HOLY S*** SPOILERS, JAW DROPPING

It was PG because it was made before the days of the PG-13 rating, if it came out today it would probably be rated PG-13.

The Disney Channel always cut that part out, hehehe(back when they showed it, that is...before it "changed" into what it is now).

Yep, wern't those times awesome.

Now its all shrek and fun stuff... I liked the darker side too.

How about Raiders of the Lost Ark and Poltergeist which came out around the same time and were both PG?

The scene isn't just shocking. It's a masterfully designed element that sets an "okay, now's it's serious life or death" frame of mind that enhances the lair sequence and ramps up the movie into the climax.

I'm not a big fan of fantasy movies when I saw it back in 81 but I was enjoying it and when he went into that cave I thought "Damm here we go, hero save the princess and fall in love, blah, blah, blah, typical Hollywood crap. Then probably one of the biggest "WTF' moment in my movie viewing history. I love being surprised by a movie. Sent it from a 7/10 to a 9/10 in my book.


A martini is like a woman's breast: one is not enough and three is too many

I've seen this movie since I was a kid. I actually can't remember if Elspeth's death ever shocked me. If it did, it doesn't anymore. It's just part of the story for me. However, you do raise a point. That Galen fails Casiodorus is quite surprising.

In hindsight, it's made even more heartwrenching when one remembers the scene with Casiodorus returning the amulet to Galen beforehand. The hard I-did-what-I-had-to-do king shows genuine emotion over his daughter's impending demise, which he is powerless to stop, and it reduces him from a powerful king to an ordinary, desperate father. His pitiful plea of "Save her, I beg you!" touches me every time.

And yet Galen still doesn't manage to rescue her. Both to slay Vermithrax and to rescue Elspeth. Which makes Casiodorus's moment of vulnerability all the more sad.

What's surprising is her death isn't quite treated as all that shocking by the plot. In fact it's telegraphed beforehand. Elspeth is a willing participant in the sacrifice. She rigged the lottery so only her name would be picked, and even when Galen arrives and frees her, she refuses to run and (quite bravely, I think) goes down into the cave. Even beforehand she tells Galen to stop when he is fighting Tyrian ("Tyrian is right!").

Then we hear her scream.

Consequently, the idea seems to be that Elspeth was doomed from the get-go, and both Casiodorus and Galen were swinging their fists uselessly against the inevitable when Casiodorus asked the young apprentice to save his daughter. Galen didn't fail, really. He gave it his all. Unless Galen forcibly dragged Elspeth away (which he couldn't with Tyrian attempting to kill him), she would've still entered the cave of her own volition. So when Galen finds her being munched on by the baby dragons, he is angry at the uselessness of her death and her otherwise brave self-sacrifice... but not surprised.


"I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?"

That was a bold choice, indeed. I was quite impressed they were willing to go there. It was dark and tragic and I was unhappy that so noble a character met such a senseless demise, but that's the tragedy of it: she was doing what she thought was best.

The follow-up was great, too: Galen skewers and bludgeons the dragonlings to death and then later on we see the dragon mourn her (?) young. It doesn't flip the script and start wagging some animal cruelty finger at Galen, but it just shows that this monster has some connection to its family as well.

The film ends with Christianity and the king attributing credit everywhere but Galen, the sorcerer, and the others who actually fought the dragon, leaving the magic of the world empty.

But, perhaps the greyest of the moral areas are the parallel stories of the fathers protecting their daughters (Elspeth and Valerian) at all costs.

Where the film did drop the ball a bit, I felt, is that neither Valerian nor her father are shunned or hated for cheating the lottery. The most we get is a, "You're clever, you b*****d..." from one of them. You'd think they'd be angrier. Or maybe a scene or two dealing with Valerian realizing that the noble princess - who she judged on for skipping out of the lotto via wealth and power - actually sacrificed herself for all others while Valerian basically just hid.

It was, to sum up, a remarkably and surprisingly complex film.