Dragonheart
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| Dragonheart | |
|---|---|
 Original film poster |
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| Directed by | Rob Cohen |
| Produced by | Raffaella De Laurentiis |
| Written by | Charles Edward Pogue (story/script) Patrick Read Johnson (story) |
| Starring | Dennis Quaid David Thewlis Pete Postlethwaite Dina Meyer Jason Isaacs Brian Thompson Sean Connery (voice) |
| Music by | Randy Edelman |
| Running time | 103 min. |
| Language | English |
| Followed by | Dragonheart: A New Beginning |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dragonheart is a 1996 fantasy/adventure film directed by Rob Cohen, and starring Dennis Quaid, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite, Dina Meyer, and the voice of Sean Connery.
The music for the film was composed by Randy Edelman, and the main theme song, "To The Stars," was used in the film Two Brothers as well as several movie trailers, such as Mulan and Seven Years in Tibet and also used in clip montages at the Academy Awards, making it a very common film score.
Dragonheart inspired a direct-to-video sequel, Dragonheart: A New Beginning.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
England, A.D. 934: The cruel and tyrannical Saxon King Freyne summons his young son Einon (Lee Oakes) and Einon’s mentor Bowen (Quaid) to witness the suppression of a peasant rebellion. Though the king’s troops are ultimately victorious, Freyne is killed when the rebels stage an ambush. Einon rushes into the fray to claim his crown and is accidentally stabbed through the heart before Bowen can reach him.
Though the wound should have been fatal, the young king’s mother hopes for a miracle. Queen Aislinn (Julie Christie) has her son taken to a cave in the mountains where she pleads with a shadowy figure to save the young man’s life. The creature, a dragon, recognizes Aislinn as "the daughter of the Celts," whose people had revered his kind as their friends. For her sake, the dragon removes a part of its own heart and bestows it upon the boy, cauterizing the wound with a blast of fire. Einon revives and is carried home to recover. Grateful for the dragon’s sacrifice, Bowen pledges to repay his debt at a future time.
Shortly thereafter, Einon reveals himself to be as brutal and pitiless as his father, enslaving the former rebels and forcing them to begin work rebuilding the nearby ruins of a Roman castle. As the young king gives the order to have the rebel leader blinded, Bowen intervenes and allows the man to escape. Believing that the dragon’s heart is responsible for Einon’s wickedness, Bowen returns to the cave and vows to seek vengeance for the ruin of his protégé.
Twelve years later, Einon's (Thewlis) castle is rebuilt and Bowen becomes a formidable dragon-slayer. During one dragon-hunt, the knight meets Brother Gilbert (Postlethwaite), a monk and aspiring poet. Impressed by Bowen’s prowess, the priest is determined to follow him and record his heroic exploits in epic verse. The knight stalks another dragon to its cave and engages it in battle, resulting in a stalemate. The dragon (Connery) shrewdly informs Bowen that he is the last of his kind, and that the dragon-slayer will have difficulty finding work if the two “pursue this fracas to its final stupidity.” Since their options are either Bowen kills the dragon and is out of work, or the dragon kills Bowen and has to deal with the next knight out to make a name for himself, the dragon proposes a partnership, and the two begin defrauding local villages with staged dragon-slayings; the dragon attacks a village, Bowen offers to kill him for a fee, and pretends to spear the dragon, who then falls into a nearby lake and swims out of sight underwater. Since the dragon’s name is difficult for the human tongue to pronounce, Bowen calls him “Draco”, after a constellation of stars that resembles a dragon.
Meanwhile, Einon encounters Kara (Meyer), the rebel leader’s daughter, and realizes that she was responsible for his injury years before. He has her imprisoned and attempts to seduce her, but she stabs him in the shoulder with surprisingly little effect. He leaves Kara alone to consider his offer, and Queen Aislinn helps her escape. Draco feels the pain of the wound, but continues to hide the connection between himself and Einon from Bowen.
In her home village, Kara attempts to instigate a new uprising. When Bowen and Draco arrive the villagers offer the girl as a virgin sacrifice to appease the dragon. At Draco’s lair, the dragon and knight argue about what to do with Kara as Einon approaches and demands that she be returned to him. Bowen and Einon duel, with the older man at a disadvantage because he is not truly willing to harm his former student. In the course of the fight, Bowen is heartbroken to realize that Einon never changed: he was always an evil man, and he only pretended to agree with Bowen's idealism to learn the sword. When Einon gains the upper hand, Draco intervenes and Einon flees in terror. Kara attempts to persuade Bowen to help her overthrow the oppressive king, but the disillusioned knight refuses.
The next scam attempt goes poorly when Draco lands in shallow water, preventing him from sinking to the bottom and forcing him to fly away to avoid being eaten, leaving Bowen, Kara and Brother Gilbert in danger from angry villagers. Draco rescues the three and carries them to the island of Avalon. Taking shelter from a rainstorm amongst the tombs of the fallen Knights of the Round Table, Draco reveals that the constellation he was named after is, essentially, a dragon heaven, where dragons may go to upon death if they earn a place. He attempted to gain a place there by saving Einon, hoping his heart would change the prince's nature and once again unite the races of Man and Dragon, but, although depressed by his failure, agrees to help Gilbert and Kara in the rebellion. Bowen initially remains behind, but when he experiences a vision of Arthur's knights, he remembers the high ideals he once tried to instill in Einon, and agrees to join the rebellion.
During the battle between the peasants and Einon’s forces- which goes far better than the last rebellion due to Draco's firepower and Bowen's tactical expertise-, the king is shot with an arrow. The resulting pain causes Draco to fall from the sky over Einon’s castle and the dragon is captured. Einon realizes that sharing the dragon’s heart renders him virtually immortal so long as no harm befalls the dragon, and determines to keep Draco alive and imprisoned indefinitely. Wanting to end her son's evil, Queen Aislinn tries to kill Draco, wanting to redeem herself for saving 'a creature not worth saving', but is stopped and killed by Einon.
When the rebels invade the castle, Bowen intends to release his friend, but Draco tells Bowen that in order for Einon’s reign to end he himself must die, and begs the knight to kill him. At first, Bowen does not want to but as Einon rushes towards him, Bowen reluctantly does so. This releases Draco’s soul to the dragons’ heaven - where he becomes a new star in the constellation - and killing Einon in the process. The film concludes with an epilogue by Brother Gilbert stating that Bowen and Kara went on to lead the people in an era of peace and prosperity, and that, whenever things were particularly difficult, Draco's star shone all the more brightly, for those who knew where to look.
[edit] Cast
- Dennis Quaid as Bowen
- Sean Connery as Draco (voice)
- David Thewlis as King Einon
- Pete Postlethwaite as Brother Gilbert of Glockenspur
- Julie Christie as Queen Aislinn
- Dina Meyer as Kara
- Jason Isaacs as Lord Felton
- Brian Thompson as Brok
- Wolf Christian as Hewe
- Terry O'Neill as Redbeard
- Lee Oakes as young Einon
- Sandra Kovacicova as young Kara
[edit] Possible Influences
The concept of a dragon and a knight forming a partnership for mutual gain bears a striking resemblance to the plot of "The George Business", a 1980 story by Roger Zelazny[1]. This story appears in Zelazny's collection Unicorn Variations, and was originally published in Dragons of Light.
[edit] Background
Dragonheart is set in the later half of the 10th century in Britain, after the conquest of that country by the Saxons. In the novelization, which was also completed by Charles Edward Pogue, the film's screenwriter, it is revealed that Queen Aislinn was born into one of the native Celtic tribes; Freyne wiped out her people, but took Aislinn for his wife by force. Thus, Aislinn reveres dragons, while Freyne has made his name by killing them (his shield bears the device of a sword severing a dragon's neck).
The novel differs from the movie on a few points, usually in an instance of making the movie less violent or graphic than the original story; one example of this is the attempted seduction of Kara by Einon. The movie allows Kara to escape unharmed, but in the novel it is later revealed that she was raped by the king. At the same time, the novel is more of a love story than the movie, with Bowen confessing his love for Kara.
There are references to King Arthur and the "old code" of Camelot throughout, with Draco taking Bowen, Kara, and Brother Gilbert to the fabled island of Avalon at one point in the film. One of the film's central themes is Bowen's devotion to knightly ideals, and his disillusionment when his pupil becomes a tyrant, followed by his revival of the chivalric spirit when confronted by the spirits of Arthur and his knights.
The movie displays the classic theme of good triumphing over evil when Einon is felled, alas at the expense of Draco's life.
The said "Old Code" is recited during the story by the Shades or animated memories of the Knights of the Round Table; it is written below.
...inside the circle of the table, under the holy sword, a knight must swear he will obey to the eternal code, eternal as the table, a ring bound to honour.
A knight is sworn to valor, his heart knows only virtue, his blade defends the helpless, his might upholds the weak, his word speaks only truth, his wrath undoes the wicked.
The right can never die, if a man still remembers him. Words are not forgotten, if a voice pronounce them clearly, The Code always shines, if a heart preserves it brightly...
The Old Code....
In the film's commentary, Director Rob Cohen said he tried to make a movie about what he himself believes in: living your life according to a set of ideals.
[edit] Trivia
- During the making of the film, over 200 images of Sean Connery's facial expressions were taken along with voice clips to make Draco more like him.
- It is said in the film that the dragon's heaven is a field of stars in a dragon's shape and that each star is a dragon's soul. The Draco constellation is a real constellation.
- Many scenes were filmed in the ruins of a real medieval Spiš Castle in Slovakia.
- The dragon slayers are all played by Czech and Slovakian stuntmen.
- Charles Edward Pogue, the screenwriter, released a novelization of the film which included many details that he was unable to fit into the script.
- When her father dies, Kara takes his red leather headband and wraps it around her hand. Later, during the battle scene, Bowen is seen wearing it tied around his arm. This is explained in the novelization, in a scene that takes place on the morning of the battle. Bowen tells Kara that he loves her, and asks for a token of her favor, as is customary for a knight from his lady.
- The novel is much darker than the actual movie, particularly in the scenes concerning Einon and Kara. In particular, there is a suggestion that Einon rapes Kara while holding her prisoner in his bedroom. In the above-mentioned scene, when Bowen asks for a gift, Kara looks down in shame and says she is a peasant and has nothing. “The one thing that was mine to give, Einon stole forever.” By this she presumably means her virginity.
- The two scenes in which Draco sings - at the start of the movie when the mortally wounded Einon is taken to his cave, and again after Draco takes Kara as a "sacrifice" and quickly befriends her - Draco's singing voice is actually director Rob Cohen.
[edit] Other media
After its release, Dragonheart spawned a spin-off 2-D hack and slash game for the Sony PlayStation called Dragonheart: Fire & Steel, made by Acclaim Entertainment, which was met with mostly negative reviews due to bad gameplay, poor quality graphics, and a generally unimaginative design. In late 1996, Acclaim ported a PC version of the game, which received similar criticism. There was also an original Game Boy game based on this film. [1]
[edit] References
- ^ noted on the page literature for Dragonheart on IMDb, accessed July 17 2007.
