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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Dragons in Film: the ugly and the great!

It is hard to imagine a better rendition of a dragon than what I recently watched in The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug.

Cinema has always struggled with making realistic dragons. Personally I found the Eragon dragon to be a shock when I saw feathered instead of leather wings. It just was not... threatening. More like a giant bird.

An impressive attempt was made in the movie Dragonheart. Sean Connery voiced the dragon in an effective manner. However the movie was filled with a lot of humor as well that took some of that dragon threat away... And a later attempt to create a sequel made the dragon animation feel and look like a video game.

In the Hobbit the standard is finally raised. Smaug was crafted to perfection! This movie really was fantastic and the dragon is what made it so. Not only were the special effects believable, but the characterization of the dragon was spot-on. Smaug is the epitome of a greedy, spiteful creature whose pride (amazingly) manages to fill the screen more than his tremendous length.

Let's hope this will open the door for other fantasy films on the level of The Desolation of Smaug where the dragons are true monsters with intelligent minds!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved this movie! Totally agree with you.

Author Scott Appleton said...

Hi Nathan, yes it was great. Though it took me by surprise that the movie ended in the middle of a scene. Not an approach that I have seen Peter Jackson use up to this point.

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"Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." -Proverbs 16:24

In a world where morality is forsaken and Christ neglected, wholesome books are uncommon. The themes of my writing are love, self-sacrifice, and honor.

I see my generation turning from God to the gods of this world. I see homes torn apart in the pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification. Children are murdered by the millions every year . . . without ever seeing the world outside their mothers' wombs. Through fiction I strive to encourage those who are willing, to stand against these things and be heroes and heroines; chivalrous, gentle, full of righteous indignation, and the fear and love of their Creator.