Unlike other Rankin and Bass animated movies--The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn--this film isn't based on a single work. It doesn't have a "primary text," if you will, to accurately relate or deviate from. It's based on other works, but it is a mixture of two: (1) the "speculative natural history" book titled Flight of Dragons (1979) by Peter Dickinson, and (2) the novel, The Dragon and the George (1976), by Gordon R. Dickson. I'm not familiar with either of these works (though I wish I was). Needless to say, the narrative of this film is unique and not one that precedes its production.
Some brief plot summary: the film concerns the adventures of a former biology student turned fantasy novelist / fantasy game maker. He creates a very "Dungeons and Dragons" type game and a world to go along with it. And, through some various magical happenings, he gets whisked away to the fantasy world he created. There he finds out that he is the champion of this world. He has to fight an evil necromancer named Ommadon (voiced by James Earl Jones). The story is filled with dragons, elves, rangers, knights, magical spells, fairies, slime worms, dreary taverns, etc..
On the level of plot, it's very thrilling.
But the plot is not the only thing that endears me to this film. Let me just list some of the elements that make it a masterpiece.
The animation style: Rankin and Bass's unique animation style comes through here. Slightly strange, borderline grotesque, the artistic style creates a tension between the real world elements the drawings are derived from and the abstractions the drawings are supposed to represent. Thus, there is a kind of rawness / baseness to it.
The drawings are stylized, for sure, but the nature of the stylization is such that it might even be described as a resistance to stylization. In other words, the artists strived for reality while realizing that reality was beyond the pale of animation. In other animated films, artists seem to abstain from any ambition to "realistically" represent something. And in this way you get the "four-fingered" hands of so much animation / cartoons.
The voice acting: There is some strange voice acting in this film, but it endears me to it. Particularly, the voice actor who plays the voice of the Princess character, Millisande, is quite awkward yet completely satisfying for its mystical, almost recitative quality. Also, the voice actor who relates the character of Smrgol the Dragon—James Gregory—is brilliant! He's an old dragon, tired out by life, and the husky voice no-nonsense delivery completely communicates this. John Ritter does the voice of the main character, Peter Dickinson, and he ramps up the nerdy quality of his voice to the extreme. And, of course, James Earl Jones as the archvillain is just brilliant. He evil laughter is pure art.
The thematic content: For a kid's film, this flick engages with some serious philosophical issues. Ultimately, this film is about the conflict between magic and science, empiricism and emotion, two fundamentally distinct ways of understanding the world. Without giving away too much of the plot, the main character becomes the avatar for reason and logic, science and math; thus, the baddies become the representatives of superstition, magic, fear, and other emotional ways of coming to terms with the world.
Spoiler alert: It's a strange twist, but the main character's quest ultimately preserves "the magical realm," which is an absolute incongruity considering his way of understanding the world necessarily undermines it.
But I forgive this film this as it really begs the question, "Are our imaginations and flights of fancy, our impulses toward wonder and beautiful ignorance necessarily incompatible with the scientific endeavor? Is there something worthwhile is hearing "a god's anger" in the thunder rather than, say, "the manifestation of a meteorological phenomenon?" Is there something lost when we "unweave" the rainbow?
The film doesn't answer this rich question. It's the source of its aesthetic power is that is even raises it.
Some brief plot summary: the film concerns the adventures of a former biology student turned fantasy novelist / fantasy game maker. He creates a very "Dungeons and Dragons" type game and a world to go along with it. And, through some various magical happenings, he gets whisked away to the fantasy world he created. There he finds out that he is the champion of this world. He has to fight an evil necromancer named Ommadon (voiced by James Earl Jones). The story is filled with dragons, elves, rangers, knights, magical spells, fairies, slime worms, dreary taverns, etc..
On the level of plot, it's very thrilling.
But the plot is not the only thing that endears me to this film. Let me just list some of the elements that make it a masterpiece.
The animation style: Rankin and Bass's unique animation style comes through here. Slightly strange, borderline grotesque, the artistic style creates a tension between the real world elements the drawings are derived from and the abstractions the drawings are supposed to represent. Thus, there is a kind of rawness / baseness to it.
The drawings are stylized, for sure, but the nature of the stylization is such that it might even be described as a resistance to stylization. In other words, the artists strived for reality while realizing that reality was beyond the pale of animation. In other animated films, artists seem to abstain from any ambition to "realistically" represent something. And in this way you get the "four-fingered" hands of so much animation / cartoons.
The voice acting: There is some strange voice acting in this film, but it endears me to it. Particularly, the voice actor who plays the voice of the Princess character, Millisande, is quite awkward yet completely satisfying for its mystical, almost recitative quality. Also, the voice actor who relates the character of Smrgol the Dragon—James Gregory—is brilliant! He's an old dragon, tired out by life, and the husky voice no-nonsense delivery completely communicates this. John Ritter does the voice of the main character, Peter Dickinson, and he ramps up the nerdy quality of his voice to the extreme. And, of course, James Earl Jones as the archvillain is just brilliant. He evil laughter is pure art.
The thematic content: For a kid's film, this flick engages with some serious philosophical issues. Ultimately, this film is about the conflict between magic and science, empiricism and emotion, two fundamentally distinct ways of understanding the world. Without giving away too much of the plot, the main character becomes the avatar for reason and logic, science and math; thus, the baddies become the representatives of superstition, magic, fear, and other emotional ways of coming to terms with the world.
Spoiler alert: It's a strange twist, but the main character's quest ultimately preserves "the magical realm," which is an absolute incongruity considering his way of understanding the world necessarily undermines it.
But I forgive this film this as it really begs the question, "Are our imaginations and flights of fancy, our impulses toward wonder and beautiful ignorance necessarily incompatible with the scientific endeavor? Is there something worthwhile is hearing "a god's anger" in the thunder rather than, say, "the manifestation of a meteorological phenomenon?" Is there something lost when we "unweave" the rainbow?
The film doesn't answer this rich question. It's the source of its aesthetic power is that is even raises it.