which was hard.
When you're looking at this cgiyou did say before, you reckon
(38:58):
it sort of holds up becauseyou've seen Worse, worse,
absolutely, and I kind of I tendto agree.
You can definitely look at itand you can tell it's old.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, and I don't think doing animatronic and CGI
would have worked for Draco,because with Jurassic Park you
look at the dinosaurs there's noreal interaction between them
and humans except them eatingthem.
Yep, that's absolutely correct.
So there's no, whereas with adragon in this case, in
(39:28):
Dragonheart, the dragon canspeak, it talks to the other
characters.
So it has to have that sort ofyou have to be able to see that
sort of the emotions of the howit's speaking on its face.
Yeah, it'd be hard to do thatwith an animatronic without it
looking too mechanical,mechanical.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, yeah, I 100% agree, because like with the
velociraptors.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
you see them like, you see the eyes of
velociraptors and you see themgo from like being like open
eyed to and narrowing slightly,but then that's like the extent
of what they can do, like sortof just open, like shutters, and
it's like and like for just adinosaur that's trying to kill
the humans.
That's fine because you don'tneed to pay too close attention
to its face, whereas whenDraco's trying to convey emotion
(40:12):
, talking to bone or somethinglike that, if you've got like
just a face of an animatronicface of a dragon, where
everything's sort of like moving, yeah, the muscles Mechanically
, it's sort of like you'vereally got like, especially back
in the nineties.
You've only got, you only havecertain sort of movements that
can take and it wouldn't be ableto portray the emotions that
(40:35):
are needed for like, especiallysomething as like this movie,
where it has has its likesadness and its anger and all
that, all the different kinds ofemotions that this movie brings
out or it's trying to bring outin you.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
yeah, it'd be hard to do that.
Yeah, and I I actually thinkthat the emotionality of this
movie is its central core andthat's why it's stuck with with
us and so many of our threadsand and and Instagram community
members as kids, because weremember how the movie felt.
We don't remember when we wentin there and we looked at all
the technical aspects and howgreat the story was, but we
remember how the movie felt whenwe were actually watching it.
(41:11):
And the reason I felt soconnected to this movie was
because of the relationshipbetween Bowen and Draco, which I
don't think would have workedif that character of Draco was
animatronic.
And yeah, we've got Ace herechewing on his foot, setting us
both off, but what a happy boyhe is.
So, yeah, I actually think thatJurassic Park CGI, as you said,
(41:34):
is better as well and it holdsup better.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, better for its purpose, Whereas if they were
trying to do welcome back, Idon't know if you've seen that
oh, we're back, we're back, oh,we're back, yeah, yeah, yeah,
we're back.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
That's the 2d animated one.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's adeep cut I have it somewhere in
there.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Um, anyway, if they were to do something similar to
that, they wouldn't be able touse animatronics for that.
Yes, yes, I agree, because theyturn the deuce pierce and
dinosaurs.
They'd be initially be able todo it when they originally get
captured or when they revertback, but when they get turned
into happy fun going dinosaurs,they wouldn't be able to do that
with animatronics, exactlyright.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I think you know the CGI character animation in a
leading role and it also pushedthe capabilities of voice acting
and also Planet of the Apes,where Andy Serkis is the king of
motion capture, or even Lord ofthe Rings or anything like that
.
If you know, rob Cohen and histeam didn't push the envelope in
this movie to really see ifthey could get that emotional
sort of character out.
So you know, I have heard andlistened to a lot of people
(42:36):
talking about this movie sayingthat the CGI and the visual
effects are absolutely shite.
But I think you know, at thetime it had its place.
I think it definitely.
You know it's hard to be thefirst of anything.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
And I think this one did a pretty good job of it.
All.
Right, ladies and gentlemen,boys and girls, that ends our
first part of our Dragonheartseries.
Now we're going to be doingpart two and that will air for
you guys in a couple of days, or, if you're listening to this a
little bit later, then you'llprobably see it in the list
after this one.
In that episode, we're going tobe looking at our popcorn
(43:08):
perspectives, where Brash and Ilook at the characters of Bowen
and also Aynan in depth.
We're also then going to belooking at our real deal
analysis score and we're goingto be also giving our most
valuable takeaways from themovie as well.
So a bit of a deep analysiscoming for you in part two.
We want to thank you guys fortuning into part one and
remember, guys, it is reallyhelpful for podcasters.
If you share this episode witha friend, that's the best thing
(43:30):
that you can do.
For podcasters like us, word ofmouth does wonders.
And if you are interested inthe show notes below, you'll
definitely see our threads, ourInstagram and our Reddit
communities, and we will also beanswering our emails as well.
So if you have a longer formquestion, definitely email us,
which our address isfandomportals at gmailcom.
All right, thank you guys, andwe'll see you in part two.
(43:51):
Bye, thank you.
Hello everybody and welcome to the Fandom Portals
podcast, the podcast thatexplores how fandoms can help us
learn and grow.
This week we are looking atDragonheart.
Brash and I dive into the CGItechnology that was used to
bring the dragon of Draco tolife back in 1996.
This revolutionary technologywas one of the first times that
(00:22):
motion capture was used, and wealso explore how they landed
Sean Connery in the role ofDraco.
Make sure you also tune in topart two of this Dragonheart
episode, where we go into areally deep dive on the film.
Thank you so much for tuning into the Fandom Portals podcast,
as always, and we hope you enjoy.
Hello everybody and welcome tothe fandom portals podcast.
(00:57):
I'm here joined by brash, asalways.
How you going brash badyourself, not bad at all.
That's to hear.
That's good to hear.
Today we are here to talk abouta movie made in 1996, directed
by Rob Cohen.
It is indeed Dragonheart.
It's written by Patrick ReedJohnson and Charles Edward Pogue
, starring Dennis Quaid and SeanConnery.
Do you like my accent?
It?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
actually wasn't too bad actually, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You'll hear a bit of that through the episode, ladies
and gentlemen, but before we dothat, we're going to jump into
our gratitudes and growthsegment Now.
Each week, we begin by sharinga personal gratitude for the
week or something we need growthin, and I might go first.
This week, I'm grateful for mymom.
She came over and spent sometime with the grandkids, which
she does quite often, and justwatching her with them is really
(01:41):
nice to see.
My kids adore and she's stillin her late 60s and she still
plays the Floor is Lava withthem, which is amazing because
I'm 35, and some days it's astruggle for me to do that.
So shout out to mum, shout outto mum Shout out to mum.
What about you, Brash?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I've got a gratitude and that is for your average
everyday corded vacuum cleaners.
That is a good gratitudeBecause I had the robot vac.
The battery died on it.
It's getting sent away to getfixed.
I also had one of the stickvacuum cleaners, like the
cordless ones where you chargeit up, the batteries never last.
(02:21):
It lasts like two seconds andit's like dirt or small rocks,
it just doesn't even pick themup.
So and I'm like I need a vacuumcleaner because my house is full
of dog fur.
The cordless vacuum cleaner isjust not doing it, it's just
jamming up.
It just sucks $100 Kmartaverage.
But bagless bagless is alsobetter bagless vacuum cleaner.
This house has never lookedcleaner.
(02:43):
I absolutely love it.
I just need to get a dogattachment now so I can brush
Ace and get all these fluff offof him with the brush attachment
and I think we'll be golden.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
We'll be good to go yeah, look at him over there
waiting for his.
He doesn't know what's coming,brash, he doesn't know how clean
he's gonna be.
But, yeah, good gratitude.
That's awesome, becausesometimes the simple stuff is
all you need, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
And it comes with like five different attachments.
But do you know how?
I know we're old, we're talkingabout vacuum cleaners On a
podcast.
And I am just smiling ear toear talking about this vacuum
cleaner.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And you know what else?
It has five attachments.
We digress, we digress.
We are indeed talking aboutDragonheart today, and if you
have not seen it, it was indeedmade in 1999.
It actually had a budget of $57million, and do you think it
was profitable, brash?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I want to say, I want to say like just purely out of
nostalgia, I want to say, yes,it was Because I think at the
time there wasn't much more likeit.
Like the closest thing I couldthink of in the 1990s sort of
range of this sort of fantasykind of movie would be like the
Dungeons and Dragons movie.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, some part.
I mean, there was likehistorically accurate, epic ones
like Braveheart and things likethat.
But you're right, this was veryunique in its genre in 1996.
It actually did make a prettygood profit.
It.
It was $115 million, which isconsidered a success on a $57
million budget.
Most films around that timewere being made for around $60
million-ish, so it was on thecheaper side of that.
(04:10):
What do you think?
Most of the budget went to CGI.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Absolutely CGI 100%.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yep, as opposed to other action blockbuster films
thinking about today.
But most of the time in thatsort of era in the 90s, the
budget of $60 or so millionwould go to the leading actors'
salaries, because there was amassive bump during that time.
But let's get into our firsttakes segment.
(04:34):
All right, no-transcript, as wealways put a post every week on
our Instagram and Threads andReddit that you can react to on
(04:55):
what you thought of the movie.
So, brash, you can start outfirst Now.
Remember this is Dragonheart.
It is a movie about the lastdragon and a disillusioned
dragon slaying knight that mustunite to stop an evil king who's
granted partial immortality.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, I first came across this because I'm a nerd,
first and foremost One of us,that's it.
The corner store is where Icame across this movie first.
Vcr.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Was it in the bargain bin?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
No, no, no, no, it was on, because this would have
been back in the 1990s.
It was in.
We had a corner store a fewcorners around from where we
lived in my step-by-less and weused to go there once a week and
the corner store we used to buya 50 cent bag of lollies and we
used to be able to pick out Ithink it was two movies for the
weekend from the shelf.
Because the corner store hadnot like your selection that you
used to get from like videoeasy and stuff like that,
because there wasn't really wellthere was like, yeah, corner
(05:48):
stores got the, the, the weeklyreleases that they'd then put on
their shelves for you to to goand have a little little peruse
through.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It was like a little side hustle that the corner
stores were going through.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, they had like they'd have one you can hire for
a week or one the ones you canhire for a night.
So we used to.
We used to get one that we'dhire for a night.
So we used to get one that we'dhire for a night and one that
we'd hire for a week.
And yeah, Dragonheart was oneof the ones that I saw and was
like I want that one.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Was it an overnighter ?
It was an overnighter At thetime.
Yeah, what did you think aboutit when you first watched it in
1996 or 97?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
when it came out on VCR time, like everything I know
we're talking about later andall that, but like just the way,
like the cgi and everythinglike that, just for me at that
time period was amazing becausewe were used to like 2d mortal
combat yeah, or jim henson'spuppeteers, yeah, worth of
monster shop and like you couldcompare it to, like the
never-ending story in falco likeyou've got that sort of realism
(06:40):
there and and that dragon alsotalked like draco does in this
movie, but they look extremelydifferent, yeah because you've
got the CGI dragon of Draco andthen you've got Falco, who looks
like one of those Chinesedancing dragons.
So, yeah, what do you mean?
Back in 1996, when I was 6years old, getting the video
(07:01):
from the corner store?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
yeah, well, me for my first takes.
I actually saw this movie inthe cinema and I was six years
old and it was probably theoldest movie that I'd seen for
my age at the time Now we talkedearlier about your first movie
or when you were six years old,seven years old, you saw the
Crow, I saw Dragonheart and Iwas like taken away by the
action of it, fully immersed inthe story world where it was
(07:23):
just like a medieval night sortof setting.
It was definitely my first thatI can remember.
I was taken by my grandmabecause she always used to take
us to the movies every here andthere with her money and, yeah,
fully grateful for that becauseI reckon it fully installed my
love of movies, but for this onein particular, my love of, like
dragon and night kind of movies, and I remember it having a
(07:43):
pretty significant impact on mebecause I used to get obsessed,
like when I go and see a movieI'd get completely obsessed and
I'd go home and I'd try andremember, scene by scene, what
happened and I'd write it down.
Like it was a play which isembarrassed to admit, but um,
like I'd write down thecharacter's name and then the
dialogue that I remember.
So even back then, it was likeit was a pretty significant kind
of movie for me.
It held a lot of nostalgia.
I cried at the end, yeah, Ithink for obvious reasons, but
(08:08):
most notably the amazing scoreand yeah.
So it definitely holds thisawesome place in my heart and I
loved it and I'd seen it again,probably like I don't know 10 or
so years later and then 15years later after that, and I
haven't seen it for a very, verylong time.
And then we did it for thispodcast and then, yeah, yeah, we
might get into that today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see howthat.
(08:31):
That's the thing I want toreally sort of dive into today
the fact of what it looks likenow in a 2025 sort of atmosphere
.
But, yeah, we'll flick to oursocial medias because this one
we put up on Reddit and itactually kind of blew up.
There's a lot of people thatfeel pretty powerfully about
this one.
We've got 317 upvotes and 130commenters.
One person said Ludic Bath.
I loved this film as a kid.
(08:52):
I suspect it's one of thosefilms that if you watched it now
, I'd think it was foolish, or Iwould think that I was a
tasteless check trick.
Ned replied to them and saidnah, man, go and watch it.
I and said nah, man, go andwatch it.
I feared the same thing until Iwatched it last year and I had
a genuinely great time HavingSean Connery as the dragon was a
masterstroke in casting.
And then they went on to saythat they hope that they gave it
a chance.
Check yourself on Reddit, saidI'm in my 40s and I recently
(09:16):
watched it with my 11 year olddaughter.
I echo the above comments.
It 100% holds up and I waspleasantly surprised at how good
the entire movie was, not justthe effects.
What's more is I watched itwith my daughter, who absolutely
loved it, so I highly recommendit.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And that's kind of something that I would like to
do when my kids get older iswatch it and see it through the
lens of a child again, Just tosee, like look on their face on
certain parts and be like, oohyeah.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It still brings joy Exactly.
Ooh, yeah, it still brings joyExactly Because then I think if
it doesn't hold up like ifthat's the verdict we come to,
whether that's just an effect ofgrowing up and the magic of
movie going is like a childhoodexperience.
It's really funny to see thatpeople all over the world would
kind of experience it the sameway that you did, which is like
the communal thing about moviesthat I like.
We also had Enlowski who said Iremember when it came out it
(10:02):
was revolutionary for the CGIthat they used.
I haven't seen it recently, butI remember being amazed by how
realistic the dragon looked.
When I was a kid we had Frankon our threads from Geek Freaks
that said I cannot tell you howmany times I rewatched this
movie.
Billy D915 from Threads saidthis was my introduction to
David Thouless.
He played Aynan.
He did play Aynan we're goingto get into.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I love him as an actor.
Him in Harry Potter, just himin anything is just amazing.
However, I have to point outthis it's just who he is.
There's no stabbing him oranything like that.
He's still amazing andeverything like that, but his
voice is very whiny, yes, verywhiny voice, which is incredibly
(10:50):
suited to this character,absolutely it suits this
character to a T oh man.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Maybe that was a conscious choice which
incredibly suited this character, Absolutely Suited this
character to a T yeah and thenoh man.
Maybe that was a consciouschoice, I don't know, because
we're definitely meant to feellike we hate Iron in this movie.
It's not a hidden fact, but yes, I definitely agree.
I think he does have a verysignificant or a very noticeable
voice.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, and like, don't get me wrong, I love him, don't
get me wrong, I love him and Ilove him as an actor.
He's a phenomenal actor, justthe voice.
When he was playing Iron man Iwas like, oh, it just made the
fact that he's a Prince TurnKing always Bratty as well.
Yeah, bratty.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, and he is a brat.
Nope, I 100% agree.
Oh man, we have some otherpeople in our threads community.
We had mbrawly88 that said thismovie was such a staple of my
childhood, I loved it so muchand always cried at the end.
Same M same.
We also had Benjamin Raffi whosaid I was obsessed with this
(11:45):
movie but now it looks weird butalso it has dragons in it, and
I stand by my child's opinion.
So your younger self's opinion,so me too, benjamin Raffi,
thank you very much for all ofour threads and Redditors for
commenting on our podcast.
So just to get a bit of a scopeon what this movie and a bit of
a scale on what this movie meansto some people, it seems like
it definitely.
The word nostalgia hits mebrash when I'm sort of thinking
(12:07):
about this one and looking at itthrough a modern lens, all
right.
And um, looking at it through amodern lens, all right, we
might jump into our fandom factface-off.
All right, our fandom factface-off is where one hosts ask
the other a series of triviaquestions associated with the
movie.
The host with the mostcollected points from the fandom
(12:29):
fact face-off segment willshout their opposing co-host to
to an all-expenses paid trip tothe movie cinema.
Now, last time, brash, you won.
You've won two times in a rowand we're starting a new round
right now.
We went and saw sonic and thenlast time we haven't done an
episode on it, but we sawcaptain america, the brave new
world, and while we were therethe movie was okay, it wasn't
too bad.
But there was an earthquake.
Like we were, all was all okay,everything was fine.
(12:51):
It was like a 4.3 magnitudeearthquake in our town and it
happened while Harrison Ford wasriding on an elliptical, yeah,
and then the earthquake happened.
I was like man, he's reallyriding that thing.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I was like well, did this theater become 4D?
Are we getting effects?
Is it like if you get sprayedwith water?
Do?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
we actually get wet.
If you get sprayed with water,you actually get wet.
Yep, exactly, yeah.
So just so everybody knows thatdid take place.
We may do an episode on it thismonth or, you know, it depends
on how much time we have.
But we are starting a brand newfandom fact face-off scoring
card.
So scores are currently 0-0.
Brash, do you want to kick usoff with the first question?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Okay, so in a duel between David Quaid's character
Bowen and David's characterEinan Quaid broke something.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
What was it?
Dennis Quaid, while fightingDavid Lewis, they had a couple
of sword fights.
I know they probably did somechoreography for it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
They probably broke about a million swords.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
David broke something on his body in a duel, oh, like
Aragorn broke his toe.
Well, I know, when I was swordfighting with my brothers we'd
always hit knuckles, so I'mgoing to go finger David broke
something on his body in a duel,oh like.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Aragorn broke his toe .
Let's go Well, I know when Iwas sword fighting with my
brothers.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
We'd always hit knuckles so I'm going to go
finger.
It was his finger and he spentthe last two weeks of filming in
a plaster cast.
Oh man, I didn't even notice.
I think it was filmed out oforder.
Yeah, so picking up thosescenes might be hard to do do.
But yeah, I did notice a lot ofsword fighting scenes in this,
this movie, and you know,especially at the start.
I don't know how many moviesstart with a master dueling an
apprentice with play swords inan area that has lots of rock
formations.
I can think of at least.
Troy is one.
(14:23):
Yeah, this movie is another.
Yeah, it's amazing how common.
You know, if I had a nickel,for every time it happened I'd
have two to three nickels andthat's not a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I mean a lot of people fight and like just look
at law of the rings, how manytimes they fight in like broken
down places, like in nearlyevery single movie.
Pretty much, yeah, there's aruin that they fight in all
right, let's go to my question.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yes, so it is one.
Nil brash, this is yourquestion.
We know that this movie for thetime had some pretty
revolutionary cgi to it, someanimation and some creature
design.
This movie was celebrated forthat in this manner.
What was it?
Did it win?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
an Emmy Award Close.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Academy Award.
Yes, there, it is Okay.
So this movie was nominated foran Academy Award.
It was nominated for an Oscarin 1996.
It was nominated for BestVisual Effects.
It did was nominated for bestvisual effects.
It did not win.
It was beaten by independenceday I mean for its large-scale
destruction scenes and um.
But it's funny to say, you knowif you introduce the movie
(15:23):
dragonheart to people and yousay I'm just watching the
academy award nominated moviedragonheart imagine that.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Oh yeah, saying that now yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So I thought that was interesting to bring up because
you know you've got to look atit through the lens of the time,
in 1996.
When you're looking at thisit's actually like a really
revolutionary piece of work,100%.
But you know, I'm glad thatwe're reviewing the Academy
Award nominated movieDragonheart today I thought that
would be an interesting one togo.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So the scene where Bowen shoots an arrow the
ballista arrow at Draco and hefalls in the river is an homage
to another scene from a verypopular novel series no, I'm
thinking Moby Dick.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
There's harpoons that shoot a big whale, that go into
the water there when he'sflying through the sky.
That's like yeah, and you cantell that when it happened twice
.
The first time he moved overand he got shot.
He caught the ballista and thenfell into the water, and then
the second time they literallyjust flipped the CGI footage and
he was flying the other way.
Is it the Lord of the Rings?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It is the Lord of the Rings when Bard shoots.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Smaug.
Oh, bard, the bowman from Smaug, yes, in the Hobbit Perfect,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Because I think in the books Smaug pretends to get
hit and falls into the water.
It does the same thing and thencomes back out afterwards.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yep, yep, but they don't show that in the actual
movies.
In the movies he just gets shot.
He just gets shot in the directright spot for the black arrows
to pierce his amazing dragonscales.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yes, so yeah, on shooting an arrow at Draco above
the lake and is in homage toBard shooting the arrow at Smug
in the Hobbit.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Very nice.
Do I get the points for that?
I can't get it.
Very good, yes, I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Draco yeah, Draco even falls into the lake and
plays dead.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, I love that scene because especially when he
doesn't sink and he's watchingall the people fucking.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, it's like a swamp.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, you think they'd test that beforehand.
But yeah, funny thing, and thenyou know those cannibals go and
try to eat the people.
So, yeah, all right.
So the movie dragonheart was,uh, originally pitched to be
directed by someone calledrichard donner uh, you might
know them because they're famousfor directing superman, the
original movie, and LethalWeapon in 1987.
(17:32):
However, he departed theproject due to a particular
reason.
What do you think that was?
Why would he depart the project?
And then Rob Cohen, thedirector, came onto the project.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I have no idea.
Why would he leave?
Would it appear to go on?
Because he had another projectthat he had to do?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Not quite.
No, I'll give you a clue.
So Richard Donner had doneSuperman the movie, which was
pretty light-hearted and comedic, and then he'd done Lethal
Weapon a little bit after.
So he'd done a light-heartedmovie and then a really sort of
serious, sort of toned movie oh,was it meant to be more serious
?
And it wasn't Exactly right soand it wasn't Exactly right so
he wanted to perform it as alittle bit more of an epic.
(18:13):
Yeah, which actually I probablywould have maybe even preferred
.
Yeah, yeah, well, he definitelywould have.
And the studio Universal Studiowas holding out on the budget
of like they weren't going togive them the budget, unless you
know, it hit a certain sort ofbenchmark in terms of it has to
be suited for kids or something.
Well, yeah, yeah.
(18:34):
So because of that reason,because it was those creative
differences and those challenges, he, he left the project
respectfully and then rob cohentook over and directed a
brighter and lighter and morecomedic sort of fantasy like
tone that was more suited for afamily-friendly sort of audience
.
So two for two is the scoreright now, two to me and two for
you, and there's one questionfor you remaining and one
(18:54):
question for me remaining okay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So my question now there's so many of them and
they're actually all really wellknown, so I'll just get you to
name three of them out of Ithink there's like 12.
So the lead role of bowen wasit was rejected by one famous
actor but also had aconsiderable part was a whole
(19:18):
bunch of other famous actors.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
He named three of them.
Three of them, okay.
So I did read that possiblyLiam Neeson was in the running,
so Liam Neeson was the one whowas offered the role and
rejected it, declined.
Yeah.
So the others in that sort ofvein during this time let's go
with, I mean, sylvester Stallone.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
No, but close to like there's someone who's close to
that vein.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Not Arnie.
No way, arnie, yep ArnoldSchwarzenegger.
I'm assuming because he playedHercules, and he played Conan as
well.
Yep, and then Christopher Reeve.
Was that one of them who playedSuperman?
Ah, no, no, hmm here's anotherhint.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Okay, you've got a friend in me, tom.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Hanks, tom Hanks, wow , I couldn't imagine him with
that wig on yeah, yep, well,that's three.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So you got three Arnie, liam and Tom.
What were some of the others?
Some of the other ones?
So we had Pierce Brosnan.
I'd see that, kevin.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Bacon Look, I love Kevin Bacon in anything.
Harrison Ford I could also seethat.
Mel Gibson Well, look afterBraveheart.
Probably not, but I could seethat definitely.
And Patrick Swayze, and PatrickSwayze.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
All of them seem okay to me.
All of them seem like, really,and they're all fairly big
actors along with Dennis Quaid.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
It's funny how they had a whole plethora of actors
ready to play or pitched to playBowen.
To me, in my unprofessionalopinion, that kind of screams
like they're throwing a cast netout and whoever will take the
script, they'll take.
You know what I mean.
You know how some people writea screenplay and they're like it
is written specifically for forthis intended person.
I did watch the the making ofthis movie, and the director,
(20:59):
rob cohen, actually said, youknow, when he was talking about
the dragon of draco and thevoice, and he knew that it had
to be an a-list kind of actorand somebody whose voice was
recognizable, he said heconsidered one actor and one
actor only for that, and thatactor was sean, sean Connery.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
So, um, to be fair, all the dragons in all the
series is not quite all, butpretty much like in another,
another, another, two of themovies the dragons voice played
by, like big stars, really, yeah, ben Kingsley is one.
No, he plays.
He plays it in the second movie, mate, and in the third movie.
(21:31):
Third or the fourth movie Ithink it might be the fourth
movie it's played by PatrickStewart.
Oh my gosh, in these low-budgetmovies you'll find that the
voice actors, like the peoplewho do voice acting especially
for dragons, like even in theMerlin TV show, yeah, john Hurt,
john Hurt.
Yeah, these low-budget moviesthey get these really well known
actors that voice the dragons.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
There must be something really appealing to
actors to come in and play sucha majestic creature like a
dragon like you got like comeback for Smough, smough yeah it
just, yeah, it seems like.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
It just seems like a thing where, like creatures that
are voiced by people, it's onlysomeone like sort of famous.
I don't know how many timesPatrick Stewart's voiced
Something.
That is mythological too.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah exactly right, and Sean Connery actually did
say as well this is probably hiseasiest role that he's done
because he didn't have to dohair and makeup.
He sat in a studio deliveredhis lines.
They did do some capturingstuff on him but yeah, pretty
easy payday for him, which isvery appealing for voice actors.
So keep it going in that vein, Ithink, because, yeah, he was
definitely a drawcard for thismovie, dragonheart, and I think
(22:32):
also Dennis Quaid would havebeen a drawcard as well.
Might talk about hisperformance a little bit later
on.
All right, so the current scoreis three to two, with my
question to Brash left to go.
All right, so there are quite afew real-world elements in this
and also some mythologicalelements in this movie of
Dragonheart.
What mythological tales werethe inspiration of some of the
(22:54):
elements in dragon heart, interms of, in particular, bowen
and the knights of the old code?
uh I don't come a lot, surely?
Yep, yep, absolutely so.
It's king arthur and theknights of the round table.
Uh, they even go to sit at hisresting place or his spire.
That's right In the movie.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
That's the Avalon we're going to find is yeah, is
based off it, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
And then you know that awesome scene which tugs on
the heartstrings, where Bowengoes and recites his new oath
and he thinks he's doing itabsolutely alone.
And you know, out of theshadows comes this 25-foot
dragon.
That was completely hidden andhe just absolutely comes and,
just you know, puts the wingover him to shelter him from the
rain, and you know that'sworded as you know, the dragon
(23:39):
hug, I guess you could sayApparently.
That was storyboarded in thescreenplay and there's actually
a novelization as well of thisbook and it said that in that
sort of moment.
That scene was in there too andit sort of plays on that
timeless fairy tale quality andit resonates with those fantasy
fans where it sort of ties it tothe real world.
One thing that I did notice thatalso tied it to the real world,
if you notice what happened atthe very start of the movie,
(24:02):
that it said when the king wasraiding the initial village,
just across the bottom of thescreen, randomly, it just said,
you know, 1934, ad.
Like why do we need to knowthat?
Sure, why not?
Yeah, okay, but yeah, that wasjust another, another sort of
element that tied it into to therealism for people.
But yeah, I really liked that.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
It was that that sort of honor and discovering moral
redemption was central for thoseArthurian legends and that sort
of brought it back into thiswith Bowen's character too well,
I do, like later on, where theystart they bring in in the new,
because I haven't watched themyet, because, yeah, I'm probably
gonna watch them because I'vebeen reading up the synopsis but
one of the movies I'm not sureif it's the second one or the
third one actually brings druidsin which, like Merlin all that
(24:43):
was famously meant like nowbecause called them.
But like, say, if you'vewatched the King Arthur movie
with Clive Owen where Merlin andhis faction are actually like
druids and stuff like that, andeven in the Merlin TV show I
think they were called druidsand stuff like that- yeah, Well,
even Aynan's mother sort of hasa connection to dragons in this
(25:05):
movie and you can see she's gotlike some accoutrement and
various different sort ofsymbology of dragons in her
space at the start.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So you can kind of tell of symbology of dragons in
her space at the start.
So you can kind of tell andDraco also mentions the Kelts
are people who believed in thedragons and people that sort of
held their kind in esteem.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, and druids are a big thing in there.
And yeah, druids are very sortof.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Celtic in nature and origin too.
So yeah, one thing I'm veryworried about with those sequels
because I'm interested inwatching them too, having never
watched them before is I don'twant them to go too mystical,
because I kind of like the, therealism nature of these movies
as much as dragons aren't quotearen't real yeah, I understand
in saying like there's druids, Idon't really suspect it being
(25:43):
much of like too magic involved,though I believe the one with
the druids in there, the evilking curses the dragon, there's
curses at least well, thosecurses at least.
Well, I guess in this one, youknow we say it's grounded, but
you know a dragon shares a heartwith a man and brings him back
to life.
So that's kind of you know, alittle bit of magical sort of
you know who do magicianhospital stuff in there too.
So all right.
(26:04):
So with that, I all yeah.
So we're all tied up, whichmeans that the next time we do
the fandom fact face off, wewill be.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
So no more clues, no more clues, yeah, no more clues
all right, if we're gonna do it,give a clue maybe to make it so
easy.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
All right, let's move on to our set secrets segment.
All right, the set secretssegment, which is hard to say,
is where hosts take a lookbehind the scenes of our focus
movie to give you all theinformation on what went right
and what went wrong and what wasinteresting about the way that
the movie was made.
This is where we kind of lookat some behind the scenes and
some technical aspects of themovie.
(26:41):
So you guys can, you know, tellsome facts to all your friends
about the movies that you loveto see.
So this time, brash, Ispecifically want to kind of
talk about the revolution thatwas dragon bringing Draco to
life and bringing Draco to thescreen.
So when we're talking aboutthis, it was actually the first
time that a fully CGI characterwas on screen.
(27:03):
How do you think the CGI heldup?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
To be honest, I didn't mind it, like I've seen
movies nowadays that are worse.
Absolutely 100%.
I fully agree.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I've seen movies nowadays that are worse,
absolutely.
A hundred percent.
I fully agree.
And you know, when this scriptwas initially pitched, when it
was first created, they thoughtit was amazing story, fully
heartfelt, great characters,good relationship between dragon
and you know night.
The only thing that held a lotof people back from jumping onto
it was obviously the technologyhadn't been invented to fully
realize that dragon character ina meaningful and very visual
(27:31):
kind of way.
So they were actually doingthings in this movie using
technology that hadn't reallybeen invented yet, and even
things like face mapping.
So when you're looking at Dracoand he's doing some very
expressive scenes with eyebrowsand lip syncing and the movement
of his tongue and the movementof his jaw and things while he's
speaking, it's actually thefirst time that that's ever been
done and those motions andmovements were modeled off of
(27:54):
Sir Sean Connery himself.
But the amazing part for me wasthat they also had to be all
done manually on the computer.
So they actually had tophysically move the eyebrow
muscle and they had to move thelips to match the words, because
the dots that they'd put onpeople's faces to do face
mapping that technology hadn'tbeen invented yet.
Yeah, yeah.
(28:15):
So they used this softwarecalled Elias Power and they
really tried to focus on reallife textures and the structure
of his body, and the mostamazing part for me, though, was
that facial muscle andexpression when he would be
talking, and making him almostlike a human kind of character,
(28:36):
because I think that if you weregoing to portray a relationship
between Bowen and a dragon, himbeing a dragon slayer, if the
dragon was too monstrous, theaudience wouldn't be able to
connect as well as they did.
That being coupled with thefact that the dragon's voice is
Sean Connery, who is, you know,very honorable His Scottish
heritage plays well into thelegendary mythos of dragons.
He sounds like he belongs inthe part and the way that he can
(29:00):
convey anger, but also gravityand compassion.
He does an amazing performance,I think, in this, and it's
mirrored on Draco's face very,very well.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So, for me, it's a double-edged sword, because I
don't know if we're going totalk about this later, but for
me the story wasn't quite how Iremembered it, Mm-hmm.
So there was parts there likespoiler alert, when the female
dragon's killed and Bowen tellsDraco that ah, that was me, and
Draco gets upset about it, andthen two seconds later he's like
(29:32):
hey, let's be friends.
But like that initial anger andthe facial expressions coming
from Draco Sean Conner, like isjust like you feel it like
reverberate through your bodywhen you like, you feel like
you're in trouble.
Almost it's like damn.
I'd hate for Sean Connery to beangry at me.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, you can see it as well, because they use that
downward facing shot, so youfeel powerless as he is like
talking and roaring down to youshot.
So you feel powerless as he islike talking and roaring down to
you.
But also the way that theyanimate his eyebrows, and you
know the expression on his jawas he does that as well.
You know, using those earlysculpting and 3d modelings.
Yeah, I thought it was reallysort of awesome how they could
portray so many emotions,because it would have taken so
(30:13):
many, oh, so long, so many hoursof manpower.
Yeah, that's probably why it'sso expensive, though.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Absolutely yeah, and that's why it still is so
expensive.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, and I think you know, even in moments in the
movie where he was being likesarcastic for example, where
they're sitting by the campfireand Bowen talks about his trauma
with Draco and he says, youknow, a long time ago there was
a dragon he's like why do youhate us so much?
And he says, well, long timeago a dragon gave his heart to
my friend iron and poisoned himbasically and corrupted him and
(30:41):
drake, who got really angry andreactive and then he pulled it
back and you can see all ofthose emotions on this dragon's
face.
And you know, in this day andage when you see that kind of
thing we kind of take it forgranted.
But this was the first timepeople saw on screen, on camera,
an actual, imaginary creaturedoing those kinds of things and
reacting in those kinds of ways.
Another scene that I reallylike that shows a lot of emotion
(31:02):
and loyalty from sean conneryis like the absolute charisma
that he shows when he meets caraand she's sitting on the rocks
and he's singing her a song
Speaker 2 (31:10):
and then you know, you see, that sean connery bond
kind of like, that kind of likeseemed like, like I wouldn't be
surprised if that was ablib fromsean doing that.
Yep, yep, I would not besurprised as well that like
because we, when there's asinging to it on the rock, I'm
like drake actually be doingthat with serenading a few of
the song, and then I'm like thatjust seems like something sean
(31:32):
connery would do.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, I think, for that part at least, they would
have probably been trying toplay on that, that mythological
element where dragons are reallyenamored by maidens, yeah, uh,
and that sort of uh connectionthrough that.
But what I really loved aboutthat sort of aspect was I I read
through the um, through some ofthe articles that were created
at the time, and the thedirector, rob cohen, during post
(31:55):
production he still had 13months of post-production after
filming Wrapped because heobviously had so much work to do
with CGI.
So he actually went to work onanother movie called Daylight,
which starred Sylvester Stallone, and he would actually
satellite conference call intohis animators in Los Angeles
which was also revolutionary atthe time and he would try to
talk them through how he wantedthem to animate the scene and he
(32:18):
found it really difficult to do.
So what he did was he hired aneditor and he got that editor to
go through like 40 of SeanConnery's films and he said what
I want you to do is find allthe times that there is a close
up on Sean's face and edit thoselittle clips out.
So the editor did that and hesaid OK, now that you've done
that, put all of these clipsinto groups where Sean is happy,
he's angry, whether he issurprised, whether he's being
(32:41):
suave, put them all together aslittle sort of clips and videos.
So then when he would talk tohis animators and he said, okay,
in this scene Draco is going tobe angry, so they'd pull out
the angry group of clips andthey'd play those clips and then
they could use Sean Connery'sface to actually map how Draco
would look in those kinds ofemotions.
So I think from listening to RobCohen talk about that, this was
like his baby, his film that hewas so impassioned with and I
(33:04):
think that sort of shows on thescreen in terms of how much care
was taken in Draco and how muchemotional resonance the story
has as well.
But I think without hisdedication it definitely would
have.
He knew at the time as well hewas working on a revolutionary
piece of cinema.
Another really awesome thingabout the production of this
movie in terms of draco was alot of the actors were actually
(33:25):
performing against cutouts andsilhouette heads and two tennis
balls that look like eyes.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
You can imagine how difficult that would be and you
hear that in any movie wherethey've had to, that, where
they're like that's the mostdifficult part is trying to like
act against something that'snot there and try and portray
the emotions when you're justlooking at nothing that's
exactly it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, because some of the scenes, especially with
dennis quaid and bow and he getsa bad rap for his acting
sometimes, but he has to deliversome of the most emotional
scenes in this to like twotennis balls and sometimes that
can be extremely difficult forhim to do and he also said he
found it pretty difficult aswell.
I think that, um, in terms ofhow dragons have been animated
(34:06):
from here on out, likedragonheart was the first cgi
creature that had that facialexpressions and those
personalities.
When we're looking at othersort of dragons in motion
capture we talked earlier aboutsmalg, benedict cumberbatch did
the same thing, but I think hisphysical performance could be
mapped and so could his facialexpression.
So you know?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, because he's behind the scenes of that one.
He's got the full suit on andeverything like that and he's
fully like, like moving his headand everything around, like
he's like a snake and dragon.
I always look at that out ofcontext.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah, yeah, and he just looks like he's so into it.
One thing that this film doesget a little bit of a criticism
towards, in terms of why thisCGI sort of can look a little
bit here and there at points, isone way that CGI creatures look
really at home in theirenvironment is the lighting and
the shadowing techniques thatthey do to blend them in, and
(34:56):
sometimes I don't think thathits quite right with Draco and
I think the CGI and the lightingtechniques that they do to
blend them in, and sometimes Idon't think that hits quite
right with Draco and I think theCGI and the lighting techniques
that they used.
They just weren't consistentand there was no technology to
assist them in the time and inthat way, so that blending
didn't really happen.
So you know the the people thatwere doing it could only do
what they could do with thetechnology they had at the time.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, which, like if this movie was to be made
nowadays, like it'd probably besomething pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, I think, especially if as much care was
taken to animate the dragon asthey did in this one, because
you knew that that was the pullfor the movie.
You know there was thosesweeping shots that sort of
combined with the CGI thatreally sort of helped it get
pushed across.
But also landing that actor ofSean Connery to do that voice
role was definitely a big pushtoo.
But this was a CGI pioneer, youknow, and we're probably going
(35:46):
to go into it with our devil'savocado question coming up.
But there was some CGI and someelements that sort of came
before this that very muchinfluenced it in the way of
Jurassic Park.
But then after this, you know,years later, we have Reign of
Fire.
Have you seen Reign of Fire,Brash?
Yes, I have seen Reign of Fire,I do like Reign of Fire and that
one has like a better lookingdragon, but I think it's like
(36:07):
less of a less personalityobviously through that.
It's just like a monstrous kindof dragon and then it
culminates in Smaug and theHobbit in 2013.
But I'm going to give you ourdevil's avocados question now,
and it has to do with jurassicpark.
you ready yeah, here we go.
All right, our devil's avocadoquestion segment is where hosts
ask us, ask a series ofquestions designed to analyze
(36:29):
alternate aspects of the film orthe media.
This may be an alternate ending, a casting choice, it could be
a story beat altogether or abrand new thing altogether.
So today, brash what I wantyour opinion on, and our devil's
avocado question is, uh,jurassic park, looking back at
that, that was made in 1993,this was made in 1996.
Which animation do you think isbetter?
Jurassic park?
(36:49):
I have to say, yeah, a lot ofpeople mirror your opinion.
Jurassic park holds up todayand is considered to be like a
work of art.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah, um, I suppose with with Jurassic Park, though
they've used full onanimatronics.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Absolutely, and that's, yeah, that's the thing
we kind of wanted to get intohere.
You know, jurassic Parks, they,they, they blended, they did a
blended approach.
So the question being you know,why is Jurassic Park so
celebrated as having CGI thatholds up today, while Dragon is
often looked at by some and seenas a clunky sort of
representation of CGI?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, I think the problem is it being a dragon.
It'd be hard to do ananimatronic of a dragon that can
fly and all the rest of it.
Just trying to make that happenjust boggles my mind for that
time period, whereas when Bolinwas in Draco's mouth, that scene
(37:41):
there I reckon that's probablythe best scene involving the
dragon and his look.
For me, all the rest of them,like you can tell, cgi.
But it wasn't too bad, but itwas still old school CGI.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, and I think a dragon character interacting
with human characters orinteracting with the environment
, that's the hardest thing to do.
School CGI, yeah, and I think adragon character interacting
with human characters orinteracting with the environment
, that's the hardest thing to doin CGI nowadays.
Doing it with those sort ofrough technology, that's
probably even harder.
So the way that they were ableto incorporate Bowen into some
of those scenes with Draco wasreally, really awesome.
Just some statistics I'vepulled up.
(38:17):
With Jurassic Park in 1993,they did blend CGI with the
animat really, really awesome.
Just some statistics I'vepulled up.
With Jurassic Park in 1993, theydid blend CGI with the
animatronics, like you said, andthat realism really sort of
sticks out.
The T-Rexes and theVelociraptors were like a new
standard in photorealism andlighting integration.
The way that they blendedshadows was really good there.
But there's only six minutes ofCGI in that whole movie and you
can probably tell which onesthey are like in dragon heart
(38:38):
there.
I think what the the producersaid was there was 26 or 23
minutes worth of draco screentime, or 218 scenes that they
had to animate, which is waymore than six minutes, and they
didn't have the the benefit ofrelying on animatronics as well,
to really ground the charactersin in that sort of environment,
which was hard.
When you're looking at this cgiyou did say before, you reckon
(38:58):
it sort of holds up becauseyou've seen Worse, worse,
absolutely, and I kind of I tendto agree.
You can definitely look at itand you can tell it's old.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, and I don't think doing animatronic and CGI
would have worked for Draco,because with Jurassic Park you
look at the dinosaurs there's noreal interaction between them
and humans except them eatingthem.
Yep, that's absolutely correct.
So there's no, whereas with adragon in this case, in
(39:28):
Dragonheart, the dragon canspeak, it talks to the other
characters.
So it has to have that sort ofyou have to be able to see that
sort of the emotions of the howit's speaking on its face.
Yeah, it'd be hard to do thatwith an animatronic without it
looking too mechanical,mechanical.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, yeah, I 100% agree, because like with the
velociraptors.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
you see them like, you see the eyes of
velociraptors and you see themgo from like being like open
eyed to and narrowing slightly,but then that's like the extent
of what they can do, like sortof just open, like shutters, and
it's like and like for just adinosaur that's trying to kill
the humans.
That's fine because you don'tneed to pay too close attention
to its face, whereas whenDraco's trying to convey emotion
(40:12):
, talking to bone or somethinglike that, if you've got like
just a face of an animatronicface of a dragon, where
everything's sort of like moving, yeah, the muscles Mechanically
, it's sort of like you'vereally got like, especially back
in the nineties.
You've only got, you only havecertain sort of movements that
can take and it wouldn't be ableto portray the emotions that
(40:35):
are needed for like, especiallysomething as like this movie,
where it has has its likesadness and its anger and all
that, all the different kinds ofemotions that this movie brings
out or it's trying to bring outin you.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
yeah, it'd be hard to do that.
Yeah, and I I actually thinkthat the emotionality of this
movie is its central core andthat's why it's stuck with with
us and so many of our threadsand and and Instagram community
members as kids, because weremember how the movie felt.
We don't remember when we wentin there and we looked at all
the technical aspects and howgreat the story was, but we
remember how the movie felt whenwe were actually watching it.
(41:11):
And the reason I felt soconnected to this movie was
because of the relationshipbetween Bowen and Draco, which I
don't think would have workedif that character of Draco was
animatronic.
And yeah, we've got Ace herechewing on his foot, setting us
both off, but what a happy boyhe is.
So, yeah, I actually think thatJurassic Park CGI, as you said,
(41:34):
is better as well and it holdsup better.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, better for its purpose, Whereas if they were
trying to do welcome back, Idon't know if you've seen that
oh, we're back, we're back, oh,we're back, yeah, yeah, yeah,
we're back.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
That's the 2d animated one.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's adeep cut I have it somewhere in
there.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Um, anyway, if they were to do something similar to
that, they wouldn't be able touse animatronics for that.
Yes, yes, I agree, because theyturn the deuce pierce and
dinosaurs.
They'd be initially be able todo it when they originally get
captured or when they revertback, but when they get turned
into happy fun going dinosaurs,they wouldn't be able to do that
with animatronics, exactlyright.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I think you know the CGI character animation in a
leading role and it also pushedthe capabilities of voice acting
and also Planet of the Apes,where Andy Serkis is the king of
motion capture, or even Lord ofthe Rings or anything like that
.
If you know, rob Cohen and histeam didn't push the envelope in
this movie to really see ifthey could get that emotional
sort of character out.
So you know, I have heard andlistened to a lot of people
(42:36):
talking about this movie sayingthat the CGI and the visual
effects are absolutely shite.
But I think you know, at thetime it had its place.
I think it definitely.
You know it's hard to be thefirst of anything.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
And I think this one did a pretty good job of it.
All.
Right, ladies and gentlemen,boys and girls, that ends our
first part of our Dragonheartseries.
Now we're going to be doingpart two and that will air for
you guys in a couple of days, or, if you're listening to this a
little bit later, then you'llprobably see it in the list
after this one.
In that episode, we're going tobe looking at our popcorn
(43:08):
perspectives, where Brash and Ilook at the characters of Bowen
and also Aynan in depth.
We're also then going to belooking at our real deal
analysis score and we're goingto be also giving our most
valuable takeaways from themovie as well.
So a bit of a deep analysiscoming for you in part two.
We want to thank you guys fortuning into part one and
remember, guys, it is reallyhelpful for podcasters.
If you share this episode witha friend, that's the best thing
(43:30):
that you can do.
For podcasters like us, word ofmouth does wonders.
And if you are interested inthe show notes below, you'll
definitely see our threads, ourInstagram and our Reddit
communities, and we will also beanswering our emails as well.
So if you have a longer formquestion, definitely email us,
which our address isfandomportals at gmailcom.
All right, thank you guys, andwe'll see you in part two.
(43:51):
Bye, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!