The Flight of Dragons

The Flight of Dragons is a 1982 animated fantasy film produced by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr. and loosely combining the speculative natural history book of the same name (1979) by Peter Dickinson with the novel The Dragon and the George (1976) by Gordon R. Dickson. The film centers upon a quest undertaken to stop an evil wizard who plans to rule the world by dark magic. A major theme within the story is the question of whether science and magic can co-exist. This is told mostly through the experience of character Peter Dickinson, drawn from the 20th century into the magical realm.

Released direct to video on August 17, 1982, it was aired as an ABC "Saturday Night Movie" on August 2, 1986, and released by Warner Brothers as a made-to-order DVD in the US on 17 November 2009 as part of the "Warner Archive Collection". The ultimate war between magic and science is about to begin. taglines

Ommadon

 * Yes, Bryagh. It's your turn now. You and your legions. Attack. Demolish! Devour! Burn! Grind them to dust! Go forth and death be thy destination! Doom. Doom. A flight of dragons! I command it! The flight of dragons! Doom. Doom. Doom.
 * While your powers die, mine will flourish! Man will never inherit my domain, for I am making man mine!

Carolinus

 * There was time between the waning age of enchantment and the dawning age of logic when dragons flew the skies, free and unencumbered. Look down there, Gorbash my friend. On the top of the earth below us, confusion and chaos reign. All mankind is facing an epic choice: a world of magic or a world of science. Which will it be?
 * For as evil is a part of all things, evil is a part of magic.
 * Good would be totally impotent, without the contrast of evil.
 * Man hears of the dragon's impenetrable skin and lo, he makes armor, battleships, tanks. A fairy flies, and furiously jealous, Man himself defies gravity with machines he will one day call airplanes. A magician looks into his crystal and sees and hears halfway around the world. "Ah", says Man, "if only it could be so", and centuries from now, he conjures up miracles but calls them radio and television. If Man is to surmount the insurmountable, there must always be magic to inspire him. The world needs magic. Magic cannot die.

Others

 * Bryagh: [about to drop Peter] May the rocks crush your skull!
 * Smrgol: Ah, shut up and eat yer limestone!
 * Smrgol: [to Gorbash breathing fire] Turn yer head! Turn yer head, you young idiot!
 * Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Cute little fellow! Awkward, and helpless. Named him Gorbash, in honor of the contest. For it was rather gory, and I did get a bit bashed about.
 * Giles of the Treetops: [in the soup pot] I'm part boiled to a fethiwell, but I'd sooner be cooked than crushed by that thing!
 * Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Blade with whom I have lived, blade with whom I now die, serve right and justice one last time, seek one last heart of evil, still one last life of pain. Cut well, old friend, and then farewell.

Dialogue

 * Gorbash: Whither dost thou command me, O master?
 * Carolinus: Gorbash, please for pity's sake, no formalities.
 * Gorbash: Well, I, uh, like to do things by the book.
 * Carolinus: To the Temple of All Antiquity!
 * Gorbash: Right! [turns around, confused] Where?
 * Carolinus: I'll guide you as we go. Away!


 * Ommadon: I have weapons you wouldn't dare use. Fear rules Man. By summoning all the dark powers I will infest the spirit of man so that he uses his science and logic to destroy himself. What havoc and rage. Turn brother against brother. Greed and avarice shall prevail, and those who do not hear my words shall pay the price. I'll teach man to use his machines, I'll show him what distorted science can give birth to. I'll teach him to fly like a fairy, and I'll give him the ultimate answer to all his science can ask. And the world will be free for my magic again.
 * Carolinus: Stop! This must not be!
 * Solarius: We want none of your dark magic.
 * Ommadon: While your powers die, mine will flourish. Man will never inherit my domain. For I am making man mine. He will understand and come to desire my magic. It is inevitable. You shall see. This dark determination I swear. By this red crown. The source of all my dark power. So be it! Now and forever!


 * Peter Dickenson: How long have we been falling? For hours?
 * Carolinus: More like a few centuries!


 * Gorbash: Melisande, look! It's gold!
 * Princess Melisande: [laughs] Gorbash, if your hoard grows any bigger, we won't have room for furniture!


 * Carolinus: I call on all Antiquity to give me magic enough. How does it begin? Carvic crom zohmini lava…. Yes, Carvitome zohmini lavathol...
 * Princess Melisande: Ahh! Father, he's dropping Sir Peter!
 * Bryagh: [drops Peter; cackling] May the rocks crush your skull!
 * Carolinus: Untumblay varistone misacronis madlayunrot... Oh the blazes! Kala!


 * Smrgol: What? Never had gemstones in your craw?
 * Peter Dickenson: [in dragon form] I never had a craw.


 * Ommadon: Do you not know I can pluck the Sun from the sky?!
 * Peter Dickenson: Seven heads, and each one a simpleton. Do you not know the Sun is 93 million miles away?!


 * Princess Melisande: May I join him, father?
 * Carolinus: Of all questions, I feared that the most.
 * Princess Melisande: May I?
 * Carolinus: That must be your decision, child. Go, and you may never return to the magic realm. For even now the great dome of invisibility grows over our world to protect its sanctity for all time. And no one on the outside may enter its boundaries, save for the length of a dream, or a flash of an inspiration. But it will stay, through the years and the centuries and the ages, a part of man for all time. And whenever man needs magic, we will be here.

Taglines

 * Man is faced with the ultimate question, of whether to have a world of Magic or a world of Science. Which will it be?
 * All mankind is facing and epic choice. A world of magic or a world of science. Which will it be?
 * The ultimate war between magic and science is about to begin.
 * A wondrous tale of action and suspense, damsels and ogres, dungeons and dragons, questing knights and evil warlocks.

Voice cast

 * Victor Buono as Aragh the wolf
 * James Gregory as the dragons Smrgol and Bryagh
 * James Earl Jones as Ommadon, the Red Wizard
 * Harry Morgan as Carolinus, the Green Wizard
 * John Ritter as Peter Dickinson
 * Larry Storch as the pawnbroker
 * Don Messick as Lo Tae Zhao, the Golden Wizard and Giles, the elf
 * Bob McFadden as the dragon Gorbash and as the knight Sir Orrin Neville-Smythe
 * Alexandra Stoddart as the Princess Milisande
 * Nellie Bellflower as Danielle the archer
 * Paul Frees in uncredited roles as Solarius, the Blue Wizard and as the voice of Antiquity

Additional character voices were provided by Ed Peck and Jack Lester.