Dragonheart opened on this day 30 years ago. This was originally going to be another He-Man thread (don’t worry, there are more to come…unless, of course, you hate He-Man, in which case you should worry, I guess), but I couldn’t resist the urge to commemorate something of a pop culture oddity. Dragonheart, from a visual effects standpoint, was one of the most revolutionary films of its time, featuring the most complex CGI character to ever be brought to the screen. It was really a stepping stone for ILM on their way to bringing the ambitions of George Lucas to life with The Phantom Menace just a few years later. Without Draco the dragon, there might be no Jar Jar Binks. So be grateful to Draco for that. Or hate his guts, I’m not gonna tell you what to do.
Draco begins the movie by binding his heart with a dying young prince, granting him the gift of partial immortality. Unfortunately for everyone in the kingdom, the prince grows up to become Evil King David Thewlis, and if there’s one special effect in this movie to match the awesomeness of the dragon, it’s Evil King David Thewlis. Thewlis holds nothing back, hamming it up while still being terrifying as a villain who is simply a very bad guy. Draco goes into hiding as a knight blames him for the prince’s heart being corrupted, and goes on a crusade to slay all of the kingdom’s winged lizards. Also, said knight is played by Dennis Quaid in an…interesting casting choice. Not bad. Just…interesting. Far less confusing is the decision for Sean Connery to supply the voice of Draco. He’s perfect here.
Quaid Knight and Draco form an uneasy alliance. Since Draco is now the last dragon on earth, Quaid Knight realizes he’ll no longer have employment if he kills him. So they become a con artist duo with Draco faking his death to gain Quaid Knight fame and fortune. True cinephiles will recognize this as the plot of Shark Tale. Eventually, it’s revealed the only way to kill Evil King David Thewlis is for Quaid Knight to kill Draco, as his heart is what’s keeping Evil King David Thewlis alive. That’s…I don’t even have a good joke for that. That’s just a bummer, dude. Sucks to be you, Draco.
You’ve heard this story before, but Dragonheart had a very long journey from page to screen. The initial script by Charles Edward Pogue–who had penned The Fly remake, natch!–is said to have been so good that it moved “countless people to tears” who read it at Universal (at least, that’s according to Pogue, who might’ve been a tad bias with that assessment). That was back in 1990, six entire years before it would actually come out! There were disputes over casting–executives wanted Whoopi Goldberg to voice the dragon–and no one was sure how they were going to handle the special effects.
The Jim Henson Creature Shop was attached at one point to create an animatronic/puppet Draco, but once Jurassic Park came out in 1993, the decision became a lot easier. The problem was a fully computer animated dragon wasn’t going to be cheap, and this might be a reason the higher-ups supposedly decided to make changes to the screenplay to make it more family-friendly (or not, since my mom decided this was way too violent to take young Scrat to). Pogue is apparently kind of bitter about that to this day, but in fairness, I’m not sure how well a dark movie centered around a talking dragon terrified of going to Hell when he died was really going to do at the summer multiplex.
Ultimately, Dragonheart did…fine. It made $115 million worldwide, though it was easily overshadowed by the big players that season like Twister, Mission: Impossible, and especially Independence Day (which would beat it for the Visual Effects Oscar the following year). Still, it brought in enough treasure on home video to justify four direct-to-video sequels, the most recent of which came out in 2020, so what the fuck. And the score–damn, this score is so iconic you’ve probably heard it even if you haven’t seen the movie. As a kid I was surprised I never heard it in Mulan since it was featured prominently in all of that film’s trailers.
Have a great night, y’all! And remember, Simba, the great dragons of our past look down on us from those stars.