History Trivia / Dragonheart

* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: Dragonheart: A New Beginning is the only movie in the Dragonheart film series to have an American actor portray a dragon with Robby Benson providing the voice of Drake. All other dragon characters in the franchise have been voiced by British actors including Creator/SeanConnery as Draco, Harry Van Gorkum as Griffin, Creator/BenKingsley and Creator/PatrickStewart as Drago and Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter as Siveth.

* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: Dragonheart: A New Beginning is the only film in the Dragonheart film series to have an American actor portray a dragon with Robby Benson providing the voice of Drake. All other dragon characters in the franchise have been voiced by British actors including Creator/SeanConnery as Draco, Harry Van Gorkum as Griffin, Creator/BenKingsley and Creator/PatrickStewart as Drago and Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter as Siveth.

* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: Dragonheart: A New Beginning is the only film in the Dragonheart film series to have an American actor portray a dragon with Robby Benson providing the voice of Drake. All other dragon characters in the franchise have been voiced by British actors including Creator/SeanConnery as Draco, Harry Van Gorkum as Griffin, Creator/BenKingsley as Drago, Creator/PatrickStewart as an older Drago and Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter as Siveth.

* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: Dragonheart: A New Beginning is the only film in the Dragonheart film series to have an American actor portray a dragon with Robby Benson as Drake. All other dragon characters in the franchise have being voiced by British actors including Creator/SeanConnery as Draco, Harry Van Gorkum as Griffin, Creator/BenKingsley as Drago, Creator/PatrickStewart as an older Drago and Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter as Siveth.

* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: Dragonheart: A New Beginning is the only film in the Dragonheart film series to have an American actor (Robby Benson as Drake) portray a dragon. All other dragon characters in the franchise have being voiced by British actors including Creator/SeanConnery as Draco, Harry Van Gorkum as Griffin, Creator/BenKingsley as Drago, Creator/PatrickStewart as an older Drago and Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter as Siveth.

* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: Dragonheart: A New Beginning is the only film in the Dragonheart film series to have an American actor (Robby Benson as Drake) portray a dragon. All other dragon characters in the franchise have being voiced by British actors including Creator/SeanConnery as Draco, Harry Van Gorkum as Griffin Creator/BenKingsley and Creator/PatrickStewart as Drago and Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter as Siveth.

** Canada: ''Draco: The Legend of the Last Dragon''

* CelebrityVoiceActor: The brazilian dub has Miguel Falabella as Draco.

** Creator/RobinWilliams was offered the role of Bowen, but he was more interested in voicing Draco. Creator/HarrisonFord, Creator/MelGibson and Creator/PatrickSwayze were also considered for Bowen.

** Creator/RichardDonner was interested in directing and spent six months on pre-production before moving on to other projects.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: According to the movie's original screenplay, which was later adapted into a novelization, the film was written to be a serious, transcendent drama and epic fantasy with compelling imagery and characters, and moments of levity sprinkled throughout. Creator/LiamNeeson would have been Bowen and the effects for Draco would have been done by Creator/JimHenson.

* ThrowItIn: In the scene in which Bowen, Kara, and Gilbert flee from a mob of armed villagers before they go to Avalon, if you look closely, Creator/PetePostlewaite is seen accidentally putting his hand on Creator/DinaMeyer's clothed left breast. Although it was accidental, it was kept in the movie.

* FullCirclePortraying: Patrick Stewart originally provided the voice for Draco in the test footage for the first film, and returned to voice Drago in the second prequel.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Creator/DennisQuaid's accent varies between regular American and something approaching Irish with mild undertones of Pirate. All the other American actors [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent don't try]].

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: According to the movie's original screenplay, which was later adapted into a novelization, the film was written to be a serious, transcendent drama and epic fantasy with compelling imagery and characters, and moments of levity sprinkled throughout. Creator/LiamNeeson would have been Bowen and the effects for Draco would have been done by Creator/JimHenson. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/UnsortedFilm See here for more]].

* DeletedScene: A lot of scenes explaining the film's plot holes, lack of character development, and the characters' motivations:
** After his father is killed and Einon gets his crown, he is knocked off Bowen's horse by Kara. Her bucket helmet comes off in the fall and reveals shoulder-length hair. Einon prepares to strike her with Bowen's sword but hesitates after turning towards her, so Kara grabs the sword from Einon and thrusts it into his chest. Catching up to the two kids, Bowen takes his sword from Kara, grabs her from behind by her hair preparing to strike but hesitates upon realizing Kara is a girl just as Einon did. Bowen flings her away and she runs off, after which Bowen retrieves the wounded Einon.
** After Bowen saves Kara's father, Riagon, from [[spoiler: being blinded by Einon,]] Bowen gives Riagon a horse to escape on. Kara runs to him from her hiding place and Bowen and Einon recognize her. She and Riagon escape into the forest, after which Bowen confronts Einon in a sword fight, during which Bowen gets stabbed in the shoulder. After pinning Einon down, Bowen remembers the dragon's heart and rides off with Einon ordering him to be seized.
** After Bowen's departure, Einon, Brok and several knights ride back to Freyne's wooden fortress, riding into the courtyard below Aislinn's chamber window. Despite having ordered for Bowen to be caught, Einon says to Brok that Bowen can go since he has served his purpose. Einon sees Aislinn watching from her window when he feels pain in his right hand, though he writes it off as a cramp and looks at the scar on it that Riagon the Red gave him. As he shakes the pain out of his hand, a tortured thrilling sound can be heard, with both Brok and Aislinn knowing that it's coming from Draco.
** In his cave, Draco repeatedly pounds his claw against a wall in his cave until his half-severed middle right talon breaks off. At that moment Bowen returns after leaving Einon, finds the broken talon, and demands the camouflaged Draco to show himself claiming that he betrayed his trust by bewitching Einon. Blending into the cave walls, Draco tells Bowen he was betrayed by someone else and soars over Bowen, out of the cave and into the evening sky, with Bowen vowing to hunt him down. Three years later, Bowen camps out by a lagoon as the tenth dragon he's killed is cremated with a fire arrow with lumps of flesh falling into the pond. Bowen attaches its middle right talon to his shield.
** Six months later, the dragon Bowen encounters when he meets Gilbert is actually seen and so is Bowen's fight with it. It is described as a decrepit male dragon instead of female and is referred to as "The Old One" instead of "The Scarred One." The fight between Bowen and The Old One is not only visible but Gilbert is involved in it as he has a few close brushes with death as the wheat filed catches fire and the dragon nearly claws Gilbert. After the fight, peasants swarm the dragon carcass with knives and begin taking it apart. Bowen fails to stop them until Lord Felton arrives with his three men and orders them to chase the peasants away and make them put out the fire. As Bowen walks to his horse, Felton calls out to him by name, not having forgotten about him and says he will tell Einon but by the time Felton later tells Einon of his idea for a road tax, he has forgotten about Bowen.
** Two days after Einon kills Riagon, Gilbert and Bowen discuss Avalon and their respective goals around a campfire. Gilbert reveals that he's on a pilgrimage to find Avalon and pray to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table buried there, so they may bring back the days of chivalry and the Old Code. He asks to join Bowen as their quest might be the same. However, Bowen says he is already on a quest to kill all dragons, one in particular.
** As Bowen and Gilbert ride down a forest path the next morning, Gilbert falls into a hole that Bowen realizes is a large dragon track, leading to the scene where they find Draco hiding at the waterfall.
** The fight between Bowen and Draco is slightly extended and modified as well as the dialogue between them. Bowen uses his shield in the fight and is occasionally catching blows from Draco on it and is lifted off the ground. While trapped in Draco's mouth, Bowen complies with Draco's request to get off his tongue and shifts so the dragon's tongue is free to move, but gets slapped in the face by it whenever Draco talks. Draco's dialogue when he has Bowen pinned down is also extended. The next morning, Gilbert awakes to find Sir Eglamore's arm and mistakes it for Bowen's. When he reappears with Merlin at the swamp village, Gilbert tells Bowen about burying the arm in the glade beneath a cross with Bowen's name on it.
** When Draco attacks Lord Felton's property, more damage is done as two of Draco's fireballs blow off the storehouse roof and blast a blizzard of flour into the air that covers everyone and everything. After Draco flies off of a swaying grist wheel, it rolls downhill and crashes into the side of Felton's house. Bowen rides up the hill with a battle-ax aloft with Draco waiting for him on a mill stone. As Bowen charges, Draco swoops in, scoops Bowen into his mouth with his legs sticking out, and grabs the horse. The shocked crowd watches Draco fly overhead and into the forest towards the waterfall where he and Bowen have made their campsite. The waterfall is where the scene in which Draco says he longs for death but fears it occurs. It is also where Bowen later gives Draco his new name.
** After scamming Felton, Draco and Bowen's next scam takes place at a village run by an overweight lord having a market day, located near a lake with a nearby sheep herd. Draco falls into the lake after Bowen "shoots" him down with a bow and arrow. He swims along the bottom of the lake and soon finds a single sheep left behind by its herd.
** The novelization reveals that Draco uses the scams he pulls with Bowen as a way to pick at Bowen's conscience as he sees the peasants suffer under Einon's rule until the time comes when he can no longer justify conning the king's minions. A plot point that comes to a head when they and Kara arrive at the reeking swamp village where the people are not only starving, they're miserable, and beyond poor as they can only offer him cheap metal and kitchen utensils as payment.
** When Kara tries to avenge her father, she gets close enough to Einon by pretending to be a serving girl. Einon is more physically aggressive towards Kara as he throws her to the ground after she fails to kill him, pulls her up by her father's headband around her neck, and slaps her after she spits in his face. Einon later remembers Kara as the one who stabbed him four years ago because, during her failed assassination attempt, she called him "Piglet" as her father used to.
** While the film implies that Einon rapes Kara. In the novel, he actually does and when he drunkenly attempts to seduce Kara, he places her bloody knife to her throat before wiping it along her cheek. He kisses her and she bites his lip, so he yanks her back by her hair and roughly kisses her again before shoving her down on his bed. After promising to make Kara his queen, Einon leaves her knife in the bedpost instead of taking it with him. After this, the traumatized Kara contemplates committing suicide with the knife but throws it away.
** An extended conversation between Kara and Queen Aislinn when the latter appears to help the former escape Einon's castle. Aislinn describes herself as nothing but a "creature of submission" to her late husband who robbed her of her voice and the ability to show affection towards Einon. Learning of Kara's escape Einon kills two guards and orders Brok to organize a search party, all the while suspicious of Aislinn.
** After Kara's offered to Draco as a maiden sacrifice, he helps her regain consciousness. Reaching the waterfall, he cuts her bonds and tells her she is free to go but she is wary of his kindness and falls into the stream. Draco helps her out and compliments her beauty, earning her trust. After an hour of waiting for Draco to return to the village, Bowen leaves to look for him and finds hoofprints belonging to what he believes to be a hunting party. Arriving at the waterfall, Kara jumps onto Bowen's horse and attacks him to protect Draco.
** When Einon shows up with his men, Kara tries to run but two of Einon's men on horseback grab her. Bowen kills the men and saves her. After Einon refers to Bowen as "the king's old mentor," Kara recognizes Bowen as the knight who spared her life four years ago after she stabbed Einon, and the one who saved her father.
** In the midst of Bowen and Draco's con in the swamp village, when Draco falls into the muck, Kara takes a knife from Gilbert, climbs onto Draco's belly as he feigns death, and begins jumping on him and tickling him with the knife to expose the con.
** Looking for answers after the waterfall fight, Einon returns to Draco's cave for the first time in four years since that fateful night. As he thinks of how he cheated death with a lie, Einon sees that he, Bowen, Kara, and Draco are all connected. He finds Aislinn in the back of the cave, and gets the feeling that she's hiding something from him.
** In Avalon, Kara, Gilbert, and his mule Merlin take shelter from the rain under a rock overhang while Draco waits on top before he flies off toward the tor. Bowen is faced by the spirits of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Each knight recites lines from the Old Code and they all close in on Bowen as he repeats after them. After King Arthur's spirit vanishes, Bowen sees a smiling Draco sitting atop Arthur's monolith. Bowen reaches out to him and Draco enfolds Bowen in his wings in an embrace.
** Brok releases a falcon that is promptly shot down inadvertently by Gilbert in the midst of his archery training in a forest clearing with Trev and Hewe the Bear. Accompanied by Felton, Brok and his hunting party enter the forest toward where the falcon fell, finding Gilbert and the peasants. When Felton demands a closer look at Hewe's sword, the peasant [[spoiler: cuts off Felton's hand,]] making Brok and his men give chase, leading to his discovery of the rebel camp.
** On the morning the day before the battle against Einon, Bowen wakes from a nightmare at the sound of Kara's makeshift battle trumpet when she enters his tent. She attempts to shave his beard with a battle-ax but Bowen pulls away and says he taught her to cut throats not shave them. Kara says that Bowen should look like a victorious general. He tells her that he isn't one yet and to not get overconfident. She replies "You are my confidence. I've never been more sure of anything in my life."
** Kara wakes Bowen from his nightmare with a makeshift battle trumpet and attempts to shave his beard with a battle-ax. Bowen pulls away and says he taught her to cut throats not shave them. Kara says that Bowen should look like a victorious general. He tells her that he isn't one yet and to not get overconfident and she says that he is her source of confidence. Then Gilbert and the rebels give Bowen a new suit of armor and shield, with the surcoat and shield adorned with the combined symbol of the Old Code (a silver sword, hilt up, within a golden circle) and the Draco constellation.
** The evening on the eve of battle, Bowen approaches Draco standing watch on a cliff outside Kara's village and offers Draco his trophy shield. Draco has Bowen climb onto his back and as night falls they fly over the rebel camp. Meanwhile Queen Aislinn presents the dragonslayers to Einon in a partially built tower room. Thanks to Draco's iridescent scales changing color to blend in with the night sky, he and Bowen are able to fly close to Einon's castle, and together they destroy Bowen's shield. It is seen by Einon and mistaken for a comet until Aislinn convinces him that it's a sign from his father.

* HeyItsThatGuy
** "Hey, is that [[Film/HarryPotter Professor Lupin]] as the bad guy?"
** Also [[Film/HarryPotter Lucius Malfoy]] as Einon's deputy, Lord Felton (the one who suggests taxing the roads), [[{{Film/Cobra}} Night Slasher]] as Brok, and [[Film/DoctorZhivago Lara]] as Queen Aislinn.

* HeyItsThatVoice
** Creator/SeanConnery as Draco.
** Sir John Gielgud provides the voice of KingArthur in the Avalon scene.

** Also [[Film/HarryPotter Lucius Malfoy]] as Einon's deputy, Lord Felton (the one who suggests taxing the roads), [[{{Film/Cobra}} Night Slasher]] as Brok, and [[DoctorZhivago Lara]] as Queen Aislinn.

** SeanConnery as Draco.