Tag Archives: Carolinius

When I was trying to come up with a list for these non-Disney Princess movie reviews, I was one short of having a nice schedule that would fill the last thursday in a month (exact month withheld) and after doing a little research I found The Flight Of Dragons.

Flight of Dragons was produced by my old nemesis Rankin/Bass Productions. It was first released as a direct-to-video in 1982 and then aired on ABC in 1986. As of 2009, it’s a made-to-order DVD. Now doesn’t that speak of quality? I’m not going sugar-coat this, The Flight of Dragons, despite its epic sounding title, is a boring turd of a movie.

Really, I can and should for the  limited amount of sanity I have left, stop the review here but here we go.

The plot is needless complex despite the fact that very little happens. The green wizard, Carolinius, sees that the world is losing magic because of science. He contacts the league of super losers, erm his wizard pals. He proposes that they should create a secret magic haven for all magical creatures, where science and logic can’t hurt them or something.

The evil red demonic one, Ommadon, thinks this idea stupid and decides that he should take over the world, he’s my favorite character so far. The other wizards decide that they need defeat him by taking his ugly crown as it’s the source of his power but they can’t fight directly because of wizard rules, seriously. Carolinus decides that his dragon Gorbash and some creepy knight will be in the quest to get the crown however the rules requires three people because of reasons. The two other wizards offer magic items that will be used later in the movie.

Carolinus asks Antiquity, which is some all knowing super thing for the third person. They get some science guy descendent from Boston Massachusetts, specifically from Beacon Street. Though, I’m not sure why that matters since we only see a pawn shop. His name is Peter Dickinson (giggles) and he is writing a book and made a game called Flight of Dragons, he is also some kind of science guy but prefers thinking about dragons. Anyway, he gets transported to the magic world and is happy to go on a quest, though he is happier to see dragons and to meet Carolinius’ pretty but oh so bland adopted daughter Princess Milisande.

Anyway, Ommadon attacks and Peter gets merged into Gorbash’s body. So Peter, who is now a dragon and creepy knight guy, Orrin, along with an older dragon named Smrgol, go off on their quest. We then get long dialogues about dragon flight mechanics. Melisande uses her powers to basically watch them for Carolinus. The gang is joined by a wolf, an elf and pretty lady. They get attack by an ogre and Smrgol dies.

They then get Ommadon’s domain and they use the magic items to defect Ommadon’s convoy of dragons a.k.a the Flight of Dragons. They do this by using a flute to put the dragons to sleep including Gorbash/Peter. The only dragon not affect is Ommadon’s evil dragon, Bryagh, who kills everyone. Peter escapes Gorbash’s body because of science and defeats Ommadon by rejecting magic and listing science disciplines. Everyone comes back to life but Peter is rejected from the magic world. Milisande decides to join Peter in un-magical Boston. The end.

A lot of this movie is explaining stuff. Movies are a visual medium, show, don’t tell. All the exposition bogs down the narrative and makes it boring and dull. By the 6 minute mark, I knew this was a snooze-fest. That shouldn’t happen. I shouldn’t feel like napping after less than 10 minutes.

Then we have the characters. Most of them are bland. I do not get Peter at all. At the start he seemed to enjoy magical stuff and was bored of science but then he loved science and is all smug about using it to Ommadon. Also, I’m not sure what discipline he studied. He mentions labs, grants and research, fuck about just telling us what specifically he actually studied. Bad writing! I suppose from context it would be chemistry.

Then we have the creepy knight, Orrin, who vowed to fall in love with Milisande when she was 5 years old, ewwww. Milisande herself is bland except for one outburst she has about Carolinius killing her parents and blaming it on demons. That was a wow moment that ended quickly.  After that Milisande spends the rest of the movie in bed and telling Carolinius how the quest is going. Worst Princess ever, wait how is she a Princess again? At least I get Ommadon, he’s evil.

Animation is crap in this movie. Like grade-C poo, it’s terrible. It’s not good enough to be Grade-A Poo. I have nothing else to add except that it looks dated even for the early 80s and I don’t even think they gave a shit because they spent more time writing about dragons flying then showing them fly.

The Flight of the Dragon is a boring movie that needless complicates a narrative with exposition at the cost of characters, animation and a visual style. There is a resonable story in here about magic vs science but the overall dulliness won and the film is crap. This movie was better when it was called How to Train Your Dragon.