by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
I’ve always had a soft spot for animation. More years than not, at least a couple of animated features find their way onto my top 10 list. So, I’m setting out to shine a light on some films that may have passed you by. The idea with Animation Celebration is to take a look at some underseen gems — so no Toy Story or Frozen here.
Let’s get started.
It’s the holiday season, which means one animation studio in particular gets shoved into the spotlight: Rankin and Bass.
For those of us who grew up with their holiday classics, specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, The Year Without a Santa Claus, and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, they are synonymous with this time of year.
However, once you get past the few more well-known stop-motion specials, the quality goes downhill pretty precipitously, and making me feel like Scrooge isn’t exactly in line with the goal of this series. The studio has some fairly popular traditional animated fare as well, though, with The Last Unicorn or The Hobbit, and that’s where the inspiration struck with The Flight of the Dragons.
Released direct to video in 1982 in Britain, and later given an American home video release, as well as an airing on British television, the film comes after the Christmas and Tolkien films you may be familiar with, and just a few months before The Last Unicorn earned its theatrical release. Based on a book, The Flight of the Dragons follows a 20th century Boston writer, Peter Dickenson (John Ritter), who gets summoned back to the Middle Ages to participate in a quest to save a magical realm from the influence of dark magic, as someone who can bridge the gap between the magical and the scientific.
Admittedly, I found this film to be a bit of a mixed bag.
I found myself really enjoying the animation style. Aside from a few clips in high school that I can’t really remember of the Tolkien adaptations, the only 2D animated film I’d seen from Rankin and Bass is Frosty, and it doesn’t have near the complexity that this film does when it comes to the art style. It very much has a painterly feel to it, particularly with some of the establishing shots. The way the dragons are animated, I also found intriguing. While the body shape could be slightly off-putting, the way the dragon fire is animated reminded me of classic Disney — particularly Sleeping Beauty. It has an interesting use of color throughout, particularly as things head toward the climax.
The plot is pretty bog-standard for a fantasy quest, particularly given the fact that the tropes have advanced a bit over the course of the last 40 years. Magical spells are run-of-the-mill nonsense words, most magical creatures you can think of make an appearance at some point, and what quest would be complete without the magical items that are sure to come in in the clutch? Each of the four brother wizards likewise have their own domain that they have dominion over, though our story focuses on Carolinus (Harry Morgan), the green wizard who controls nature, and Ommadon (James Earl Jones), the red wizard who controls hell and the forces of darkness. The fact that they got the voice of Darth Vader in the middle of the original trilogy may be the most impressive thing about this movie, truth be told.
It has nothing to do with the overall quality of the film, but the fact that it was released as a straight-to-video movie with fade to blacks where commercials go hit me in the nostalgia for the other R&B specials. Just a touch I enjoyed for no reason whatsoever. Also, I now know another Don McLean song besides “American Pie,” and the theme song is admittedly pretty good, and something we don’t get much anymore.
In this movie, you can see the weirdness that’s a hallmark of the studio’s less heralded films, though it doesn’t fully give in to its odder tendencies here. What doesn’t help this film is that the final confrontation leaves a sour taste in your mouth — think, what if the showdown at the end of Doctor Strange was SUPER lame?
It’s got a solid reputation, but I’ll be honest, I’m still working through myself where the positives and negatives on this ledger leave me feeling about this movie overall (though I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt). What I will say is, as we get past the time for watching Rankin and Bass tried-and-true holiday specials, spare a thought in the coming months for one of their other offerings. Get adventurous and fire up an unseen film. Then, settle in for a trip.
I’m excited to continue to geek out on some great animated work you may not have had a chance to catch. Next month’s column takes us into 2023, which means the return of the focus on underseen Oscar nominees. See you then!
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