I watched the classic Rankin/Bass movie flight of dragons the other day. I had completely
forgotten this classic. It was a fun journey revisiting it. The cast was amazing. I was telling my wife, “Hey it’s Colonel Potter!” When hearing Harry Morgan as the green Wizard Carolinus. John Ritter and James Earl Jones were great too. The thing I truly loved was the real feel of an epic quest. Its something that i feel does not get done in movies as much anymore. Ommadon is bad and they need to go on a quest to defeat him. I loved the way the party was built very organically. The armored knight arrives and they go off later joined by a wolf creature, a ranger and an elf. Together the group arrives at a tavern and fight a powerful enemy. Then they travel to the dark land and face the armies and finally the big bad himself. Its a classic story of good vs evil. There was no investigation into Ommadon’s motivations. He was not a tragic misunderstood person he was just bad and wanted all the power. The heroes were heroes fighting to save the world. There was no backstory about how they are redeeming themselves for some past sins. I know that view is sort of unpopular right now and it makes the characters “2 dimensional” but sometimes you just need to see heroes taking on the bad guys. It did have some great quotes as well.
Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Blade with whom I have lived, blade with whom I now die, serve right and justice one last time, seek one last heart of evil, still one last life of pain. Cut well, old friend, and then farewell.
Ommadon: Come devils, witches, demons, ogres, trolls, sandmerks, harpies, ghouls, sorcerers!
Peter Dickenson: Come algebra, anatomy, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, geometry, mathematics, meteorology, mineralology, oceanography, paleontology, physics, psychology, sociology, trigonometry, and zoology!
This is a wonderful classic fantasy movie and really inspired a lot of the fun RPG D&D games that my friends and I enjoyed.
Reality-Break 