Dragons: Fire & Ice is a 2004 animated adventure film and the first of a two-part series based on the Mega Bloks toyline. It was released directly to DVD by Lions Gate Home Entertainment. It is the story of two unlikely heroes, Prince Dev (Mark Hildreth) of the Norvagen and Princess Kyra (Chiara Zanni) of the Draigar. These two band together along with their dragons, Targon and Aroara, to help save the Dragon's World and their own world from evil.
It was followed by Dragons II: The Metal Ages.
Try not to confuse this with A Song of Ice and Fire, the Doorstopper series by George R. R. Martin, or the 1983 animated film Fire & Ice by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta.
Dragons: Fire & Ice contains examples of
- Age Without Youth: Xenos' motivation for the whole plot. The Dragons gave him immortality, but not eternal youth... for over 1000 years. No wonder he's pissed.
- All Asians Know Martial Arts: Kyra and her father use techniques that resemble martial arts.
- An Ice Person: Xenoz demonstrates incredible ice powers; "A gift from the Queen Dragon..."
- Artifact of Doom: The Aurathon has incredible power, so great in fact that only the Dragon King can wield its full power. Or a 1,000-year-old vengeful wizard of equal power.
- Audible Sharpness: The various swords wielded by soldiers definitely give off a sound when unsheathed. Even Dev's scabbard gets one when a Vorgan knocks his sword out of his hand and uses the scabbard as a backup.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Dev and Kyra of course. Most notably after their duel when both their kingdoms' armies come to battle each other, the vorgans show up and they have to fight them off, ending up as the only human survivors left on the battlefield.
- Badass Boast: Xenoz gets one towards the end, which also doubles as a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.Xenoz: I, who for 1,000 years have manipulated their ancestors like puppets. I killed their dragons and they blamed each other. I know how they think. I know how they feel. They are but weak humans. And they can do nothing!
- Badass Family: Four of the main characters are the two battle-hardened kings and their children.
- Beauty Inversion: Xenoz gets a horrific example towards the climax after Kyra knocks off his youthful mask, revealing a horribly aged face.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Xenoz is very kind to the kings and to the grown-up children. At least up until his reveal as Evil All Along.
- Big Bad: Xenoz
- Big Damn Heroes: During their Back-to-Back Badasses moment above, Dev and Kyra are being surrounded by an overwhelming army of vorgans and not a moment too soon does Xenoz swoop in and wipe most of them out with a huge ice wave.
- Blade Across The Shoulder: Dev takes this stance before his duel with Kyra.
- Blade Reflection: A reflected shot of Kyra's opening eye is shown after Dev appears to finish her off on the ground during their duel.
- Bloodless Carnage: Justified for a children's film. Characters get stabbed, impaled, riddled with flaming arrows, and even crushed by a club the size of a human torso, yet not one speck of the sanguine delight can be seen.
- Blow You Away: Dev's power is control over the wind. He uses it to devastating effect in the final battle, wiping out the remaining Vorgan army in one move.
- Cel Shading: Something of a blend of pure black shadows with simplistic rendering.
- Character Development: The two protagonists originally despise each other's nations, but their experiences, naturally, bring them closer together, as well as both of the kingdoms entirely.
- Chekhov's Gun: The unique personality traits of Dev and Kyra. Dev is a bit of an impulsive brawler and Kyra tries to fight fair all too much. This comes back and gets inverted during their duel. Dev passes up an easy kill and offers to help Kyra off the ground, and she responds by catching him off guard with a kick.
- Combat Pragmatism: Both the heroes utilize pragmatism when in a head on fight. Kyra uses her skill to make quick decisive blows. Dev, while a bit impulsive and clumsy, takes advantage of every opportunity he gets, and utilizes every weapon and tool at his disposal.
- Combination Attack: Not only do Dev and Kyra both have exceptional melee combat abilities but with their powers of wind and fire, they can combine them for some interesting and devastating results.
- Cosmic Keystone: The Aurathon is the master key to open the portal between the human and dragon worlds.
- Death from Above: The Vorgans pulls this off twice. First during the big battle in the beginning and second when they interrupt the heroes' training in the Ring of Ouroboros by bombarding it with exploding ice harpoons.
- Dual Wielding: After Dev cuts Kyra's staff in half during their duel, she proceeds to utilize Kali Stick fighting style.
- The Dragon: No matter what the title says, it's definitely not that kind of dragon. It's Gortaz, that head Vorgan that captures both the kings during the big battle after the duel.
- Establishing Character Moment: The introduction scenes of Dev and Kyra as children show their basic personalities as impulsive and over-thoughtful respectively.
- Evil Laugh: Xenoz gets a couple moments for this.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Ice dragons are quite literally made entirely from ice.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Most of the deaths happen off screen or just out of sight, save for one. A hapless Vorgan gets frozen by an ice dragon and knocked down a chasm, where it shatters into pieces, one of which was its skull attached to its spine, in full view of the audience, in slow motion.
- Faux Affably Evil: Xenoz. While not obvious at first, many subtle hints are given up to The Reveal.
- Flynning: Justified in that it's a children's film, so having people exploit the oh-so-many obvious kill opportunities would be too grim for a young audience.
- Horny Vikings: The helmets of both nations' armies have horns, more resembling of dragon horns, but horns nonetheless. Heck, one nation is even called Norvagen, and their king has a great long beard, and their weapons and armor lack any sophisticated articulation in design, and their city looks like a half-ruined castle.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Dev is certainly this. He intended to kidnap Kyra so as to force the Draigar to surrender, thus "ending" the war. But he really wanted the war to be over so he could see the sky filled with dragons again. It's even lampshaded later when Xenoz uses a crystal to read his thoughts.
- Large Ham: Towards the end, Xenoz takes a hike from atop his soapbox to an Olympian pedestal.
- Load-Bearing Boss: After Xenoz has been defeated and taken back to Dragon World, the temple begins crumbling apart. Justified in that it was made entirely out of ice, had sustained heavy damage from Thoron's multiple crashes through it, and it's likely that Xenoz had probably used his ice powers to maintain it.
- Manipulative Bastard: Xenoz, who had, for 1,000, years manipulated the human nations, tricking them into killing off each others dragons to near extinction.
- Mighty Glacier: Gortaz, the Vorgan leader. He can swat multiple human soldiers away with a single swing of his enormous club, catch a large sword in his bare hand, and snap said sword with one hand.
- No Flow in CGI: Very few elements are actually physically dynamic, and even then, they don't flow like they should. King Olsef's beard is cemented to his body, Dev's gelled back hair never changes, and Kyra's one-piece bob cut moves like a piece of thick rubber.
- Oh, Crap!: Kyra's horrified expression after she knocks off Xenoz's young mask, revealing his face that had been aging for 1,000 years.
- Xenoz gets one soon after when Thoron proclaims that even though Xenoz has extracted the Aurathon from the two heroes, they still have their wind and fire powers. And they do. and Xenoz gets some major egg on face.
- Playing with Fire: Kyra's power is over fire, giving her nifty tricks like fire walls and setting Arrows on Fire.
- Power Tattoo: Quite literally, the markings over the protagonists' eyes glow to signify the powers that they hold.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Xenoz as stated above. But quickly inverted by Thoron.Thoron: I beg to differ, traitor! They are Prince Dev and Princess Kyra! And They have been chosen by the dragons themselves!
- Rebellious Princess: Kyra really wants to prove that she is the best fighter in her kingdom by facing Prince Dev one-on-one in a duel to end the war. Deep down though she really just wants the war to end so that the rest of the dragons will return to their world.
- Serial Escalation: Kyra. Within 30 minutes she goes from a Staff, to Kali Sticks, to Unarmed Combat, to wielding fire.
- Sequel Hook: Just before the credits the camera travels through the portal from the human world to the Dragon World. We then see Xenoz who looks at the camera while saying "This. Isn't. Over!"
- It ends up being useless, since the sequel doesn't feature Xenoz at all. Though we do get to see Stendahl, the evil dragon Xenoz consorted with in the past.
- Sheath Strike: Dev wields his empty sheath against one of the Vorgans after losing his sword.
- She-Fu: Kyra is train in more intricate and elegant forms of martial arts. During her duel with Dev she does lots of flips and whirling kicks.
- The Smurfette Principle: Kyra is the only female ever seen throughout the entirety of the film. Though some female voices can be heard cheering at the end.
- Stripperiffic: Averted since it's a kid's movie. Kyra's outfit is mainly a one-piece body suit with some armor plating, and the visual style is very angular, diminishing any sensuality of her curves.
- Take Over the World: Xenoz wants to do this to both the human and dragon worlds for revenge against the dragons for granting him immortality but not eternal youth.
- Tempting Fate: After The Reveal Thoron takes Dev and Kyra to The Ring of Orobouros to train their mysterious powers in secret.Dev: I don't see what you're so worried about. You've got your strength back, we can control our powers, and Xenoz, they don't even know we're here.[Cue sneak attack by the enemies]Kyra: Well, two out of 3 ain't bad.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Advertisements for the toy line showed off just about every major aspect of the film, particularly Xenos being the Big Bad and having a severe immortal aging problem.
- Waif-Fu: Kyra is incredibly skinny compared to everyone else.
- Weapons That Suck: All the human weapons are alright against other humans, but a metal-tipped staff can't survive a strong sword strike, and a strong enough Vorgan can catch a blade in one unprotected hand and snap it like a stick.
- Weaponized Landmark: The Ring of Ouroboros, once activated by Thoron, the Dragon King, becomes an invisible training ground for Dev and Kyra to control their powers.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Xenoz not only manipulated the two human nations into killing off each others dragons, but he used the bodies as food for his Vorgan allies.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Xenoz is known to have been given immortality by the Dragons so that he may serve as ambassador between the two kingdoms and the dragons for all time. By the time the film opens he notices the lack of dragons could allow him to finally retire. However, it doesn't stop 1,000 years of aging.
- You Go, Girl!: Kyra, while respected throughout both kingdoms as a great fighter, is still forbidden by her father to face Prince Dev in a one-on-one duel. But that doesn't stop her.Kyra: I'm the best fighter you have. You said so yourself!Sidari: And you can prove that tomorrow, in battle, with soldiers beside you. As it should be.[later]Kyra: If my father won't issue the challenge.[mounts Aroara]Kyra: I'll challenge the prince myself.
- You Have Out Lived Your Useful Ness: Once Xenoz gets the Aurathon, he smooths out his crushed fortress, leading to Gortaz sliding to the edge of a deep opening. He asks for Xenoz's help but Xenoz decides to step on his hand, sending him to his doom.Gortaz: [losing his grip] Xenoz!Xenoz: Gortaz. Thanks... For the hand. [stomp]
