Monster of the Day #122

Ericb

When I first saw the text on the home page I thought this would be the fishmen from Horror of Party Beach.

Gamera

Not going to even bring up if it’s a dragon, wyvern, flying sheepdog, or something else entirely? Just going to say despite being a kids movie the ‘dragon’ was pretty darn cool.

Really curoius who or what will finish off dragon week of the MotD. I was thinking last night that there really aren’t that many dragon films out there (or at least I can’t think of much more than a half dozen or so).

BeckoningChasm

Well there’s “Reign of Fire” which was okay, in a mediocre way.

I was watching the old Battlestar Galactica series on Netflix and wondered what else Noah Hathaway had done.

John Campbell

I vote for Smaug the Golden as voiced by Richard Boone!

With my second choicegoing to the dragons from “Reign of Fire”.

I remember enjoying this movie. Never saw the follow-ups.

John Campbell

EricB – if you’re going for fishmen you gotta get those randy guys from “Humanoids From The Deep”

BC – I don’t know if I’d go as far as mediocre for “Reign of Fire”. I enjoyed it, but it did feel as though something big was left out or missing. It definitely good have been much more.

Jim Gosney

Ken, since I can’t seem to find a direct link to email you on your site, figured I’d post here that your RSS feed for entries seems to be broke. It is stuck with the last entry on 10/22.

BeckoningChasm

John – I agree, “Reign of Fire” was fun to watch, but it seemed empty. Like they had the concept but failed to turn it into an actual story. I can’t point to anything specifically that was wrong with it (and they did have some neat touches here and there), it just seemed like it could have been much, much better and more memorable. Kind of like “Tron” in my view.

Gamera

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a dragon whose voice sounded strangely simular to a famous British secret agent.

Though thinking more about it there are plenty of animated films and dragons in novels and legends to provide plenty of material. Guess I’m being somewhat closed-minded on live action movies.

‘Reign of Fire’ annoyed me, they showed the tank in the beginning of the film but we never got to see a tank vs. dragon fight! I was really disappointed.

Plus it’s a small thing I suppose but when the Americans first show up the Irish guy says something about hating Yanks worse than dragons. But the tank leading the convoy is a BRITISH Challenger II MBT (Main Battle Tank). The guy sees a BRITISH tank and assumes it’s a bunch of Americans??? Gee, they could have at least flown the Star Spangled Banner from the tank’s radio antenna or draped it across the front or something. Guess only a military history buff like me would have been annoyed but I was.

fish eye no miko

Ericb, I was thinking The Killer Shrews, myself.

zombiewhacker

Dragons? Oh, so many dragons. How about that dragon from The Wonderful World of Brothers Grimm. You know, the one who ate Buddy Hackett?

(That was a dragon, right? I can’t remember now.)

Rock Baker

Only saw Never Ending Story once. I was in grade school, and I didn’t get it. I’d probably watch it again if it came my way, because about the only thing I remember is the dragon/dog. That upset me as a kid, becuase I couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be. Flying dog? Fuzzy sea serpent?

Reign of Fire missed something for me too. I’d rather have seen a disaster/monster movie with the world fighting back against the dragons upon their awakening. For some reason, the post-apocalypse-by-dragons didn’t do much for me.

As for movie dragons, I can think of…

Sigfried
The Magic Sword (two-headed dragon!)
Sword and the Dragon (three-headed dragon!)
Sleeping Beauty
Goliath and the Dragon
Pete’s Dragon (freindly, but a dragon)
The Reluctant Dragon (ditto)
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (one segment features a neato stop-motion dragon, in Cinerama no less)
That Japanese movie with eight headed dragon
7th Voyage of Sinbad
Captain Sinbad (I think this one had ten heads!)
Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster (space dragon, Ghidrah has more screen credits than any other dragon)
The Magic Serpent (spits water!)
Sword in the Stone (Mad Madame Mimm briefly becomes a dragon in her duel with Merlin)
Dragonslayer
Reign of Fire
Willow (there was a dragon in that one, right?)
I saw one that I think was called Dragonwars
Godzilla has been called a dragon. I’m sure there’re dozens of Asian movies I’ve never heard of that feature dragons, and then there’s cartoon shorts and the like. “Rah! The Calico Dragon!”

Rock Baker

That probably should’ve been Dragon Wars. (This thing needs a spell checker)

Rock Baker

And adding to Ghidrah’s dragon status, he was origionally built for a fantasy film to be a dragon. It was the built suit that led to the filming of Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster after the fantasy flick was dropped. (You’ll notice in some early publicity photos that Ghidrah has a wild rainbow color scheme. That was his dragon look before being redressed as the space monster.)

Rock Baker

I forgot the climax to Jack the Giant Killer, another stop motion dragon!

BeckoningChasm

I’m betting “How to Train Your Dragon” has dragons in it. It’s supposed to be a really good film, too.

Didn’t “The Black Cauldron” have a dragon in it? I remember some scene early on, a POV of the kid riding over some meadows…that’s probably just senility, though.

Oh, and there was that weird…upright dragon, that fought Hans Conreid on “Lost in Space”!

fish eye no miko

Rock Baker: Don’t forget the various dragons from How to Train Your Dragon.

There were also dragons in two of the Harry Potter films (and there will be another in the last film).

I’m not sure Willow had a proper dragon, but the Ebersisk was close enough to being one that the confusion is understandable.

Rock Baker

I guess I should note that I’m playing pretty loose in what I call a dragon. If it looks like a dinosaur but isn’t, breaths fire, and/or flies, I’ll call it a dragon. I really wasn’t aware there were so many variants and specifics in mythology. (Like with elves and the like. For me, elves repair shoes and work for Santa Claus, trolls live under bridges and eat goats, fairies bring wooden puppets to life, and pixies are sexy little blonde chicks with transparent wings and little green tunics. Although most of the time, you can swap between fairy and pixie without much trouble.)

The Rev.

I really enjoyed this movie as a kid. I found it didn’t hold up when I saw it again a few years ago, although the first-timers seeing it with me liked it quite a bit. It wasn’t bad, but a bit long and slow-moving in places. Kaldor the luck dragon, though…he held up just fine.

Other dragons:
Dragonheart (I know it was mentioned but I didn’t see it in Rock’s list)
Fire and Ice (starring Amy Acker!)
both Dungeons and Dragons movies
Spirited Away (one of the main characters is a dragon)
Dragon Figher w/ Dean Cain had a weird little dragony critter
a couple of other Siffy movies I can’t recall

“That Japanese movie with eight headed dragon”

That’s Yamato Takeru, which I wish was better. Still a neat dragon old Orochi is.

Rock Baker

I can’t believe I forgot Dragonheart! I mean, I actually SAW that one! (In the theater, no less!)

I understand Mulan also features a little dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy.

John Campbell

BC – couldn’t have said it better!

Gamera – until you said that I had thought it was an american Abrahams. I’m guessing since they filmed in England it was easier to get British armor and they hoped most folks weren’t paying attention! There’s a page from the Herschell Gordon Lewis playbook!

Rock – good lord sir! You are the poet laureate of miscellanous movie trivia!

Gamera

Gee Rock if Sandy can’t teach Monster ID 101 I’d nominate you, that’s one heck of a list.

John: I don’t have any problems with the Challenger being used. If I were the American commander the first thing I’d do would be to visit British military bases to try to link up with any surviving British troops and then loot the bases for anything usable. If I found the tank in good condition I’d take it. Just seemed odd to me a British tank in the UK and the guy immediatly IDs them as Americans! Gee, they could have just took a five dollar American flag and draped it over the front of the tank and took care of the whole issue.

Or maybe I’ve to just got too much time on my hands to worry about trivia like that eh?

BeckoningChasm

Gamera – I got the impression (in Reign of Fire) that the Brits knew the new folks were American not because of equipment, but because they had the swagger that they could beat these dragons, rather than just adapting and trying to survive like the Brits. I’m not trying to say anything about either the Yanks or the Brits in real life, it just came across that way when I saw it.

Petoht

Don’t forget the D&D cartoon which had Tiamat.

Related Posts