Dragonheart (stylized as DragonHeart) is a 1996 fantasy adventure film directed by Rob Cohen and written by Charles Edward Pogue, based on a story created by him and Patrick Read Johnson. The film stars Dennis Quaid, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite, Dina Meyer, and Sean Connery as the voice of Draco the Dragon.
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and various other awards in 1996 and 1997. The film received mixed reviews, with critics praising the premise, visual effects, and character development but panning the script as confusing and clichéd. It was a box-office success, earning $115 million worldwide. It was dedicated to the memory of Steve Price and Irwin Cohen.
Plot
In 984 A.D., the knight Sir Bowen mentors Saxon Prince Einon. While suppressing a peasant rebellion, Einon's father, King Freyne, is killed by the rebels, and peasant girl Kara accidentally wounds Einon's heart. Einon's Celtic mother, Queen Aislinn, asks a dragon to save his life. The dragon makes Einon promise to be a just ruler and replaces Einon's wounded heart with half of his own. Einon, however, proves to be more oppressive than his father, enslaving the former rebels that killed Freyne and forcing them to rebuild a castle. Einon also has Kara's father, who led the insurgents, blinded. Believing that the dragon's heart has corrupted Einon, Bowen swears vengeance on him, and all dragons, by hunting them down.
Twelve years later, Bowen has become a skilled dragonslayer, but has lost his faith in moral and chivalric principles. Monk Brother Gilbert witnesses Bowen's prowess and follows him to record his exploits. Meanwhile, Kara asks Einon to free her father after years of slavery; Einon accepts, and kills him in order to "free" him.
Bowen stalks a dragon to its cave, not knowing that it is the one who saved Einon. The confrontation ends in a stalemate, during which the dragon states that he is the last of his kind; they agree not to kill each other and instead form a partnership to defraud villagers with staged dragon "slayings". Bowen later names the dragon after the Draco constellation, unaware of Draco and Einon's connection, through which they feel each other's pain.
Kara, seeking revenge on Einon, is imprisoned after a failed assassination attempt. Realizing that she is responsible for his near-death, Einon tries seducing Kara and making her his queen. Despising what Einon has become, Aislinn helps Kara escape the castle. Kara tries to rally her village against Einon, but they sacrifice her to Draco instead. After Draco takes Kara to his lair, Einon arrives to recapture her and fights Bowen. During the confrontation, Einon reveals his contempt for Bowen and his beliefs, forcing Bowen to accept that Einon was always evil, even before he received the dragon's heart. He nearly kills Bowen, but Draco intervenes and reveals his half-heart to Einon, making him flee in fear. Kara asks Bowen to help overthrow Einon, but the disillusioned knight refuses.
Bowen reunites with Gilbert at another village while Kara tries exposing Bowen and Draco, appalled by their actions. The villagers do not believe her until after the staged slaying while Draco plays dead. He bolts when the villagers decide to carve him up for meat, revealing the scam. They then surround Bowen, Kara, and Gilbert, wanting to eat them instead; Draco rescues the trio and takes them to Avalon, where they take shelter among the tombs of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
Draco reveals that he hoped to change Einon's nature by saving him, reuniting the races of Man and Dragon, and earning a place in the constellation—the Dragon's Heaven. Draco fears that his choice has cost him his soul, and that his spirit is doomed to disappear upon death like he never existed. After hearing that Kara and even Gilbert intend to oppose Einon, Draco agrees to help. When a vision of Arthur reminds him of his knightly honor, Bowen also agrees.
Bowen, Kara, Gilbert, and Draco organize and train the villagers into an army. They are nearly victorious against Einon's forces when Gilbert strikes Einon in the heart with an arrow, but Draco, feeling Einon's pain, falls from the sky and is captured. Realizing that he is immortal as long as Draco lives, Einon is determined to keep Draco imprisoned. Knowing their connection, Aislinn attempts to kill Draco at his request, but Einon intercepts and kills her.
The rebels invade Einon's castle to save Draco. Bowen throws Einon from atop a tower in the ensuing fight. He then tries freeing Draco, who begs Bowen to kill him and end Einon's reign. Einon rises and charges towards them, forcing a reluctant Bowen to throw an axe into Draco's exposed half-heart, killing him and Einon.
Draco's body dissipates as his soul joins his fellow dragons to become a new star in the constellation. Bowen and Kara go on to lead the kingdom into an era of justice and peace, with Draco's star shining brighter than ever in troubled times.
Cast
- Dennis Quaid as Sir Bowen, a knight who becomes a dragonslayer and then allies with Draco. Director Rob Cohen was impressed with Quaid, telling producer Raffaella De Laurentiis "[Quaid] is a knight of the old code". Cohen called Quaid "obviously intelligent and fun to work with" and said that he "really [thought] he was Bowen". Quaid underwent rigorous training for the role, mostly practicing sword fighting. Quaid and Cohen both wanted Bowen's sword technique to have an "Eastern flavor", so Quaid trained with Japanese sword master Kiyoshi Yamasaki.
Johnson's manager Melinda Jason also managed screenplay writer Charles Edward Pogue, who previously wrote for David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly and was working on adapting A Princess of Mars for Disney. When meeting for drinks in Bora Bora, Johnson pitched the idea for Dragonheart to Pogue, and he agreed to work on the film. Johnson already had the story's beginning and end in mind but not much of the middle, so he and Pogue collaborated on the script, developing the characters and the Old Code while working the Arthurian myth into the story.
Casting
During his time location scouting in Spain, Johnson created the character of Draco. He and Pogue shaped it for Sean Connery, a client of Creative Artists Agency (CAA) at the time, who was Johnson's only choice in mind to voice Draco. Johnson wanted to "animalize" Connery's voice by giving it "deep resounding rumbles, and make the vocabulary such that it didn't sound quite human". Instead of how it is heard in the final film, "it wasn't just gonna be Sean Connery's voice coming out of the dragon".
After completing location scouting, CAA sent numerous English and Irish actors to meet with Johnson for the Bowen role, including Gabriel Byrne, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan. English actresses sent for the part of Kara included Elizabeth Hurley and Patsy Kensit. Johnson then met the then-up-and-coming Liam Neeson, and the two hit it off, with Johnson noting how Neeson could be both brooding and funny, but much to Johnson's chagrin, the studio refused to believe Neeson could pull off the action hero role since he had just completed Darkman. Wanting a big-name lead actor for the film, Universal sent the script to actors like Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as potential Bowen candidates. Other actors considered to replace Neeson included Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, and Patrick Swayze, Cohen's first choice for Bowen before Dennis Quaid accepted the role. With the castings of Quaid as Bowen and Meyer as Kara, Johnson said: