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Film Title: The Reluctant Dragon

 Best for ages: 6 and up.

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Year Released: 2009

Rated: G (US)

SYNOPSIS

   The Reluctant Dragon is about a young boy who befriends a dragon.  Everyone in the village fears the dragon, thinking that he might come and destroy the village and maybe even make a meal out of all the people living there. But the boy knows that the dragon means no harm and goes to his lair to find that he is right. The dragon is a friendly being who's shy and likes poetry. But when the boy returns to town he finds that Sir Giles the Dragon slayer has arrived. He runs to tell the Dragon that he should fight him, only to learn that the Dragon is not violent. The boy decides to visit Sir Giles and let him know about the dragon, when the dragon and Sir. Giles meet, they find that they both have something in common; poetry. But, as times moves along a fight is arranged and all though the dragon does agree to one, he is scared and does not want to fight. When the villagers show up for the fight the next day between the dragon and Sir Giles, but the dragon hides in the cave, scared. But thanks to the boy and Sir Giles, they will come up with an idea to help the dragon become accepted by the villagers. The DVD also includes the Disney shorts Ferdinand The Bull, Goliath II and Johnny Appleseed.

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VIOLENCE/GRAPHIC CONTENT/language

  The Reluctant Dragon has a few things that might be of concern.  we first see Sir Giles taking a bath in a small wooden tub, He's pretty much naked except we don't see any private parts at all. The Boy tries to set up a fight between Sir Giles and the dragon ,and is pushy about it. The Dragon does breath fire, enough to scare the villagers away, and he blows smoke rings. Sir Giles is caught up in a smoke ring and sent flying head over heels along with his horse. Sir Giles swings his sword violently at the dragon, but all together they are just putting on an act for the villagers as if Sir Giles is slaying the dragon. They even have a duel with one another, and the dragon play dead.

  Ferdinand The Bull has a few things that might be of concern as well.  Ferdinand is a calm bull until he sits on a bee and is stung. then he becomes mad and starts to act aggressive. He ends up being part of a bull fight. You have the Matador who has his sharp sword and is also very mad that Ferdinand won't charge him.  He breaks his sword over his knee and throws a fit, and then begs Ferdinand to charge him pulling off his shirt revealing a daisy tattoo in which  Ferdinand licks.

   Goliath II has some elephants that are stuck up and won't pay attention to the small Goliath. Goliath tries to be tough but is thrown around by plants and other things he tries to knock down. There is a tiger that wants to eat Goliath, but seems to fail, Goliath's mother throws a stone at him, He is also almost eaten by a crocodile. The elephants all collide into one another when they are abruptly told to stop by Goliath's mother, this also happens when they see a mouse. Goliath loses his family and becomes fair game for the tiger and other predatory creatures. He has some close calls but his mother steps on the tigers tail, still the tiger gets Goliath by his tale, but is rescued by his mother just in time. Sick and tired of being treated like a baby, Goliath runs away, which proves to be a mistake as the tiger and crocodile track him down again. He is caught by the tiger, but mother comes to the rescue again and throws threw tiger into the mouth of the crocodile. Goliath mother spanks him with a stick. A mouse kicks around Goliath because he does not run away from him, and then threatens to kick him to shreds, Goliath stands his ground while the mouse beats on him, but then Goliath gets the upper hand although they almost fall off a cliff into the crocodiles mouth. Goliath hold the mouse over the cliff, and the two make a truce when the mouse gives up. Goliath is shown with a black eye after the fight, but he is finally excepted by the heard for his bravely.

   Johnny Appleseed shows a bunch of pioneers traveling west carrying guns and rifles. There is a scary looking bear and mountain lion in the forest, that don' seem to be happy with Johnny presence in the forest. A curious skunk gets hit in the head with Johnny stick by accident.  But after Johnny befriends all the animals they live together in harmony. Once all the pioneers move in they play games with the apples, and in one game an apple is put on a string, and when a guy and girl go to bite it, its pulled away from them and they kiss, which prompts the girl to slap the man in the face. At the end of the short Johnny grows old and passes away, and his guardian angel comes to take his soul to heaven to plant apple tress there.

OVERALL VIEWS

    This disc is similar in comparison to all the others. Like I've mentioned in my other reviews of the Disney classic Short Film discs, the animation is not like the animation of today. These cartoons were produced in the mid nineteen hundreds so they do have some violence in them that we would not see in today's cartoons as well as drinking an smoking. I did however notice that their was a disclaimer in the beginning of the disc, that was part of the trailers and advertisements before the feature. There was an anti-smoking commercial/disclaimer  that smoking is no good, and it even had a link to a website to help people quit.

   The Animation like I mentioned above is nothing compared to today's standard,  Disney did not clean up the negative or digitalize it in anyway leaving that look of the classic.  You can even see some film fuzz throughout the film. Some of the other shorts looked cleaned up, but still have that feel.

   Overall, This disc was one of the better ones I viewed even though you only get four shorts on this one, where the other discs have more. Once again, while these short films are timeless classics, you might want to hold off showing them to your little ones until they get older.

  The DVD includes four classic Disney shorts and the Disney Fast Play feature, English, French, and Spanish Subtitles are also available on the disc. The Disc also come with a collectible Litho Print.

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