Now, to be perfectly clear, I’m going to spoil the entire plot. This essay assumes you’ve seen the film in question, and if you haven’t, go give it a watch! It’s far from perfect, but it’s an interesting enough film that I had to write down my thoughts on it.
To give all this some context, I’ll briefly recap the history of this strange film.
Peter Dickinson had been on a train, looking at the cover of the Earthsea Trilogy, when he wondered how the hell something so big could fly, especially with such little wings. He came up with the same answer then and there that nature had come up with for us millions of years ago back on VolRei: dragons fly using lighter-than-air gas (or just burning said gas, in our case), necessitating our enormous size.
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| Not quite chubby enough to fly, but what would I know? |
The publisher, Pierrot Publishing Ltd, had sold the film rights to The Flight of Dragons to Rankin-Bass. Apparently, they hadn’t known that this book had no plot to speak of. So, to salvage this ill-advised purchase, they bought the rights to adapt Gordon Dickson’s The Dragon and the George.[1]
What we're given, then, is a bizarre hybrid of the two. The majority of the plot beats are taken from TDatG, with new elements added in. Part of the reason they exist is to justify the presence of some of Flight’s aspects.
The other part seems to be that the scriptwriter had some truly bizarre ideas that he was dying to use, regardless of whether they made any sense. The fact that I’m writing this means that this bizarre endeavor succeeded on some level.
The Flight of Dragons was animated by Topcraft, a Japanese studio that later on would produce the anime adaptation of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. You can trace a direct line from this film to Princess Mononoke. Just food for thought.
They also animated the likes of Rankin-Bass’s adaptations of The Hobbit, The Last Unicorn, and… Return of the King, of all things. You have to wonder what made them think adapting only the very end of an epic trilogy was a good idea, but here we are.
The screenplay was written by one Romeo Muller, known for writing for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman… Name a popular Rankin-Bass holiday special, this man wrote it.
This same man also wrote the aforementioned Hobbit and Return of the King screenplays. I just want you to let that fact soak in.
All of these, same writer.
Keep that in the back of your mind as we proceed.
At the film’s start, we’re given the most 70’s intro music I’ve ever heard. Few things are more relaxing than chill music playing over a panorama of tubby dragons in flight. This sequence is easily the best-animated part of the film, showing the fluid, dynamic animation Studio Ghibli would be known for.
Unfortunately, this standard isn’t kept throughout the whole film, likely due to time and budget constraints. This film as a whole feels like it’s in a state of tug-of-war between being theatrical, TV special (right down to animation shortcuts and commercial break-friendly fades), or even direct-to-video. Which, given the film’s bizarre release schedule (direct-to-VHS release in 1982 in the UK, first TV airing in the USA in 1983, then a USA theatrical release in 1986), is very appropriate.
Front-loaded credits hearken to a very different time, when film-goers weren’t bombarded with a million things at once vying for their attention, and had a modicum of patience. Though, personally, I’m glad I don’t have to suffer through three minutes of opening credits every time I want to watch a film). Ahhh, Fantasia, you truly were ahead of your time.
Carolinus’s opening monologue prompts our first question. Not “can Magic and Science co-exist?”, as so many people assume, but “What is Magic, as defined in this film?” Obviously, turning to our world won’t help us, seeing as magic exists just fine, and is scientifically studied.
Not to mention, this is the classical Earthling fantasy variety of magic, handwaving and magic incantations included. It’s the magic you all know from the Earthling Consensus Fantasy Universe. Magic, then is in part romanticism and mystery.
Ultimately, the Magic vs. Science conflict is a false dichotomy, as the film goes to great lengths to point out. From the get-go, we’re shown that, despite their firm footing in the realm of Magic, this film’s dragons are still living, breathing creatures. They need sleep, just like any other creature, and they drink from the same river that horses do.
We’re shown that they can and do co-exist alongside the rest of nature, fitting the film’s central theme. Meanwhile, the consequences of logic gone awry are aptly symbolized by a goose and some pixies getting caught in a mucky water mill.
Carolinus calls out the mill’s owners, and tries to make it disappear with magic. While an awe-inspiring spectacle, said magic fizzles out the minute it tries to actually affect something of substance. Magic cannot sustain itself, when Logic rejects it.
An interesting thing to note is that we never really see any indication that Carolinus actually was once as powerful as he claims, so we take have to take his word for it. All we ever see of him is but a shadow of the wizard he once was. This entire setting is indeed one of grandeur, but said grandeur is in decline, very much a token of Tolkien’s influence.
Knowing that Magic is starting to fade from this world, he orders his daughter Melisande to summon the Silver Owls of the Full Moon (owls have a long history as symbols of supernatural wisdom, from Athena making them her symbolic bird, to Gwynn ap Nudd employing them as messengers).
Melisande shows us a particularly strange ability she has that never comes up again; actually “it never comes up again” describes a lot of weird things in this film. Unless done deliberately with care (see Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête), a disconnect between a film’s individual components shows a very weak structural integrity.
Smrgol’s offer to burn the mill down and eat the millers speaks volumes about his character, and offers a sharp contrast to his book counterpart; where in TDatG, Smrgol was the one pushing for negotiation between dragons and mankind, here Smrgol’s first instinct is violence. And, as we’ll see, that’s his solution for damn near everything; don’t overthink it, just show the situation who’s boss.
In a way, he’s more like the book’s Aragh than the one we meet in the film.
An interesting thing to note is, Carolinus mentioning this being the first meeting between the four wizards in four centuries is the first sign that wizards here are more than mere men learned in the ways of Magic. Like Tolkien’s wizards, they are of another, much older race entirely, though unlike Tolkien’s stories we never learn exactly what they are.
To justify Ommadon’s presence, we are of course fed the line that Good cannot exist without Evil to contrast it. This line’s as old as fantasy fiction, distilled here to its base components. Let's have a look at it.
In The Dragon and the George, the philosophical idea Carolinus posited was that Order and Chaos must exist in a balance, and that the goal of the forces of Evil is to tip the scale in Chaos's favor.
His argument for this balance is compelling enough: pure, unchecked Order creates stagnation, oppression, and sterility. Unchecked Chaos leads to destruction and death. In balance, Order gives us peace, rationality, and harmony, while Chaos gives us art, fun, all the things that make life interesting.
Here, however, the argument seems to be that Good cannot exist in a moral vacuum.
This argument fails to account for the fact that if malice and selfishness (i.e. the components that make up Evil) were eradicated from the world entirely, people would be all the more compelled to come to each other's aid, to promote harmony amongst all sapient beings.
If Good's erasure as a concept were necessary to achieve such a state, then wouldn't it be the highest Good to make the concept itself redundant? Thus, our wizard friend's argument is flawed. But then, we could easily see this as a symptom of Magic (as defined by this film, of course): Magic is in part a result of accepting things as you see them, whilst Logic is critically analyzing everything you observe.
Thus, Magic is prone to fallacy.
Appropriately, three of the four wizards could be seen as analogues to major Earth mystical traditions; Carolinus with his Stars of David is a Kabbalist, Solarius is an Islamic mystic, and Lo Tae Zhao is likely Taoist or Buddhist. Whether this allusion is a critical jab or simply intended to make the wizardry involved feel more grounded in reality is anyone's guess.
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| Wait, if Carolinus represents Kabbalism, then… Does that make him Jewish? With that character design? Oh, dear. I guess that's why they took this off the air in Israel. |
Unfortunately, these are very minor characters who don't do much. That’s the 70's. Despite what I said earlier, it’s interesting to note that Ommadon’s the one who prompts Carolinus to come up with a solution. Thus, while Evil isn’t necessary for Good to exist, adversity and strife are what brings out our true selves, potentially our best selves.
And here, Carolinus finally tells us exactly what Magic really is: things wonderful and impossible that inspire mankind to make the world around them a better place. Wonder is a necessary part of innovation (go ask a scientist, dollars to donuts they'll tell you they got their start reading sci-fi), and complex ideas can be easier to digest in a fantastical frame.
On this point, Carolinus is completely correct. However, Magic is not the only inspiration for such things. Good ol’ Mother Necessity tends to stick her nose into things every so often. But, now I’m just being a fat and scaly contrarian, here, so I’ll stop. The film has a point to make, and despite my constant nitpicking, it makes this point beautifully.
When Ommadon makes his intentions clear, and the other three conspire to wage war against him, Antquity vetoes such a thing from happening. Even the gods must be bound, lest the world fall to ruin. Thus, the quest.
There's never any reason given for why it must be three in particular to start off this quest. The quest to stop an evil force of Magic is itself governed by Magic's laws, which in this setting are those of the fantasy genre.
Gorbash immediately jumps for joy at the prospect of upcoming battle, talking about war as if it’s a Yimaza and Christmas rolled into one. This tells us everything about the dragon mindset in this setting. Said mindset involves thinking in terms of war and conquest. As apex predators, what reason do dragons have not to think like one?
In a way, this film’s not that far off the mark; while we’re not typically violent, pretty much anyone will tell you it’s hard not to feel dominated in our presence. Then again, my idea of domination typically involves soaking those lower on the food chain in big wet smooches, so take that statement with a grain of salt.
Antiquity, rather than one spirit, is a conglomeration of the spirits of those gone before. This setting’s cosmology thus centers around ancestor worship, of reverence for the past. Magic here is also spirituality and respect for tradition. If Logic is technology, science, and progress, then the statement this film sets out to make is much broader than what Carolinus has outlined.
Perhaps this film is trying to show us that many things we believe diametrically opposed can in fact enhance each other. Nature and technology are each bettered when they learn to co-exist, as anyone with a garden in their back yard and solar paneling on their roof (i.e. just about everyone in my time) can attest. As Antiquity shows through its omniscience, even past and future have more overlap than we think.
Antiquity shows us its chosen one, a descendant of Great Peter, 777 generations removed: namely, one Peter Dickinson.
As an aside, I thought it’d be fun to do some math, here. If we take the average human generation to last 33 years on the male line, 777 generations would take 25,641 years to come about. Now, Peter Dickinson was born in 1927.
So, Great Peter would’ve existed some time in 23,714 BCE, long before the invention of writing. Thus, in order for his name and deeds to be remembered (and we can’t dismiss it as the stuff of myth, either, as Antiquity confirms his personhood by tracing his bloodline), the wizards would’ve had to be around for literal tens of thousands of years.
In short, Carolinus is one old fucker. At least twice as old as my great-grandfather.
Another thing worth noting is that this story takes place in the 10th century, and that these people use their own calendar, going by the dialogue here:
Carolinus: In which century will I find this champion?
Antiquity: Ten hence from this. Our 9000.
If we take this to mean that the year 1979 marks the 9000th year of this calendar, then this calendar would’ve roughly began around 7021 BCE.
See, all this highlights something I love about the film. For all its faults, you can tell Muller really wanted to flesh out this setting. Everything feels like it has a history that we never see. Films like Star Wars, Jitharetha Thoyarekhi Khethana, and literature like The Lord of the Rings and Khalenetha Zirankhen Joyana all use little hints and allusions like this to great effect, fleshing out the setting just enough that we as an audience can fill in the blanks.
And there always will be blanks to fill, unless it’s a robust storysim like Dwarf Fortress (which, in the time I'm sending this post to, was still decades away from being the near-perfect simulation it would prove to be). The pool’s glimpse into the future brings the idea of predestination into play; the fact that Peter is from so far ahead in the future means that there’s going to be a future for mankind. Ommadon’s conquest has failed before it can even begin.
Either that, or a timeline wherein Ommadon’s reign went unchecked played itself out in order for Peter to exist (thus why the things Ommadon’s speech shows us existed), then subsequently be snatched from it and made to alter the course of events so that Ommadon loses.
If this is the case, then Ommadon’s victory is actually required for his defeat, showing yet another collapse of boundaries. Either way, Carolinus wasn’t kidding about inevitability’s power.
Antiquity shows us Peter, the absolute nerd and dragon fanatic that he is, playing a board game of his own devising with his pawn broker friend while talking about the book he’s writing. The book itself is a marriage of wonder and (now very dated) scientific speculation.
Given that the actual Peter Dickinson had no involvement with this production, it's safe to assume that what we're looking at is nothing like the man himself. Thus, I will judge this film's Peter purely as his own character.
It seems odd to make a board game based on a book you haven’t even finished yet, downright foolhardy to try and get it published before the book has even been shopped. This speaks volumes about Peter’s character: he has a firm lack of any planning ability whatsoever. He never overcomes this fault in the narrative, despite how often it bites him in the ass.
As for the game itself, it’s tempting to look at it as a 2-player game of D&D, but closer inspection shows our pawnbroker friend to be an equal player in this game, fighting Peter in a battle of magic not unlike… well, Magic (the 20th century TCG).
It apparently only requires two players, despite the fact that the other three Magic Brothers and Melisande are represented as pieces on this board. It’s fitting that this film has Peter enter the realm of Magic through the board game; D&D is all about letting you be a hero in a world of fantasy, after all. In that respect, it’s a perfect D&D expy.
I will give this film credit for portraying Peter's reaction to meeting a dragon realistically; John Ritter plays him perfectly here, sounding like an oversized kobold around the handsome Smrgol. After they land, and the dragon flies off to heed the call of his comrades, Peter can’t help questioning how any of this is possible. How could he have known to carve these characters exactly as they appear in this world?
This line of questioning is punctuated by Melisande who turns out to be our hero’s literal dream girl. I’m a fan of how chill Carolinus is with this guy’s infatuation with his daughter, and even gets him dressed up to meet her. More fathers, both in fiction and reality, should follow this guy’s example.
The film never really states it directly, but if inspiration is a matter of the Realm of Magic seeping into one’s subconscious, then Peter was simply "inspired" by the real thing when he made these figurines. He didn't create Melisande to be his ideal girlfriend; she just happened to fit the credentials.
This is the simplest cause-and-effect we'll be working out, in this post. A very linear one, all things considered. After I explained this to my brother as we were watching, he had to get up and pour a glass of Moscato.
And on that note, I’m stopping this post here because it’s running way, way longer than my usual. Suffice it to say, this is going to be a multi-parter.
[1] https://www.peterdickinson.com/books/flightofdragons/
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