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Pete's Dragon

Pete's Dragon (1977)

November. 03,1977
|
6.3
|
G
| Fantasy Animation Comedy Family

Pete, a young orphan, runs away to a Maine fishing town with his best friend a lovable, sometimes invisible dragon named Elliott! When they are taken in by a kind lighthouse keeper, Nora, and her father, Elliott's prank playing lands them in big trouble. Then, when crooked salesmen try to capture Elliott for their own gain, Pete must attempt a daring rescue.

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Reviews

Sara
1977/11/03

A really sweet and lovely film, a true Disney classic. Really enjoyed it. Its 40 years old but still really good. Beautiful how the made a 2D figure come to life in the real world. Helen Reddy beautiful voice gives this movie a extra shine. I understand its not complex movie whit deep story lines and plot twists, sometimes you just want a relaxing movie that makes you feel good. And that is exactly what this movie is for to brighten up your day.

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Loki Laufeyson
1977/11/04

This film is one of the worst I have ever watched. It was made for child audiences, but some of the hints are ridiculously inappropriate for such ages and will have kids questioning. The songs are extremely irritating and long, occurring almost every few seconds. Overall extremely painful to watch, the only good parts are rare and with Elliot, but even then, it's not worth it.

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mike48128
1977/11/05

What a surprise! Much better than I remembered it. Great songs and cast with great performances by Red Buttons and Mickey Rooney. Shelly Winters plays a wonderfully-horrible villain with "blackout" teeth. A simple story about a magical dragon that only Pete can see (at first) and clever dragon mechanical effects: Pete riding Elliott, toasting apples, dragon footprints, his "outline" on the schoolhouse wall, thrashing around inside a whale-sized net. The dragon animation by Don Bluth is fanciful, which is good because this is a children's' movie. Some technical glitches, as the "yellowscreen" (sodium vapor) process renders Elliott the Dragon somewhat prone to minor color-"timing" shifts. But this is not something that kids care about anyway. Some of the songs are way too long or are there just too many songs? When shown on "broadcast" TV it was often abridged. Like "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" it attempted to become the next "Mary Poppins" and we will have to see how that works out when its upcoming sequel appears. My two favorite segments are Helen Reddy rolling around on exploding beer barrels (ridiculously fun!) in the town pub, and the "Professor's 3-part musical "rant" "using every little piece" of Elliott the Dragon in potions and powders Although "Candle on the Water" is the Oscar-nominated song, Red Buttons and Mickey Rooney round out a great cast I bet your kids start humming "Brazzle-Dazzle Day" as the movie ends! Remade in 2016 with a friendly, furry, green (CGI) dragon.

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tomgillespie2002
1977/11/06

Pete (Sean Marshall) is a poor orphan boy who arrives in the small town of Passamaquoddy to escape his cruel, slave-driving adopted parents. The residents are generally nice folk, only they don't take too well to Pete due to his large, mainly invisible dragon named Elliott. The first person to see it is local lovable drunk Lampie (Mickey Rooney), who makes his concerns known only to be laughed at. So Pete is taken in by Lampie's daughter Nora (Helen Reddy), a lighthouse worker who is still pining for her partner who disappeared at sea almost a year prior. Trouble starts to brew though when a medicine wheeler-dealer named Dr. Terminus (Jim Dale) arrives in town and sees profit in the dragon.One of Disney's few attempts to cash in on the success of Mary Poppins (1964), combining live-action with animation, Pete's Dragon is one of their lesser known efforts (although it does have it's nostalgia-filled fanbase). It was made in a time where freckly ginger kids were considered cute and likable child characters, and the adults overacted to the point where they looked like they were presenting a children's TV show. Containing very few memorable songs (if any) and some very shoddy animation, Pete's Dragon is one of Disney's laziest and poorest productions. None of Disney's classic animators (the 'Nine Old Men') worked on the film and it shows. Of what little dragon there is, it appears very little effort or imagination was put into it.Thank the lord then, for Dr. Terminus, played with enjoyable enthusiasm by Jim Dale (who appeared in a few Carry On films) who saves the film from complete embarrassment. He gets the best song 'Passamaquoddy', in which he tries to charm the townsfolk into buying his crap medicine that has already made one of them fat and turned another one of their hair pink, while repeatedly mispronouncing the name of the town. He's like a malpractising Del Boy, and is so enjoyable that I was rooting for him to get his hands on the annoying ginger kid and his crappily animated dragon. Not a total failure then, but instantly forgettable, overlong, excruciatingly squeaky-clean, and exhaustingly enthusiastic.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

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