Weirdhouse Cinema: The Flight of Dragons

Only science and logic can save us from dark magic and dragons! In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and guest co-host Seth discuss the 1982 Rankin and Bass animated film "The Flight of Dragons," featuring the voice talents of John Ritter and James Earl Jones.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
is Rob Lamb and I'm Seth Nicholas Johnson. Yeah, Joe
is still out on parental leaves, so Seth is joining
me once again, and we're going to be discussing a

(00:23):
wonderful slice of early nineteen eighties animation. We're gonna be
talking about twos, the Flight of Dragons from Ranking and Bass. Seth,
what's your history with this film? So I assume this
was pretty common in the eighties and nineties when I
was a child, But my family had a large collection
of VHS tapes that you know, contained movies that were

(00:45):
recorded off of television, especially Gosh. I think ever since
the beginning of television, a big way to like kind
of fill that time was just to play old movies.
And then ultimately someone was like, hey, what if we
make new movies for television. It's like wow even more,
you know. So Yeah, I think most parents when they
had when they got their first VCR, they just taped

(01:07):
movies off of television perpetually, and they just had these
amassed collections of two or three movies on a single
blank VHS cassette and um. Back when this first premiered
on television in six I presume one of my parents
recorded it. And then as I got older and I
was like, you know, going through this, you know, collection

(01:27):
of black spine tapes with no description other than maybe
a few hastily scribbled words on on on on like
a label, I was just seeing, what are these things?
And one of them that I came across was the
Flight of Dragons, and uh, it really fascinated me as
a child. I'm not sure if I could really articulate
as a child what really made me, you know, uh
gravitate towards it. But now I was an adult, I

(01:49):
can go like, wow, you know, this animation is actually
really complex and really special and really compelling. Um you know,
the stories actually really kind of deep but also shallow
enough for a child to understand, and it's got a
nice kind of like you know balance there, and uh yeah,
I just watched it perpetually as a child, and then ultimately,
as we shifted into the DVD world, I bought a

(02:10):
new DVD copy from the Warner Archives and I still
watch it pretty regularly, but mostly honestly for its visuals.
Its visuals are really pretty stunning in places. Yeah, this
this one is. It's a real joy to watch. I
had not only had I never seen this before. It
was really off my radar for most of my life.
I don't know what was I don't remember exactly what

(02:32):
I was going on in X, but I know that
we were watching TV. So I'm not sure how I
missed this one, because there are certainly plenty of other
films from the Rank and Bess catalog that have an
important place in my television and film childhood, but this
is one that I don't think I heard of until

(02:53):
I guess many years ago. I think Ben Bolan of
stuff they don't want you to know and ridiculous history
casually mentioned to me once. He's like, do you remember
a film called The Flight of Dragons and uh, and
he gave me some brief description of it. I was like, oh, no,
I haven't heard of that, but that sounds interesting. And
then more recently, I knew that you were going to
be guest host in a couple of episodes of Weird House.

(03:14):
So I started looking around in various animated features from
this time period and I ran across that title again.
And watched. I don't think I watched a trailer, but
I watched some segment from it and I was instantly interested. No,
it's it's a it's a fascinating thing, and I think
it's got something to do with, um, the structure of

(03:37):
replaying things on television when we were younger, because like,
you know, something like another Rank and Ambass classic, like
a Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer, there's a built in
structure for that. Every every Christmas season you play it again,
and you know, people kind of get like an attachment
to it. The uh, late seventies early eighties did have
this kind of like fantasy boom and other things really happened.

(03:58):
Like I'm going off top of my head here, but
in eighties six, I believe the other two big animated
features that came out that year, This might have been
eighty two, either way, the year this premiered one way
or the other. I looked this up. It was the
same year as Secretive Nim and The Last Unicorn. Those
were like the three big features that year, and I
was like, oh wow, Like that really was like a

(04:20):
vibe at that time because all three of those they
are beloved but they're also like cult favorites like they are.
None of them are mainstream, but they are all well
known fantasy things. So yeah, I just think it was
a weird time for UM latching onto the public consciousness
and trying to capitalize upon high fantasy as mainstream entertainment

(04:40):
that maybe it wasn't quite as successful as they were
hoping it would be, you know, with as a moneymaker. Yeah,
and I'm glad you mentioned those films in particular, because,
on one hand, even if you haven't seen The Flight
of Dragons and and I had not, it's easy to
enter into it if you've seen certainly other rank and
bass animated features from this iron period, but even just

(05:01):
sort of stuff that was also populating the waters of
of major animated fantasy at the time, and then specifically
mentioning The Secretive Nim and The Last Unicorn, both again
vote beloved films with a very strong following. I could
sit down and watch either of them. However, I do

(05:21):
feel like both of those films have their own issues
as well. Um, depending on where you're coming from, Like
from for me, I absolutely love like the first half
of The Last Unicorn, and then it starts kind of
a drag for me. Um, I think that's that's perhaps
a element of fantasy that that that perhaps some I

(05:43):
don't want to call it lazy, but I do feel
like there's like a pattern to it where it's like
set up the interesting world for the first half and
then just let it play out for the second half.
And I think actually that's part of this this film
as well, which which we'll get into. Yeah, though this
one I think does pick back up in a major way.
But yeah, there is sort of that that lag period
perhaps here as well. Uh secret and him. I'll just

(06:05):
say real quick, I never had this particular attachment, but
I know that the source material does not have rat
wizards in it. I think they added all of that
for the film, and that's the stuff I love the most.
So I am certainly not offended by it, but I
could understand where there would be some weirdness, uh there
for viewers who had a stronger attachment to the source material.

(06:27):
Interesting alright, So yes, this is a film that I
believe debuted in the UK directed video in two and
in Night six it aired as an ABC movie special.
It was the ABC movie Well, I don't know if
it was ABC movie of the Week, but it was
an ABC movie special, and I think we're going to
play the TV spot for that in just a second.

(06:49):
But first of all, the elevator pitch. What's your elevator
pitch for this flick? Here? Seth straightforward, I would say,
an animated Dungeons and Dragons campaign about science for is magic. Yes,
I think that's good. It is a fantasy adventure that
kind of sneaks a fair amount of pro science propaganda

(07:09):
into it, but in a way that I absolutely love.
And I should also note I'll keep coming back to this,
but when I watched it for the first time, I
also got my son to watch it with me. It
was my wife was was out that evening, so we
we had the TV to ourselves, and I said, okay,
let's watch this dragon show together. Um, And so he
ended up really enjoying it as well, and certainly was

(07:31):
on board for all of the scientific messaging. Nice. All right, Well,
let's go ahead and listen to that trailer. Well, TV
spot audio, and I believe this is a long time
ABC announcer Scott Vincent doing the narration to night an
ABC premier presentation somewhere in another time in another place

(08:00):
there's a realm of magic. You will never inherit mind
to me, Well, wizards rule, we want none of your
dark magic were good bat Will Voices of evil an
enchanted kingdom from a mystical tale of unforgettable adventure, The

(08:21):
Flight of Dragons next, I love it. I'm a sucker
for a good TV spot like that most definitely. Now,
I would say word of warning if you're if you're
out there and you're interested, and then you go and
look at a listing for this on wherever you get
your your your films, you may find that the box
art or the thumbnail for this movie looks really bad.

(08:43):
And I just want to to assure you that that
the quality of the picture is not entirely represented by
that that very cartoony image. Not only is the art
style completely wrong, like the characters barely even look like
the characters they are supposed to represents. Like, um, the
main character Peter almost looks like the page master, you know.
Like it's just it's that's not the art style, that's

(09:07):
not from the film. That's someone trying to cartoonify it
and sell it to a younger market. I presume I
don't know, but unsuccessful. Yeah, wait until we've talked a
little bit about the some of the other films that
Ranking and Bass were putting out of the time. Wait
until we've we've talked about the source material here, because
I think that does a better job of setting the
stage and preparing your expectations for what the film is

(09:30):
like visually. And uh and speaking of yes, where can
you get this film? I think it's pretty widely available
right now. Certainly you can get it on on DVD
or Blu ray from the w B collection, and then
you can you can rent orse or buy it digitally
wherever you get your films online. All right, Well, let's
start with the really the most obvious point that we've

(09:50):
already hinted at several times. This is a Ranking and
Bass joint. I love Ranking in Bass. I own so
many Ranking and Bass films, like like we've mentioned in
a previous I love stop motion and they did a
lot of stop motions, so I own a lot of
Ranking at Bass. Yeah, I feel like it's it's hard
to not have a connection to something they put they produced,

(10:12):
something that they had a hand in. If you grew
up with access to a TV for a number of decades.
So Ranking and Bass we're talking about author Ranking Jr.
Who lived and Jules Bass who lived ninety five through two.
They both have director and producer credits on this. They

(10:34):
founded the company known as Videocraft International in nineteen sixty
that went on to become Ranking Bass Productions, Inc. They
were known, of course, for all those holiday films, many
of which were uh quote unquote any magic. I believe
that was their term for the stop motion they were using. Yeah,
it was because they they weren't clay, so they couldn't

(10:54):
use the Will Vinton phrase uh claymation. And they also
weren't um Let's see who was it someone someone uh
coined the term puppet too, and I think that was
the guy that invented gumby. But yeah, everyone had to
have their own individual name for what they were calling
stop motion at the time. And yeah, they used ani magic.

(11:15):
You know why they why they were the revulsion to
stop motion? Was it just like stop motion like we
can't that just sounds so negative, it's it's too much
of an oxymoron. The people just won't understand. But anyway,
there stop motion productions include the likes of Rudolph the
Red Nose Reindeer, which I think many, many, many of
you are familiar with, maybe most of you are familiar with,

(11:37):
but also a number of lesser known stop motion films.
There's some Like looking at the list of them, some
are ones that I vaguely remember catching part of on
TV and maybe even as a child, being like, I
don't think this one's for me. And then some I'd
never heard of, like like this particular one, the Life
and Adventures of Santa Claus. I love that one. Um, yeah,

(11:59):
this was one of the ones that you're possibly going
to do for today's episode. High Fantasy, written by L.
Frank Baum. Is that his name? The Wizard of Oz guy? Right? Yeah?
And oh my gosh. High Fantasy about a bunch of
demigods debating amongst one another whether or not to make
the human man Santa Claus immortal for all the good
deeds he's done in his life. Fascinating, really fascinating, really beautiful.

(12:23):
You got to watch it if you're interested in very
strange holiday movies. There does seem to be an entire
genre of holiday films where folks decide to flesh out
the Santa Claus mythology. Sometimes too great results. Other times
to kind of you get into kind of weird areas
when you have to build all this like support structures
to hold this idea up, especially I think as a youth,

(12:47):
when you watch these and it's not like, you know,
they're all working from the same blueprint. So you have
let's say five or six different origin tales for Santa
Claus that never really match up. They don't really kind
of lay over one another, so it just muddles the whole,
the whole, the whole idea. Yeah, and they all end
up feeling a little bit like heresy, especially if you're

(13:08):
still if you're still a believer in Santa or you
still were holding onto some of those beliefs, Um, you're
gonna look at something like then be like, I don't
know about this, um this this line of faith. I
think they've perhaps they've perhaps lost track of themselves for sure. Now.
Ranking and Bass were also responsible for some beloved non
holiday animated films of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, which

(13:30):
I think these probably deserve more of our attention here,
uh at least for this film. These include the likes
of h and Stop Me If you have thoughts on
on some of these here Seth but Willie McBean and
his Magic Machine from No thoughts on that one. Okay,
this this next one I've only seen parts of and

(13:51):
i've every year at Halloween. I'm tempted to play it
in full. But Mad Monster Party question mark from seven.
That one is love it. I love that one dearly. Um,
It's a bit dated at this point, but I love it,
love it, love it. I mean it's it's a bunch
of stop motion monsters throwing a party. It's it's it's
a really good time. The next one is one of

(14:12):
my personal favorites and definitely a film I grew up with.
Ninety seven's The Hobbit. Yeah, this one, The Hobbits and
the follow up Return of the King. I still to
this day get confused with the Ralph backshe uh, you know,
token adaptations, very confusing. They all kind of blend together
in my head. Um, I'm not really sure how to

(14:33):
to parse them apart. Yeah, yeah, It's The Hobbit. Is
is a film that I know as a as a child,
I loved, and then later on I when I was
reading and rereading the novels for the first time, I
had a strong dislike for them because I didn't want
to picture the characters as they appeared in the in

(14:54):
the animated film while I was reading it. But then
I've subsequently come back around and really really embrace the Hobbit.
I think it's I think it's tremendous. John Houston, I
think is my Gandalf. As much as I love Ian McKellen,
I've got to go with John Houston for my Gandalf.
And also it's just the pacing in seventy the Hobbit

(15:17):
is just so good, like they managed to take one
book make one film out of it. Yes, they cut
out some some great stuff to do it, but you
end up with a very watchable film and you're in
and out in seventy eight minutes. It also feels good
that UM. I feel like the material it adapted much
smoother than it did in the Um Jackson films, because

(15:38):
it went from this is a short children's book too,
this is a short children's film. It was a one
to one. It was very easy. There there was no flourish,
no no no guilding the lily like they did on
the The Jackson Wage, which I enjoyed a certain extent.
I think they're fine, they're just not as good as
obviously the other trilogy. They're they're they're fun as well.
I don't dislike those and and certainly when you get

(16:00):
to the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings you
have to give a lot of Lord of Rings itself.
You have to give a lot of credit to to
Peter Jackson. I mean, those are are are pretty terrific films.
On the other hand, the animated attempts to bring that
trilogy to the screen, we're a little a little rougher
around the edges. You have the Ralph backsheet film, and
then of course Ranking and Bass come back around and

(16:22):
finish what back she started with the Return of the King,
which I also remember enjoying. It also has has some
nice Orc songs in it, something that I think has
largely been been lacking. I don't remember if the Orcs
sang at all in the Peter Jackson films, but I
haven't seen all the cuts all right. On top of those,
we also have the Last Unicorn from eighty two, which
we already mentioned, certainly a classic great vocal performances in

(16:45):
that some for my money, terrific music by America. Uh,
there at least a couple of tracks in there that
that I will absolutely go out of my way to
listen to on their own every now and then. That
was also an element of the early eighties late seventies
animation was they worked in popular musicians. I think form
like the first time and uh, I think we're better

(17:08):
for it. Well, we'll have a little theme song by
by a popular musician later for this film. Well, we'll
talk about that later. On the TV end of the spectrum.
There was also ThunderCats and silver Hawks. Silver Hawks it
was basically ThunderCats remixed the same basic concept but in
space and instead of cat people, they were like metal

(17:29):
bird people, and instead of mom Ra you had Monstar
the space crime Boss. Yeah, but I definitely remember watching
those shows. Rankin and Bass also had their hands in
some mostly live action films that are also worth noting.
One is V seven The Last Dinosaur, which is Japanese
co production, and then there's The Bermuda Depths. This is

(17:51):
another Japanese co production that featured a young Carl Weathers.
Burrow Lives and I believe a giant psychic sea turtle.
Joe has seen this and I have not, but he
tells me that it's amazing. It sounds amazing. I haven't
seen it either. Now one one more quick note about
the animation here. As with other as with various other
Rank and Bass productions, you'll note a number of Japanese

(18:12):
animators and filmmakers credited. They worked with a company called
top Craft on this one, a Japanese animation studio that
did hand drawn animations on this picture. Top Craft went
on to make one of the greatest animated films of
all time, Miyazaki's Nasaka of the Valley of the Wind.
And when top Craft folded, Miyazaki and others formed studio
Ghibli And you can tell you can tell there there

(18:33):
are a number of shots in this film that you
may want to like just because it looks dated, because
it looks very seventies. Might just want to dismiss the
whole thing and be like, oh, that's that's old and no, no, no,
this isn't good. But no, they're there. Um multiple shots
that when you look at them, you're like, oh, they
weren't lazy. They weren't They went to extremes to make

(18:55):
this shot successful. Um one for example that will come
up later. We have a wizard and our protagonist Peter,
both sitting on a die with a pair of dice,
each of them sitting on one, and they rock it
up into the air like a little rocket ship and
spin while they're doing it, and we see their bodies
full three sixty degrees from from going or because they're

(19:17):
spinning in a circle and going up from beneath us
two above us. And when I was watching that recently
as an adult who has, you know, made a career
in animation, I go, oh, no, that is so much
time like that. That is weeks, weeks and weeks for
that one very quick shot. And I was like, oh,
they they weren't being lazy, you know, there were there

(19:38):
were a lot of ways to do that shot lazy
and they didn't do it. Do you think something like
that is a case when you're looking at, especially a
collaboration like this co production. Is that a case where
the animators are hungry to do something like cool and
and and maybe that requires more work or is it
a situation where others are like, no, this is what
we need, this is the shot we need, make it happen.

(19:59):
I think it both. I think, um, someone who's a
storyboard artist, which would originally put that in because they
think it would look cool. And then when it gets
hand handed off to the animation director or to the animators,
they would look at it and go, oh, no, this
this is gonna take a lot. And then they would go, yeah,
but it would be pretty cool. They're like, yeah, that
would be pretty cool. All right, do we have time
for this? Do we have the money for this? Okay, Okay,

(20:19):
let's do it. Let's do it. So so I think it.
I think it's a combination of both, all right. Getting
into the writing on this one real quick. Romeo Muller
who was a long time ranking bass writer, he was

(20:40):
a writer on this. There's also Jeffrey Walker that is
credited with writing additional material. I'm not exactly sure what
the additional material was, but they they were an actor
and writer as well. Now getting into the source material here,
they are really a couple of things. The main one, uh,
seems to be this book The Flight of Dragons by
Peter Dickinson who lived ninety seven through and illustrated by

(21:03):
Wayne Anderson who was born in nineteen six. And I
believe as if this recording is still very much alive.
I actually got a copy of this book. You can
pick it up used for relatively cheap, I mean basically
very little more than it would have cost fresh off
the shelf back when it came out. But this was
a nineteen seventy nine book. Uh, pick it up if

(21:26):
you were at all interested in this topic. I'll talk
more about it in a bit. But of these two individuals,
Dickinson was an English children's author of numerous books, including
Tolku from nineteen seventy nine and City of Gold from
nineteen eighty. Anderson is a splendid illustrator and artist whose
work has shown up just all over the place. Has
a very distinctive style, which you can see if you

(21:48):
go to his website. It's a Wayne Anderson art dot com.
And I know I had previously run into some of
his dragon illustrations because they were used or reused in
the Time Life Enchanted World books, I believe, specifically in
their Dragons book. So a lot of the some of
the cooler elements and the science the elements and also
the monster science of the dragons is all right out

(22:11):
of this book. And there's even more of it, Like
there's a stuff about dragon blood and the chemical composition
of dragon blood. So I haven't had a time to
just devour it all, but it's it's a really cool book. Uh,
definitely worth picking up, you know. It's it's one of
these where it's it's not real history, it's not real
science of dragons, but it is. It is all sort
of speculative science of dragons, and I love it. I

(22:34):
mean that's always fun stuff. I mean, that's stuff you
and Joe have done on this podcast often, which is,
here's something unexplainable, let's explain it. Let's find a way
to make it work. Yeah, there's a theory of dragonflight
in this that Will will describe when we get into
the plot. And it's it's amazing. I never thought of
it before. My son was very amused by it. It's
great Now. In addition to this, because this is not

(22:56):
a really a narrative book, this is more of a
here's the world of dragons and how it works book.
Apparently some story material also came from the book The
Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dixon who lived
two thousand and one, author of the Dragon Night series,
of which I believe this was the first volume the
Child cycle, as well as such novels as The Forever

(23:16):
Man from six. He also wrote a whole bunch of
short stories. All right, let's get into the voice cast
on this picture. It is, as you might expect from
this time period, rather interesting. It's a mix of folks
that might surprise you that they're here at all. And
uh and there are also some just really great voice
voice actors that pop up as well. So first of all,

(23:39):
there's a wizard in this by the name of Carolinas
who's very important. He's essentially our our main good wizard
and he is voiced by Harry Morgan who lived nineteen
fifteen through two thousand and eleven. And I have to
say this bit of casting feels a bit weird but
also totally spot on for late seventies or early eighties casting.

(23:59):
He as an accomplished actor of stage and screen well
before TVs MASH, but MASH is probably where a lot
of people would recognize this guy from. And if you
you hear his voice, he has that very dry voice,
kind of crackley American accent in this in this picture,
then you know exactly who this guy is. He was
also on drag Net. Uh so, yeah, very much a

(24:23):
drag Net cop voice for our our weird nature wizard,
which again feels kind of strange but all right. Um
Morgan was also into High Noon two is the ox
Bow incident in nineteen sixties Inherent the Wind. He was
also just in a ton of TV over the years,
often doing little guest spots, showing up on such shows

(24:43):
as Night Gallery. He was in a segment on Night Gallery,
and he was also on an episode of The Simpsons,
just to name a couple of his many appearances. So
that's our main good wizard, but we also have an
evil wizard, as one tends to have in pictures like this.
This is the wizard Omada On who and Ohmadon is
voiced by James Earl Jones one. This is, of course

(25:06):
the legendary actor of stage, screen, TV, and more legendary
is the voice behind Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise.
He originated the role of Jack Jefferson on Broadway and
The Great White Hope and gave a really electric performance
of that role in the nineteen seventy film adaptation. He's
been in so many things we can't we can't even
begin to list them all, including playing King Joffey in

(25:29):
Coming to America voicing Mufassa in The Lion King. And
there's also no shortage of weirder, smaller roles that he
did as well, and he needed TV work, but he
also pops up in things like grim Prairie Tales from nine.
There's a two monster movie that I was recently looking
at called Blood Tide, where he plays like a kind

(25:50):
of suspicious archaeologist who may have awakened a monster in Greece.
I believe it's the plot. Um. He has a memorable
role in seven s Matuan and the role that this
performance I think mostly made me think of is another
performance from two. He of course played the villainous wizard
cult leader Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian. There's even

(26:13):
a part in this film where he starts saying doom, Doom, doom,
and it definitely um connects the two in my mind. Yes,
I love that part all right. We also have a
kind of befuddled writer character from our world, from the
normal human world, the world of science, who gets sucked
into all of this. This is the character Peter Dickinson. Uh.

(26:36):
And this is yes, the same name as the actual
author of the Flight of Dragon's book, and he's voiced
by John Ritter. John Ritter, of course thousand and three
beloved TV and film actor and made a splash on
the small screen for the sitcom Three's Company, which I
weirdly grew up watching a lot. I think that was

(26:56):
like a show that would be on TV and syndication
and well generally I think while my mom was cooking
dinner and the we the kids would just watch Threees Company.
Did I have no I have no reason in my
mind other than the fact that it was on all
the time. Like I didn't I didn't really care or
even understand about the dynamics of this household. But they

(27:19):
were funny and John Rider in particular, it was kind
of a goofy, cartoony guy, so at least he appealed
to kids in a way. Yeah, it was weird because
like later on I would learn that, oh yeah, this
was like supposedly a risk a kind of TV show,
and it was supposed to be like, you know, breaking
down boundaries, Like here's this guy and he lives with
these two women and they're keeping it a secret from
the landlord. All of that just completely washed over me

(27:40):
as a kid, and you just take it at at
face value, it was like, Oh, yeah, he lives there
with these these two women, and I guess the he
has these goofy, wacky landlords that they just try and
keep out. Yeah. No, he worked on two levels. Um.
In addition to that, he also did a lot of
film though. He did Sling Blade, Problem Child, Bride of Chucky,

(28:01):
and also a lot of TV shows, popping up in
guest spots, usually in episodes of stuff like Buffy, Tales
from the Crypt and News Radio. Of course, we also
have some dragon voices in this. The dragon rog is
voiced by Victor Boueno. Wait a minute, Wait a minute,
I thought was the wolf? Oh yes, Oh, of course
is the wolf. Yes, I know we're getting ahead here. Yes,

(28:23):
a wolf will show up in this and he talks. Uh.
Our ag is voiced by Victor Bueno. Um. This is
the last role for this individual, a longtime TV and
film actor, probably best known for films such as nine
sixty two Is Whatever having to Baby Jane and n
seventies Beneath the Planet of the Apes, in which he
plays one of the mutants. I included an image here

(28:46):
for you, Seth in case you have flashbacks to beneath
the Planet of the Apes. Now, now, was he also
King Tut in the Batman Live Action series or or
am I completely making that up? I think this is true. Yes, Um,
one of the deals that I grabbed shows I think
images from both of these. Um, I think he did
play King Tutt. I've just been forget. Yes, Yes, that

(29:08):
that is him. That is him. A very strange character
in the history of Batman. I believe he was a
college professor who was hit on the head and then
suddenly believed he was King Tuts and then would commit
crimes befitting King Tuts trying to exist in this modern
twentieth century world of ninety six Gotham City. One of

(29:29):
the most beloved Batman villains of all time, right up
there with a Joker, Yeah, right below Egghead. I'm not
really a Batman comics guy, but I do seem to
recall there there have like Batman is never going to end,
and so inevitably creators have come back to some of those, um,
those villains from the Batman TV series and found new

(29:53):
things to do with them. And I think I've read
something about like one where you had a faction that
had these sort of forgotten characters Lie King, Tutt, and Egghead.
I have read it. I have read it. It was
a complete series exclusively based on the nineteen sixty six
Batman television series, as if it continued on after the
television show. And uh no, it's wonderful if if you

(30:14):
like Batman sixty six the TV series, which I do
very much, it's it's fun just to have more adventures
in that camp be world with these characters that never
really got much attention outside of that world. All right.
We also have Briag and Smurgle. These are are these
both dragons? Smurgle definitely is Briag. I think that's the

(30:35):
evil red dragon and Smurgle is like the elderly good dragon.
I believe that's the two. But just like our God,
there's gonna be a lot of like just guttural noises.
That's just mythical creature. Yeah, I guess this is draconic.
This is a dragon language. It all sounds like growling.
But um. Both of these characters were voiced by James Gregory,
who of nineteen eleven through two thousand and two New

(30:57):
York actor. He had a long running role on TV
Barney Miller. He was in sixty two The Manchurian Candidate.
He was in sixties six is murders Row, and he
was also in nineteen seventies Beneath the Planet of the Apes,
in which he played the ape general Ursus the Planet
of the Apes franchise. Whenever anyone even just starts talking
about it, I always feel the pole just to watch

(31:18):
them all again. It's just there. There's something very comforting
about them, and I'm not quite sure what that is,
but but yeah, those are those enjoyable films. The original series,
of course, is what I'm speaking of. Yeah, I need
to read. I'm guess I'm kind of waiting until my
son's ready for them, and then I'm gonna definitely watch
the first one, and I really want to watch the

(31:38):
second one again. I I have a a weird attachment
to Beneath the Planet of the Apes. If that is
the second one. There's not a one in between those two,
is there? No? No, that's the one. Yeah, that's the
one where they are like, you know, um um worshiping
the atomic bomb and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah,
that's a fun one. I also really like the one
where um the two apes go into our modern world

(31:58):
and are kind of like wandering around being like the
toast of the town. I forget which one that one is.
It's like the creature walks among us, except it's about
to ape creatures. It's fun, yes, the same energy, is
that for sure? Alright? Getting into just a couple of
smaller roles here, Larry Storch plays the pawn broker in
this which is a fun little role we'll discuss. But

(32:21):
this guy Live two actor and comedian. But I only
really wanted to highlight him because he also played the
scout Master in nineteen eighties Without Warning, which of course
was the first episode of Weird House cinema classic for
that reason alone. We have a voice in this film.
It's sort of a power, almost a deity. It is

(32:42):
known as Antiquity, and it is voiced by Paul Freese,
who six he's actually I believe uncredited on this film,
but this was a long time voiceover voice actor that
frequently popped up and Ranking and Bass productions also Paul
Freeze did the voice, also uncredited. Hilarious the Blue Wizard,
another role which once again and in the credits for

(33:04):
no reason, he just doesn't get credited. But there he
is he he plays one of our main four wizards
as well, but one of the lesser ones, one of
the ones with fewer lines. I do always find it
interesting when you look back at a voice acting in
the nineties and earlier, like sometimes you would find situations
where they just have one voice actor to just do

(33:25):
numerous voices in ways that you I guess that you
certainly don't see as much on modern animated pictures. Right. Yeah,
and and here's actually to me the worst part about that.
UM think about Looney Tunes shorts. For example, Mel Blank
did almost every cartoon voice almost all of them. However,
there are two other actors which are very prominent in

(33:46):
that world. One is June four A and one is
Arthur Q. Bryan. Arthur Q Bryant is mostly known for
that the Elmer Fudd voice that was not Mel Blank,
that was Arthur Q. Bryan and June four A. Basically
most of the female character is like a witch, Hazel, etcetera, etcetera.
They often were never credited. Uh. In these old Luny
Tunes shorts, all the voice credits always just went to

(34:09):
Mel Blank for the longest time, and there's no particular
reason other than you know, ego or I don't know,
perhaps trying to fool people into thinking he did more
than he did. It's just it's just a weird practice,
and it still happens. There's still a lot of that
of people not getting credit for work that they have
done or um. It's just it's just a strange practice

(34:29):
that still exists in the entertainment industry. All right. Finally,
on the music front, um, First of all, the score
we tend to highlight the score of the score is
by Marie Laws who nineteen also scored The Last Dinosaur
as well as The Hobbit from and other various ranking
and bass joints. But the real, the real, real juicy

(34:53):
part of the music is of course the theme song
to the Flight of Dragons. I this is really just
gotten its hooks into my brain ever since I watched
this film last week. If I even see the book
The Flight of Dragons on the shelf, my brain will
just automatically go Flight of Dragons. And it's the voice
of Don McClain, American music legend, singing the Flight of

(35:18):
Dragons theme song. I mean Mr American Pie himself. Yeah,
now he he didn't write this one. I believe, but
he does perform it, and it's it's a fun little
little theme song. It's it first, it might feel kind
of weird because it does not. It does not feel medieval.
I don't know, um not. I mean not that the
theme song to The Last Unicorn by America feels medieval either,

(35:40):
But that's a great one as well. So I don't know.
I I think it absolutely works here. I absolutely can't
get it out of my head. It's that's the tone
for sure. Yeah. It gives it like an airy, dreamy vibe. Yeah,
so it totally works. All right. Are we ready to

(36:05):
talk about the the actual the plots of this film. Yeah,
let's get into it. So we begin with a shot
of mountaintops and they are cresting through a sea of clouds.
The sun is low on the horizon, and we slowly
move in on a figure dressed in green robes standing
at the precipice of the highest mountain. Uh. This green

(36:25):
cloaked figure shouts out gore, Bash, Gore bash, Come, and
a large green dragon, maybe like ten times the size
of the shouting figure. He just kind of pulls up
next to the mountaintop and allows what we can now
see as an elderly looking man with a long white
beard to step onto its back. The man of the
dragon take off into the sky and join an already
established thunder of dragons. Now I had to look this up.

(36:48):
I was like, what is a group of dragons called? And,
because of course they are fictional, I actually found many
many different words to to describe a group of dragons.
My favorite was thunder, So I'm going to refer to that.
A thunder of dragons just sounds very cool to me. However,
another explanation for a group of dragons, another word for
that is a flight of dragons, which will be brought

(37:12):
up multiple times actually in this movie. So I suppose
I should I should use that term. But thunder of
dragons just sounded so cool to me. That does. That
sounds good? So the figure in green monologues to himself
a bit about how the world isn't in a transition
period between magic and science, and he he just kind
of wonders to himself, um, what he's gonna do about that?

(37:34):
You know? So so from there, the epic theme song
from Don McLean begins, and there's a long credit sequence
showing this group of dragons. This thunder of dragons in
flight long. Uh, this is just a thing they did
back in the late seventies, early eighties. This is the
kind of moment that when I was a child I
would fast forward through. But as an adult I appreciate if,

(37:56):
if memory serves this is actually a sequence from later
on in the picture, the right to say that they
just went ahead and front loaded to just give you,
give you a lot of dragons to look at while
you listen to this wonderful Don McClain song. Uh so
you know, fair enough, why not? It is beautiful, so
why not? But but much like a cheer up Charlie
in a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or um, let's

(38:18):
see what the other one be, it was a candle
on the water and Pete's dragon. These were those eighties
seventies ballads that were they put in children's films that
I just fast forwarded through. Um. Now, at this point,
since we've mentioned the dragons and we've seen multiple dragons,
should point out that, yes, the dragons in this film
are as as my my son described them, chalky. They are.

(38:41):
They are big, chunky dragons and at first you might
look at these and thinks I just can't. I do
not feel in these big, chunky dragons. But I would
just advise you to stay seated until the film can
reach its cruising altitude, because this will make perfect sense
in a bit. Yeah, it's necessary that there, they're there.

(39:01):
Chunk is very necessary. So um, after this montage of
dragons flying through the sky, several of the dragons land
on a river bank, and we see a few other
mythical creatures, including some pegas I which I presume is
the plural for pegasus. Do you think so pegas? I
guess you get into that weird situation where is pegasus
an individual for his pegasus a species and so forth.

(39:25):
So more than one Pegasus is on this bank, amongst
some fairies who are riding down the river, floating on
the back of a swan. But oh no, uh, this
swan that the fairies are riding on and the fairies
themselves are suddenly sucked into a water wheel attached to
a mill, and they are mangled and presumed dead, but

(39:47):
they're lifeless. But this green cloaked figure who we have
seen flying around in the back of the dragon, he
lays his hands upon the swan, and the fairies and
he revives them. We must assume bringing them back to life. Uh.
And this is like the first like visual metaphor for
kind of the overarching thesis of this film. You know,
can this technology, this water wheel exists in the same

(40:10):
world as this magic these fairies, Like can they co
exist or is one destroying the other? You know. So
the man is upset and he yells at the mill
you know, be careful with your technology. And then the
mill workers come out and they start belittling the man
in green and he says, no, I am Carolinas. I'm
the protagonist of this film. I am the green Wizard.

(40:31):
You know. My domain is the green world, nature itself
and all of its inhabitants. You know. The mill workers
they're like whatever, and they start throwing large rocks at
Carolinas and just tell them to go away. Carolinas is mad,
so he casts a spell to destroy their water wheel.
But as he casts it, it the spell just kind
of fizzles out and just kind of plops into the

(40:53):
river and has no effect. Thus, the ridicule from the
mill workers increases and he's just having a bad day. Yeah.
This this was unexpected because when this looked like he
was going to really come down hard on these awful
mill workers, and my son was like, well, they brought
this on themselves. He was ready for it, and he
was totally supporting anything he was about to do. But then,
you know, the spell fizzles out and he just kind

(41:16):
of has to walk away. So Carolinas walks home dejected.
He actually lives nearby. These are his neighbors, you know,
and uh he's comforted by his daughter, Princess Melissandra, and
we will we'll see here more and throughout the story.
And um so so Carolinas just thinking to himself, what
am I gonna do about this? So he summons his
three brothers to a meeting. This is the first time

(41:36):
they've all come together in four hundred years, because they
need to have a discussion about the state of magic.
So um, he sends off the letters on owls, as
you do. However, one thing I learned recently. Did you
know the owls are actually the slowest birds, so therefore
terrible conveyance for messages. You know, he's he was a

(41:56):
quicker bird. Please, But anyway, magic I did No, I
didn't realize that. Um, Joe and I did an episode
a while back talking about the idea of using things
other than pigeons as as messengers, like ravens or owls,
and we talked about some of the possibilities and limitations
with these different species. But yeah, we we somehow didn't
touch on the flying speed of the common owl. You know,

(42:20):
there there are more important things than speed, you know.
There there's there's all kinds of aspects we could look atto.
But let's meet our three other wizards. So they're all
color coded to keep everyone straight on these. So we've
met Carolina's he's the green Wizard, Nature grass, all the creatures,
you got it green. Uh. Next we have Silarious, the
Blue Wizard. He is the lord of the depths and

(42:42):
the heights. His realm is outer space, deepest ocean, and
highest mountain. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, he's he's
kind of almost like a c deity, but in the
like in the older sense where you know, you have
a situation where um, you know, the Greek god of
the ocean beside and is not limited at the sea,

(43:03):
like he's the sea is like one of his domains,
but he has domains beyond the sea as well. I
I love the combination of outer space and deepest ocean,
because it does make a lot of sense in a
lot of ways. No air, big, murky, bluish black voids
like you know, it's it's it's a fun juxtaposition. I
dig it, I dig it. Next up we have low

(43:26):
to Jao. This is the Golden Wizard. His realm is
light and air. He's the lord of transcendence, healing and contemplation.
Once again, I love it. I also love that because
he is designed as like you know, uh more of
like an Eastern wizard. His dragon is the only one
in the whole movie that is like an Eastern style dragon,

(43:47):
which is pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, this is a cool dragon.
And my son for the most part like this one.
But he did point out, well, it does have tiny wings,
and you tend not to to find wings of any
sort on Eastern dragons. I had to look it up
in the source book. Here there is an illustration of
a Chinese dragon, and then there's a bit about Chinese

(44:08):
dragons and they don't have tiny wings on it. So interesting.
I wonder if they were trying to maybe perhaps patch
a um plot hole, because later on we do find
out the importance of the wing when when they start
discussing the science of how dragons fly. So yes, I
I wonder, I wonder how, what, what, what kind of
thought went into that? But well, I guess we'll see. Well,

(44:30):
even the book seems a little conflicted on this, because
the picture of the Chinese dragon has no wings, but
then the text says that there that they do have
wings that are just not as noticeable. So I guess
fair enough, if you try and put those two together
and come up with some version that can work on
the screen, you just throw some tiny wings in there
and call it a den. Well, well, we'll discuss that

(44:51):
when we get to the science of dragons flying, because
I have I have a thought about the differences between
the Eastern and the Western dragon. We'll get there. Now.
Our fourth wizard, this is the evil one we mentioned
to the James Earl Jones wizard. This is Ohmadon, the
Red Wizard, Lord of the Devil's Domain, seducer of Darkness,
master of black magic. He's he's our villain, and man,
he's beautiful. I love the design of Ohmadon. Oh yeah,

(45:15):
like his robe. He's of course wearing red and dark colors,
but he has stars on his robes as well as
opposed to skulls or anything. There are stars and then
his face too, He's like he's not really he's either
beyond human at this point or has some sort of
hybridity going on, because he has like this kind of
beastly almost ratlike catlike face. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, and um

(45:41):
he um. He morphs at various times throughout this film,
and it's all gorgeous. He's he's the one to watch
for visual splendor. And the James Old Jones voice performance
on this character is just absolutely great. I mean, James
el Jones is not just laying back in his chair
or sitting in a hammock reading lines on this He's

(46:02):
just chewing every bit of dialogue up and spitting it
out and it's wonderful. Yeah. So these four wizards, just
to remind every one, we got a Green Wizard, we
got a Blue Wizard, we have a Gold Wizard, we
have a Red Wizard. Those are the four. They will
come up, but mostly we're focusing on Green and Red.
Those are the primary antagonist protagonist. So at their meeting

(46:24):
the four brothers, they discussed that magic is getting weaker
because humankind is choosing logic over magic, but Carolinas has
a plan though. He wants the four wizards to consolidate
their power and create a realm of magic, sealed off
from the rest of the world where magic can live
and survive, almost just like you know, a little terrarium
of of like all the magical creatures, all the magic,

(46:45):
where it's like, hey, we we don't own the world,
but in this zone we have full magical power. That's
that's his plan. The Blue Wizard and the Golden Wizard
agree and pledge their help. The Red Wizard, oh, madon no, no, no,
he disagrees. He calls uh this proposed magic realm a
retirement home for magic, and he would rather destroy humankind.

(47:07):
And his method is really fascinating. Um. Basically, he says, like, um,
I will take their worst instincts and basically use them
against themselves, you know, more or less kind of like
playing into the idea of like, oh, you want to
build a bomb, I will help you build the biggest
bomb humans you know. Oh, you you want to distrust
each other, you should distrust everybody And really just like

(47:27):
leaning into the worst aspects of humankind and using it
to destroy ourselves. That's his magic. Plan. Yeah, inviting Omedon
really couldn't have gone worse for everyone, And I I
do love the villainist tak he has on. All of
this reminds me a lot of some of the concepts
that Michael Inda explored in the book The Never Ending Story,

(47:49):
because in this work, in the Flight of Dragons, there
is this idea that they they discuss a lot where
magic is kind of the inspiration for humans to do
great things but also potentially terrible things, as Ahmadon is
channeling here. And in The Never Ending Story we get
this idea that's particularly presented by the amorph and discussing

(48:11):
the like the motivations of the nothing and the powers
beyond the nothing. That, like the same energy that gives
a child um imagination and gives imaginative individuals that the
chance to dream and create these magical worlds, it also
is the same energy that can be twisted into the
domain of lies and deception. Uh. And so I think

(48:35):
that's that's kind of echoed in this work as well,
most definitely. And there is even a point just in
case a kid is watching this and thinking to themselves,
you know, this doesn't make any sense. Um Princess Melissandra.
She she says to Carolina's her father and goes, why
are you even inviting this guy? You know? Ohmadon's a jerk.

(48:56):
Don't don't invite him. And Carolinas has a stock answer,
but he's just like, hey, you know, good can't exist
without evil. He is necessary, you know. And it's like, alright, alright,
I'll buy that in a fantasy realm. Well we'll take that.
Uh So, uh, Omadon wants to destroy human kind. He
does not want to, you know, hide his magic away.

(49:18):
So the three good Wizards, Blue, Green, and Gold. They
decided that they must stop the Red Wizard from destroying humanity.
But because there is a rule with their like wizard God,
which we will get into. It's it's it's a it's
an entity known as Antiquity. Well we'll get there. Um,
there is a wizard law that says you are not
able to fight against another wizard, and Antiquity, this this

(49:40):
wizard god, will basically ensure that. I believe they start
getting mad at Omadon, and Antiquity starts causing like an
earthquake and dropping like giant stones near them and stuff
like that, so they can't do it. They cannot fight Omadon,
so they decided to use their magic to inspire a
quest to go take Omadon's Red Crown to to basically

(50:01):
destroy Omadon. So again with the wizarding laws, which will
come up, and we also stop to go, you know what,
just go with it, you know, when the wizarding laws
come up, we'll just go. Okay, that's the wizarding law.
I don't know this wizarding world. I'll take your word
for it. So another wizarding law says that a magic
quest must have three core members. Carolinas picks an old
knight that he knows, someone who he knows to be

(50:23):
trustworthy and brave, Sir orin Neville Smythe. He also picks
his dragon that we met at the very beginning, gore Bash,
who was young and perhaps a bit of foolhardy, but
very brave, very strong. So gore Bash the Green Dragon
he'll go to. But he doesn't know who to pick
as the leader. He he just he can't really figure
that out. So he goes later that night to talk

(50:45):
to Antiquity once again. This is like the wizard god
more or less, and it's represented by a silver tree
that just kind of grows out of the ground again,
just go with it. And Antiquity tells Carolinas that the
leader of the quest is in the future and that
he is Peter Dickinson. He is the correct choice for
this quest and the only choice for this quest because

(51:07):
he is the descendant of a great dragon master. But
he is also the first in this line that is
also a man of science. Carolinas is confused about this.
He's like, I don't know, you know, why do we
need that? But Antiquity is like, come on, I'm god,
you know, and he's like, all right, fine, fine, fine,
we'll do this. So so Carolinas is given a silver
acorn by Antiquity is silver tree, and he throws it

(51:30):
into a limpid pool under the direction of Antiquity, and
now he can see Peter Dickinson in the future. Specifically,
they say, I think it's like, um, they call it
like the the the final you know, death Rattle of
the twentieth century or however they phrase it. But anyway,
the end of the late twentieth century. So we can
assume it's probably two just like you know, just like

(51:52):
the it was made in. So we meet Peter. He
is developing a D and D style board game, old
Flight of Dragons, and he's showing it to a friend
of his who runs a pawn shop, and he's discussing, Oh,
I really want to get this game made, but money,
so maybe I can pawn this watch and the pawn
brokers like that watch isn't worth anything. And then he

(52:12):
also explains that he's also writing a book called Flight
of Dragons and that basically he's just obsessed with dragons.
He really wants to figure out how dragons fly, how
they breathe, fire, etcetera. He's just he's he's a dragon fanatic. However,
does not seem like really would be your first pick
to lead a an adventuring party into the heart of
darkness to stop an evil sorcerer. But Antiquity knows better

(52:34):
than we do. I guess yeah, because every character mentions that.
Every characters like, are you sure this guy you know?
And uh so yeah, uh. Peter and the pawn broker
are playing their D and D style board game together
and all the figures on the board are all of
Carolina's brothers and himself and Princess melissand and the dragons,

(52:56):
and he's like Okay, that's that's a pretty big sign
like something's going on here. I better come get this guy.
So he uses his magic. Uh now, now remember Carolinas
doesn't actually have a lot of magic these days, so
this is a pretty um this is this is an
expensive use of his magic to go get Peter in
the future and bring him back to his time. This
is where I mentioned is that really beautiful shot of

(53:18):
them both writing on top of a two of a
pair of dice and spinning through the air and then
they're falling. Blah blah blah. It's it's it's quite beautiful.
So yeah, there's that. So we're now introduced to that
that they they go back in time. We we are
we are with them back in the Magical Age where
our story is, and we're introduced to a b story
where Peter is now in love with Carolina's daughter, Princess Melissandra.

(53:41):
Doesn't really affect the story, it's just it's a it's
a subplot. Don't really worry about it. It's just there. Uh.
So at this point, it turns out that almost all
of the dragons have joined ohmadon because he used black
magic on them. Uh. The only remaining dragons on the
hero's side our gore Bash and Smurgle. Smurgle is gore

(54:03):
Bash's elderly uncle. He's not quite as um spry, but
he's he's he's very knowledgeable. So now Omadon has not
only one fierce dragon, but also an entire army of
dragons at his disposal. Yes, we will see later that
the other two wizards still have control of Oh yeah,
I guess we should mention this. Each of the four

(54:24):
wizard brothers, each of the four colors, they each have
their own more or less pet dragon, their familiar dragon. Um. However,
the other two, the Gold Wizard and the Blue Wizard,
there's don't join Ohmadon, And yet they don't. They also
don't help, so I don't know why. Maybe they're just
too far away. Who knows. They contribute magical items, That's

(54:45):
that's true. We do get, of course, the magical items.
This is actually my favorite parts of the movie, especially
to me as a child. Peter as the fish out
of water character, he makes a lot of discoveries throughout

(55:06):
the film that kind of like defined like the cannon
of being a dragon. You know, this was his goal.
He wanted to learn more about dragons. Now he gets
to do it firsthand, and so so now he gets
to learn about this biology of dragons and how they work.
And this will occur throughout the film, but I'll point
them out as dragon Can in facts when they do
so dragon Can in fact number one that he just

(55:27):
kind of hears this in conversation amongst the dragons. A
dragon having a horde of gold is a pretty common thing.
It's it's in all the fantasy literature that you come across,
whether it be a token or um oh gosh, what's
his name, the guy that made the Chronicles of Narnia
um C. S. Lewis. Yeah, a dragon's horde of gold
is a pretty common thing. Why well, in this they

(55:49):
describe that it's because dragons need somewhere soft to sleep
that won't accidentally catch on fire, because even while they sleep,
they could actually you know, spark it, you know, with
their fire breath, and they just need somewhere that's you know, unflammable,
not flammable. I love it, Yeah, I love it. Why not?
I never I never thought about about this sort of

(56:11):
thing before. When it comes to the gold, and this
is you know, this is a perfect explanation. Granted, it
does raise questions like why don't they sleep on lead
and so forth? Gold is soft in addition to being
shiny and prize, So I absolutely by yeah yeah, And um,
I remember we mentioned this a long time ago about
a child's love for learning cannon facts. I don't know

(56:33):
what it is, but like like hearing, like the definitive
version of like classic creatures, classic tales, et cetera, is
something that children just love. Myself included, So therefore I
I really loved these when when when I was watching
this movie as a child, Yeah, yeah, my my son
really started getting into the dragons at this point when
when this film when they start explaining how they work

(56:55):
within the context of the film. So, uh, Caroline, this
before this big quest kicks off, he gives Peter two gifts. Um, now,
these aren't really that important, but they do help in
the trials later, so I got to mention them. One
is the shield of Saturn, It's a big golden shield,
and the other is the flute of Olympus. And uh yeah,

(57:17):
these will aid in trials later, but don't worry about it. Meanwhile,
Ohmadon sends his big dragon familiar to kill Peter and
uh Carolinas tries to save him, but in using a
magic spell, he accidentally merges Peter's mind into gore Bash's body.
Gore Bash, if people remember, is the big green dragon

(57:37):
from the beginning. So yes, our hero is now a
giant dragon. So fun, right, Oh yeah, I think this
is this is a point in the film where I
think everything really picked up for us as viewers, because
now we don't just have Peter the sort of fish
out of water character. Now he is in the body
of a dragon. So now all the things he's learning

(57:57):
about dragons is also him trying to figure out how
to function as a dragon, and it just makes everything
a lot more entertaining. It's it's a great way to
kind of like dole out some exposition. Is like you know,
a newbie learning the ropes. It's it's it's great, and
it it introduces a lot of room for comedy to like,
oh am I doing it right, Oh no, I'm falling
out of the sky and so forth. Exactly. But like

(58:19):
we said, wizard laws dictate that there must be three
members on a magic quest, and now, since two of
our members are merged into one, Peter and Gore Bash.
We were back to two again. We need a third member,
so we have the Night we have Peter in gore
Bash's body, and so Smurgle, the elderly dragon, joins the
quest to make up for that lost member. So we're

(58:40):
back to three again. The magic Quest can begin. So
on the quest, Smuggle is now instructing Dragon Peter on
how to be a dragon, so we get more dragon
can in facts. I love these, this one's fun. I
really enjoyed this. So dragon can In fact number two,
dragons eat dime and to get them into their craw.

(59:02):
In the film, we see them actually like bullying some
dwarves to make them look for them to bring them
out giant sacks full of diamonds, and then they just
gobble them up right away. Peter actually feels a little
bad about this. Uh so so so so picture that
a dragon eats a sack full of diamonds, puts it
in his craw much like a bird, and then they

(59:25):
start to eat limestone, which will then be ground up
by the diamonds, much like a bird uses a grit
to grind up feed because they don't have teeth. Okay,
so limestone is high in calcium, which mixes with the
stomach acid to create hydrogen. So then hydrogen is lighter
than air and expands their bodies, giving them that chunky

(59:46):
look and giving them their ability to fly. Uh much
in the same way a blimp does. Yes, Oh my goodness,
I absolutely love this. And again this is this is
out of the book as well, that the dragons of
the Flight of Dragons are essentially hydrogen airships, self powered
hydrogen airships. It's fatuous. So so that's where the wings
factor in and their long like snakelike bodies or I

(01:00:08):
should say, you know, lizard like either way. That that's
how they propel themselves, is with these wings much like
an airplane, much like a blimp. Yeah, just just uh,
they are just floating and then they're their appendages, their wings, tails, arms, whatever,
that's what actually guides them through the air. Um, So
how are they going to get down? That's an important

(01:00:29):
aspect of this. They need to expel the hydrogen. So
for a dragon, expelling the hydrogen is done by breathing fire.
Now they don't fully explain this in the movie, but
I think the logic of my mind goes, you need
to can't just be like a balloon letting off hydrogen,
because if that's the case, it'll push you in a
different direction because they'll be forced coming out. What you
need is a way to expel it in a controlled way,

(01:00:51):
which is why they ignite the expelled hydrogen to breathe fire.
Doesn't quite make sense in my mind, but that's they
don't really explain it either. Um. In fact, Peter asks Smurgle,
he goes, wait, so why is it fire? He's like,
because we're dragon sweet breathe fire. Uh now, but here
this is a part I love. Um. Smurgle explains that

(01:01:14):
the hydrogen is ignited because dragons have something in their
mouth known as a thor's thimble. It's in the roof
of their mouth and has the ability to spark, and
we'll basically ignite the hydrogen much like an electric stove
ignites you know, gas. And that's fun too. More dragon facts. Yeah, yeah,
this this is all all pretty fabulous. And I didn't

(01:01:37):
even think about the potential plot holes in any of it,
because it was just while watching the film you're just
completely like, oh my good, this this is it. Yes,
I buy it. And then you have the fun banter
between the the dragon mentor and Peter and dragon form
because he keeps asking obsessive science leaning questions and the

(01:01:58):
answers are often along the lines of cause we're dragons.
Smurgle has not thought about this very much, and he's
okay with that. Peter should think less about this, so
says Smurgle, Yeah, don't don't think about it, just do it.
Just fly. So at this point, basically this turns into
a D and D campaign. That's the that's the remainder
of this movie. There's that really much to talk about

(01:02:19):
from from from pure on out, so we'll go through
it quickly. But um. Along the way, they face various
trials and meet new allies that joined them. One ally
is named ag that's the wolf character we talked about. Um.
He's an undead talking wolf. They describe it briefly, but
basically he he drowned and then one of the wizards

(01:02:39):
was like, Hey, if you do me this favor, I'll
bring you back to life, and so he does. He
comes back and saves our heroes, which just works. Another
is dan Yell of the Woodlands. She's a very skilled
archer and warrior. Another one is Giles of the Tree Tops.
He's the leader of the wood elves. They all join
that this this magic quest, and the part he looks

(01:03:00):
more and more token as time passes, you know. Uh,
there's a variety of trials they go through. There are
these sonic rat things which were really beautiful. They were
just kind of these odd like goblin rats that let
off a real high pitched noise that drove the listener
um to be very ill tempered, and uh, they had
to destroy them. It was fascinating. Oh that that sequence

(01:03:21):
was great because I didn't really know what was going
to happen. I wasn't sure what they kind of they
presented this threat slowly and you're not sure what you
know either're about to run into something, but you can't
really tell what it is. And then yeah, it's it's
this weird concept of screeching um rat things that like
destroy your mind and so forth. It was done very

(01:03:43):
well and very fun to watch. The next trial I
also really enjoyed it was this ogre. Oh, this ogre
other than Ohmadon was probably my favorite thing to look at,
just just beautifully depicted. And they also threw in some
like fun ogre facts about like why ogres are like
so sturdy and kind of him almost invincible in many ways.
And a big part of it I really loved was

(01:04:05):
that Ogres have very very thick bones that they don't
have much flesh. Most of their body is boned, and
I was like, oh, that's fun, like just picturing that
ogre skeleton in my mind. You know. He also has
three eyes, but only two are functional. I love. Yeah,
the one of the one in the middle of his
head is is his additional eye, but one of his

(01:04:26):
like traditional eyes, I believe it was his left eye,
was was gone. So it's just just gorgeous, really gorgeous,
real meaty fella, you know. Uh. Then then there's this
worm thing, also very beautiful to look at, but it
is pretty quickly dispatched. Um. And then um. Then Ohmadon's
get involved because they're getting much closer to his home base,

(01:04:46):
and he casts this doubt spell that basically just makes
everyone depressed and everyone just has imposter syndrome like, oh,
I'm no good, you know, And that's that's pretty fun.
They overcome that, um along with this giant dragon swarm
by uh, let's see here, what's what's the order of it.
I believe the doubt spell is dispelled by the magic

(01:05:08):
shield that he was given earlier. And then there's a
giant dragon swarm that comes soon after that, and that's
dispelled by the magic flute, which the the gosh, the
the wood Elf. He he plays the magic flute, and
this makes all the dragons fall asleep, including Peter, you know,
because he's like, hey, we gotta do this quick play
that flute, I know to make me fall asleep. But

(01:05:29):
it's got to happen, you know. This, This is this
is weird how this one lined up because we watched
My son and I watched this film while we were
also watching the new season of The Dragon Prints. Both
of these have plot elements involving magical musical instruments that
put dragons to sleep. Nice nice yeah uh so uh

(01:05:50):
this this works. And then we're into the final battle.
Now here's where it's gonna begin. With Peter facing off
against Ahmadon, and the first thing he does is he
breaks the spell of his dragon merge through logic, so
when he falls asleep, basically when he awakens, he's man
Peter again. And someone asked him like, how did you
do that? He's like, oh, well, two objects, can't you know?

(01:06:13):
Occupy the same space. That's just logic, So I logic
my way out of that dragon. Everyone's like all right,
you know, sure, but but at this point it's just
Peter the human against Ohmadon, this all powerful wizard. So
already this is a point where we're suddenly I feel
like an uncharted territory because that we were setting everything

(01:06:34):
up for more of a traditional high fantasy battle and
now we're somewhere else like uh, like all the big
flight of dragons has been put to sleep. Um, and
let's see, have we I think we've at this point
lost a few characters as well. Right, yes, some folks
have have definitely not worked out, you know. Yeah, there's

(01:06:55):
a scene where our our our night bites it battling
a dragon, the big bad dragon that serves Omadon. Uh,
there's a we we lose our archer. We I think
we also lose our wood Elf. I think he gets
thrown against a a a stone cliff and is at
least passed out, if not dead. Yeah, so they're at

(01:07:15):
any rate, they're all taken out of the equation. So
instead of getting this continuation of the fantasy battle that
we seem to have been setting up, it is this
standoff between a sorcerer and a game design and uh,
first of all, Omadon erupts into this giant, multiheaded dragon
and it's the prettiest thing of this whole movie. It's

(01:07:38):
so so beautiful, Like, Ohmadon looks cool when he was
just the red Wizard. Now he is a he's a
red Wizard hydra. Like It's yeah, it's gorgeous. I love, love,
love the look of this then, but it's also perfect
because it's so nonsensical, it's so chaotic. It's like he

(01:07:58):
is because basically this becomes a standoff between logic and
um and chaotic imagination. And so it makes sense that
Ohmadon would just defy all logic and just be this
swirling amalgam of humanoid and dragon features. Yeah, and and
so since the only tool that you can fight uh

(01:08:20):
chaos with is logic, that's what Peter does. Peter just
starts basically talking his way out of this battle uh
much in the same way that like, oh, let's say
Sarah you know, talks her way out of u uh
Jariff and Labyrinth or um I forget that the protagonist's
name and nightmare on Elm Streets where she's like, I'm

(01:08:40):
not afraid of you. You know. It's just like that
that simple thing of just like, hey, your power rests
in this If I you know, you have no power
over me. If you just kind of declare it, you
get to you get to kind of just like move on.
So that's what he does. He just starts like quoting
scientific principles and equation and then he starts listening like

(01:09:01):
like just different branches of scientific study and just and
it works. It just kind of knocks knocks the wizard
down one by one. One of my favorites. There are
many examples of like him just like kind of like
spouting book learning at this wizard to kind of like
make him kind of lose power. My favorite was that
Omadon was like calling on the power of the sun

(01:09:23):
and and um Peter's response was like every child knows
that it takes this long. I think he says eight
minutes for the sun Sun's raised to travel to the Earth,
So you're not even calling upon the sun. You're calling
upon where the sun was eight minutes ago. And Obadon's like, Watts, No, No,
the Sun's right there. And it's it's fun. Things like

(01:09:44):
that and ultimately without even like you know, laying a
single blow. Peter beats Omadon with just logic, you know,
just saying science terms out loud, and yet it it
works so well. Like, for instance, the Labyrinth scene I
think is a is a great comparison. I have no power,
you have no power over me thing with Sarah and Jared,
and yet I'd never have I love Labyrinth, but there

(01:10:09):
there I have questions about various things in the plot,
and that whole scene never felt completely earned for me,
Whereas in this film, I feel like they do a
great job of of laying everything out, Like for instance,
there's the whole scene part of it where Omadon is
just you know, calling upon forces of darkness, saying these
evil sounding magic words, some sort of incantation in Peter's like, yeah,

(01:10:32):
I have incantations too, and he's like, bam, he equals
MC squared and so forth, and like these are actually
like hurting Omadon, Like the logic is cutting into him
and taking away his power. Yeah, No, it's earned and
it works. It's it's a fun little ending. So so
he doesn't he beats Omadon, he is destroyed, turns into

(01:10:53):
just dust on the ground. It's mostly a visual scenes,
so we can't really go through it entirely. But then
Peter is sent back a modern Boston and he's back
where he left off. He's back in the pawnbroker shop
with his friend playing his D and D game that
he invented. Um Now, remember earlier, way in the beginning,
Peter wanted to pawn his watch so he could get

(01:11:13):
his board game created. Well, now suddenly he has the
Shield of Saturn with him, this big golden shield, and
he's like, hey, pawnbroker, how about this? And he's like, wow,
this is great. This will give you so much money
you could You'll be able to do whatever you want,
you know. And then here here's the nice part where
it all ties up Melissan to the princess, the daughter

(01:11:34):
of um Uh Carolina's. She enters the pawn shop in
this modern world because she has fallen in love with Peter,
and she brought Omadon's crown with her and she pawns
that too, and it's like, hey, now he gets love.
Also yea the end, that's the end of the movie.
Oh yeah, it's so good. I deny all magic Uh

(01:11:56):
was another one of the rallying cries of Peter in
the final battle. Huh, and there's it's it's it's a
fun thing because the balance between I love magic and
magic isn't real is really on display here. And then
that's that's why they needed Peter. He was a guy
that loved dragons and really cared about magic and had
a great knowledge for it, but also knew the science

(01:12:17):
and so therefore he could both respect the magic as
well as cut it down a peg. But I think
I like, almost ultimately Carolinas like sealed his own fate
by inviting Peter into his realm, because in many ways
that what he didn't want to happen happened very quickly,
which was that that science destroyed magic. Yeah, but they

(01:12:38):
get their magic refuge where they get to keep all
their magical creatures running around. Yes, yes, so you know
it's it's it's not an unhappy ending for them as well.
It works out. I do want to also point out,
because I'm always a sucker for these sorts of scenes,
when Omanon is finally defeated, he does like sort of
shrink and melt and then wither away to nothing, turns

(01:13:00):
to dust and blows away in the wind, and it's
a fabulous animated sequence. Good stuff, good stuff all around.
And that's that's this movie. Yeah, The Flight of Dragons. Yeah,
just just a real delight. This one I think holds
up so well. Like I said, I didn't. I had
never seen it before, so I didn't have anything to
compare it to in in my memory, though it it

(01:13:20):
did resonate with my love for these other pictures from
this time period, like the Ranking and Pass Hobbit film.
If you're a D and D person, not only will
you recognize basically the structure of this, but you'll also
probably really enjoy it. Yeah. All right, Well, we're gonna
go and close this one out here, but we'd love

(01:13:40):
to hear from everyone out there, especially for those of
you who, like se have definite childhood memories of the
Flight of Dragons. If you want to share how or
when you saw this for the first time and what
your impressions were, right in, we'd love to hear from you.
Uh And if you're like me, if you just for
the first time as an adult or or recently introduced

(01:14:01):
a child to it, uh, right in and let us
know how that went. A reminder that stuff to Blow
Your Mind is primarily a science podcast, but every Friday
we set aside most serious concerns. You just talk about
a weird film in Weird House Cinema. If you want
to follow the various films that we cover on Weird
House Cinema, well, um, I mean they're all on the feed,
but also I blog about them at summuna music dot com,

(01:14:24):
and I also list all of them on our Letterboxed profile.
If you go to letterboxed dot com, it's l E
T T E R b O x D. You can
look us up. We're Our user name is weird House.
There have all the films that we've watched so far,
and sometimes there'll be a peek ahead at what's coming next. Uh.
Speaking of all this, of course, Seth is not just

(01:14:46):
the producer of Stuff to Blow your Mind. He is
also a podcast host. Uh tell us what's happening right
now on Rusty Needles Record Club. Yes, Rusty Needles Record Club.
It is a book club, but for music instead. It's
a weekly podcast to find out wherever you find your
favorite podcasts. Now. Um, this week we are doing Grace

(01:15:07):
Jones Nightclubbing, very fun hit. Everyone loves Grace Jones and Uh.
If you're looking for just some great, uh fun music discussion,
something just kind of you know, make you feel less
lonely as a music nerd, or if you're looking for
some really good music recommendations, check out Rusty Needles Record Club.
It's a fun show all right. So if you want
to reach out, and if you have thoughts for for Joe,

(01:15:29):
if you have thoughts for me or Seth, you can
email us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind
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