What ho and well met, mysterious wanderers! In this, our penultimate chapter of our grand and obstreperous quest “In Search of Dungeons and Dragons,” we pit sword and spell against 1981’s “Dragonslayer,” that rarest of beasts: a Disney live-action sword-and-sorcery film. Starring the very . . . pale Peter MacNicol (who some might remember as The Biscuit on the show “Ally Mcbeal”) and the very awesome Sir Ralph Richardson, who walks away with every one of the (very few) scenes he’s in. We’ve got wizards, warriors and a dang cool (non-cgi) dragon. What more could you want? Why, us talking about it, of course! Hearken and stuff!
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I always thought this movie was a practive for the Chronicles of Prydain book series they bought the rights too. Just in the set up and how the main characters interact. The did go on to make “The Black Cauldron” and I think that says they needed more practice. As a stop motion fan, the dragon in this is amazing and stands up to CGI in most shots of it. The final battle really takes this down a few notches for me. The wizard as bomb thing just ruined it for me!
Sometimes you just have to blow up a wizard. There’s nothing else! I agree. I had friends who also didn’t like the divebombing dragon as it looked too much like a plane. That being said, there’s a lot to say about this movie and, well, we did. Thanks for listening!