Dragonslayer

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Harmetz, Aljean (September 9, 1981). "HOLLYWOOD IS JOYOUS OVER ITS RECORD GROSSING SUMMER". The New York Times . Retrieved October 10, 2017. In the aftermath, villagers inspecting the dragon's corpse credit God with the victory. The king arrives and drives a sword into the dragon to claim the glory for himself. As Galen and Valerian leave Urland together, he confesses that he misses both Ulrich and the amulet. He says, "I just wish we had a horse." Suddenly, a white horse appears, insinuating that the power of the amulet is now within Galen himself. The couple mount the horse and ride away. Dragonslayer is the kind of campy, goofy fun you’d find in Disney movies, but it’s anchored deliberately by care and detail given to the world in which the story inhabits. All of these characters don’t function like our typical fantasy heroes, as Robbins’ vision hews much closer to historical fact, surmising that these people languishing in poverty within the feudal system would be inspired, even motivated by the appearance of magic in their lives. Such an approach removes much of the flair in other fantasy films, though it emphasizes the power of on-screen magic when the special effects take hold.

released every catalogue release with this level of TLC. This is one of the finest the studio has ever offered and easily one of the best looking of any Phil Tippett built a model for the dragon's walking scenes. He did not want to use standard stop-motion animation techniques, and had his team build a dragon model that would move during each exposure, rather than in between, as was once the standard. This process, named "go motion" by Tippett, recorded the creature's movements in motion as a real animal would move, added motion blur, and removed the jerkiness common in prior stop-motion films. [3] Dragonslayer also got an Oscar nomination for Best Score, and went up against, to this day, one of the most famous scores of all time, Chariots of Fire. The way it sounds is something that I hadn't heard in years, not since we had a few 70 mm theaters in the initial release," he explained. "Walter Murch mixed it and did a phenomenal job, so his work is showcased as well." In an age of dying magic, the sixth-century kingdom of Urland finds itself plagued by a decrepit and bitter dragon named Vermithrax Pejorative. Hoping to appease the creature and outlast it, King Casiodorus (Peter Eyre) offers Vermithrax a virgin sacrifice each year chosen by lottery. But the king’s peasants, having grown tired of this, send an expedition led by Valerian (Caitlin Clarke) to seek the help of the realm’s last sorcerer, Ulrich of Cragganmore (Ralph Richardson, of Things to Come and Doctor Zhivago fame), to defeat the creature once and for all. When Ulrich is killed by the captain of the King’s guard (John Hallam) however, the task falls to his young apprentice Galen (Peter MacNicol). But Valerian has been hiding a secret. So too have Ulrich and the king, who’s long kept his own daughter, Elspeth (Chloe Salaman), from participating in the lottery. And when Galen finally comes face to face with Vermithrax, the dragon’s wrath is far more terrible than any of them imagined.

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Like many other recent 4K Ultra HD releases, this one is glorious. Dragonslayer isn’t a movie full of bright colors that will pop off the screen in 4K, but it does have plenty of dark, moody shots that likely struggled to render well on the old DVD. (I never had that one, and as far as I know, this movie skipped Blu-ray, for whatever reason.) Guillermo del Toro gives Hobbit update". ComingSoon.net. Evolve Media, LLC. November 12, 2008. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019 . Retrieved September 5, 2019. The animators manage some great shots with moving cameras, as when the creature crawls out of the hazy darkness of the cave. One spectacular shot shows the reptile rearing up and vomiting yellow flame at the cavern ceiling. Vermithrax is given just enough personality to be loathsome. It is also given a bit of motherly sympathy when it discovers that Galen has chopped its babies into ugly dragon-bits. We’re disturbed by the dead girls and the dead monsters. The Indiana Jones movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on a story by Lucas, was released in theaters by the same studio two weeks after Dragonslayer. Starting with its advertising campaign, Dragonslayer seems pitched to reach the huge audience of Star Wars. The original poster is practically a clone of the artwork for George Lucas’s first space adventure. With a major nod to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the story also bites off a huge chunk of Tolkien’s popular The Lord of the Rings. Ralph Richardson’s elderly wizard is more like Gandalf than Merlin — standing on high peaks, causing giant whirlwinds to rush around him.

Later major movie dragons have surely eclipsed Dragonslayer in impact. Today’s fans have been wowed by the talking dragon Smaug in the Hobbit trilogy, and by the fantastic dragon monsters featured in Game of Thrones. But in 1981 this was the pinnacle of visual effects artistry. A press release notes that the film received an Oscar nomination for its visual effects, which were provided by Phil Tippett. Tippett pioneered a technique called “go motion” on this project, incorporating blurring into each frame for more realistic images. Vermithrax Pejorative, the fire-breathing creature at the center of the story, was created using a combination of go motion and 16 massive dragon puppets. Guillermo del Toro has stated that along with Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, Vermithrax is his favorite cinematic dragon. [19] He further stated that: "One of the best and one of the strongest landmarks [of dragon movies] that almost nobody can overcome is Dragonslayer. The design of Vermithrax Pejorative is perhaps one of the most perfect creature designs ever made." [20] Just the same Dragonslayer is to be commended for trying something different. It is consistent in its approach, a melding of fantasy and grit.

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And Stephen has delivered his in-depth take on AGFA and Something Weird Video’s nine-film, three-disc The Films of Doris Wishman: The Moonlight Years Blu-ray box set, distributed by Vinegar Syndrome. An Unexpected Party Chat transcript now available!". Weta Holics. July 30, 2008. Archived from the original on July 29, 2008. Instead of a squeaky-clean Lucas realm, Urland is a pre- Middle Ages mud & rags kingdom, in transition from the old magical world of sorcerers and demons to religion. Did Barwood & Robbins make a basic commercial miscalculation? The genre wants fun, excitement and uplift, and Dragonslayer instead leans toward horror. Teenaged girls are sacrificed without mercy, followed by a graphic scene in which the dragon’s goblin-like offspring devour a virtuous, brave princess. Nothing in the show prepares us for that level of gore. A terrible dragon is terrorizing the medieval land of Urland in the 6th century. Representatives from the kingdom seek the assistance of the With fresh eyes and ears, Robbin says, “I was proud of it because I had been out of touch with it for so long. It reminded me that whenever it was operating at its best, it was a very classy, very accomplished film. And I thought some of the work with the actors was good. It was an interesting story. It had a lot of odd [things] like this whole gender thing that [Caitlin Clarke’s character Valerian] goes through; I was very proud of that. It's a very odd experience, because it's been over 40 years. [At the time], Sir Ralph was this doddering senior. Well, I'm 79… the exact age he was! There's a lot of Through the Looking Glass/Lewis Carroll stuff going on here.” Dragonslayer’s Legacy

Bledsoe, Alex (August 17, 2009). "First dragons: Vermithrax from Dragonslayer". AlexBledsoe.com. Archived from the original on September 15, 2017 . Retrieved September 5, 2019. healthier skin tones, deeper and more lifelike grays, and more satisfying earthen colors, all of which are the primary shades seen throughout the film. more visible on the UHD, a little more naturally organic, rendering the film looking about as good as it can in terms of natural film texturing and overall The layers in the plot come from the characters’ motivations, which go beyond basic good versus evil dynamics, and within the environment, we learn that this is a world changing from an era of magic and monsters to a more rational one. One interesting note about the latter comes in the form of the arrival of a holy man who espouses Christianity and believes God will protect the kingdom from the dragon, which he believes is a manifestation of Satan. And pay close attention to who assumes that role when the holy man is killed. Laughs] Yeah, exactly. But from the same studio, wouldn’t you know it? But I was amazed really at how far the technology today has gone to clean up the mess.An excellent long-form documentary is broken up into several separate sections, a Paramount decision from about 20 years ago that enabled DVD extras to be classified not as separate productions but as advertising promos not warranting credit, etc. I’ve retained Paramount’s description of each ‘chapter’ in the stats section below.