Film Corner: Dragon

Alright my besties, who is ready for me to watch a terrible Amazon Prime movie whilst sleepy and on pain pills. Tonight we have, merely, DRAGON. That's all you're gonna call your movie? Really? Just...DRAGON? Do you want people to not be able to Google it? Was that the intention?

"A princess must recruit* the most brave and powerful swordsmen in the land with the sole purpose of vanquishing the dark wizard who terrorizes the kingdom with a giant, menacing dragon." *I thought that said "rescue" at first and got all excited. A princess rescuing men.

The credits are over nice calm stock footage of mountains, while the orchestral music goes FUCKING NUTS. DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM!!!!!

The subtitles tell me our narrator is named Freyja. I approve. She's pronouncing "Sidhe" as "sci" like scythe or scifi. Not like "she" which was, I thought, the correct way.

I got extremely excited that the bad guys are elves this time (when does that ever happen??) but the elves are basically orcs in orc makeup. How sad.

An elf princess is captured and immediately starts explaining the rules of gentile captivity, so she's one of THOSE princesses. A dragon saves her, though it's unclear whether it meant to. Sorry, a HUMAN princess. I'm so used to the princesses being frail elves for the human protagonist to carry and/or bone that I confused myself. She's saved by two hooded men, one of whom is attractive. Bets on when the plain-looking one will die?

So many fantasy names! Too many!! We've reached critical fantasy name mass already! The princess is sharing her entire mission with these randos (visit Lord Fancybottom and tell him Gondor calls for some motherfucking aid) and they're telling her it won't work and I'd respect this movie more if they were deliberately lying to her. Getting a wee bit tired of ladies in fantasy knowing less than the nearest random gent.

Oh my god, she's just willingly taking off her fine clothes two feet away from them and wearing the "disguise" peasant dress they just happened to have on them. These dudes are probably thirty seconds from selling her into slavery or something.

Oh no, everyone is pronouncing Sidhe as "scythe". Not just the narrator. I understand pronouncing it "Sid-he", it's easy enough to do if you've only seen it written. But how do you get "scythe" out of that?

Freyja is.....a necromancer?

Oh my god, stop talking and do something. We don't need to know how and why the princess knows how to use a dang sword. This shortcut through the spooky forest is going well; they went a whole five steps before being ambushed by bandits. The princess was instantly captured, but it's fine because men saved her.

Apparently we've just decided that the bandits are our friends now. That was, uhh, swift!!? I mean, the bandits are prettier than the other characters, so by movie rules they may be our new protagonists. They're... Picts? Picts exist in this fantasy land?

They've offered to guide the princess and her party if they can have a land grant and/or sexual harassment innuendos. Ideal guides, obviously, so how can she say no? They also claim to be monster hunters who killed a monster the princess hasn't heard of, but she's like wow you all seem super trustworthy.

The dragon appears to insist that everyone stop talking and get back to the plot. I've DM'd games like that.
So elves are orcs but there are still pretty humany elves called "fey elves"? Why didn't they just call the orcs "orcs"?

Anyway, Freyja the Necromancer is kicking everyone's ass. I do appreciate magic ladies who (a) have elf girlfriends, (b) point out that all the men present suck, and (c) is encouraging the princess to find a better movie to be a part of, or at least recruit a better party. ....The ...The dragon is her creation, but she feels super bad about it and is looking for folks willing to kill it. That is a bit different from the opening description.

Furthermore, I'm really unclear how the elf-orcs fit into this whole "dragon plague" thing. Surely a rampaging dragon is a big enough deal on its own and doesn't need elf-orcs to help. I'm so confused? There was this whole quest to go through the forest and find Lord Fancybottom and get his help against the orcs. Now they're dropping all that to deal with this one dragon? That doesn't feel like the priority here, Becky!!
This is like two different movies inelegantly stitched together? Frankensteined??

Ok! We're back! Sorry about that; sometimes my meds knock me out mid-live tweet.

Excitingly, we're drawing a kind of connection between the dragon plot and the elf-orc plot? The princess' dad asked the necromancer to make a dragon, so she did. I presume for the purpose of killing orcs. I still don't understand why the dragon is a priority RIGHT NOW when previously they had limited time to rally humanity to Gondor before it falls. The dragon isn't HELPING the orcs, it's just a rogue element that occasionally kills people. Like a tornado with teeth.

I'm probably projecting, but I feel like the subtext of everything Freyja says to the princess is "have you considered getting rid of men and getting a girlfriend? Because it changed MY life." ...now everyone is talking about morality and the nature of love. Not like we need to get a rush on. Orcs have shown up to force everyone to shut up about love. My DM heart sings in recognition.

Oh my god, they're now pointing out that they could just avoid the dragon, take the princess through the forest on her business, and come back later. YES, but I feel like that should've come up before now????
Editing! Writing! I just! Now they're talking dragon slaying tactics so apparently they really are professional monster hunters and that wasn't a bandity lie???? Oh good, they're arguing about the nature of honor. Did....did they give the actors a script or just tell them to LARP around the forest?

.....they're fake dragon hunters, but their tactics come from a druid tome.

There's a lot of drama over the cute commoner guy possibly dying to the dragon, and this would be just the worst thing ever, for reasons.

Movie: "It would be just awful if the male love interest were to die!!"

Me, eating cookies: "Ok, but the female love interest died in, like, the last thirty movies I watched."

Freyja is now Sexy Potatoes. Happens to the best of us.

*RECORD SCRATCH*

Freyja is the princess' mother?????? That's a lot to suddenly drop on the viewer mid movie. The DM must have been struggling to get the players to care about the Freyja NPC.

The dragon folded like origami paper and now the princess is the new forest necromancer because I guess necromancy is hereditary like that.

That was awful. It was hours of aimless talking and then 30 seconds of climax.