Reign of Questions

[JLR (Dragon)]

Ok, as the only resident Dragon Slayer, I decided to buy Reign of Fire on DVD, and watch it in the Dolby goodness of my own room. While I liked the dragons as well as much of the effects, I couldn't help but be confused at much of it. <BR>1. How does ONE male dragon breed? They tried to explain that it breed like fish, fertilizing millions of eggs and such, but where did the eggs come from? <BR>2. For a super-bad killing dragon, as the Male, was suppose to be, why did he die so easily? <BR>3. Why would a Dragonslaying guru as Van Zan was suppose to be throw himself into the beast's mouth? <BR> <BR>I see why it did poorly. We have seen CG killer reptiles for years now. I think a good fantasy story with dragons would have been better. <BR>Still it is fun to gawk at. Well at the very least. Makes a good Dolby Digital Tester

[Agent Pat (Agentpat)]

[grin] Oh, this one's too good to pass up. ;o) <BR> <BR>> 1. How does ONE male dragon breed? <BR> <BR>The same way that two would? <BR> <BR>> where did the eggs come from? <BR> <BR>Female dragons? <BR> <BR>> 2. For a super-bad killing dragon, <BR>> as the Male was suppose to be, <BR>> why did he die so easily? <BR> <BR>He was exhausted after boffin' all them female dragons? <BR> <BR>> 3. Why would a Dragonslaying guru as <BR>> Van Zan was suppose to be throw himself <BR>> into the beast's mouth? <BR> <BR>McConaughey wanted to make sure he wouldn't get roped into doing the sequel.

[All Your Base Are Belong To (F_U_N_G_U_S)]

BRAVO! Good answers! *waves lighter* <BR> <BR> <BR>1] Not explained. In fact, their origin is explained better in the TRAILER than in the movie itself. But, they still didn't specify how it reproduced considering how the first dragon was male. Granted, in their effectiveness (according to the movie) I can understand the characters not knowing, but in a movie, you just sort of have to explain it. My guess would be african frog syndrome. That 'survivor' was female, laid some eggs, then changed to a male, fertilized the egg, grew really big, became the bull, etc. Actually, I have a lot more to say on this, but I have to leave in a few, so I'll post more later. <BR> <BR>2] while I really like Pat's answer (in all seriousness, it's a lot... messier than that. Think of it as Dragon Carpet Bombing. The females lay big clusters of eggs, he swoops over them, money shot, X months later more dragons. Again though, more on the subject later) <BR>Of course though, we all know the real answer: <BR>he was a blonde (dragon) ;Þ <BR> <BR>3] I'm having a really, REALLY hard time disagreeing with Pat on this one. <BR>My guess is poor writing (seriously, you can't really define this within the context of the movie. It's so counter-character and frankly, it was useless and idiotic. Unless they were going to make him rip out of the dragon's gullet at the end (maybe that's why the dragon was easy to kill, he had a guy with an ax in his gullet making internal sushie?)

[Food, Folks and (F_U_N_G_U_S)]

Okay, I'm back, and I'm going into more depth: <BR> <BR>The dragons supposedly reached something like 10 million in number in a year, which made them so effective at world domination (that much makes sense, because I can't see them really being *that* hard to beat with a slower gestation period. I mean, they are essentially like enemy fighter planes, only somewhat slower, and closer range. Granted they could out maneuver a fighter jet in certain situations, but not really a helicopter, so their only real advantage would have to be numbers). <BR> <BR>Now, my question of course is, how can creatures that big grow COMPLETELY in secret to such a degree? I mean, someone's going to notice a nest of dragons growing in the middle of their backyard and call... well, at least the ASPCA! There would have had to be thousands, of not tens or even hundreds of thousands of dragons at the outset to be effective enough to avoid genocide. There's just no room for that many to grow w/o someone noticing. But that's not the worst thing. How can a giant dragon erupt from the London subway system, and NOBODY seems to notice which direction it went off to (and seemingly, it didn't go very far!), nor did anybody seem to care enough to try and track it down! I believe somewhere between the trailer and the 'flashback explanation' scene in the movie they mention that when the bull was first discovered, he pretty much killed everyone in the area. It's kind of hard not to notice that. <BR> <BR>*workman drives up* <BR>"hmmm. hundred charred corpses next to a giant hole in the subway system. Hey, giant flying whatchamabob in the air. I wonder what Nancy is cooking for dinner" <BR>*drives away* <BR> <BR> <BR>Okay, second point. I'm going to agree/disagree here. I don't think he was *that* easy to kill, HOWEVER, I think as far as dragons go, he was a wuss (only his shear size, which was several times that of the females, kept him in power, that and that he was the only male, so you could theorize on that one a bit). Thing is, being the only male, it's more than likely he was not involved in most of the decimation (too busy doing his dragon thang, or saving up energy to do his thang). So he wasn't really a "fighter" per se, he hung back, let the masses (of females) take over the world, then just kind of bullied them/harem'd them afterwards. <BR> <BR>He did show he was 'clever' (or Van Zan showed how dumb he really was), so possibly he was more of a tactical fighter, and when faced with the 'lone few' figured he could handle them easily (ie cocky bast*rd), and got outsmarted. <BR> <BR>The third question could have several theories. Unfortunately, we'd need to interrogate the writer(s) to find the answer. Well, I will say this: for a guy who was supposedly efficient and had backup plans, he was quite inefficient and lacked any real backup plans. He loses someone in the first dragon encounter, then loses his entire squad, then when fighting the bull, I can understand his "last stand" mentality, but it IS of such importance that simply throwing his life away like that was just boorish and well, stupid. (something tells me the writer wasn't american ;] <BR> <BR>However, it's possible there was more significance to what he did than what is portrayed (either through editing or just not being shot in the first place). The dragons produce fire via two glands on either side of the mouth. Each gland secreted a chemical that when combined, and then exposed to oxygen, ignited. It's possible his intent was to rupture the 'sacs' containing the chemicals. This dragons' seemingly easy demise could be a sign that this was indeed his plan, and that it did work. If anyone picks up the book, I'm sure it would be explained better in there (is there a book? there usually is). <BR> <BR>The one overall aspect of this movie I did really like, and that prior to it coming out we had discussed it on the monster movie group I belonged to, was to see a movie that HAD giant monsters in it, but that wasn't a giant monster movie. Whilst the monsters were the main antagonists in the overall world/storyline, most of this movie was a human drama and was more about the human interaction. <BR>(a good example to explain what I mean is: In "Castaway", a freak storm hits downing Hanks' plane. Well, what if the movie happened exactly as such, but with the exception that a giant flying monster was the reason the plane went down? The giant monster exists within the "universe" that the story takes place in, but is nothing more than an incidental character.) <BR> <BR>Granted, the dragons were a little more than incidental, but they still weren't center stage (like Godzilla would be), and it wasn't simply 'us vs. them'. It was more like 'us vs. us, oh yeah we have to get them too'.

[Food, Folks and (F_U_N_G_U_S)]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA! <BR> <BR>Was checking Amazon to see if they had a book (<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006JDVV/qid=1039325217/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-0331834-8144862?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846" TARGET="_top">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006JDVV/qid=1039325217/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-0331834-8144862?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846</A>) <BR> <BR>Check the third section down... <BR>"Customers who wear clothes also shop for..."

[Mike (Mike)]

...Thongs! (The australian kind, not the lingerie)

[Food, Folks and (F_U_N_G_U_S)]

But honestly, I'm more curious about what the customers who *don't* wear clothes are also shopping for...

[Mike (Mike)]

Tape measures...?

[Chris Ceraolo (Chris)]

Okay, been lurking and want to throw my log on the fire... <BR> <BR>Did you realise that this film has three seperate writers? I have the feeling it's been re-written a couple of times. <BR> <BR>Chris <BR>The FOX Plant

[Will Finch (Shetan)]

I think the eggs came from cinema catering <IMG SRC="http://www.electric-ent.com/bbs/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)">