ecl@hocsj.UUCP (09/28/84)
FLIGHT OF DRAGONS A film review by Mark R. Leeper This is a feature-length animated film that was made for TV by Rankin and Bass. They previously did THE HOBBIT for TV the same way. I am pretty sure it never played in the New York area though in some parts of the country I am told it did air on network TV. It is loosely based on the pseudo-non-fiction study of dragons by Peter Dickinson. That book did not tell a story, but this is a story set in his world. It also credits "St. Dragon and the George" by Gordon R. Dickson. The film makes the same error that THE HOBBIT made: it chooses overly familiar actors to do the voices, and their voices then don't really go with the characters. The voice of the wise old wizard is done by Harry Morgan. He is as unwizardly as just about anyone I can imagine and it rubs off onto his character. The hero is played by John Ritter. The character is supposed to be Peter Dickinson himself who by a strange set of affairs was writing the truth when he wrote his fantasies...shades of a storyline in the old DC comics. The premise of the story is oddly self-contradictory. Apparently technology is wiping out magic and the hero must stop it from being wiped out completely. Why? Because technology will stagnate without magic. It is magic like flying fairies that makes man want to learn to fly also, so he invents the airplane. Magic crystal balls were the inspiration for the invention of television (it is claimed). So technology is both the monster and the maiden in distress. This one gets points for being pro-technology in the long run. Most film fantasy is of the WIZARDS variety, claiming that technology is unnatural and wrong. Not a great film, but as good as a lot of films released to theaters this summer. Catch it on cassette. (Evelyn C. Leeper for) Mark R. Leeper ...ihnp4!lznv!mrl