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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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‘Pete’s Dragon’ Is Gentle, Thoughtful Fantasy

Pete’s Dragon is a gentle, thoughtful film skillfully shot with beauty and a sense of wonder.
Shannon McDermott · Aug 31, 2016 · 4 comments

petes-dragonDespite the old and no doubt wise saying, Disney canon clearly holds that being raised by wolves is not injurious to childhood development. This is one of the lessons of The Jungle Book, another being that if a ferocious man-hating tiger gets your calling card, you cannot lose if you arm yourself with a blazing torch. In the remade Pete’s Dragon, released close on the heels of the remade Jungle Book, we find that it is even better to be raised by dragons.

But still, inevitably, tragic to need such raising. And children grow up only to leave, don’t they?

Pete’s Dragon is a unique movie, at least in today’s world. The opening sequence sets the pattern. It is the slowest opening I have seen in a long, long while, taking its time to the disaster you can feel is coming. A lone car on an isolated highway, the land gorgeously forested around it … a young, pretty mother, a quietly strong father, an adorable little boy … the well-loved book, haltingly read by the little boy with his mother’s patient help, about a dog that gets lost and adventures and being brave …

And then the car crash, because Disney does love to warm your heart just before ripping it out. The crash itself, far from being violent or graphic, is dreamy, fragmented, to some extent detached. And it feels oddly realistic – not that this is the way a thing like that would happen, but it is the way it might be remembered, especially by a child.

If the movie shies away from the violence of the car accident, it still evokes – quietly but effectively – the horror of it, as the little boy wanders away alone from the wreck. The sequence where he encounters the dragon tastes strongly of a fairy tale, from the old, green, untouched forest, to the inhuman menace of the wolves, to the powerful, initially ambiguous appearance of the dragon. (I feel that this is what it would be like to enter Faerie: the beauty and fear and the unknown.)

The rest of the movie is crafted in a similar way. This is a film that lingers – on its characters, on its world, on its pivotal moments. It means to bring out all these things richly, and it will pause to do so. There is action in Pete’s Dragon, but it is not a fast-paced movie.

Neither is there exactly a villain in this movie. The one character who comes close is certainly reckless and somewhat selfish, but in the end even he is not so bad. The movie also rejects the cynical and sarcastic humor so much in vogue today. All of these elements add up to a gentle movie, an unusual movie in today’s theater. Even Disney and Pixar’s animated offerings are a tougher breed.

Pete’s Dragon does a fine job handling Pete’s reintroduction to human society, giving him much the reaction of a wild animal. Perhaps the most notable flaw is that Pete possesses language skills difficult to believe in a child who has lived in the wilderness for six years, with no interaction with other humans since he was five. I do not, however, complain of it. But not because I think it’s ironic or unfair to bring such a complaint against a movie that has a dragon; it may have a dragon but it has normal humans, too, and this is not realistic for humans, y’know. I give the movie a pass because to be realistic, in this respect, would have been more trouble than it’s worth.

The movie is, to the end, ambiguous on Pete’s dragon. The dragon is always central but also always silent, and it is impossible to tell whether he is a highly intelligent animal or in possession of a real, childlike sentience. The adults speak of him as an animal but only Pete could know the answer, and he would not ask the question.

Pete’s Dragon is a gentle, thoughtful film skillfully shot with beauty and a sense of wonder. It may not be the best kind of movie, but it’s the best movie of its kind.

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Shannon McDermott
Shannon McDermott is the author of the fantasy novel The Valley of Decision, as well as the futuristic The Last Heir and the Sons of Tryas series. To learn more about her and her work, visit her website, ShannonMcDermott.com.
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  1. E. Stephen Burnett says:
    August 31, 2016 at 10:21 am

    I loved this review, Shannon. And I count Pete’s Dragon one of the best, yet naturally less-appreciated by moviegoers, films of this year.

    I especially loved the moment when the grandfather (Robert Redford) recounts his own experience meeting the dragon. This, to me, is one of the best and most nearly biblical applications of good “magic.” As the magic in Narnia, he says this brush with the wonder of this creature “changed how I see the world,” in very good ways.

    I nominate Pete’s Dragon director David Lowery to direct at least one “Narnia” film, if that series can be restarted and continued in the right way. And I would nominate Kenneth Branagh to direct at least one other “Narnia” film. These two seem to understand two crucial things: first, how to show gentle, respectful, sincere yet entertaining fantasy onscreen, and second, how to explore the meanings of these stories–the classic, potentially life-changing truths of such Deeper Magic.

    Reply
    • Shannon McDermott says:
      September 3, 2016 at 8:21 pm

      Thanks, Stephen. Frankly, I think Narnia needs a whole new start, beginning with a remade The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’ve seen two versions, the BBC and the newer one, and both can so easily be improved on.

      Reply
  2. Julie D says:
    September 1, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    I want to see this so much. The trailer, where he just jumps off the cliff and comes up…yes, that’s what dragons are for

    Reply
    • Shannon McDermott says:
      September 3, 2016 at 8:22 pm

      I hope you get a chance to, Julie! It’s worth it.

      Reply

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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