Review: The Reluctant Dragon (DMC #4)
Welcome back, and happy Friday the 13th! Last night we watched The Reluctant Dragon, the fourth movie in the Disnerd Movie Challenge.
Synopsis
Mrs. Benchley thinks that the picture book The Reluctant Dragon would make a great movie, and that her husband should pitch it to Walt Disney. After some reluctance on his part, she finally convinces Mr. Benchley to pitch it, drives him to the Disney studios, and gets him an appointment with Walt Disney. While trying to avoid his over-bearing tour guide Humphrey, Mr. Benchley creates his own tour of the studios as he comes across different departments and operations within the company. Mr. Benchley, and the audience by extension, gets a behind-the-scenes look at some of the processes that go into creating a traditionally animated cartoon, culminating in the animated short, “The Reluctant Dragon.”
In “The Reluctant Dragon,” a boy goes in search of the dragon that has terrorized his father. The boy is dismayed, however, when the dragon he finds looks nothing like the ferocious monster in his book. This dragon sings and recites poetry, and he has no desire to fight. The boy is equally dismayed when he meets the poetic knight who has come to slay the dragon, as he, too, looks and acts nothing like the knight in the boy’s book. This just won’t do—the village is expecting a fight! The boy takes the knight to meet the dragon, and after they exchange pleasantries, tea, and poems, they decide to enact the illusion of a battle. The act goes off without a hitch, pleasing the villagers. All ends happily when the “reformed” dragon agrees not to terrorize the countryside anymore.
Thoughts Before Watching
Kevin: I guess it’s about a dragon. And it’s reluctant? That’s all I know. I’ve literally never seen this film.
Megan: I loved watching this as a kid! The dragon is the best! His “To An Upside Down Cake” poem and his theme song are my favorites. I’m glad I get to introduce Kevin to this one.
Thoughts After Watching
The behind-the-scenes tour is an animation nerd’s dream!
Kevin: Well, that was unexpected! I’ve never read the story or watched this, so I had no idea at all what this was about, let alone that there was more to it than just the cartoon. For those who don’t know, I’ve been an animation enthusiast all my life. I even majored in it in college (emphasis on character design and visual development; I’m not good at the actual animation). So, it was a real pleasure for me to watch all the behind-the-scenes moments as Mr. Benchley visited various rooms of the Disney studios.
From the camera movements to the science behind making the paint to the explanation of storyboarding, the tour scenes had my inner nerd geeking out. I especially enjoyed the team creating the sound/foley effects. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, foley is the technique used by filmmakers to add everyday sound effects to a film. There were other technical parts of this movie that were wonderfully done, such as the transition from black and white to color. I honestly didn’t immediately notice it until Megan pointed it out, I was just that invested that I suppose it felt like a natural transition. Benchley’s joke about technicolor was comically well done.
Who else forgot about Mr. Benchley?
Megan: I must have loved the cartoon of “The Reluctant Dragon” so much that I forgot the rest of the movie! Going into this I had completely forgotten about Mr. Benchley and his tour. It wasn’t until I was watching it that certain scenes and elements became vaguely familiar. My guess is either my siblings and I used to fast-forward through the “boring” live action parts of the movie as kids, or we watched a VHS tape that only included “The Reluctant Dragon” cartoon without everything else. It was nice to experience the live action parts of this film for what felt like the first time.
We see more female characters, but it still fails the Bechdel test.
Megan: I was initially hopeful that this film might stand a chance at passing the Bechdel test, given how many women we saw behind-the-scenes. However, while we see many women on screen, no two women speak to each other (unless you count the nurse and the mother in the “Baby Weems” animatic, but then they’re talking about a baby boy, so it still fails the test). The women in the paint studio briefly communicate with each other, but it is mostly nonverbal communication so I don’t think that counts.
I also got excited when we first met Mrs. Benchley in the opening sequence. She had the idea of turning the picture book into a movie, and she knew her husband had the connections to make it happen. She also recognized that her husband could get past the societal barriers that would keep her from pitching the book herself, so she convinced him to pitch the book, drove him to the studio, and got him the appointment while she went shopping. However, I find her character a bit problematic at the end when she berates her husband for not pitching “his” idea soon enough. I wonder how this story might have been different if Mrs. Benchley had been the one to pitch the book to Walt Disney instead.
Going back to the women in the paint studio, I really liked seeing all the women in white lab coats mixing chemicals to create paints. It had a strong STEM feel to it. However, historically women at the Disney studio were given the lower-rung animation jobs like mixing the paints and painstakingly hand-painting each individual cell. The men were typically the ones in higher ranking roles like drawing and designing the characters. For example, in the scene where Mr. Benchley finally meets Walt Disney, the room is filled with men—they are the ones making the final decisions. While I like seeing these women in their work, this film is still a product of its time when it comes to gender roles.
“The Reluctant Dragon” is the best!
Megan: Even though there’s not a single female character in the entire cartoon, I still love “The Reluctant Dragon”! I love how the dragon sings his own little theme song and plays his flute with the birds. I love that the bookworm of a boy is calm, cool, and collected while his father is freaking out about a dragon, and how the same boy is annoyed that the dragon refuses to fight. The pretend fight between the knight and dragon is probably the most hilarious part of the whole cartoon (“One lump or two? HELP!”), yet the dragon’s “To An Upside Down Cake” poem is still my favorite part.
No, the behind-the-scenes tour is the best!
Kevin: The cartoons themselves, wonderful as they are, are interestingly my least favorite. “Baby Weems” is amusing enough, but also kind of sad up until the end. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the whole cartoon once before. The Goofy cartoon “How to Ride a Horse” is a fun trip down memory lane, reminding me of the cartoons I used to watch growing up. And finally, “The Reluctant Dragon” was a cute story with a few genuine surprises (I was not expecting Sir Giles and the dragon to have struck that deal. Also, Sir Giles’ horse just wasn’t having it). All of that said, though, I would easily re-watch this more for the studio tour parts than the cartoons.
Verdict
Kevin: 7
Megan: 7 (purely for “The Reluctant Dragon” cartoon, regardless of everything else)
Final score: 7
What did you think? Do you like the behind-the-scenes tour or “The Reluctant Dragon” cartoon better? Where does this movie land in your rankings? Tell us in the comments below!