Истребитель драконов (1981)

1981 film by Matthew Robbins

Dragonslayer is a 1981 American dark fantasy film directed by Matthew Robbins from a screenplay he co wrote with Hal Barwood. It stars Peter MacNicol, Ralph Richardson, John Hallam, and Caitlin Clarke. It was a co production between Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions, where Paramount handled North American distribution and Disney's Buena Vista International handled international distribution. The story is set in a fictional medieval kingdom where a young wizard encounters challenges as he hunts a dragon, Vermithrax Pejorative. It is the second joint production between Paramount and Disney, after Popeye (1980), and is more mature than most contemporary Disney films. Because the audience expected the Disney name to be solely children's entertainment, the film's violence, adult themes and brief nudity were somewhat controversial, though Disney did not hold the North American distribution rights. The film was rated PG in the U. S.

The special effects were created at Industrial Light and Magic, the first use of ILM outside of a Lucasfilm production. Phil Tippett had co developed an animation technique there for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) called go motion, a variation on stop motion. This led to the film's nomination for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, but it lost to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the only other visual effects nominee that year, whose special effects were also provided by ILM. Including the hydraulic 40 feet (12 m) model, the dragon consists of 16 puppets dedicated to flying, crawling, or breathing fire. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, but it performed poorly at the box office, grossing $14.1 million worldwide against a production budget of $18 million. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, which went to Chariots of Fire. It was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, again given to Raiders of the Lost Ark. On October 21, 2003, Dragonslayer was released on DVD in the U. S. by Paramount Home Entertainment. The film was re released in remastered format on Blu ray and 4K Ultra HD on March 21, 2023, in the U. S. by Paramount Home Entertainment.

Urland, a sixth century post Roman kingdom situated near the River Ur, is being terrorized by Vermithrax Pejorative, a 400 year old dragon.]] About 25% of the film's budget went into the dragon's special effects. Graphic artist David Bunnett was assigned to design the look, and was fed ideas on the movement mechanics, and then rendered the concepts on paper. They decided early to emphasize flying, because the most important sequence is the final battle. Bunnett gave it a degree of personality, deliberately trying to avoid the creature from Alien, which he believed was "too hideous to look at". which features music rejected from his score for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The opening sequence of Dragonslayer features a reworking of his original music for the opening of 2001s "Dawn of Man" sequence—which in that final film is played without music—and a waltz representing the dragon in flight that had been a variation of the cue "Space Station Docking", which in the final cut of 2001 was replaced by "The Blue Danube". North was disappointed by the resulting dragon scenes, as they do not use the entirety of the pieces he composed for them. He later stated that he had written "a very lovely waltz for when the dragon first appears, with just a slight indication that this may not be a bad dragon". The waltz was replaced by tracks used earlier in the movie. The score was widely praised. Pauline Kael wrote in the New Yorker that the score was a "beauty", and that "at times, the music and the fiery dragon seem one". Royal S. Brown of Fanfare Magazine praised the soundtrack as "one of the best scores of 1981". On April 22, 2010, a limited edition soundtrack CD was released on La La Land Records.

The film grossed just over $14 million in the US with an estimated budget of $18 million. It later became a cult film.

At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 84% score based on 37 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critic consensus reads, "An atypically dark Disney adventure, Dragonslayer puts a realistic spin — and some impressive special effects — on a familiar tale." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The book Flights of Fancy: The Great Fantasy Film says: "Dragonslayer is a compelling and often brilliant fantasy film [ but] it seeks, as well, to impose modern sensibilities on its medieval characters and plot—20th century political, sociological, and religious sensibilities, which only serve to dilute its particular strengths." Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the film three stars out of four in their respective print reviews. Siskel praised the "dazzling special effects" and the "convincing portrait by Ralph Richardson of the aged magician Ulrich", Nonetheless, he warned: "In movie theaters, that came across wonderfully; on a little TV screen, this may be strictly for specialized tastes." Christopher John reviewed Dragonslayer in Ares magazine and commented, "Though the dialogue is occasionally stiff, there is a believable reality. When the people and setting of a fantasy are as carefully wrought as they are here, it is easy to get an audience to accept as small and wonderful a thing as a dragon."

Guillermo del Toro has stated that along with Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, Vermithrax is his favorite cinematic dragon. He further stated that: "One of the best and one of the strongest landmarks [of dragon movies] that almost nobody can overcome is Dragonslayer. The design of Vermithrax Pejorative is perhaps one of the most perfect creature designs ever made." A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin once ranked it the fifth best fantasy film of all time, and called Vermithrax "the best dragon ever put on film [with] the coolest dragon name". Vermithrax is mentioned as an Easter egg in a list of dragons' names in the fourth episode of that book series adaptation, Game of Thrones. Fantasy author Alex Bledsoe stated: " everyone has a 'first dragon', the one that awoke their sense of wonder about the creatures. For many it's Anne McCaffrey's elaborate world of Pern, where genetically engineered intelligent dragons bond with their riders; for others, it's Smaug in The Hobbit, guarding his hoard deep in a cave. But for me, it was the awesome Vermithrax from the 1981 film, Dragonslayer." During filming of Return of the Jedi, in which Ian McDiarmid, who portrays minor character Brother Jacopus in Dragonslayer, stars as the film's main antagonist, Emperor Palpatine, the ILM crew jokingly placed a model of Vermithrax in the arms of the Rancor model and took a picture. The picture was included in the book Star Wars: Chronicles. A creature based on the appearance of this dragon appears in one of Jabba the Hutt's creature pens in Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy.

A novelization, Dragonslayer, was written by Wayland Drew, that delves deeper into the background of many of the characters. Marvel Comics published three formats of Dragonslayer adaptations in 1981; all were by the same team. These were a magazine sized issue, a two issue standard comic sized adaptation, and a paperback format (Marvel Illustrated) of the two comic books in 160 pages, due to the smaller pages. Credits include writer Dennis O'Neil, and artists Marie Severin and John Tartaglione, in Marvel Super Special #20. Simulations Publications, Inc. produced the board game Dragonslayer, designed by Brad Hessel and Redmond A. Simonsen. Australian label Southern Cross initially released an unauthorized soundtrack album in 1983 on LP (a boxed audiophile pressing, at 45 rpm), and in 1990 on CD. The first official and improved CD release came in 2010 by U. S. label La La Land Records. The new album features newly mastered audio from the original LCR (Left Center Right) mix, previously unreleased source music, and alternative takes.