Dragonslayer is a 1981 American fantasy film directed by Matthew Robbins, from the scenario he wrote with Hal Barwood. It stars Peter MacNicol, Ralph Richardson, John Hallam and Caitlin Clarke. Paramount Pictures handles North American distribution, while Buena Vista International handles international distribution. The story, set in the fictional kingdom of the fictional century, follows a young wizard who experiences danger and disagreement as he tries to defeat a dragon.
A joint production between Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions, Dragonslayer is more mature than most other Disney movies of the period. Due to audience expectations for a more family-friendly film from Disney, film violence, adult themes and brief nudity were somewhat controversial at the time, though Disney did not hold US distribution rights, held by Paramount. The film is rated PG in the US; The TV show after 1997 has brought the TV-14 rating. It is possible that the film is responsible for making Touchstone Pictures later to produce more mature rates, starting with 1984's Splash .
Special effects were created in Industrial Light and Magic, where Phil Tippett has developed an animation technique called the go movement for The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Go motion is a variation on stop motion animation, and its use in Dragonslayer causes film nominations for the Academy Award for Visual Effects; it lost to Raiders of the Lost Ark , the only other Visual effect that was nominated that year, whose special effects are also provided by ILM. Including a hydraulic 40-foot model (12 m), 16 dragon dolls were used for the role of Vermithrax, each made for different movements; flying, crawling, breathing fire etc. Dragonslayer also marked the first time ILM service was used for films other than Lucasfilm Ltd.'s production.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Music Score; Chariots of Fire takes the award. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Drama Presentation, again lost to Raiders of the Lost Ark . In October 2003, Dragonslayer was released on DVD in the US by Paramount Home Video.
Video Dragonslayer (1981 film)
Plot
The sixth-century Romanesque kingdom called Urland is being terrorized by a 400-year-old dragon named " Vermithrax Pejorative ". To calm the dragon, King Casiodorus (Peter Eyre) offers him virgin girls who are selected with the lottery twice a year. An expedition led by a young man named Valerian (Clarke) searches for the last sorcerer, Ulrich of Craggenmoor (Richardson), for help.
A rough soldier from Urland named Tyrian (Hallam), who had followed the expedition, intimidated the witch. Ulrich invites Tyrian to stab him to prove his magical powers. Tyrian did so and Ulrich died instantly, to the horror of his young apprentice, Galen Bradwarden (MacNicol) and his elderly servant, Hodge (Sydney Bromley). Hodge cremated Ulrich's body and placed ashes in a leather pouch, telling Galen that Ulrich wanted his ashes scattered in a lake of burning water.
Galen is chosen by the magical magic of the magician as the next owner; encouraged, he took it upon himself for a trip to Urland. On the way, he finds Valerian really a young woman, in disguise to avoid being chosen in the draw. In an attempt to prevent the expedition, Tyrian kills Hodge; before dying, he handed over a bag of ashes and died with the words "Burning water..." on his lips.
Arriving in Urland, Galen checks the dragon's lair and tries to close its entrance by causing the rock to fall off a cliff. Tyrian captures Galen and takes him to the palace of King Casiodorus. King Casiodorus suspected that Galen was not a true sorcerer and complained that his attack might have dragged the dragon instead of killing him, as his older brother and predecessor had done. The king confiscated the talisman and imprisoned Galen. His daughter Elspeth (Chloe Salaman) came to taunt Galen, but was shocked when she told him about the rumor that the lottery was rigged to exclude his name and those rich enough to pay for the names of their children to be removed. Casiodorus could not lie convincingly when he confronted him about this.
Meanwhile, the dragon freed himself from prison and caused an earthquake. Galen escaped from jail, but without the talisman. The village clergyman, Jacopus's brother (Ian McDiarmid), led his congregation to face the dragon, defamed him as a devil, but the dragon burned him and then headed to the village, burning everything he had.
When the draw was started again, Princess Elspeth trimmed the lot so only her name could be chosen. As a result, King Casiodorus returned the talisman to Galen so he could save Elspeth. Galen used a talisman to lure a heavy lance that had been forged by Valerian's father (dubbed Sicarius Dracorum , or "Dragonslayer") with the ability to pierce the armored dragon hide. Valerian collects some dragon scales and uses them to make Galen shields, and both realize they have romantic feelings for each other.
Galen tries to rescue Princess Elspeth, and fights and kills Tyrian, but the Princess is determined to make amends for all the girls whose names have been chosen in the past, and down to the dragon cave and to his death. Galen followed him and found a group of young dragons partying in his corpse. He killed them and found Vermithrax resting under a sea of ​​underground fire. He managed to hurt the monster but his spear was broken. Only the Valerian shields saved him from incineration.
After his failure to kill Vermithrax, Valerian convinces Galen to leave the village with him. As the two lovers prepare to leave, the talisman gives Galen a vision that explains his teacher's last wish: He uses Galen to drive him to Urland. Ulrich had requested that his ashes be scattered to the "burning water", which was in the dragon cave, and Galen realized that the witch had planned his own death and cremation, realizing that he was too old and weak to travel.
Galen returns to the cave. As he spread the ashes over the fiery lake, witches are raised in fire. Ulrich reveals that the time is short and that Galen should destroy the talisman "when the time is right". The wizard then transports itself to the top of the mountain and faces the dragon. After a brief battle, the monster grabs the old man and flies away with him. Given by Ulrich, Galen crushes the amulet with stones. The wizard's body exploded and killed the dragon, which fell from the sky.
In the aftermath, the villagers examine the ruins of praising God with victory. The king comes and moves the sword to the wreck of a broken dragon to claim its own glory. When Galen and Valerian left Urland together, he confessed that he missed Ulrich and the talisman. He said, "I just wish we had a horse." A white horse appears carrying a lover who longs for it to go away.
Maps Dragonslayer (1981 film)
Cast
Production
Conception
According to Hal Barwood, he and Matthew Robbins got the inspiration for Dragonslayer from The Apprentice in Fantasia, and then came up with a story after researching St. George and the Dragon. Barwood and Robins rejected the traditional conception of the medieval world to give films more realism: "Our films have no knights in shining armor, no banners flowing in the wind, no fine women with diaphonous veils waving from the castle forged, no palace of love, no holy saucers, Instead we set out to create a very strange world with many peculiar values ​​and customs, full of superstition, where the clothes and manners of rude people, their homes and villages are primitive and rustic they are almost ancient, so the idea of ​​magic will be a natural part of their existence. "For this reason, they chose to organize the film after the Roman departure from England, before the advent of Christianity. Barwood and Robins began rushing out the movie's storyline on June 25, 1979 and completing it in early August. They received a lot of resistance from various movie studios, due to their lack of experience in budget negotiations. The scenario was finally accepted by Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions, becoming a joint venture between the two studios after the 1980 movie Popeye .
Dragon design and realization
Twenty-five percent of the film budget goes into special effects to drum life. Graphic artist David Bunnet was assigned to design the dragon look, and was given the idea of ​​how the dragon would move, and then drafted the paper. It was decided early on in production that as the most important sequence of films would be the last battle, it was deemed necessary to design a dragon with an emphasis on its flying ability. Bunnet also designed the dragon to have a personality level, deliberately trying to avoid creating something like a titular creature from Alien , which he believes is "too creepy to see".
After Bunnet handed the storyboard panel to the film crew, it was decided that the dragon should be manifested by various techniques: the dragon produced on the film is a combination of several different models. Phil Tippett of ILM completed the dragon design, and carved out the reference model that Danny Lee of Disney Studios followed in building a larger dragon props for closeup shots. Two months later, Lee's team finished building a sixteen-foot head and neck assembly, twenty-foot tail, thighs and legs, claws that grabbed a man, and a 30-foot (9.1 m) wing. The parts were flown to Pinewood Studios outside London in the Boeing 747 cargo space.
Brian Johnson was hired to supervise special effects, and began planning both on and off-set effects with special effects specialists. Dennis Muren, the cameraman's effect, stated, "We know the dragon is much more important to the film than some incidental thing that appears in just a few shots in Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back The dragon must be presented in a way that makes the audience truly dumbfounded. "
After completing the main shoot, the special effects team of eighty people in the ILM studio in northern California worked for eight months in producing 160 dragon composite shots. Chris Walas sculpts and operates dragon heads used for close-up shots. This model is animated by a combination of radio controls, cable controls, airbags, levers and by hand, thus providing the illusion of a fully coordinated face with a variety of expressions. The WW2 era fire launcher is actually used for the fire breathing effect of a dragon.
Phil Tippett built a model for scenes that required the dragon to walk. Tippett did not want to use standard stop motion animation techniques, and told his team to build dragon models that would move during each exposure rather than in between as ever a standard. This process, named Tippett's "forward motion," records the movements of moving beings as real animals move, and eliminates the common jerks in previous films.
Ken Ralston was assigned to the flying scene. He built a model with an articulated aluminum frame to give it a variety of motion. Ralston shot a flying bird movie to incorporate their movements into the model. As dragons run, flying models are filmed using go-motion techniques. The camera is programmed to tilt and move around the corner to convey the sensation of flying.
Casting
Peter MacNicol first met Matthew Robbins while awaiting audition for the Breaking Away motion picture, and agreed to take part in Dragonslayer, despite his dislike for performing magic tricks. McNicol had to learn equestrian, English style and no saddle for that role. McNicol found this difficult, saying that "They took my stirrups, they took my control and whipped the horses, and then they told me to turn the windmills and play the complete circle in the saddle, then they took the saddle!" He then took vocal training to disguise his Texas accent, and took a magic lesson from British prestidigitator Harold Taylor, who had previously appeared for the British royal family.
Caitlin Clarke was initially hesitant to involve himself in the movie, as he was preparing to audition to play in Chicago. His agent insisted, though, and after performing the audition recording, was called back for more tests. Clarke failed, but managed to pass after another test at the urging of Matthew Robbins. He gets along well with Ralph Richardson, and states that he taught him more in one practice than in acting classes for years.
Set design
Elliot Scott was hired to design a sixth-century world film set. He temporarily transformed the 13th-century Dolwyddelan Castle into a gravel sixth-century fortress of Ulrich, which shocked the locals altogether. Furthermore, Scott built the entire Swanscombe village on a farm outside of London. Although Scott has extensively researched medieval architecture in the British Museum and his own library, he took some artistic freedom in the creation of palm-roofed houses, rice granaries, Simon's house and the blacksmith and Casiodorus castle, as he could not find enough information about how they will look exactly. Scott then built a dragon's nest interior, using 25,000 cubic feet (710 m 3 ) from polystyrene and 40 tons of Welsh slate and shale. Welsh and Scottish landscape photos are extended through the use of more than three dozen matte paintings.
Shooting location in North Wales
Almost all outdoor scenes were shot in North Wales. The last scene was taken on Skye, Scotland.
- The filmmaking crew is based in Betws y Coed, and the artists are more stable in the Conwy valley.
- Dolwyddelan Castle is used for all outdoor shooting from Ulrich's Castle. This included the arrival of delegates from Urland, the arrival of guards from Urland, the site of Ulrich's first death and the burning of the cemetery. Many locals are employed as extra during this scene.
- The external long dragon nests are the main face of Tryfan, within five yards of the A5, as opposed to Llyn Ogwen. The lair was shot looking up from the road, towards the face of a broken Tryfan, Nant Ffrancon.
- The shot of Galen and Hodge on the way to Urland was shot on the old road from Cobdens to Bryn Engan, at Capel Curig.
- The morning camping scene on the trip to Urland, Tyrian's shooting of Hodge, and the Hodge death scene all took place in the 500 yards (500 m) section of Fairy Glen between Betws-y-Coed and Penmachno.
- The scene from the delegation that crossed into Urland was shot over Ogwen Cottage, Nant Ffrancon.
- Galen escaped on horseback from Casiodorus castle shot high above Llyn Crafnant.
- The scenes where Galen Bradwarden saw sightings on the lake were shot at the bottom of Llyn Crafnant.
- The gloomy rocky outcrop in which Valerian collects the Dragon scales is Castell y Gwynt, above the Pen-y-Gwryd hotel.
- The scene in which Valerian gives a shield made of the Dragon scales and intimate scenes between Valerian and Galen are shot in a rock field under Tryfan, about 300 meters from the A5 near Llyn Ogwen Car Park.
- The procession scenes in which the victim was transported to the Dragon's nest were shot in Gelli behind the main store in Capel Curig.
- Vermithrax bumps into Llyn Llydaw, under Snowdon.
Costume
The costumes were designed by Anthony Mendelson, who consulted the British Museum, the London Library, and his own reference files to make the clothes evoke the early medieval designs. Mendelson designed the costumes for rough stitching and the colors used were the only ones that could be done with the vegetable dyes used. The Casiodorus costume and the palace were designed for fine embroidered, as opposed to the rough woven garments of Urlander.
Music score
The nominees for the Academy Award nominee are compiled by Alex North. The linear conception of scores was developed through the textured polyphonic orchestra layered in a transparent manner dominated by the harmony of medieval style capital. This score is largely based on five key thematic concepts:
- the suffering of the Urlanders;
- the "magic" motive;
- talisman;
- girls of sacrifice;
- the relationship between Galen and Valerian.
North has six weeks to write a score, featuring music that was rejected from its value for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey . (The opening sequence Dragonslayer features original North music reworking for the opening of the "Dawn of Man" sequence - which in the last movie is played without music - and the waltz representing the dragon in flight is a variation of the "Docking Space Station ", which in the last piece 2001 was replaced by The Blue Danube ). The north is disappointed with the dragon scenes being generated, as they do not use the whole pieces that they fabricate for them. He later stated that he had written "a very beautiful waltz when the dragon first appeared, with little indication that this might not be a bad dragon". Waltz was removed for tracks previously used in the movie.
In spite of the dragon-revealed waltz's loss, the score was widely praised. Pauline Kael writes in New Yorker that the score is "beauty", and that "sometimes, the music and the fiery dragon look like that". Royal S. Brown from Fanfare Magazine hailed the soundtrack as "one of the best values ​​of 1981".
Box office and reception
The film earned more than $ 14 million in the US with an estimated budget of $ 18 million. Despite the mediocre box office performance, it later became a cult classic on home videos. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 6.7 out of 10, with 86% positive reviews; the consensus reads: "The dark Disney adventure, Dragonslayer puts a realistic spin - and some impressive special effects - on a familiar story."
Praise
Kevin Thomas of Los Angeles Times called Vermithrax the "greatest dragon", and praised the film for its effective awakening to the Dark Ages.
David Denby from New York praised the Dragonslayer ' special effects and praised the movie as much better than Excalibur and Raiders of the Lost Ark .
Criticism
David Sterritt of the Christian Science Monitor, despite praising the set and pacing of the film, criticized it for lack of originality, stressing that the characters of McNicol and Richardson contain too much in common with the War Star heroes. >. Similar criticism was given by John Coleman of the New Statesman, who called the film "a bombastic sword-and-magic tale, with Ralph Richardson in a kind of
Pulleine's Team of Monthly Film Bulletin criticizes the lack of narration and clarity of the film to complement the special effects.
Alex Keneas from Newsday criticized the movie for being too focused on superstition, and because "lost the sense of medieval time, place and society...".
Vermithrax Pejorative
Guillermo del Toro has stated that along with Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, Vermithrax is his favorite cinematic dragon. He further stated it
One of the best and one of the most insurmountable [dragon movie] landmarks is Dragonslayer . The Vermithrax Pejorative design is probably one of the most perfect designs ever created.
Author George R. R. Martin once put this film as the fifth best fantasy movie of all time, and called Vermithrax "the best dragon ever in the movie", and who has "the coolest dragon name too". Vermithrax is mentioned in the fourth episode of the television adaptation of Martin's A Ice and Fire book series. Fantasy writer Alex Bledsoe states it
... Everyone has a 'first dragon', which evokes curiosity about the creatures. For many, this is the complicated world of Anne McCaffrey, Pern, in which genuinely engineered intelligent dragons bind with their riders; for others it's Smaug at The Hobbit , keeping hoarding it deep inside the cave. But to me, it's the amazing Vermithrax from the 1981 movie, Dragonslayer .
During the filming of The Return of Jedi , in which Ian McDiarmid, who portrays the small character of Brother Jacopus in this film, starring as the film's main antagonist, Emperor Palpatine, the ILM crew jokingly puts one model of the dragon from Dragonslayer in the arms of the Rancor model and take pictures. The picture is included in the book Star Wars: Chronicles. The creature based on the appearance of this dragon appears in one of Jabba the Hutt's creatures in the Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy.
Related media
Novelization
The novelization was written by Wayland Drew who delved deeper into the background of many characters. The expansion on the movie plot includes details like this:
- As a baby, Galen was handed over to Ulrich by his parents for fear of his magical abilities. Ulrich thinks of him as a disciple, but is concerned with his lack of focus on the child, which usually results in the unintentional creation of a strange, dream-inspired creature.
- A vision Ulrich sees in his scrying bowl implies that the sorcerer can be responsible for the creation of a dragon, and that whoever this witch is, he has much greater powers than Ulrich. This is only briefly mentioned in the movie. It further mentioned that the dukun who created the dragon also created the magical talisman that Galen wore through most of the stories.
- The Vermithrax revelation, while physically inroggly two, is however necessary for intercourse with another dragon for conception.
- It was revealed that the standard lottery for eligibility fluctuated, and some married women and mothers were sacrificed as well, Valerian's mother was among them. His death was the price that Simon had to pay for Sicarius Dracorum mode, which was done with Ulrich's own help.
- Simon is revealed to be the ultimate blacksmith who creates precious weapons and armor. It was the victim of seeing so much using his arm and armor just to be killed by a dragon that convinced him to stop forging weapons and armor.
- King Cassiodorus is revealed as a Roman relic, and is portrayed as an affront to his largely Saxon subject, which he considers to be superstitious and backward.
- Ulrich is revealed to have extensive research and history of the Komodo dragon. When he reviews his library to determine which dragon is terrorizing Urland, he finds (horrified) that it is Vermithrax, unlike the movie he has known all along. When Ulrich asked about another surviving magician to help Valerian, he mentioned Prospero, from Shakespeare "The Tempest." Valerian gives an update (brief) to Prospero's fate in accordance with the Shakespeare storyline.
Marvel Comics adaptation
Marvel Comics publishes a comic book adaptation of the film by writer Dennis O'Neil and artists Marie Severin and John Tartaglione at Marvel Super Special # 20.
SPI board game
Simulation Publications, Inc. produced a Dragonslayer board game, designed by Brad Hessel and Redmond A. Simonsen based on the movie.
Soundtrack
The Australian Southern Cross label originally released an unauthorized soundtrack album in 1983 in LP (audiophile squeeze box, at 45 rpm), and in 1990 on CD. The album also appeared in iTunes for a limited time. The first and enhanced official CD release came in 2010 by the US label La-La Land Records. The new album features newly mastered audio from the original LCR (Right-Center-Right) -mix and includes previously unreleased source music and alternative shoots.
See also
- List of movies featuring eclipses
References
External links
- Dragonslayer in IMDb
- Dragonslayer in Rotten Tomatoes
- Dragonslayer in Box Office Mojo
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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