Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Flight of Dragons
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Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb. And this is Joe McCormick. And today we're bringing you an older episode of Weird House Cinema. This originally published November 18th, 2022. And it is the episode you did with our old friend Seth on Flight of Dragons. That's right. I thought to rerun this one because the theme song, Out of Nowhere, was suddenly stuck in my head this morning. And I was like, well, we've got to do Flight of Dragons again then.

This one's a little under the radar, I think, for a lot of people. But if you saw it back in the day, it probably has a very important place in your heart. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. And I'm Seth Nicholas Johnson. Yeah, Joe is still out on parental leave, so Seth is joining me once again, and we're going to be discussing a wonderful slice of early 1980s animation. We're going to be talking about 1982's The Flight of Dragons from Rankin and Bass.

Seth, what's your history with this film? So I assume this was pretty common in the 80s and 90s when I was a child, but my family had a large collection of VHS tapes that contained movies that were recorded off of television. Especially, gosh, I think ever since the beginning of television, a big way to 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? Yeah.

So yeah, I think most parents, when they got their first VCR, they just taped movies off of television perpetually. And they just had these amassed collections of two or three movies on a single blank VHS cassette. And back when this first premiered on television in 1986, I presume one of my parents recorded it. And then as I got older and I was going through this...

of black spine tapes with no description other than maybe a few hastily scribbled words 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 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, gravitate towards it.

But now as an adult, I can go like, wow, you know, this animation is actually really complex and really special and really compelling. You know, the story is actually really kind of deep, but also shallow enough for a child to understand it. It's got a nice kind of like, you know, balance there. And yeah, I just watched it perpetually as a child. And then ultimately, as we shifted into the DVD world...

I bought a new DVD copy from the Warner Archives, and I still watch it pretty regularly. Mostly, honestly, for its visuals. Its visuals are really pretty stunning in places. Yeah, this one is a real joy to watch. 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 all was going on in 1986, 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 Rankin and Bass 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...

I guess many years ago, I think Ben Bolin of Stuff They Don't Want You to Know and Ridiculous History casually mentioned it to me once. He's like, do you remember a film called The Flight of Dragons? 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. So I started looking around at...

and 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 a fascinating thing. And I think it's got something to do with the structure of replaying things on television when we were younger. Because something like another Rankin and Bass classic, like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, there's a built-in structure for that. Every Christmas season, you play it again, and people kind of get an attachment to it.

The late 70s, early 80s did have this kind of like fantasy boom and other things really happened. Like I'm going off top my head here, but in 86, I believe the other two big animated features that came out that year, or this might've been 82, either way. The year this premiered one way or the other, I looked this up. It was the same year as Secret of NIMH,

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 vibe at that time. Because all three of those, they are beloved. But they're also like cult favorites. Like none of them are mainstream. But they are all well-known fantasy movies.

So, yeah, I just think it was a weird time for latching onto the public consciousness and trying to capitalize upon high fantasy as mainstream entertainment that maybe it wasn't quite as successful as they were hoping it would be, you know, as a moneymaker. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned those films in particular, because on one hand, even if you haven't seen The Flight of Dragons...

And I had not. It's easy to enter into it if you've seen certainly other Rankin-Bass animated features from this time period, but even just sort of stuff that was also populating the waters of major animated fantasy at the time. And then specifically mentioning The Secret of NIMH and The Last Unicorn, both again, both beloved films with a very strong following. I could sit down and watch either of them.

However, I do feel like both of those films have their own issues as well, depending on where you're coming from. Like for me, I absolutely love like the first half of The Last Unicorn. And then it starts kind of to drag for me. I think that's perhaps a element of fantasy, right?

I don't want to call it lazy, but I do feel like there's 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 film as well, 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 lag period perhaps here as well. Secret of NIMH, I'll just say real quick, I never had this particular attachment, but I know that the source material is...

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 there for viewers who had a stronger attachment to the source material. Interesting. All right. So yes, this is a film that I believe debuted in the UK, directed video in 1982. And

In 1986, 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. 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 versus magic. Yes, I think that's good. It is.

a fantasy adventure that kind of sneaks a fair amount of pro-science propaganda 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. My wife was out that evening, so we had the TV to ourselves, and I said, okay, let's watch this dragon show together.

and so he ended up really enjoying it as well and certainly was 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 longtime ABC announcer Scott Vincent doing the narration. Tonight, an ABC premiere presentation. ♪

Somewhere, in another time, in another place... Vizuma Tala! ...lives a realm of magic... Man will never inherit my domain. ...where wizards rule... We want none of your dark magic. ...where good battles the forces of evil. To the realm of the Red Death! Enter an enchanted kingdom from mystical tale of unforgettable adventure, The 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 out there and you're interested, and then you go and look at a listing for this on wherever you get your films, you may find that the box art...

or the thumbnail for this movie looks really bad. And I just want to assure you that the quality of the picture is not entirely represented by that very cartoony image. Not only is the art style completely wrong, like the characters barely even look like the characters they're supposed to represent. Like 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 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 some of the other films that Rankin and Bass were putting out at the time. Wait until 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 like visually. Mm-hmm.

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 DVD or Blu-ray from the WB Collection. And then you can rent or buy it digitally wherever you get your films online.

All right. Well, let's start with really the most obvious point that we've already hinted at several times. This is a Rankin and Bass joint. I love Rankin and Bass. I own so many Rankin and Bass films. Like we've mentioned previously, I love stop motion. And they did a lot of stop motion, so I own a lot of Rankin and Bass. Yeah. I feel like it's hard to not have a connection to something...

they put, they produced something that they had a hand in. If you grew up with access to a TV for a number of decades. So,

So Rankin and Bass, we're talking about author Rankin Jr., who lived 1924 through 2014, and Jules Bass, who lived 1935 through 2022. They both have director and producer credits on this. They founded the company known as Videocraft International in 1960. That went on to become Rankin Bass Productions, Inc.,

They were known, of course, for all those holiday films, many of which were, uh, quote unquote, anti-magic. I believe that was their term for the stop motion they were using. Yeah. It was because they, um, they weren't clay, so they couldn't use the Wilvinton phrase, uh, uh, claymation. And they also weren't, um,

Let's see, who was it? Someone coined the term puppatoon. I think that was the guy that invented Gumby. But yeah, everyone had their own individual name for what they were calling stop motion at the time. And yeah, they used animagic. Yeah, why the revulsion to stop motion? Was it just like stop motion? We can't, that just sounds so negative. It's too much of an oxymoron that people just won't understand. Yeah.

But anyway, their stop motion productions include the likes of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which I think many, many, many of you are familiar with. Maybe most of you are familiar with. But also a number of lesser known stop motion films. There's some, like looking at the list of them, some were 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 this particular one, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. I love that.

Love that one. Yeah, this was one of the ones that we were 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. You gotta 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 to great results, other times to kind of... You get into kind of weird areas when you have to build all this support structures to hold this idea up. Especially, I think, as a youth, 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 idea. Yeah. And they all end up feeling a little bit like heresy.

Yeah. Especially if you're still a believer in Santa or you still are holding on to some of those beliefs, you're going to look at something like that and be like, I don't know about this line of faith. I think they've perhaps lost track of themselves. Yeah, for sure. Now, Rankin and Bass were also responsible for some beloved non-holiday animated films of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

which I think these probably deserve more of our attention here, at least for this film. These include the likes of, and stop me if you have thoughts on some of these here, Seth, but Willie McBean and his Magic Machine from 1965. No thoughts on that one. Okay. Ooh, this next one I've only seen parts of.

And every year at Halloween, I'm tempted to play it in full. But Mad Monster Party? Question mark from 1967. That one is beloved. I love that one dearly. It's a bit dated at this point. But love it, love it, love it. I mean, it's a bunch of stop motion monsters throwing a party. It's a really good time. The next one is one of my personal favorites and definitely a film I grew up with. 1977's The Hobbit.

Yeah, this one, The Hobbit, and the follow-up Return of the King, I still to this day get confused with the Ralph Bakshi token adaptations. Very confusing. They all kind of blend together in my head. I'm not really sure how to parse them apart. Yeah, yeah. The Hobbit is a film that I know as a child I loved.

And then later on, 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 animated film while I was reading it.

But then I've subsequently come back around and really, really embrace 1977's The Hobbit. I think it's tremendous. John Huston, I think, is my Gandalf. As much as I love Ian McKellen, I've got to go with John Huston for my Gandalf. And also it's just the pacing in 1977's The Hobbit is just so good. Like they managed to take one book

make one film out of it. Yes, they cut out some great stuff to do it, but you end up with a very watchable film and you're in and out in 78 minutes. It also feels good that I feel like the material...

it adapted much smoother than it did in the um jackson films because it went from this is a short children's book to this is a short children's film it was a one-to-one it was very easy there were there was no flourish no no no uh gilding the lily like they did on the um the jackson one which i enjoy to a certain extent i think they're fine they're just not as good as obviously the other trilogy they're they're fun as well i don't dislike those and

And certainly when you get into the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, you have to give a lot of... Lord of the Rings itself, you have to give a lot of credit to Peter Jackson. I mean, those are pretty terrific films. On the other hand, the animated attempts to bring that trilogy to the screen were a little rougher around the edges. You have the Ralph Bakshi film, and then, of course...

Rankin and Bass come back around and finish what Bakshi started with The Return of the King, which I also remember enjoying. It also has some nice orc songs in it, something that I think has largely 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 82, which we already mentioned. Certainly a classic. Great vocal performances in that. Some, for my money, terrific music by America. There are at least a couple of tracks in there 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 80s, late 70s animation was they worked in popular musicians, I think, for like the first time. And I think we're better for it. We'll have a little theme song by a popular musician later for this film. We'll talk about that later. On the TV end of the spectrum, there was also Thundercats and Silverhawks. Silverhawks

It was basically Thundercats remixed, like the same basic concept, but in space. And instead of cat people, they were like metal bird people. And instead of Mumra, 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 1977's The Last Dinosaur, which is a Japanese co-production. And then there's 1978's The Bermuda Depths.

This is another Japanese co-production that featured a young Carl Weathers, Burl Ives, and I believe a giant psychic sea turtle. Joe has seen this one. I have not, but he tells me that it's amazing. It sounds amazing. I haven't seen it either. Now, one more quick note about the animation here. As with various other Rankin-Bass productions, you'll note a number of Japanese animators and filmmakers credited here.

They worked with a company called Topcraft on this one, a Japanese animation studio that did hand-drawn animations on this picture. Topcraft went on to make one of the greatest animated films of all time, Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. And when Topcraft folded, Miyazaki and others formed Studio Ghibli. And you can tell. You can tell. There are a number of shots in this film that

That you may want to like just because it looks dated, because it looks very 70s, you might just want to dismiss the whole thing and be like, oh, that's old. No, no, no. This isn't good. But there are multiple shots that when you look at them, you're like, oh, they weren't lazy. They went to extremes to make this shot successful. One, for example, that will come up later. We have a wizard and our protagonist, Peter, who...

both sitting on a die. We have a pair of dice, each of them sitting on one, and they rocket up into the air like a little rocket ship and spin while they're doing it. And we see their bodies full 360 degrees from going... Because they're spinning in a circle and going up from beneath us to above us. And when I was watching that recently as an adult who has made a career in animation, I go, oh no, that is so much time. Like...

That is weeks, weeks and weeks for that one very quick shot. And I was like, oh, they weren't being lazy. You know, there 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, a co-production? Is that a case where the animators are hungry to do something like cool and fun?

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. I think it's both. I think someone who's a storyboard artist would originally put that in because they think it would look cool and

And then when it gets handed off to the animation director or to the animators, they would look at it and go, oh, no, this is going to take a lot. And then they would go, yeah, but it would be pretty cool. They're like, yeah, it would be pretty cool. All right. Do we have time for this? Do we have the money for this? Okay. Okay. Let's do it. Let's do it. So I think it's a combination of both.

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Alright getting into the writing on this one real quick Romeo Muller who lived 1928 through 1992 was a longtime Rankin Bass writer He was a writer on this. There's also a Jeffrey Walker that is credited with writing additional material 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're really a couple of things the main one

Seems to be this book the flight of dragons by Peter Dickinson who lived 1927 through 2015 and illustrated by Wayne Anderson who was born in 1946 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 and

But this was a 1979 book. Pick it up if 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 1979 and City of Gold from 1980.

Anderson is a splendid illustrator and artist whose work has shown up just all over the place. He has a very distinctive style, which you can see if you go to his website. It's WayneAndersonArt.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 sciency elements and also the monster science of the dragons is all right out of this book. And there's even more of it. Like there's 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 a really cool book. Definitely worth picking up. You know, it's one of these where it's not real history. It's not real science of dragons.

But it is all sort of speculative science of dragons, and I love it. I 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.

Yeah, there's a theory of dragonflight in this that we'll describe when we get into the plot. And it's amazing. I'd never thought of it before. My son was very amused by it. It's great. Now, in addition to this, because this is not really a narrative book, this is more of a here's the world of dragons and how it works podcast.

book. Apparently some story material also came from the book The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dixon, who lived 1923 through 2001, author of the Dragon Knight series, of which I believe this was the first volume, The Child Cycle, as well as such novels as The Forever Man from 1986. 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 there are also some just really great voice actors that pop up as well. So first of all, there is a wizard in this by the name of Carolinus, who's very important. He's essentially our main good wizard. And he's a wizard who's going to be

And he is voiced by Harry Morgan, who lived 1915 through 2011. And I have to say, this bit of casting feels a bit weird, but also totally spot on for late 70s or early 80s casting. For sure. He was an accomplished actor of stage and screen well before TV's MASH. But MASH is probably where a lot of people would recognize this guy from. And if you hear his voice, he has that very dry voice.

voice, kind of crackly American accent in this picture, then you'll know exactly who this guy is. He was also on Dragnet. So yeah, very much a Dragnet cop voice for our weird nature wizard, which again feels kind of strange, but all right.

Morgan was also in 1952's High Noon, 1942's The Oxbow Incident, and 1960's 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 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 Omadon

Ooh, and Omadon is voiced by James Earl Jones. Born 1931, this is of course the legendary actor of stage, screen, TV, and more. Legendary as the voice behind Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise. He originated the role of Jack Jefferson on Broadway in The Great White Hope and gave a really electric performance of that role in the 1970 film adaptation.

He's been in so many things. We can't even begin to list them all, including playing King Jaffe in Coming to America, voicing Mufasa in The Lion King. And there's also no shortage of weirder, smaller roles that he did as well. He did TV work, but he also pops up in things like Grim Prairie Tales from 1990. There's a 1982 monster movie that I was recently looking at called Blood Tide, where he plays like a...

Kind of suspicious archaeologist who may have awakened a monster in Greece. I believe is the plot. Um,

He has a memorable role in 1987's Meituan. And the role that this performance, I think, mostly made me think of is another performance from 1982. He, of course, played the villainous wizard cult leader Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian. There's even a part in this film where he starts saying, Doom, Doom, Doom. And it definitely connects the two in my mind. Yes, I love that part. All

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, and this is, yes, the same name as the actual author of the Flight of Dragons book.

And he's voiced by John Ritter. John Ritter, of course, lived 1948 through 2003. Beloved TV and film actor who 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 like a show that would be on TV and syndication and

Generally, I think while my mom was cooking dinner and we, the kids, would just watch Three's Company. Ditto. I have no reason in my mind other than the fact that it was on all the time. Like, I didn't really care or even understand about the dynamics of this household, but...

They were funny. And John Ritter in particular was kind of a goofy, cartoony guy. So at least he appealed to kids in a way. Yeah, it was weird because later on I would learn that, oh yeah, this was supposedly a risque kind of TV show. It was supposed to be 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 as a kid. And you just take it at face value. It was like, oh yeah, he lives there with 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. In addition to that, he also did a lot of film though. He did Sling Blade, Problem Child, Bride of Chucky, 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

Of course, we also have some dragon voices in this. The dragon Arag is voiced by Victor Bueno. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I thought Arag was the wolf. Oh, yes. Oh, of course. Arag is the wolf. Yes. Cool, cool. I know. We're getting ahead here. Yes, a wolf will show up in this and he talks.

Arag is voiced by Victor Bueno. This is the last role for this individual, a longtime TV and film actor, probably best known for films such as 1962's Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and 1970's Beneath the Planet of the Ape.

in which he plays one of the mutants. I included an image here for you, Seth, in case you have flashbacks to Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Now, was he also King Tut in the Batman live-action series, or am I completely making that up? I think this is true, yes. One of the stills that I grabbed shows, I think, images from both of these. Um...

I think he did play King Tut. I've just confirmed it. Yes, yes, 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 Tut and then would commit crimes befitting King Tut trying to exist in this modern 20th century world of 1966 Gotham City. One of the most beloved characters

Batman villains of all time. Right up there with the Joker. Yeah, I was going to say right below Egghead.

I'm not really a Batman comics guy, but I do seem to recall there have, like, Batman is never going to end. Right. And so inevitably, creators have come back to some of those villains from the Batman TV series and found new things to do with them. And I think I read something about, like, one where you had a faction that had these sort of forgotten characters like King Tut and Egghead. I have read it. I have read it. It was a complete series based...

exclusively based on the 1966 Batman television series as if it continued on after the television show. And no, it's wonderful. If you like Batman 66, the TV series, which I do very much, it's fun just to have more adventures in that campy world with these characters that never really got much attention outside of that world.

All right. We also have Briag and Smurgle. Are these both dragons, Seth? Smurgle definitely is. Briag, I think that's the evil red dragon. And Smurgle is like the elderly good dragon. I believe that's the two. But just like Arga, there's going to be a lot of like just guttural noises that just mythical creature. Yeah, I guess this is draconic. This is the dragon language. It all sounds like growling, but...

Both of these characters were voiced by James Gregory, who lived 1911 through 2002. New York actor. He had a long-running role on TV's Barney Miller. He was in 62's The Manchurian Candidate. He was in 66's Murder's Row. And he was also in 1970's 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 pull just to watch them all again. It's just...

There's something very comforting about them, and I'm not quite sure what that is. But yeah, those are some enjoyable films. The original series, of course, is what I'm speaking of. Yeah, I need to rewatch. I guess I'm kind of waiting until my son's ready for them. And then going to definitely watch the first one. And I really want to watch the second one again. 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, worshipping the atomic bomb and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's a fun one. I also really like the one where the two apes go into our modern world 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 two ape creatures. It's fun. Yeah, same energy as that for sure. Yeah. All right, getting into just a couple of smaller roles here. Larry Storch plays the pawnbroker in this, which is a fun little role we'll discuss. But this guy lived 1923 through 2022, actor and comedian. But I only really wanted to highlight him because he's...

He also played the Scoutmaster in 1980s 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 known as Antiquity, and it is voiced by Paul Freese, who lived 1920 through 1986. He's actually, I believe, uncredited on this film, but this was a longtime voiceover, voice actor that frequently popped up in Rankin and Bass productions.

Also, Paul Freese did the voice, also uncredited, of Solaris, the blue wizard. Another role which, once again, in the credits for no reason, he just doesn't get credited. But there he is. He plays one of our main four wizards as well. One of the lesser ones. One of the ones with fewer lines. I do always find it interesting when you look back at voice acting in the 1980s and earlier. Sometimes you would find situations where they just have...

one voice actor just do numerous voices in ways that you, I guess, you certainly don't see as much on modern animated pictures, right? Yeah. And here's actually, to me, the worst part about that. Think about Looney Tunes shorts, for example. Mel Blanc did almost every cartoon voice, almost all of them.

However, there are two other actors which are very prominent in that world. One is June Foray and one is Arthur Q. Bryan. Arthur Q. Bryan is mostly known for the Elmer Fudd voice. That was not Mel Blanc. That was Arthur Q. Bryan. And June Foray, basically most of the female characters like Witch Hazel, etc., etc., they often were never credited.

In these old Looney Tunes shorts, all the voice credit always just went to Mel Blanc for the longest time. And there's no particular reason other than ego or, I don't know, perhaps trying to fool people into thinking he did more than he did. 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. It's just a strange practice that still exists in the entertainment industry. Yeah.

All right, finally, on the music front, first of all, the score, we tend to highlight the score. The score is by Maury Laws, who lived 1923 through 2019. Also scored The Last Dinosaur, as well as The Hobbit from 77, and other various Rankin and Bass joints. But the real juicy part of the music is, of course, the theme song to The Flight of Dragons. 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 McLean, born 1945, American music legend, singing the Flight of Dragons theme song. I mean, Mr. American Pie himself. Yeah. Now he didn't write this one, I believe, but he does perform it. And it's a fun little theme song. It's

At first, it might feel kind of weird because it does not feel medieval. I don't know. I mean, not that the theme song to The Last Unicorn by America feels medieval either, but that's a great one as well. So I don't know. I think it absolutely works here. I absolutely can't get it out of my head. It sets the tone for sure. Yeah. It gives it like an airy, dreamy vibe. Yeah. So it totally works. Mm-hmm.

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This episode is brought to you by Microsoft. The world is built on code. From the apps we use every day to the systems powering industries, developers like you are the architects of tomorrow. But let's be real, the road to innovation can be tricky. You need the right tools to push what's possible and build the future. That's where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft has the tools to help you build your own way.

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Matt, what even is this weather? I know. I think it was sunny and snowing at the same time yesterday. It's crazy. I have to keep my sunglasses and my snow boots in my car at all times. But you know how I make sure my car can handle it all? Snow boots for your car? Sort of, but no. I make sure my oil change technician goes with Pennzoil Platinum full synthetic motor oil, which maximizes engine protection. And my engine needs Pennzoil Platinum to keep the adventures going through all the seasons, even if they're happening in the same day.

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Add a little to your life. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. All right. Are we ready to talk about the actual, the plot 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.

This green cloaked figure shouts out, Gorbash! Gorbash! Come! And a large green dragon, maybe like 10 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 and the dragon take off into the sky and join an already established thunder of dragons. Now, I had to look this up. I was like, what is a group of dragons called? And because, of course, they are fictional, I actually found a

many, many different words 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 up multiple times actually in this movie, so I suppose 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 is in a transition period between magic and science and he just kind of wonders to himself um

What he's gonna do about that, you know? 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. This was just a thing they did back in the late 70s, early 80s. This is the kind of moment that when I was a child, I would fast forward through, but as an adult, I appreciate. If memory serves, this is actually a sequence from later on in the picture.

that they just went ahead and front-loaded to just give you a lot of dragons to look at while you listen to this wonderful Don McLean song. So, you know, fair enough. Yeah, why not? It is beautiful, so why not? But much like Cheer Up Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or...

Let's see, what would the other one be? It was Candle on the Water and Pete's Dragon. These were those 80s, 70s ballads that they put in children's films that I just fast-forwarded through. Now, at this point, since we've mentioned the dragons and we've seen multiple dragons, we should point out that, yes, the dragons in this film are, as my son described them, chonky. They are big, chonky dragons.

And at first, you might look at these and think, I just can't. I'm not feeling 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. Their chunk is very necessary. Yeah.

So after this montage of dragons flying through the sky, several of the dragons land on a riverbank and we see a few other mythical creatures, including some Pegasi, which I presume is the plural for Pegasus. You think so? Pegasi? I guess you get into that weird situation where is Pegasus an individual or is Pegasus a species and so forth?

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, 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. They are 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. And this is like the first visual metaphor for kind of the overarching thesis of this film. Can this technology, this water wheel, exist in the same world as this magic, these fairies? Can they coexist or is one destroying the other? Yeah.

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 Carolinus. I'm the protagonist of this film. I am the green wizard. You know, my domain is the green world, nature itself and all of its inhabitants. You know, the mill workers, they're like, whatever.

They start throwing large rocks at Carolinus and just tell him to go away. Carolinus is mad, so he casts a spell to destroy their water wheel. But as he casts it, the spell just kind of fizzles out and just kind of plops into the river and has no effect. Thus, the ridicule from the mill workers increases, and he's just having a bad day. Yeah, this was unexpected because when this... It 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 the spell fizzles out and he just kind of has to walk away. So Carolinus walks home, dejected. He actually lives nearby. These are his neighbors, you know? And he's comforted by his daughter, Princess Melisandre. And we will see her more throughout the story.

And so Carolinus is thinking to himself, what am I going to do about this? So he summons his three brothers to a meeting. This is the first time they've all come together in 400 years because they need to have a discussion about the state of magic.

So he sends off the letters on owls, as you do. However, one thing I learned recently, did you know that owls are actually the slowest birds? So they're for terrible conveyance for messages, you know? Use a quicker bird, please. But anyway, magic. I didn't realize that, just...

Joe and I did an episode a while back talking about the idea of using things other than pigeons as messengers, like ravens or owls. And we talked about some of the possibilities and limitations with these different species. But yeah, we somehow didn't touch on the flying speed of the common owl.

You know, there are more important things than speed. You know, there's all kinds of aspects we could look into. But let's meet our three other wizards. So they're all color coded to keep everyone straight on these. So we've met Carolinus. He's the green wizard. Nature, grass, all the creatures. You got it. Green. Green.

Next we have Salarius, the blue wizard. He is the lord of the depths and the heights. His realm is outer space, deepest ocean, and highest mountain. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. He's kind of almost like a sea deity, but in the older sense, where you have a situation where the Greek god of the ocean, Poseidon, is not limited to the sea. Like he's the

The sea is like one of his domains, but he has domains beyond the sea as well. 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 a fun juxtaposition. I dig it. I dig it.

Next up, we have Lota Zhao. This is the Golden Wizard. His realm is light and air. He's the Lord of Transcendence, Healing, and Contemplation. Once again, love it. I also love that because he is designed as like, you know,

more of like an Eastern wizard. His dragon is the only one in the whole movie that is like an Eastern style dragon, 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 find wings of any sort on Eastern dragons. Um,

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 dragons, and they don't have tiny wings on it. Interesting. I wonder if they were trying to maybe perhaps patch a plot hole, because later on we do find out the importance of the wing here.

when they start discussing the science of how dragons fly. So yes, I wonder. I wonder what kind of thought went into that, but I guess we'll see. Well, 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 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

Well, we'll discuss that when we get to the science of dragons flying, because I have a thought about the differences between the Eastern and the Western dragon, but we'll get there. Now our fourth wizard, this is the evil one we mentioned, the James Earl Jones wizard. This is Omadon, the Red Wizard, lord of the Devil's Domain, seducer of darkness, master of black magic.

He's our villain. And man, he's beautiful. I love the design of Omadon. Oh, yeah. 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 this kind of beastly, almost rat-like, cat-like face. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And he morphs at various times throughout this film, and it's all gorgeous. He's the one to watch for visual splendor. And the James Earl Jones voice performance on this character is just absolutely great. I mean, James Earl Jones is not...

Just laying back in his chair or sitting in a hammock reading lines on this. He's just chewing every bit of dialogue up and spitting it out, and it's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, 100%. So these four wizards, just to remind everyone, 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, the four brothers, they discuss that magic is getting weaker because humankind is choosing logic over magic. But Carolinus 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 like all the magical creatures, all the magic where it's like, hey...

We don't own the world, but in this zone, we have full magical power. That's his plan. The blue wizard and the golden wizard agree and pledge their help. The red wizard, Omadon, no, no, no. He disagrees. He calls this proposed magic realm a retirement home for magic, and he would rather destroy humankind.

And his method is really fascinating. Basically, he says, like, 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 want to distrust each other?

you should distrust everybody and really just like leaning into the worst aspects of humankind and using it to destroy ourselves. That's his magic plan. Yeah. Inviting Omadon really couldn't have gone worse for everyone. And yeah,

I do love the villainous take he has on all of this. It reminds me a lot of some of the concepts that Michael Inda explored in the book, The NeverEnding Story. 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 Omadon is channeling here. And in The NeverEnding Story, we get this idea that's particularly presented by the Gamorf discussing the motivations of the nothing and the powers beyond the nothing, that the same energy that gives a child life

imagination and gives imaginative individuals 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. And so I think that's kind of echoed in this work as well. Oh, 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. Princess Melisandre, she says to Carolinus, her father, and goes, why are you even inviting this guy? You know, Omadon's a jerk. Don't invite him. And Carolinus 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, all right, all right, I'll buy that in a fantasy realm. We'll take that. Yeah.

uh, so, uh, Omadon wants to destroy humankind. He does not want to, you know, hide his magic away. So the three good wizards, blue, uh,

and gold, they decide 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 an entity known as antiquity. Well, we'll get there. There is a wizard law that says you are not able to fight against another wizard and antiquity. This, this wizard God will basically ensure that I believe they start getting mad at Omadon and,

Antiquity starts causing an earthquake and dropping giant stones near them and stuff like that. So they can't do it. They cannot fight Omadon.

So they decide to use their magic to inspire a quest to go take Omadon's red crown to basically destroy Omadon. So again, with the wizarding laws, which will come up, we all just have to go, you know what? Just go with it. You know, when the wizarding laws come up, we'll all 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.

Carolinus picks an old knight that he knows, someone who he knows to be trustworthy and brave, Sir Orin Neville Smythe. He also picks his dragon that we met at the very beginning, Gorbash, who is young and perhaps a bit foolhardy, but very brave, very strong. So Gorbash, the green dragon, he'll go to.

But he doesn't know who to pick as the leader. He just can't really figure that out. So he goes later that night to talk 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 Carolinus 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 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. Carolinus 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 Carolinus is given a silver acorn by,

by antiquity, this silver tree, and he throws it 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, they call it like the final, you know, death rattle of the 20th century or however they phrase it. But anyway, the end of the late 20th century. So we can assume it's probably 1982, just like, you know, just like it was made in. So,

We meet Peter. He is developing a D&D-style board game called 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 I need money, so maybe I can pawn this watch, and the pawnbroker's like, that watch isn't worth anything. And then he also explains that he's also writing a book about

called flight of dragons. And that basically he's just obsessed with dragons. Uh, he really wants to figure out how dragons fly, how they breathe fire, et cetera. He's just, he, he is, he's a dragon fanatic. However, does not seem like really would be your first pick to lead a, uh, an adventuring party into the heart of darkness to stop an evil sorcerer. But antiquity knows better than we do, I guess. Yeah. Cause every character mentions that every character was like, are you sure this guy, you know? And, uh, so yeah, um, uh,

Peter and the pawnbroker are playing their D&D style board game together. And all the figures on the board are all of Carolinus's brothers and himself and Princess Melisande and the dragons. And he's like, okay, 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 Carolinus 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. Uh, this is where I mentioned is that really beautiful shot of them both riding 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 a, they, 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 Carolinus, his daughter, princess Melisandre. It doesn't really affect the story. It's just, it's a subplot. Don't really worry about it. It's just there. So at this point, it turns out that almost all of the dragons are,

have joined Omadon because he used black magic on them. The only remaining dragons on the hero's side are Gorbash and Smurgle. Smurgle is Gorbash's elderly uncle. He's not quite as spry, but 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 wizard brothers, each of the four colors, they each have their own more or less pet dragon, their familiar dragon. However, the other two, the gold wizard and the blue wizard, theirs don't join Omadon, and yet they also don't help. So...

I don't know why. Maybe they're just too far away. Who knows? They contribute magical items, Seth. That's true. We do get, of course, some magical items.

Today's episode is brought to you by Avis. Do you like control but also travel a lot? And after enough weather cancellations, security bottlenecks, and in-flight Wi-Fi issues, you stop expecting to be in control when you're traveling. Until you reach the Avis counter. Avis has been renting cars for over 75 years, and it shows. Like clockwork, they'll have the car you want ready for you exactly as you had planned.

Because it turns out plans are their thing, specifically keeping them. In fact, they have a special way of making you feel like your plans are the only ones in the world that matter, just like they do for all their customers. They'll stop at nothing to get you on your way on time so you can go about your business and, yes, regain control. And for a limited time, you can save 20% on your car rental when you pay now. Go to Avis.com slash plan on us to learn more. Avis. Plan on us.

This episode is brought to you by Microsoft. The world is built on code. From the apps we use every day to the systems powering industries, developers like you are the architects of tomorrow. But let's be real, the road to innovation can be tricky. You need the right tools to push what's possible and build the future. That's where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft has the tools to help you build your own way.

With Azure AI Foundry streamlined tool chain, model choice, GitHub Copilot, and VS Code, you can build the next big thing the way you want. But here's what's key. You can innovate confidently with responsible AI and security that's built in from the start. The future is in your hands. To learn more, go to developer.microsoft.com/ai. Microsoft, yours to build. Hey guys, it's Matt and Leah from the Grown Up Stuff podcast.

Matt, what even is this weather? I know. I think it was sunny and snowing at the same time yesterday. It's crazy. I have to keep my sunglasses and my snow boots in my car at all times. But you know how I make sure my car can handle it all? Snow boots for your car? Sort of, but no. I make sure my oil change technician goes with Pennzoil Platinum full synthetic motor oil, which maximizes engine protection. And my engine needs Pennzoil Platinum to keep the adventures going through all the seasons, even if they're happening in the same day.

Ask for Pennzoil Platinum at Firestone Complete Auto Care. Pennzoil. Long may we drive.

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Upgrade now at washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. This is actually my favorite part of this movie, especially to me as a child.

Peter, as the fish-out-of-water character, he makes a lot of discoveries throughout the film that kind of define the canon of being a dragon. This was his goal. He wanted to learn more about dragons. Now he gets to do it firsthand. And 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 canon facts when they do. So dragon canon fact number one. He just kind of hears this in conversation amongst the dragons.

A dragon having a hoard of gold is a pretty common thing. It's in all the fantasy literature that you come across, whether it be Tolkien or, oh gosh, what's his name, the guy that made the Chronicles of Narnia? Oh yeah, C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis. Yeah, yeah. A dragon's hoard of gold is a pretty common thing.

Why? Well, in this, they 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 accidentally spark it with their fire breath. And they just need somewhere that's unflammable, not flammable. I love it. Yeah, I love it.

Why not? I'd never thought about this sort of thing before when it comes to the gold. And this is a perfect explanation. Granted, it does raise questions like why don't they sleep on lead and so forth. But no, no. Gold is soft.

In addition to being shiny and prized, so I absolutely buy it. Yeah, yeah. And I remember we mentioned this a long time ago about a child's love for learning canon facts. I don't know what it is, but like, like,

Hearing the definitive version of classic creatures, classic tales, etc. is something that children just love, myself included. So therefore, I really loved these when I was watching this movie as a child. Yeah, yeah. My son really started getting into the dragons at this point in this film when they start explaining how they work within the context of the film. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

So, Carolinus, before this big quest kicks off, he gives Peter two gifts. 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, yeah, these will aid in trials later, but don't worry about it. Maybe.

Meanwhile, Omadon sends his big dragon familiar to kill Peter and Carolinus tries to save him. But in using a magic spell, he accidentally merges Peter's mind into Gorbash's body.

Gorbache, if you'll remember, is the big green dragon from the beginning. So yes, our hero is now a giant dragon. So fun, right? Oh yeah, I think 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 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 a great way to kind of like dole out some exposition is like, you know, a newbie learning the ropes. It's great. Yeah.

And it introduces a lot of room for comedy, too. Like, oh, am I doing it right? Oh, no, I'm falling out of the sky and so forth. Exactly. But like 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 Gorbash, we're back to two again. We need a third member. So we have the knight, the

We have Peter in Gorbache's body, and so Smurgle, the elderly dragon, joins the quest to make up for that lost member. So we're back to three again. The magic quest can begin. So on the quest, Smurgle is now instructing Dragon Peter on how to be a dragon. So we get more dragon canon facts. I love these. This one's fun. I really enjoyed this. So dragon canon fact number two.

eat diamonds to get them into their craw. In the film, we see them actually like bullying some dwarves to make them, like force 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. So picture that, a dragon eats a sack full of diamonds, puts it in his craw, much like a bird, and then

And then they 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. Okay.

So then hydrogen is lighter than air and expands their bodies, giving them that chonky look and giving them their ability to fly much in the same way a blimp does. Yes. Oh, my goodness. I absolutely love this. And again, this is out of the book as well, that...

The dragons of the Flight of Dragons are essentially hydrogen airships. Yeah. Self-powered hydrogen airships. It's fabulous. So that's where the wings factor in and their long snake-like bodies, or I should say lizard-like, either way. That's how they propel themselves, is with these wings. Much like an airplane, much like a blimp. Yeah, just...

They are just floating. And then their appendages, their wings, tails, arms, whatever, that's what actually guides them through the air. So how are they going to get down? That's an important 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, it 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 there'll be force coming out what you need is a way to expel it in a controlled way 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 dragons we breathe fire

Uh, now here, this is the part I love. Um, Smurgle, uh, explains that 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 it has the ability to spark and will basically ignite the hydrogen much like a, an electric stove ignites, you know, gas. And that's fun too. More dragon facts. Yeah. Yeah. This, this was all, all pretty fabulous. And, uh,

I didn't 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 goodness, this is it. Yes, I buy it 100%.

And then you have the fun banter between the dragon mentor and Peter in dragon form because he keeps asking obsessive science-leaning questions. And the answers are often along the lines of, because we're dragons. Yes. Et cetera. Smergle has not thought about this very much, and he's okay with that. Peter should think less about this, so says Smergle. Yeah. Don't think about it. Just do it. Just fly. Yeah.

So at this point, basically, this turns into a D&D campaign. That's the remainder of this movie. There's not really much to talk about from here on out, so we'll go through it quickly. But along the way, they face various trials and meet new allies that join them. One ally is named Arnab.

Arag. That's the wolf character we talked about. He's an undead talking wolf. They describe it briefly, but basically he drowned. And then one of the wizards 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 Danielle of the Woodlands. She's a very skilled archer and warrior. Another one is Giles of the Treetops. He's the leader of the Wood Elves.

They all join this magic quest, and the party looks more and more Tolkien as time passes. 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 goblin rats that let off a real high-pitched noise that drove the listener to be very ill-tempered, and they had to destroy them. It was fascinating. Oh, that sequence 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 they're about to run into something, but you can't really tell what it is. And then, yeah, it's this weird concept of screeching rat things that destroy your mind and so forth. It was done very well and very fun to watch. The next trial I also really enjoyed. It was this ogre. Oh! Mm-hmm.

This ogre, other than Omadon, was probably my favorite thing to look at. Just beautifully depicted. They also threw in some fun ogre facts about why ogres are so sturdy and almost invincible in many ways. And a big part of it I really loved was that ogres have very, very thick

bones that they don't have much flesh most of their body is bone 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 like one has lost sight i love it yeah the one in the one in the middle of his head is is uh his additional eye but one of his 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

Then there's this worm thing, also very beautiful to look at, but it is pretty quickly dispatched. And then Omadon's getting involved because they're getting much closer to his home base. 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 pretty fun. They overcome that along with this giant dragon swarm that...

by uh uh let's see here what's what's the order of it i believe the doubt spell is dispelled by the magic 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 uh magic flute which uh the the um gosh 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 got to do this quick play that flute i know it'll make me fall asleep but

It's got to happen, you know? This is weird how this lined up because my son and I watched this film while we were also watching the new season of The Dragon Prince. Both of these have plot elements involving magical musical instruments that put dragons to sleep. Nice, nice. Yeah.

So this works, and then we're into the final battle. Now, here's where it's going to begin with Peter facing off against Omadon. 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 is man Peter again. And someone asks him, like, how'd you do that? He's like, oh, well.

two objects can't, you know, occupy the same space. That's just logic. So I logicked my way out of that dragon. Everyone's like, all right, you know, sure. But at this point, it's just Peter, the human, against Omadon, this all-powerful wizard. So already, this is a point where we're suddenly, I feel like, in uncharted territory because we were setting everything up for more of a traditional high fantasy battle and now we're somewhere else. Like, like,

The big flight of dragons has been put to sleep. And let's see, I think we've at this point lost a few characters as well, right? Yes, some folks have definitely not worked out, you know? Yeah, there's a scene where our knight bites it, battling a dragon, the big bad dragon that serves Omadon.

We lose our archer. I think we also lose our wood elf. I think he gets thrown against a stone cliff and is at least passed out, if not dead. Yeah. So at 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 designer. Yeah.

And first of all, Omadon erupts into this giant multi-headed dragon. And it's the prettiest thing of this whole movie. It's so, so beautiful. Like Omadon looked cool when he was just the red wizard. Now he is a, he's a red wizard Hydra. Like it's, it's crazy.

I love, love, love the look of this. But it's also perfect because it's so nonsensical. It's so chaotic. Because basically this becomes a standoff between logic and...

and, um, in chaotic imagination. And so, oh, it, it makes sense that Omadon would just defy all logic and just be this swirling, uh, uh, amalgam of humanoid and dragon features. Yeah. And, and so since the only tool that you can fight, uh,

chaos with is logic that's what peter does uh peter just starts basically talking his way out of this battle uh much in the same way that like uh oh let's say sarah you know talks her way out of um uh jareth in labyrinth or um yeah i forget the protagonist's name and nightmare on elm streets where she's like i'm not afraid of you you know it's just like that that simple thing of just like hey and

that 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 equations and then he just starts listing like digital 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, uh, Omadon was like calling on the power of the sun and, and, uh, 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 rays 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, what? No, no, the sun's right there. Yeah.

It's fun things like 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 works so well. Like, for instance, the labyrinth scene, I think, is a great comparison. I have no power. You have no power over me thing with Sarah and Jareth. And yet I never have. I love labyrinth. But.

But 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 laying everything out. Like, for instance, there's the whole scene, the part of it where Omadon is just calling upon forces of darkness, saying these evil sounding magic words.

some sort of incantation. And Peter's like, yeah, I have incantations too. And he's like, bam, E equals MC squared and so forth. And these are actually hurting Omadon. The logic is cutting into him and taking away his power. Yeah. No, it's earned and it works. It's a fun little ending. So he does it. He beats Omadon. He is destroyed, turns into just dust on the ground. And

It's mostly a visual scene, so we can't really go through it entirely. But then Peter is sent back to modern Boston, and he's back where he left off. He's back in the pawnbroker shop with his friend playing his D&D game that he invented.

Now, remember earlier way in the beginning, Peter wanted to pawn his watch so he could get 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 be able to do whatever you want, you know. And then here's the nice part where it all ties up.

Melisande, the princess, the daughter of Carolinus, she enters the pawn shop in this modern world because she has fallen in love with Peter and she brought Omidon's crown with her and she pawns that too. And it's like, hey, now he gets love also. Yay, the end. That's the end of the movie. Oh, yeah, it's so good. I deny all magic. It's another one of the rallying cries of Peter in the final battle. Yeah.

It's a fun thing because the balance between I love magic and magic isn't real is really on display here. And 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. And so therefore, he could both respect the magic as well as cut it down a peg. But I think almost ultimately...

carolinus like sealed his own fate by inviting peter into his realm because in many ways the what he didn't want to happen happened very quickly which was that that science destroyed magic yeah but they get their magic refuge where they get to to keep all their magical creatures running around right yes yeah so you know it's it's it's not an unhappy ending for them as well it works out um

I do want to also point out, because I'm always a sucker for these sorts of scenes, when Omadon is finally defeated, he does sort of shrink and melt and then wither away to nothing, like turns to dust and blows away in the wind. And it's a fabulous animated sequence. Good stuff. Good stuff all around. And that's this movie. Yeah. The Flight of Dragons. Yeah, just a real delight. This one...

I think holds up so well. Like I said, I had never seen it before, so I didn't have anything to compare it to in my memory, though it did resonate with my love for these other pictures from this time period, like the Rankin and Bass Hobbit film. If you're a D&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 going to go ahead and close this one out here, but we'd love to hear from everyone out there, especially for those of you who, like Seth, 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, write in. We'd love to hear from you. And if you're like me, if you just saw it for the first time as an adult or recently introduced a child to it, write 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 and 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, I mean, they're all in the feed, but also I blog about them at Samutamusic.com, and I also list all of them on our Letterboxd

profile. If you go to letterboxd.com, that's L-E-T-T-E-R-B-O-X-D, you can look us up. Our username is weirdhouse there. We have all the films that we've watched so far, and sometimes there'll be a peek ahead at what's coming next.

Speaking of all this, of course, Seth is not just the producer of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. He is also a podcast host. 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. Find it wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Now,

this week we are doing Grace Jones night clubbing. Very fun hits. Everyone loves Grace Jones. And, uh, if you're looking for just some great, uh, fun music discussion, uh, something just to 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, if you have thoughts for, for, for Joe, if you have thoughts for me or Seth, you can email us at,

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