Don Bluth Still Wants to Make a 'Dragon's Lair' Movie

Here I thought I was the only person in the world who remembered the arcade game "Dragon's Lair" (and it's sister game "Space Ace") and now I've seen an article on this site as well as Lazy Eye "Theatre." I LOVED that game. I remember my family used to take us out to Chuck-E-Cheese's after church on Sunday and I spent all my time, not to mention coins, playing that particular game (I even made my dad bring in a video camera and point it at the screen while I played so I could re-watch it whenever I wanted). I also remember the short-lived Saturday morning cartoon, which Don Bluth had no involvement with (you could tell by the quality of the animation) though the show's main theme-by future "Passion of the Christ" composer John Debney-was pretty memorable. I could hum it even now.

Dirk was my hero for a couple years there (I had my mom sew me a Dirk-the-Daring costume for Halloween) and even as I got older I still had affection for that game such that I was actually excited by the release of the sequel "Time Warp," even though by that time I was in high school. As I look back on it now it becomes painfully obvious to me that Bluth and his animators were being satirical. Dirk is a parody of the stereotypically heroic knight-in-shining-armor and Princess Daphne is spoof of the sexy damsel in distress (My God, that outfit!). Somehow I couldn't help but feel that this discovery robbed me of somthing "pure" and "innocent" from my childhood while, at the same time, it created an even deeper appreciation for Bluth. He gave kids and grown-ups something to enjoy in "Dragon's Lair" (as he does in a lot of his work).

Don Bluth has long been one of my favorite animators (I think "The Secret of NIMH" and "An American Tail" deserve to be on any list of great animated films) and I always look forward to whatever his next project is. As far as the feature-length "Dragon's Lair" movie is concerned, all I have to say is: IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME! In my opinion, it's long overdue!

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ANOTHER Dragon movie?

Forget it. Haven't these monkeys learned their lesson?

Just let "The Hobbit" show the world how it's really supposed to be done, whenever that will be made.

"Traditional (cell) animation"??? without CGI???? How daft. What a bunch of old farts still reminiscing about the old days and crying nostalgic. Morons. If they want to make it "look" more traditional rather than the CG-look of such movies like "Cars" and the like = they should learn to use Flash-style animation like Genndy Tartakovsky does in "The Clone Wars" movies and for "Samurai Jack." In fact, if the Producers were smart, they should go and hire Genndy and let him put his magic on the movie.

But I can guarantee you the audience is already groaning - "ANOTHER Dragon movie?

Otherwise, "Dragon Lair" always had a small reach for being a unique yet difficult and more expensive game, and smaller awareness still, because while there always used to be more duplicate machines of other games, there would always only be 1 of the Dragon Lair machines in the whole arcade, even if the arcade was in a large space.

Unless the Producers put out a massive advertising campaign, this is bound for a mediocre or less take at the B.O. - because the audience who would know anything about it beyond the years of being interested and the current core audience of kids these days is going to be mighty hard to please with "traditional animation."

May be they should let their Egos subside and invest their money into helping New Line and Peter Jackson resolve their issues and help co-produce "The Hobbit" with that money instead?

Otherwise I will wait for my free copy at the Pirate DVD sellers down the street. Like most of my middle-aged friends do, who don't want to pay $10+ for a bad movie.

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I have not-so-fond memories of this game as a child. I say not-so-fond because it really wasn't much of a game, per se, but it was indeed a finely animated piece.

Frankly, though, I just don't see the appeal of a Dragon's Lair flick... I'm not going to word it as cynically as my fellow poster above. But I can't see why any investor would want to put it towards a traditional 2D-animated feature that's based on an old, not-so-fondly remembered video-game property. In situations like this, you gotta ask yourself: If YOU were a multi-millionaire who invested in movies to produce and make money from, then would you put your own money down for this and expect to turn a profit? There's your answer right there.

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