If you have not seen DragonHeart during your childhood, I am sorry for what you have missed out on; if you are not a child anymore, then probably the movie would not have the same effect, but I would recommend it nevertheless. Furthermore, the dragon’s voice is dubbed by Sean Connery, and that should be enough of an incentive.
DragonHeart is a 1996 adventure fantasy movie directed by Rob Cohen starring Dennis Quaid and David Thewlis; 2026 marks its 30th anniversary. The story is about a dragon who bestows half of his heart to a dying prince in the hope that he will honor a knightly code and become a rightful and just king. In the dragon’s words: “Half my heart to make you whole, its strength to purify your weakness, live and remember your oath”. One simple initial scene is sufficient to emphasize that the king failed his vow and that everything went wrong, horribly horribly wrong. The king in fact will turn up to be arrogant, ingrate, a ruthless and tyrannical despot and nothing more.
The movie highlights the importance of certain values such as humility and respect, as well as the importance of treating others with humanity, regardless of the place one has in any given hierarchy. These morals are especially tailored for children through a world of fantasy. The dragon, as opposed to other types of stories, is not demonized; the creature is the most humane ‘character’ out of the entire movie. It is a trait that in my opinion is less common in today’s media: using a movie to teach basic ethics and morals.
The consequences of arrogance, in the case of the king, are subtly played out: there is real punishment for him as his life is intertwined with the one of the dragon. As long as the dragon will be alive, so will he; furthermore, although he is depicted as the villain and in the end is defeated, throughout the movie there is no real threat against him. A much graver consequence resides in his utter dehumanization: a process that reaches its culmination when his mother (the one that had pleaded the dragon for her son’s life) will try to put an end to his existence. The harsh words and actions of a mother who realizes that the son in which she believed in and saw good is actually no more; the king’s response to this threat is, simply put, monstrous.
I would give this movie an 8 out of 10 nostalgic Dracos.