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Ubiq
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
347 Posts |
 Posted - 01/14/2006 : 12:49:35 AM
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Another year, another review of a Rankin Bass fantasy film, but this time, we thankfully move away from the Glenn Yarbrough territory of Tolkien and into greener pastures.
The following film is titled Flight of Dragons, which is a book that I have not read. On the other hand, I have read the book that this film is based on, which is The Dragon and The George. Why name the film after one book while taking the plot from another? At a guess, the fine people at Rankin Bass were completely and totally insane.
My version was taped off of Cartoon Network, but I doubt that there was anything cut out of it. It aired on Mr. Spin's Cartoon Theater, which puts it somewhere around 1997 as does the fact Cartoon Network was brought to me courtesy of PrimeStar, back before DirecTV devoured it as part of its eventual goal of owning, well, everything to do with satellite television. Mr. Spin's Cartoon Theater featured an eclectic bunch of movies; everything from Tintin to Twice Upon a Time, neither of which would probably be shown on Cartoon Network now. Interestingly enough, or not, "Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown" was identified as the featured movie of the evening. So things are already going wrong. Always a good sign.
The film opens with The Sun backlighting a tall spire of rock. We pan in on a man clad in a green robe with "mystical designs" (which amount to the odd star and crescent moon) standing on a barren mountaintop. Hey, it's Jack Palance! Fly, Jack, fly! Instead of leaping from atop the spire like a good would-be Messiah should, he summons Gorbash, a green dragon. The man hops aboard his back and Gorbash flies into formation with numerous other dragons.
A voiceover notes that there was a time between the Age of Enchantment and the Age of Reason when dragons flew through the skies. Huh, you'd think flying dragons would be more of an Age of Enchantment sort of phenomenon than a feature of a transitional period. The voiceover discusses the trouble that faces the world below as man must choose between magic and science. See, I never really understand that plot device. Magic easily trumps science because it isn't bound by natural law.
Anyway, the soundtrack fires up at this point with the song Flight of Dragons. They said the title! The song notes that dragons soar in the purrrrrple skies (which, for the record, are clearly not purple), but the singer is not sure if they are soaring in the sky or if they are soaring in his mind. Perhaps a change in medication might provide a definitive answer to that query. The date pops up on screen along with the title, but the last two digits are obscured. Probably because this was made in 1982, but didn't make it to theaters until '86. The film features some interesting casting choices: James Earl Jones, Harry Morgan, James Gregory, Larry Storch, Don Messick, John Ritter, and there is also an uncredited appearance by Paul Frees.
The dragons land to take a nap in footage that we'll see again later, but quickly wake back up and soar into the sky as the animators were apparently really reaching for a way to fill out this sequence. This is "based" on Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickinson, but not really. I'll go into more detail as the film goes by. The opening credits and song finally end with a brief glimpse of dragons frolicking in a river. Huh, never really thought of dragons as the frolicking type. We pan up river and follow a beautiful swan as it gracefully swims along with fairies as companions. Then it gracefully blunders right into the undertow created by a waterwheel. The swan is sucked under the waterwheel and comes out in a soggy heap on the other side.
The bird proves to be okay, or at the very least recovers, after a helping hand by the wizard we saw earlier, who sadly notes that the worlds of logic and magic must coexist. To be honest, I really don't see how a swan idiotically blundering into a waterwheel is the fault of the World Of Logic. This bird is pretty obviously a Darwin Awards candidate in avian form. The fairies fly off and the wizard demands that the mill owner come outside and pay for... well, I don't know what for actually.
Wow, those are some ugly mill workers. One of them appears to have a handlebar mustache that is revealed to be his nosehair on closer inspection. The wizard threatens them and identifies himself as Carolinus, the Green Wizard (Harry Morgan), duly appointed representative of Nature and All of its Inhabitants. This makes perfect sense seeing as how we first see him standing on top of a barren mountain out in the middle of nowhere. Eh, I guess a mountaintop is a part of nature. The mill workers dub him a loon instead and interrupt his attempts to provide exposition by throwing dirtclods at him. He chants and summons a ball (well, cloud actually) of blue magic and throws... well, like the stereotypical girl (with all due apologies to female athletes). Instead of vaporizing the mill like he intended, the cloud lands in the stream with a whimper and not a bang. This gets another round of mockery from the Peanut Gallery and Carolinus sadly walks off. Now, the book version of Carolinus would have simply turned them into beetles and been done with it, but this is a sadly wussified version of the character.
We cut to a cabin the woods as his daughter tries to offer some words of comfort, but he is dismayed by the fact that magic wasn't there when he tried to call on it. Then what exactly did he "throw" at the mill earlier? He has stomach pains, which means that he has ulcers, but he can't be bothered with such things right now. He has her summon The Silver Owls, which she does by whistling out the window. Considering it's now night, does that mean she's whistling in the dark? At this point, a dragon comes storming into the building, which didn't really seem that large earlier. He is rather angry about the mill incident and offers to burn it down and eat the workers with the aid of Gorbash. See, I don't really understand why people seem to think magic is a ludicrous notion in a world where freaking dragons are wandering around the landscape. If Carolinus is so important, then those mill workers should have known very well who he was.
Carolinus rejects the offer saying that it wouldn't do any good. The dragon offers to scare them a bit instead, but this isn't necessary either. The owls show up at this point and are given letters to deliver to Carolinus's brothers. Even his eeeeeeeeeviiiiiilllll brother Ommadon has to come to a meeting of the Four Brothers as the problems facing the World of Magic concern him as well. Hey, will Andre 3000 be there as well?
The other dragon Smrgol wishes that he was still young enough to take him, but Carolinus tells him that he was a faithful servant in his day and prepares to leave via Gorbash Air. This is another difference between the book and the film: Dickson's dragons were pretty much out for themselves. They weren't overly antagonistic towards humans, but that's because armored humans could kill them. Being a servant for a human would be unthinkable if for no other reason than it would require a dragon to be a servant to a human. It's an issue of pride. Of course, Carolinus isn't exactly human in this version. He has pointed ears, which might imply that he's an elf. On the other hand, so did the mill workers, so who can say?
Somehow, Carolinus has never even mentioned having brothers to his own daughter so he provides exposition by introducing them to him. The first is Solarius the Blue Wizard, master of depths and heights, outer space, the ocean deeps, and highest mountains. Two things: wow, now that's a domain and what was Carolinus doing on that mountain at the start of this if mountains aren't part of nature? He recieves his note and then flies on a pinkish dragon named Lunarian. Huh, you'd think a Blue Wizard would have a blue dragon. Yeah, there's a bit of blue in him, but it's a baby blue color, which seems an odd choice for somebody in charge of the oceans. Solarius is quite obviously human by the way, so Carolinus probably is as well.
The next is Lao Tao Xu (I think, this wasn't close captioned), the Wizard of Light and Air. He focuses on transcedence, healing, contemplation, and being a ridiculous Asian stereotype. I mean, he has the long fingernails, the Fu Manchu facial hair, the very exaggerated slanted eyes, and everything. He was expecting this in a inscrutable fashion and summons his yellow Chinese dragon, Shen Tzu, to carry him off.
The other brother lives in Loathly Tower, which is a giant mountain with an outsized skull perched on top of it. Ommadon, the Red Wizard, ruler of the Devil's Domain (which, going by the name, should technically be ruled by the Devil), seducer of darkness (which shouldn't be that hard to be honest), and master of black magic. More impressive than any of these is the fact that he's voiced by James Earl Jones. Ommadon is obviously not human as he has a nose horn (which should fetch a good price on Omnicron Persei 8) and a grayish pallor. He laughs and burns up the note before summoning a black and red dragon named Bryagh. Why is he invited? Because Evil is a part of everything and must be represented. Since Good is the contrast of Evil, it needs the latter to exist. Also, because IITS and they need somebody to screw up whatever it is Carolinus plans to do.
Anyway, Gorbash asks Carolinus "where to?" in an overly formal fashion because he likes to do things by the book. Carolinus tells Gorbash to fly him to the Temple of All Antiquities (as compared to the Temple of Some Antiquities, But Not Those Antiquities), but he doesn't know where it is on account of the fact that he's an eager young dragon with something to prove. As a result, he's basically the stupid character that has to have everything explained to him for the audience's benefit. Carolinus tells him to just get airborne and he'll tell him where to go; they depart as Smrgol and Carolinus's as-yet-unnamed daughter watch.
The Temple of All Antiquities is a ramshackle Arabesque tower with a few holes in the ceiling where chunks of stone have fallen down into the room below. Time has not been kind to the Temple of All Antiquities, which is pretty strange when you think about it. The four wizards are gathered around what appears to be a card table. Carolinus begins the discussion with "Dear brothers, we meet today in the Temple of All Antiquities..." For the record, if you think that I've typed that a lot, well, I'm pretty sure that I've actually left out a few mentions of it in this film. It has a habit of slapping grandoise titles on things and then repeating them ad nauseum within a very limited span of time.
Carolinus's long-winded introduction, which sounds a lot like a eulogy or even a meeting of Royal Order of Loyal Water Buffalo ["Dear brothers, we meet today at the Temple of All Antiquity...], is interrupted by Ommadon, who demands that he get on with it already. Hey, I like him already! The point is that magic is getting steadily weaker because man is choosing logic. Charlie Chan makes the brilliant deduction that this is because "logic is so logical". Ommadon once again drags the meeting back to the point by demanding to know what they are going to do about it. "Are we simply going to sit around like a bunch of old nannies and let it happen?"
Carolinus takes this moment to introduce his idea: The Last Realm of Magic, which appears to be some of the same frolicking dragon footage we saw earlier in the film, but this time is table-top hologram form. Two of them like the idea, but surprise, surprise, surprise, Ommadon doesn't. "You're going to defeat Science and Logic with a foolish retirement village?" Actually, when it's put that way, it does sound kind of dumb. He chuckles and rolls his eyes as Carolinus talks about how dragon armor inspires armored knights, battleships, and tanks while fairies inspire airplanes, and crystal balls inspire man to create radio and television. Mankind needs magic to inspire him as a result magic cannot die. If certain aspects of magic inspire man where newer, more efficient ways of killing each other is concerned, brother, you can have it as far as I'm concerned.
The other two wizards applaud this little speech. This is the '80s and an animated film besides after all and the Majority is always right in those circumstances. Heck, The Get-Along-Gang was designed around the concept that people who don't think the same way as everybody else are inherently wrong. Overachiever Solarius will bring distant stars and wonders from the sea while Fu Manchu will bring peace and harmony so that all magical creatures can share in the enchantment. Ohhhhh, so he's bringing opium. Okay, but that still seems like he's puttting nowhere near as much effort into his gift as Solarius. And what about Ommadon? Will he come into the fold bearing the gifts of darkness, terror, and chaos?
Nope, he "will not concede defeat to this modern world. I will not retire. [i[I have weapons, fears, and dark powers to infect man so that he destroys himself." We see tiny gargoyles perching on a man's shoulders and talking him into throwing his drink into a companion's face, which starts a fight to their great glee. A creature called Avarice sits on the shoulder of a trollish man gloating over a hoard of treasure. "Those who do not listen will pay the price." We see the poor stumbling about in rags. "I'll teach him to build machines." These happen to be bulldozers knocking down trees, which seems somewhat less harmful than the machines that Carolinus was proposing that man create. "I'll teach him to fly like the fairies." A squadron of bombers flies across a landscape. "I'll provide the ultimate answer to everything that his science could ask for." We see a bomb explode into a giant mushroom cloud, which transforms into Ommadon. "And the World will be free for my magic once more." He then caps off this little rant with a chuckle.
Carolinus and Solarius both object, but Ommadon blows them off. "Man will not inherit my domain, man will become my domain. It is inevitable." He draws a sword, apparently out of his sleeve and holds it before him as he is lifted in the air atop Bryagh's head. "This dark determination I swear; by this red crown, the source of my dark power, so shall it be now and forever." He is struck by red fire and then vanishes, dragon and all, but in cheshire cat fashion, his voice remains for one more line. "The world is turning in my direction."
As you may have noticed, I directly reproduced a healthy chunk fo the dialogue for this section. Two reasons for that: one, this stuff sounds pretty awesome when it comes out in James Earl Jones' voice and two, it genuinely makes me think that Ommadon somehow wandered into this movie from some other, better fantasy movie that he was originally supposed to be in. Frankly, this film doesn't deserve a villain this cool.
Solarius asks if he can be stopped, but Carolinus sadly responds that he can't be; not without invading his realm and siezing his crown. Solarius offers to hit him with a meteor or two, but this causes a few golden boulders to fall from the ceiling. That old Temple of All Antiquity ain't what it used to be, ain't what it used be. Carolinus notes that Antiquity prevents the brothers from warring on each other; they'll have to rely on a Deus Ex Machina instead by inspiring a quest. Lo Pan notes that all of his creatures are peaceful and therefore useless. Solarius, on the other hand, notes that his creatures sure aren't. He offers sea serpents, whales, and Neptune himself if necessary, but, like Aqua Man, these are all useless on land, which is where the quest will happen. It's up to Carolinus.
Let's see... it's a quest, so I'll say: a melee fighter, a ranger, a bowman, a thief, a wizard of some sort, and probably somebody with a healing skill. These will consist of some mixture of an elf, a dwarf, and a grizzled old veteran who will sacrifice himself for the good of the team. Carolinus gets the melee fighter right off the bat by suggesting Sir Orrin Neville-Smythe (with a moniker like that, he has to be a knight), and then throws in his dragon Gorbash. Bah, forgot the naive young character with something to prove. They need three to start a quest though so Carolinus will have to consult Antiquity for the third as he has no ideas. Uh, he couldn't just ask this Neville-Smythe if he has a friend with nothing else to do? Besides, he's in charge of nature, why not have a giant bear or something along those lines go along?
Since his creatures are, like Aquaman, useless on land, Solarius offers to give the party the Shield of Saturn, which will defect any dark magic. Spiffy. Lao Tao Xu offers to give him the Flute of Healing Sleep, which will put even the most fearsome of dragons into a deep sleep. Oh, so it shows them this film then. The name is a bit vague, but I guess that nap also heals them as well, which means that you can probably strike the cleric type off of the list of necessary characters.
To be continued:
BM: I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I solve my problems with violence. |
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GalahadPC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
380 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2006 : 12:14:12 AM
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Thank you for coming to this subject at last, Ubiq. This movie happened to be on one of my family's old tapes. I rather enjoyed it back when I was eight years old or so, and even when I last saw it just a couple years back, I still found it genuinely fun.
That said, there is also plenty of material to mock thoroughly, ranging from the caricature characters to Sir Orrin's singing to the abundance of mystical contrivances required in order to set the whole quest in motion.
One thing I liked about this movie that I'm glad you'd agree with: Ommadon is a way, way cool villain. When I read his lines, I was flashing back with ease. Of course, it helps that he has James Earl Jones' voice, rumbling and shrieking all over the audial spectrum. |
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Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
1026 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2006 : 4:42:51 PM
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| Please, please, continue! |
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Ubiq
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
347 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 12:30:08 AM
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Bah, I dislike delays. I'll try to finish this by tomorrow evening.
Gorbash celebrates these gifts while Carolinus is struck by pains again, possibly caused by the camera shift to Ommadon. He rides through a storm on Bryagh as we once again wonder why he's in this movie.
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
We come back to a scene set at a spirally peak where Carolinus is summoning Antiquity (Paul Frees), which turns out to be a silvery tree. He is informed by Antiquity that the situation requires the services of a descendant of Great Peter the Dragonmaster. He tamed the dragons, hence the whole Dragonmaster nickname. In particular, he needs the 777th descendant of Peter, who happens to be the first "man of science" in that particular line. So wait, in almost eight hundred generations and in all those thousands of years, only one of them is a "man of science"?
Carolinus asks why this is important and is basically told to shut up because it's Antiquity and he isn't. He's told to look in their year 9000, which is the closing decades of the 20th century in human terms. Antiquity tells him to go the Limpid Pool of Time to begin his search before disappearing and leaving only a silver acorn.
Carolinus leaves to go get his stooge, which prompts a slightly amusing exchange.
"Are you sure this is the Limpid Pool of Time?"
"My dear young fellow, I am one of the Four Magic Brothers. I should know a Limpid Pool of Time when I see one!"
Touche. This is one of the few scenes where Carolinus actually acts like the snappish Carolinus of the books by the way.
He flips the magic acorn in there, which turns the Limpid Pool of Time into a mystical television set. Billy Barty could learn a lesson or two about magic acorns from Antiquity. The scene within the pool shifts to a pawnbroker (Larry Storch), who is discussing the Flight of Dragons boardgame with its creator, Peter Dickinson (John Ritter).
Pete meeds a few thousand dollars to help market his game, but Unnamed Pawnbroker would be fired if he gave Peter fifty. UP notes that the name of the board game is the same as the title of his book, but he can't write while holding down two jobs. He'll have to wait until he sell his game and make some money so he can finish his book.
He starts yammering about how dragons fascinate him, had to have existed, and that he's tried to figure out how they flew. What he should have done is called J. R. R. Tolkien to explain to him how explaining magic makes fantasy stories better, I'm sure Tolkien would have been delighted to hear that theory.
The Pawnbroker quickly interrupts as he senses the audience's eyes glazing over by noting that he's playing an Evil Wizard, who happens to, surprise of surprises, look exactly like Ommadon. They begin to play as Gorbash mocks Peter from the past. Carolinus sticks up from Antiquity and points out that the game pieces look like the main characters of the film. He even bothers to finally name his daughter, Melusine. Carolinus orders Gorbash off to tell Melusine to get things ready for his arrival and to notify his other brothers.
He then switches places with the game piece and freezes time in the process. Hey, if he can move through time, then why not go get Great Peter himself rather than this guy? On the other hand, if it absolutely has to be a man of science, why not get Einstein? Carolinus praises the game and then enchants the dice to help Peter win. He then shrinks Peter down to the same size as the dice as I can't help but notice that he's using magic like a drunken sailor... well, if they used magic anyway.
The two dice rocket up into the sky and through a spiral. I mean rocket literally by the way, apparently these dice have booster rockets inside of them. As they pass through time, the dice begin to descend and fall away as they plummet through the air. They're met by Smrgol, who snatches them out of mid-air to Peter's great excitement. A "blooming dragon"? What? Peter's even excited about being singed by dragonfire as Carolinus rolls his eyes. Having seconds about Antiquity after all are we?
COMMERCIAL BREAK!
Oddly enough, we get a preview for the film on Cartoon Theater that aired the week after this. It's the same Treasure Island that I mentioned in an earlier review. Too bad I didn't get that one on tape as well as I'm starting to believe I'm destined to do that movie. There's an ad for the first Balto movie as each and every animated children's film these days have to have an entire horde of sequels. Hey, Roger Ramjet!
We're back with a pan around a clearing as Smrgol goes off to greet his comrades. He draws a laugh from Carolinus with an aside about a mating dance as he swells up and flies off. Peter is confused as how his game pieces manage to look like everybody he's seen so far, but he's told not to think about it.
Melusine walks out of the house, which draws a comment from Peter about how he designed her game piece as everything he ever desired. He then apologizes to Carolinus, but the latter blows it off as Peter only saying what he meant to say. She's probably adopted then.
Carolinus magically switches Peter's singed clothes to a red bard costume, which looks like something off of the cover of Their Satanic Majesties Request. Carolinus introduces him as Sir Peter and her as the Princess Melusine. Yep, adopted. Carolinus explains that Peter is here to save the word, which embarrasses him a bit.
The conversation is interrupted when Gorbash comes storming out the house jabbering excitedly over some gold plates. They explain that Gorbash is their house dragon, which impresses Peter. They talk about a soup tureen and how Gorbash needs his own cave for some reason. I guess he currently hangs out in the basement and listens to Metallica or something.
Anyway, Gorbash asks about the quality of the armies under Peter's command and is told by Carolinus that he doesn't have any. He swells up in rage as he demands to know "What good is he? WHAT GOOD IS HE?" Well... hey, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all except:
To be Continued
BM: I should have mentioned this at the beginning. I solve my problems with violence. |
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Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
1026 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 4:26:55 PM
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| Oh frabjous day! |
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The Rankin Bass Trilogy Continues...
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