Flight of Dragons

 Rankin Bass had one last chance with the Middle Earth with The Flight of Dragons.

In the 10^th Century valley, there’s a swarm of dragons living happily with a Green wizard named Carolinus living with them.

“You heard of me?”

-Yogurt played by Mel Brooks in Spaceballs. He does look similar.

Carolinus tells his daughter Princess Melisande is he’s getting weaker with magic and age. He has a meet that he summons his brothers; Solarius the Blue Wizard, Lo Tae Zhao the Golden Wizard, and his evil brother of the Red Wizard, Ommadon (voiced by James Earl Jones.)

“Behold, the Red Wizard!”

-Red Wizard Quintesson in G1 Transformers’ episode of Madman’s Paradise.

Carolinus rides on his dragon, Gorbash flies to their meeting place at a ruin. Carolinus purpose a realm where only magic continue to exist while logical and practical become the modern’s standard. Ommadon want to make fear and greed to be humanity’s weapon, which his brothers disagrees.  

The three brothers can’t be involved to fight against Ommadon, Carolinus need to find a champion for a quest. He would lend Gorbrash, Solarius’ Shield of Saturn and Lo Tae Zhao’s Flute of Healing Sleep to the champion. He would get help from Antiquity (voiced by Paul Frees) that the champion is in the 20^th Century, he’s a man of science, a game designer and the writers of the book this film adapting named Peter Dickenson (voiced by John Ritter). He’s a good game designer of the game of Flight of Dragons that he designed the game piece perfectly to the Carolinus and his brother’s designs.  

Gorbrash’s uncle, Smirgol the dragon warns the other dragons has been controlled by Ommadon. Ommandon had his dragon named Bryagh was going to kill Peter, but he dropped Peter to Gorbrash, and Carolinus cast an unknown spell to fuse Peter into Gorbrash. The rest of the film is Peter in Gorbrash’s body put in a quest to stop Ommadon with the help of Smirgol, Sir Orrin the kinght, Araugh the Wolf (voiced by King Tut of 60’s Batman, Victor Buono), Danielle the archer (voiced by Eowyn’s actress, Nellie Bellflower.), and Jiles the woodland elf.

This is probably the closest for Rankin Bass to actually do their Lord of the Ring in the second half of the film, with some Star Wars given with James Earl Jones, Carolinus resembles an in-between of Yoda and Yogurt, and the princess having Leia’s hair buns. This is not too close to be crappy Eragon territory.

This is one of the rarest non-holiday Rankin Bass films out there on DVD. I manage to find it in Watchcartoononline.

This reminds me of the TV show, Dungeon and Dragon, or G1 Transformers’ episode Madman’s Paradise; someone from modern 20^th century to be put into ye olde fantasy world through portals or a game. Thankfully having the board game makes since logic plays less in story and more simple with the rules and magic.

James Earl Jones is awesome as Ommadon and his design is a different kind of wizard with a rhino face. John Ritter is a likable as the writer and as a dragon. He’s trying to work science in the magic, which would get tedious, but he’s actually enjoying it and actually being useful with it. Unilke Peter Cottontail Jr. and Albert from Twas The Night Before Christmas, who has the logic, but are physically useless and will doom the film. Fitting that Peter is wearing red tunic, as he would later voice Clifford the Big Red Dog. This was their way to show the difference with their dragons the way they fly with wings and helium. Personality wise, they mostly show less of a Smaug tyrant but more butches than the Reluctant Dragon; somewhere in the middle that makes them better noble.

If you watch this alone, it’ll be a decent film, but when you watch this while binge watch The Hobbit, Return of the King, and The Last Unicorn, it grow to make sense and how intertwine the Middle Earth works and Gandalf words of how the world is changing and certain mythological being are fading away. This could indicate a metaphor the magic for Rankin Bass, as this is the last of non-holiday special to set in that world. After that, they’ll be doing TV shows with the Thundercats and Silverhawks, then they will be relying again what they did in the 70’s again with Mr. Toad again, and an existing TV show is where the next review is the Animated Coneheads.