Dragons Lair The Movie from 1984

DirkDDS

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I recently acquired a VHS tape that was given from Don Bluth to Gary Gygax (the president of TSR -the company that created the role playing game, Dungeons & Dragons). It was given to Mr. Gygax in 1984 and they are now liquidating his estate.

The tape consists of the attract mode and full games for Dragons lair, Space Ace and Dragons Lair 2 (although DL 2 is unfinished and it plays to opera style/classical music instead of dialogue with intermittent black and white full motion sketches).

At the end of the tape there is an 8 minute segment with storyboards, professional narration and music for the full length movie they had planned entitled "Dragon Lair The Legend". Truly amazing!

The story consists of how Dirk and Daphne met in addition to Mordrocs's origins as well as his transformation into Strun (Dirk's warrior nemesis) as well as Singe . The artwork is very definitely Bluth and the narrator is the same as the game's narrator.

The story appears to be a conglomeration of DL, DL2 and Sea Beast. It appears to be about 90% complete and so it ends right before Dirk slays the dragon. I assume it was never finished.

To date, these storyboards and the accompanying story from 1984 have not surfaced and as far as I'm aware, Don Bluth had misplaced them. Bluth did create all new paper storyboards for their planned movie in the early 2000's which he unveiled at CGE 2001.

I apologize for the crappy Youtube video. I am planning to have it transferred properly onto the DLP so it can be enjoyed by all in perpetuity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7jDRzMlAf4


Enjoy:
 
Incredible discovery. Always wished they made a feature film, but then we wouldn't probably see Dirk die a hundred different ways. Thanks for sharing this.
 
It's always awesome when someone here at VAPS does what the 'P' stands for, which is to Preserve!

Kudos on sharing this, and best of luck regarding its transfer.


This is not only arcade history, but history related to a legendary figure in animation!

I'm beyond glad that it'll live on.
 
Very cool, thanks so much for sharing this! Amazing to get some insight into the background of the story after all these years.
 
Did you get anything else from Gary's estate? I would love to have a character sheet or a page of notes from one of his games.
 
Very cool find. It is always fun to see forgotten and before unseen footage from our youth.
 
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