Season 14 Premiere: Dragonslayer Movie & Marvel Comics Adaptation Review

[00:00:00] This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information. Dragon, fire and stench, it is evil. Pure and simple. You want me to do battle with that? Behold!

[00:00:34] Twice each year, the king selects a new victim. Chosen by lot. Girls, virgins. Your kings made a pact with a monster. But your children were dying! Only a few, because that's how I'm cruel. Blacksmith, have you ever forged a weapon? That I'm reserved.

[00:02:20] Dragon-themed week, we had to talk about one of the ones that popularized the genre, released the same year as Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh, 1981. Yep. Lucas's ILM effects company wasn't done doing more serial throwback movies, and lo and behold, there's the movie, followed by the comic book tie-in, Dragon Slayer. With that one guy, Peter McNichol as the hero. Peter McNichol. Peter McNichol. Peter McNichol. Ralph Richardson, Caitlin Clark,

[00:02:51] Salmi, Ian McDermid, who played the priest in it. Yep.

[00:03:26] You know, the great Sir Ralph Richardson, who was in it too. Mm-hmm. He was the older wizard, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's why I think this has become kind of influenced. Like, when I look at it now, I can see why it's not just an important fantasy movie. And trust me, I had so much fun revisiting this. I'm like, you know, I thought it was fine, just cool effects. But now rewatching is like, okay, now I know the story. It's basic.

[00:03:54] But now I get to look at the other fun details. So you'll love this. Like, kudos to, I want to get a copy of Alex's Norse suspenseful music. He's done a lot of crime movies as well as the original Spartacus. Yeah. It's just such a playful and a lot of interesting percussion. But I love how this whole movie on this watch route, it abstains from actual like gruesome violence until the actual like dragon attack at the end.

[00:04:20] And I love how to illustrate, it doesn't, it sounds pretentious the way I'm saying it, but I actually dug how this is a darkly lit outdoor for the most part location, the way it's filmed. And the only light that you see in the whole like entirety of the movie for the most part are the swords or the candles just to show how these heroes are literally the only remaining light in this gruesome world.

[00:04:48] And I was surprised by the rating of it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's but you'll love it. Once again, this got the Blu-ray treatment. I forget which company did it, but it was on. I think I think it might have been Anchor Bay. It's something like that. Like one of the big Blu-ray companies. It might have been Kino Lover, I think. But I think Anchor Bay released it in the past, but it was on Paramount plus streaming. I think when that release first came out, when they first launched and they took it down.

[00:05:18] So I did have to use my resources, but God, that it's a beautiful looking movie. And I, it still holds up. And yeah, it's not a Disney movie. CBS, I think reportedly like only admitted like six minutes. So it was probably the dragons eating people in the. And the dragon was all puppetry. It wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's so hard to believe. You're like, I think it was Phil Tippett. Phil Tippett. Yes. That's why I wanted to do this to just another.

[00:05:48] I knew it was a fun movie. James talked about. I'm like, cool. Like, but it's a good. That's kind of what stood out to me. Like as I was falling in love with Tippett's work on stuff like, you know, Robocop and Jurassic Park and the Star Wars movies. You know, and then seeing his work on this is like, okay, now I get why he is the next wizard, much like Rick Baker and Bob Bowden, you know, and Ray Harryhausen had retired at this time or around that time.

[00:06:18] Yeah. Was it same year? Believe it or not. And it was like what they did, what they did was they just, they built like a 40 foot puppet. Yeah. And then what they did was they had various puppets for like walking and flying and stuff like that. They didn't show any clips in the recent Disney island documentary series, but they did imply that, you know, once Star Wars took off, like they couldn't turn down any work. Like ILM was not in a place. No.

[00:06:46] So they were happy to work on this, but it was just one of those is like, yeah, we, we can't say no, we got to work on anything, whether it's Ghostbusters or Wrath of Khan. We got to say yes. Did you ever hear the story about how there was supposedly a shot when they were filming Return of the Jedi and they had the Rancor and they said the Rancor fights a Karat dragon. And it's the, it's the dragon from, from a original movie that pre-field walks by. Yeah. No, it's the dragon from a dragon slayer.

[00:07:15] They put it in the Rancor's mouth, you know, they use one of those similar puppets that they put in the desert by. Uh, no, no, no, no. That was just, that was just a random prop, a random prop. But when you watch the movie, it's like, it's not a big dashing hero, you know, Peter McNichols, like this very, like, like meek, you know, like he's, he knows what he has to do. You know, he's not a full on wizard. Right.

[00:07:41] He's like, you know, he, he, he studied, you know, he, he loves, you know, Rathbush, like, you know, father and son. And there's Hodge, who's the old guy. And then he meets Caitlin's Clark character. Yes. Who we think is a, is a boy. We found a lawyer. Yeah. That's what I loved about that too. Like she, this is pretty good considering that they, they downplayed it to kind of get Disney to say yes.

[00:08:05] Paramount splitting the bill with them, but I like how the Prince, even though he's handsome and even though actor Peter McNichol gave up movies after this, cause he hated the experience and the backlash by critics. Well, he did violent. He did Dracula dead loving at his Renfield. Right. Yeah. Like he appeared on occasion, but for the most part, he just does HBO movies and Fox NBC shows. But I, I thought he was just really just likable. Like you, you feel he's not an arrogant character. He really wants to do better.

[00:08:33] And to the princess, she's, she's not exploited. She's being, you know, mistreated by the King, but you like her arc where she's like, yeah, disguise myself as a boy just to escape. No, no, no, no, no, that's not the princess. That's not the princess. Okay. The princess, the princess is the one, uh, Elizabeth, and she's the one that knows. Yeah. Okay. Not that the lottery is rigged. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I meant the female lead, the, the, the, the one.

[00:09:00] She has a heroic arc, but it's kind of a sad ending for her. That heroic. Yeah. Yeah. It is. But I should check this movie out. Oh, it's great. This is the one of the four I didn't watch. Honestly, I've only ever seen it in bits and pieces. Cause I never really sat down to watch it till today. Yeah. Okay. Valerian. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, even though, I mean, same thing with again, yeah, the priest and the other

[00:09:29] ones, it is a big body count. It is tragic, but it also, it's not going out of its way to be depressing. It's just, it's just a pulp movie, but, uh, uh, apparently. I think it was inspired by the Robin McKinley novel, the hero in the crown. Well, and it's the first time I've seen a wizard turn himself into a bomb. Yeah. Oh my God. And. A bomb or a bong. And.

[00:09:55] Oh, that, that would be the, that would be the full moon entertainment version. But I think the reason this is kind of, this is kind of the Godfather of. I don't mean the movies. I just mean like, it's the. If you will, like dragon movie, like. Even though if you didn't go out of your way to see it back then, like, I mean, you look at dragon movies then. And like, you can like, or hate like stuff like dragon heart. You can have fun with rain of fire, but like this one is kind of the one that.

[00:10:24] May made people realize, Hey, you can do a cool movie or show about this. It doesn't have to just be in literature anymore. You know? Well, it kind of falls in line with the same, like the stuff that was coming out back then, like sword and sorcerer. Oh, even, even if you want to go caliber. It's very much like scalper. It. If you want to go to even Harryhausen, like we're talking about, you could think of stuff like the sword and the dragon, you know, just. Well, that's not Harryhausen.

[00:10:49] Trash of Titans was actually the one, you know, and then the effects for sort of the dragon. But I kind of see like the. The the way this whole thing was, was that, you know, it's a movie that, you know, it has a star, Peter McNichol. And I think Peter McNichol had just done Sophie's Choice. Yes. I think the TV show he was on was Ali. Family. Oh, before that, way back when I thought it was family or something. Oh, God, no, no. But yeah, he's done a lot of TV sense.

[00:11:18] But yeah, this was kind of his moment to shine. And he just didn't like the reaction he got. I did see some people in recent times say that they didn't like him as Lee, but I thought he did find these. He tells us right now. He speaks a certain kind of truth. I think in this movie, he's he's not a whiny hero. He's not a arrogant. He's just the right kind of, you know, no, you know, he is a Luke Skywalker type where he wants to actually save. Yeah, you know, he was he was in Crimes of the Heart on Broadway. Oh, and then the princess to your guys's earlier point.

[00:11:48] I did like how they framed her. And I mean that in a glorious way, like like Gil was saying, she does acknowledge is like this is such a sham of a kingdom. You know, like this is. Yeah, this is Russian roulette. This is not going to go well. Well, the king basically takes credit for everything. And like many of them did back then, you know, like, you know, it's very it's not uncommon for a politician or even a dictator to pretty much throw everyone under the bus and then take credit

[00:12:15] for if it goes all according to plan, you know, and that that's what I like about this movie. Like it is showing all this corruption of this broken kingdom without torturing you for hours on in and also without hitting you over the head. It's like, yeah, I hate him. I know why I hate him. I don't need to spend 50 more minutes on why I hate him. Let's move on. You have to think, too. It's like it takes place in the sixth century. So by then, you know, the Roman Empire is falling apart.

[00:12:42] And you know, someone has to lead the way in the cesspool of corruption. And this guy, they make it very clear like he's looking forward to basically he's doing basically the equivalent of a highway robbery with all his people getting all their hopes up. Yep. It's like, OK, this is going to go a wall pretty fast. I totally recommend it. The Blu-ray screenshots from what I saw look fabulous. I will definitely try to buy it once it gets discounted on eBay.

[00:13:11] Every other podcast that reviewed it when the Blu-ray first came out, they all had fun. Genre exposure who we've had on before really noted how, you know, a genre movie is good when there's a lot of themes to watch. It's not just one and done like hack and slash, you know, effects. They do a good job of building suspense. It's not like a lesser Godzilla movie where you're just getting impatient for when is the title monster going to attack again? You know, it's really good at just building up all the tension.

[00:13:38] And like you're saying before, the wizard is just fucking awesome because like you, you know, he reappears and then he again, much like an Obi-Wan, they do do the whole is like, yeah, his, you know, I'm mentoring the hero who's not, you know, a supernatural being. And just the visuals and how they portrayed the dreamy looking landscapes that are now, you know, being overtaken and bursting into flames. Just it really is eye popping.

[00:14:08] It really is compelling visual storytelling. Again, it's a genre movie. It's not going to go as the best of all time, but it's definitely a top 80s fantasy movie. A must. And for fans of 80s sword and sorcery type movies, it's up there. Totally. The comic book was a lot of fun and I promise to give it to you, James. It was a brief Marvel adaptation and reading it two parter. But man, would you be able to say who the artist was on that?

[00:14:35] So the Dragon Slayer Marvel comics, it really perfectly illustrates no pun, just the grim world. It actually explains some of how they traveled to the different caves. So just like any good movie tie in, just explain the stuff that was off screen, but was cut for time, you know, and the dragon is well illustrated there. Dennis O'Neill was the writer and the penciler was Mary Severin. And the anchor was John Tata Garleon.

[00:15:04] And the colorist was Mary Severin. Mary Severin. Mary Severin. Okay. Is she related to John Severin from Crack? Yes, she is. Oh, really? Sister or cousin? I think sister. Yeah. I'm not 100% sure on that. I used to love his artwork when I was a kid. I thought he was a great artist. She used to do a lot of like, there was a comic, a spoof comic they did called Not Brand X. She did a lot of work on that. Oh, really? Good. Which was a spoof comic. Yeah. Yeah. The artwork is good in it.

[00:15:32] It's pretty much the perfect example of a tie in. It's like, what if I want to watch the movie, but I don't have it on tape or I don't have time to rewatch it. I can reread the comic at my leisure because it's its own character in its own way. I really do mean that very complimentary. Like it's its own real beast. And again, I'm not trying to have a pun, but like, I just. And she actually did some work on the whole comic book too, I think, which was Robert E. Howard's call. Oh, wow. Which was his other kind of Conan, but he was king. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:02] He was in that same world. Kind of. Yeah. Okay, sweet. Well, that's all folks. We'll return after these messages. All right, folks. How's that here? We got a 90 minute weekly Shack stop. It's growing all over the world. Find it at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern time on Mondays. Then 3 p.m. on Wednesdays. Then 7 p.m. on Thursdays. You can catch it on many more radio stations.

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