As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Trailers:
- One front yard has a typical garden gnome, standing still... then he's revealed to be alive when another gnome shows up and yells at him to get back to work mowing the lawn.
Film
- As per usual the Pixar lamp does its iconic hopping at the movie’s start, but this time with ridiculously epic orchestral music. The Soundtrack Dissonance is glorious.
- Apparently in this world, unicorns are basically Earth's equivalent of pests like raccoons, eating garbage and hissing at people.
- When Laurel sprays the pet dragon Blazey with water, she yells: "Bad dragon! Go back to your lair!"
- Barley embarrases Ian by showing up in his van Guinevere to pick him up. When the front bumper falls off, Barley says it's pretty embarrassing... then, in a bit of irony, bends down to pick it up, revealing a Plumber's Crack.
- The boys try to bring their father back, but Ian can't hold the spell and they end up with his lower torso for most of the movie.Barley: There's no top part! I definitely remember Dad having a top part!
- Ian tries to make up for this by putting together a bunch of clothes to make it look like he has an upper body. So whenever he uses his upper body, it's like when Remy controlled Linguini.Barley: Dad, you look just like I remember you.
- Ian tries to make up for this by putting together a bunch of clothes to make it look like he has an upper body. So whenever he uses his upper body, it's like when Remy controlled Linguini.
- When dragging their dad around, Ian uses a dognote leash.
- The AC in Guinevere has one setting: gale force winds. Ian later uses it against the Pixies.
- Barley builds up the Manticore's Tavern as a place where all epic quests begin, but when they finally get there, it's revealed to have been turned into a Kitschy Themed Restaurant, with the once-mighty Manticore as its beleaguered manager and the quest maps that they used to hand out relegated to the children's menus.
- Barley talks to Ian about the Manticore, a fearless adventurer. However, as revealed by a cyclops waiter at a tavern:Sundra: You mean Corey? She's over there.
Corey: Quick! Somebody help me! These griffin nuggets were supposed to go out a minute ago!- Just the very idea that griffins are the fantasy equivalent of chickens and are commonly eaten as fast-food dinners.
- Speaking of Corey, she's later approached by Laurel about Ian and Barley, and reassures her that her boys are fine:Corey: Oh, they went on a quest. But don't worry: I told them about the map, I told them about the gem, I told them about the curse- AH! I forgot to tell them about the curse!
- Blink-and-you miss it, but Corey is wearing high heels in her first scene.
- When the Lightfoot brothers show Corey the extent (or lack thereof) of the Visitation Spell on Wilden, the manticore mascot from earlier does a dumbstruck double-take as he passes by. He then crashes into a table and flops onto the ground.
- Colt's photo ID on Laurel's cell phone is a picture of him posing while working out at the gym, and is titled as MANE MAN. And his ringtone is Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On.
- This one needs Julia Louis-Dreyfuss's delivery to fully sell it, but as Laurel drives up to the restaurant:"Yeah, sure, you're right, I'm sure they're probably on fire. [FIRE!!!]
- Corey: Last name Manticore, first name...the.
- Laurel accidentally calls Corey a "minotaur".
- Laurel using the burnt manticore costume as a decoy for Corey.
- The goofy neighing laugh from Colt Bronco.
- At one point in the movie, Ian and Barley have a laugh over the way Bronco laughs.
- As Ian tries to use a growth spell to make the canister of gas bigger, Barley keeps yelling at him from behind, causing Ian to lose focus and cut off the spell. However, it accidentally hits Barley and shrinks him. It takes Barley a few seconds to realize what happened.Barley: It worked! The can is huge! And the van is huge! And you're-! (looks down at himself) Oh no.
- Whilst the pixies raid his store, the gas station owner not only takes it in stride that the biker pixies are making a mess of the place, but that Ian carries a teeny weeny Barley in his pocket. (Bear in mind that magic hasn't been used for so long that scarcely anybody believes it's possible anymore.)
- This exchange at the gas station, whilst Barley is still small.
- The reveal that Corey wears long sleeves to hide her ludicrously stalwart tattoos of the Phoenix Stone curse on one arm, and Curse Crusher on the other arm.
- She reveals them not by rolling the sleeves up, but by ripping them off.
- Barley (still tiny) treading on thin ice as he unwittingly enrages the pixies by pointing out how their ancestors used to fly. (It doesn't help that he earlier brought up that they used to be "whimsical".)Dewdrop: (livid) You calling me lazy?
Barley: No, no, no. Not you. Your ancestors.
Dewdrop: (even more livid) What did you say about my ancestors?!?
Barley: I didn't mean lazy... - After they accidentally knock over the pixie's bikes, Ian nervously chants, "We're dead, we're dead, we're dead!" Barley tries to assure Ian that they won't be able to lift their bikes, only to be proved wrong a few seconds later when they start up their bikes and he says, "Oh, they are strong!"
- Ian is forced to drive the van since Barley is too small to, and once again freaks out when he has to merge onto the highway. Barley then speaks the truth about how every driver feels at times.Barley: Speed up! You need to merge into traffic!
Ian: But I'm not ready!
Barley: You'll never be ready! MEEEERGE! - During a chase scene between the Lightfoot brothers and the biker pixies, Wilden's torso dummy hangs out the window, its arms flailing wildly in a fashion that looks like it's either waving condescendingly to the pixies or flipping them off. ...And it doesn't help that he accidentally made Ian honk so many times, giving the pixies the impression he's road-raging them.
- During the chase scene, some pixies manage to get into the van. Barley and one of the pixies land on the dashboard, so Barley grabs the sword from one of his figurines and uses that to fight the pixies.
- The shrink spell wearing off on Barley. It's surreal but hilarious to watch different parts of him grow quickly while the rest of him tries to catch up.
- When they see that their earlier escapades have attracted police attention, Barley tries to get his driver's license, only to find that his wallet is still shrunk.
- The cops happen upon Wilden's legs, with his fake upper torso dangling limply, and sternly try to communicate with him as he clumsily stumbles around. Does This Remind You of Anything?...
- Barley and Ian using magic to disguise themselves as Officer Bronco, in a fashion similar to two people wearing a horse costume.Barley: I wanted to be the front.
- Barley and Ian spot their dad dancing to the music from Barley's van and both admit he's terrible at it.
- As Laurel and Corey bargain over the sword, the pawn shop owner initially sells it for ten dollars. However, because Corey is talking out loud to herself, she lists all of its traits that catch the owner's attention, who then increases it to ten-thousand dollars. Corey paralyzes the pawn shop owner with her scorpion tail.Laurel: You killed her!
Corey: It's ok, she's just paralyzed! - Ian walking across the invisible bridge and doesn't realize that halfway across the rope undoes itself, leaving him to walk without a life line. Barley realizes this with an Oh, Crap! expression and assures Ian that he still has the rope. As Ian starts getting overconfident, he jumps around and dances, turning around at the last second to boast to their dad— only to realize the rope's gone.
- Officer Bronco giving the boys to the count of three. By pawing his hoof with each count.
- Although it's a generally sad moment meant to be played up as a Heroic Sacrifice, Guinevere popping a tire and actually making galloping noises with it has something of sound effect humor.
- Barley, munching on cheese puffs, ponders what they could use as a boat to sail across the river. He has Ian enlarge the last cheese puff and they ride it as a boat. And then Barley continues to eat the cheese-puff boat, prompting Ian to warn him "not to eat too much of the boat".
- And then they leave the giant cheese puff behind in the tunnel. The feral unicorns in the cave are in for a feast...
- Corey is apparently hyped up and wide eyed guzzling energy drinks in the car as Laurel talks to Bronco. When she notices this, she yanks the can from Corey's grasp and dumps the rest out the window.
- The Dreaded Gelatinous Cube finally makes an appearance, after being built up twice over the period of the film.
- Ian and Barley struggle to reach a button at the bottom of a quickly-flooding chamber. They are unable to reach it as they can't hold their breaths long enough... then they realize that their dad, who is a disembodied pair of legs, doesn't need to breathe.
- The Curse Dragon forms... from Ian's high school! The best part is that the face of the dragon is revealed to be the mascot (a smiling cartoon dragon), and its roar is literally the school bell. And, when it sees that Barley has tricked it and still has the Phoenix Gem it's after, the dragon actually breaks two bits of stone to make angry eyebrows.
- A group of students witness the dragon forming. One of them immediately takes a picture with his smartphone.
- In the epilogue, we see Ian give a report in History Class summing up how magic was forgotten, and how it's recently been making a comeback. One student asks if magic is how he managed to restore the school, to which Ian confidently affirms "yes". Another student points out it was also the same magic that turned the school into a dragon in the first place, to which Ian sheepishly admits "yes..."
- Also in the epilogue, the reveal that Officer Colt literally has a long flowing mane underneath his hat.
Meta
- In a deleted scene, Barley unwittingly finds the siren realtors' weakness: they hate his bad singing.
