Director Mathew Robbins on Dragonslayer, Guillermo del Toro, and movie magic

by W. Andrew Powell

Director Mathew Robbins’ Dragonslayer opened in theatres in 1981, and it was a fantasy epic unlike almost anything else made before. The film was dark, the story felt like a grim fairy tale, and it had one of the greatest dragons ever imagined.

While the film didn’t quite catch its audience in theatres, it went on to become a cult classic that inspired fans and filmmakers, including Guillermo del Toro, who worked with Robbins’ later in their careers.

Paramount Pictures has restored a number of classics over the years, including Roman Holiday, and then they set their eyes on Robbins’ classic.

“They had campaigned to do it, and they were waiting to do it,” Robbins said. “‘When can we do Dragonslayer?'”

“They asked me if I would be interested… so I went down several times to L.A. and sat in, and they were way ahead of me. They knew the film very well, and they could see all the grainy skies, and matte lines, and no shadow detail.”

Working to restore and improve the original film, they impressed Robbins from the start.

“I could tell within the first 5 minutes that I was going to be over the moon, because this was the closest thing you’re going to see to having it up on the big screen.”

Ralph Richardson as Ulrich of Cragganmore and Peter MacNicol as Galen Bradwarden
Ralph Richardson as Ulrich of Cragganmore and Peter MacNicol as Galen Bradwarden

When the film was made in 1980, it was a huge challenge, but Robbins had an incredible team. That included working with Industrial Light and Magic, the first time that the team had worked on a movie outside of Star Wars.

Robbins had an all-star group behind him, from Phil Tippett doing what he called go motion effects, to bring the dragon to life, to Dennis Muren for special effects, cinematographer Derek Vanlint, and music by the great Alex North, to name just a few people involved.

“You know, it was a different world,” he said. “It turns out that back in those days, every body was playing Dungeons and Dragons. And these two studios, Disney and Paramount, were desperately looking for a movie about a dragon.”

Working with co-writer Hal Barwood, the two came up with Dragonslayer with some inspiration from some of their favourite storytellers.

“Hal was very much in the grip of Tolkien, and I was a huge fan of Fantasia; Mickey Mouse and his sorcerer. So we threw all this stuff into bags, shook it up, and cooked up Dragonslayer.”

Along the way to bringing Vermithrax Pejorative to life, there were some tough days on set though.

“I think I was asking, in some instances, more than ILM could deliver, and we struggled and struggled,” he said.

“There were so many instances where I lost a lot of hair on that movie because it was so, so hard to pull off a lot of it.”

“How is it possible a movie of this size with this many people and they’re all looking at me as if it’s an 8mm movie and I’m Steven Spielberg in The Fablemans,” he joked.

Robbins spoke at length about the process, and making the film, and then I couldn’t resist asking him about his part in writing the story for del Toro’s now Oscar-winning Pinocchio.

Dragonslayer on 4K Ultra HD

Robbins had known del Toro for a number of years, and they had written a number of scripts together before they started working on Pinocchio. Robbins even wondered during our conversation if he ended up meeting del Toro to begin with because the young filmmaker, at the time, was such a fan of Dragonslayer.

Jump ahead to later in their relationship, and they had already worked on a number of scripts together.

“I knew that he had some very interesting and stimulating ideas about Pinocchio, and we started working when he was in New Zealand when he was going to do The Hobbit.”

“We laid out the principal elements of what you saw, and I wrote the first draft on my own, which was unusual, but he was busy, so I took it.”

“I wrote the first draft, based on an adaptation by the two of us, and [the final script had] a lot of those elements. I mean, it’s set in that sort of pro-fascist war atmosphere, and a lot of the religious symbolism was right there. Many of the principal elements were already there, but nobody would make it.”

“I’m just so thrilled that he managed to get this made and the fact that it won the best animated film [at the Oscars] was a big bonus.”

Dragonslayer is available now on 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray, Limited-Edition 4K Ultra HD SteelBook, and on Blu-ray. Watch the full interview above for more about making the film, meeting and connecting with del Toro, and much more.

All images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

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