Dragonheart

Dragonheart is a 1996 film about a dragon who gets caught by a knight and must work together to overthrow an evil king gifted with partial immortality.
 * Directed by Rob Cohen. Written by Patrick Read Johnson and Charles Edward Pogue

Bowen

 * All my life I've dreamed of serving noble kings, noble ideals. Dreams die hard and you hold them in your hands long after they've turned to dust. I will not be that naive again.
 * You should have eaten her.
 * Don't clutter up a clever scheme with morality.
 * There's nothing noble about crushing desperate men.
 * 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.

Draco

 * (flings a knight's corpse at Bowen and Gilbert) That's all that's left of the last dragon-slayer who tangled with me! If I were you, I'd quit while I was ahead!
 * Come, visit the woods! (drags Bowen through the trees)
 * I don't want to kill you, I never did! And I don't want you to kill me! How do we gain? If you win, you lose a trade. If I win, I wait around for the next sword-slinger thirsting to carve a reputation out of my hide. I'm tired of lurking in holes and skulking in darkness. I'm gonna let you up now. And if you insist, we can pursue this fracas to its final stupidity. Or... you can listen to my alternative.
 * Long ago, when man was young and the dragon already old, the wisest of our race took pity on man. He gathered together all the dragons, making them vow to watch over man, always. And at the moment of his death, the night became alive with those stars. [points towards the constellation Draco] And thus was born the Dragons' Heaven. But when we die, not all dragons are admitted to this shining place. No, we have to earn it. And if we don't, our spirit disappears as if we never were. And that's why I shared my life force with a dying boy - so I would reunite man and dragon, and ensure my place among my ancient brothers of the sky. But... my sacrifice became my sin.
 * You should never listen to minstrels' fancies. A dragon would never hurt a soul, unless they tried to hurt him first.
 * When you squeeze the nobilty, it's the peasants that feel the pinch.
 * (regarding Sir Eglamore) I merely chewed in self defense, but I never swallowed.
 * Next time, I'll collect the money, and you can die!

Gilbert of Glockspur

 * The sword against the fang and claw. The flame against shield. Blah, blah, blah, which one would win? Blah, blah, field, shield, wield. Whose flesh from bones would be peeled. Oh, no. Whose fate would soon be sealed. Whose fate would soon be sealed? Whose fate would soon be sealed?
 * (during Bowen and Draco's stalemate) Into the moonlit night the titans dueled, in mortal combat bound. Oh, who'd the fatal false step make? Whose blood would stain the ground? (yawns)
 * Avalon, oh Avalon, for you I quest each day.
 * The resting place of Arthur and the old code of his way.
 * And when I find those holy stones, I'll pray, I'll pray, I'll pray.
 * Oh Avalon, bright Avalon, think me not a fool.
 * My quest is not for vanity. My quest is spiritual!


 * (shoots a man in the rear) Turn the other cheek, brother.
 * (at the end) And in the days following Draco's sacrifice, Bowen and Kara led the people in a time of justice and brotherhood. As I remember it now, those were golden years, warmed by an unworldly light. And when things became the most difficult, Draco's star shone more brightly, for all of us who knew where to look!

Quotes
A knight is sworn to valor. His heart knows only virtue. His blade defends the helpless. His might upholds the weak. His words speak only truth. His wrath undoes the wicked. His knowledge will defeat ignorance. His skills will be taught to the willing. His temper shall be held by patience. He will give aid to those who seek it. He will ask for aid when needed. The Old Code

Dialogue

 * Young Einon: The peasants are revolting!
 * Brok: They've always been revolting, prince. Now they're rebellin'.


 * Gilbert: My humble life is indebt to your exalted prowess, your dauntless courage, and your superb, swift sword!
 * Bowen: You have the poet's gift of exaggeration.
 * Gilbert: Oh, sir, you should read my histories.


 * Bowen: You can keep your gratitude, I'll take the gold, yours or the king's.
 * Felton: Gold, knight?
 * Bowen: We made a bargain, didn't we? One dragon killed, one bag of gold.
 * Gilbert: Your honor has a price, Sir Knight?
 * Bowen: It has expenses. Honor won't feed my belly nor shoe my horse.


 * Gilbert: I've decided to compose the Ballad of Bowen! How do you prefer I should write this?
 * Bowen: Far away!


 * Draco: Why must you knight errants, out to make a name for yourselves, always pick on us dragons?
 * Bowen: I don't need a name! And I've got a collection of my own!
 * Draco: [snorts in disgust] You're one who kills dragons for money.
 * Bowen: It's honest enough work! One must earn a living!
 * Draco: Oh yes, one must live. Well, since you seek a profit, we might as well begin.
 * Bowen: Oh, don't flatter yourself! It's not the profit, it's the pleasure!
 * Draco: Perhaps less pleasurable and more costly than you think!


 * Draco: If you win, you'll be out of work.
 * Bowen: I will not stop until I've rid the world of every last one of you.
 * Draco: I AM the last one!


 * Bowen: (stuck in Draco's mouth: sees an arm stuck in the teeth and plucks it out) Oh, good lord...Sir Eglamore. (throws the arm out behind him)
 * Draco: Oh, thank you very much. That's been stuck down there for months. Would you mind getting your buttocks off my tongue?
 * Bowen: Why should you be comfortable? My armor is rusting in your drool, and your breath is absolutely foul.
 * Draco: Well, what do you expect with old knights rotting between my molars?


 * Bowen: What does a dragon know of the Old Code, anyway?
 * Draco: His blade defends the helpless. His might upholds the weak. His word speaks only truth.
 * Bowen: Shut up. I remember. That's all it is, a memory. Nothing can bring it back.
 * Draco: You sound like one who tried.
 * Bowen: And failed. So I no longer try to change the world, dragon, I just try to get by in it.
 * Draco: Yes, well, it's better than death, I suppose.
 * Bowen: Oh, is it? I should think you'd welcome death. You know, the last of your kind, all your friends dead, hunted wherever you go...
 * Draco: Do you delight in reminding me? Yes, knight, I do long for death... but fear it.
 * Bowen: Why? Aside from your misery, what's to lose?
 * Draco: My soul.


 * Draco: (notices the dragon teeth attached to Bowen's shield) You must have hated us very much.
 * Bowen: I hated one of you. These I killed because I wanted to kill him. But I never found him. And I never will; if you're the last, he must be dead.
 * Draco: (smiling awkwardly) Oh, yes. Tell me - what was he like, this, uh, dragon that you hated?
 * Bowen: He only had half a heart. But even that was enough to pollute an innocent boy.
 * Draco: (suddenly angry) Einon was no innocent! He polluted the heart!
 * Bowen: How do you know that?! How do you know that, dragon?
 * Draco: (scratches his head evasively) All dragons know that story! What was to be their hope became their doom! A spoiled, ungrateful child was given a great gift and destroyed it!
 * Bowen: No! I knew Einon. I was his teacher. I taught him the ways of honor, of right.
 * Draco: Then he betrayed you, just as he betrayed the dragon whose heart he broke.
 * Bowen: That's a lie, dragon!
 * Draco: STOP CALLING ME "DRAGON"! I have a name!
 * Bowen: (after a short silence) Well, what is it?
 * Draco: Huh. You couldn't possibly pronounce it in your tongue.
 * Bowen: (smirking) Try me!
 * Draco: It's-- (suddenly roars in pain and clutches at his shoulder; in Einon's castle, Kara has stabbed him)


 * Draco: Have you been watching over me all night?
 * Bowen: I've been thinking.
 * Draco: Yes? About what?
 * Bowen: Many things. Mostly about what to call you. I think I've found you a name.
 * Draco: You say that as though you reached up and plucked it from the sky.
 * Bowen: I did. Up there. Do you see that group of stars? (points at the Draco constellation)
 * Draco: I know those stars very well.
 * Bowen: Do you see the shape that they make?
 * Draco: Mm-hmm, a dragon.
 * Bowen: Yes. They call it Draco. It means "dragon" in the scholars' speech.
 * Draco: (chuckling) So instead of calling me "dragon" in your tongue, you'll call me "dragon" in some other tongue?
 * Bowen: You're right, it's silly.
 * Draco: No! No, I would be honored to be named after those stars. I... I truly would. Thank you, Bowen. "Draco"...


 * Kara: In your kingdom, Einon, there are worse fates than death.
 * Einon: I'll think one up for you.


 * Draco: Who's the girl?
 * Bowen: A nuisance! Get rid of her!
 * Draco: Why?
 * Bowen: They're trying to placate you with a sacrifice.
 * Draco: (sarcastically) Oh, now whoever gave them that bright idea?
 * Bowen: Never mind! Just get rid of her!
 * Draco: How?
 * Bowen: Eat her!
 * Draco: Oh, please. Yuck!
 * Bowen: Aren't we squeamish? You ate Sir Eglamore, hypocrite!
 * Draco: I merely chewed in self-defense, but I never swallowed.
 * Bowen: Improvise!
 * Draco: All right, all right!


 * Kara: You have a beautiful voice.
 * Draco: Oh, thank you. We dragons love to sing when we're happy.
 * Kara: Well, you're not like a dragon at all.
 * Draco: Well, how many dragons do you know?
 * Kara: Well, you're the first.
 * Draco: You should never listen to minstrels' fancies. A dragon would never hurt a soul, unless they tried to hurt him first.


 * Gilbert: Well done, Bowen! You've done it again! What a brute! That's even bigger than the last one!
 * Bowen: Actually, he's about the same size.


 * Einon: Times have not been kind to you, Bowen. You should have never broke with me.
 * Bowen: It was you who broke with me!
 * Einon: And yet, you returned to me with this girl I lost.
 * Bowen: (Kara shakes her head and raises her dagger) I think she wants to stay lost.
 * Einon: Not her decision, I'm afraid! [draws his sword] I'm ready for my lesson now, knight!


 * Einon: Lay down, Bowen! You're the sad remains of dead systems and dead beliefs!
 * Bowen: They were your beliefs!
 * Einon: Never! Never mine!
 * Bowen: [heartbroken] But... you spoke the words...you spoke them from your heart!
 * Einon: I vomited them up because I couldn't stomach them! Because I knew it was what you wanted to hear!
 * Bowen: Lies! Liar! I taught you!
 * Einon: You taught me to fight, that's all! I took what I needed from you. You taught me to fight! [stabs Bowen in the shoulder, disarming him] You taught me well.


 * [Bowen stands in the former place of the Round Table on Avalon.]
 * King Arthur: A knight is sworn to valor.
 * Bowen: A knight is sworn to valor!
 * King Arthur: His heart knows only virtue.
 * Bowen: His heart knows only virtue!
 * King Arthur: His blade defends the helpless.
 * Bowen: His blade defends the helpless!
 * King Arthur: His might upholds the weak.
 * Bowen: His might upholds the weak!
 * King Arthur: His word speaks only truth.
 * Bowen: His word speaks only truth!
 * King Arthur: His wrath undoes the wicked.
 * Bowen: His wrath undoes the wicked!

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 * (Draco has been chained down by Einon)
 * Draco: I can't see! Are the stars shining tonight?
 * Queen Aislinn: Brightly, my lord! Brightly!
 * Draco: Then let us end it.

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 * King Einon: I know why you brought me the dragonslayers. You wanted them to kill him because you wanted me dead.
 * Queen Aislinn: I wanted to correct a mistake made years ago, when I saved a creature not worth saving.
 * King Einon: How un-motherly of you.

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 * Draco: Now it's you, Bowen. It's you that has to do it.
 * Bowen: What are you talking about?
 * Draco: As the heart binds Einon to me in life, it binds us in death.
 * Bowen: [lifting a chain off Draco's head] That's not... true!
 * Draco: You've seen that it is! Through the heart, we share each other's pains and power. But in my half beats the life source! For Einon to die, I must die!
 * Bowen: Einon is dead!
 * Draco: HE LIVES!
 * Bowen: It doesn't matter. Don't you hear it? Our rebels have stormed the castle; alive or dead, Einon's beaten! We've won!
 * Draco: You will never win until Einon's evil is destroyed, and to do that, you must destroy me!
 * Bowen: No.
 * Draco: Once you swore your sword and service were mine, to call when I had need of you, to ask what I would of you. I hold you to your vow, knight! [looking aside] He's coming. Coming to stop you! Strike before it's too late!
 * [Kara approaches, shaking her head and trying to dissuade Bowen]
 * Bowen: You are the last.
 * Draco: My time is over! Strike!
 * Bowen: You are my friend.
 * Draco: Then as my friend, STRIKE, PLEASE!
 * Bowen: I can't.
 * Draco: Then I will make you! [starts snarling and clawing at Bowen] Fight back, dragon-slayer! Defend yourself!

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 * Bowen: [distraught] What now, Draco? Without you, what do we do? Where do we turn?
 * Draco's voice: [comforting] To the stars, Bowen. To the stars.

Cast

 * Dennis Quaid - Bowen
 * David Thewlis - King Einon
 * Pete Postlethwaite - Gilbert of Glockenspur
 * Dina Meyer - Kara
 * Jason Isaacs - Lord Felton
 * Brian Thompson - Brok
 * Lee Oakes - Young Einon
 * Wolf Christian - Hewe
 * Terry O'Neill - Redbeard
 * Eva Vejmelková - Felton's Minx
 * Milan Bahúl - Swamp Village Chief
 * Peter Hric - King Freyne
 * Sandra Kovacicova - Young Kara
 * Kyle Cohen - Boy in Field
 * Thom Baker - Aislinn's Chess Partner
 * Julie Christie - Queen Aislinn
 * Sean Connery - Draco (voice)
 * John Gielgud - King Arthur (voice)
 * Buddy Quaid - Cook/Servant