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My Father's Dragon

153 statements
29 feature instances
4 referencing feature instances

My Father's Dragon	type	TVTItem
My Father's Dragon	label	My Father's Dragon
My Father's Dragon	page	MyFathersDragon
My Father's Dragon	comment	My Father's Dragon is an animated film adaptation of the first book of the trilogy of the same name, co-produced by Netflix Animation, Mockingbird Pictures and Cartoon Saloon. It was directed by Nora Twomey, who previously directed The Breadwinner and co-directed The Secret of Kells.An unseen older woman tells the story of her father, Elmer Elevator, who moved from his small town with his mother to the dreary city of Nevergreen, after their shop was foreclosed. As their financial situation gets in the way of Elmer's dream of reopening the shop, their situation seems hopeless, until a talking cat voiced by Whoopi Goldberg tells Elmer about a real, firebreathing dragon at Wild Island.With dreams of funding the shop by using the dragon as an attraction, Elmer sets off to Wild Island, but discovers that he was unknowingly put on a rescue mission to save Boris the Dragon from the animals in it. Worse yet, the island itself is also in danger of sinking, and Elmer must help both Boris and the animals find an answer to their predicament.The movie was released on Netflix on November 11, 2022, and was dedicated to co-writer John Morgan, who passed away before the movie's release.
My Father's Dragon	fetched	2024-04-15T15:31:26Z
My Father's Dragon	parsed	2024-04-15T15:31:26Z
My Father's Dragon	isPartOf	DBTropes
My Father's Dragon / int_1c445e86	type	Poor Communication Kills
My Father's Dragon / int_1c445e86	comment	Poor Communication Kills: As Boris points out, if the islandâ€™s inhabitants make a record of what he did to save the island, the next dragon will know what to do, and wonâ€™t go through the capture process he did.
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My Father's Dragon	hasFeature	My Father's Dragon / int_1c445e86
My Father's Dragon / int_1d77dd02	type	Motivational Lie
My Father's Dragon / int_1d77dd02	comment	Motivational Lie: Elmer's mother lies to him about being able to open up a new store in order to get him to be more comfortable in their new home, though it quickly unravels as the stress piles up. Elmer later is forced to do the same thing to the Wild Island inhabitants after he discovers Aratuah is dead, and he lies about having spoken to the tortoise to keep the animals' spirits up.
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My Father's Dragon / int_22cf536c	type	Chekhov's Gun
My Father's Dragon / int_22cf536c	comment	Chekhov's Gun: Elmer's resourcefulness gets him the name "Answer Guy" from Boris, and it's not for nothing. The apparently useless items he collected from his foreclosed shop—a single gumball, a lollipop, broken scissors, a shattered hand mirror—and the tangerines he collected on the way to Wild Island, help them when they need it the most.
My Father's Dragon / int_22cf536c	featureApplicability	1.0
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My Father's Dragon	hasFeature	My Father's Dragon / int_22cf536c
My Father's Dragon / int_28cd01ca	type	Disappeared Dad
My Father's Dragon / int_28cd01ca	comment	Disappeared Dad: We only see Elmer and his mother, while his father is never mentioned. Ditto for Iris and her baby.
My Father's Dragon / int_28cd01ca	featureApplicability	1.0
My Father's Dragon / int_28cd01ca	featureConfidence	1.0
My Father's Dragon	hasFeature	My Father's Dragon / int_28cd01ca
My Father's Dragon / int_2f36d97	type	Older Than They Look
My Father's Dragon / int_2f36d97	comment	Older Than They Look: Boris in dragon years is technically no older than Elmer, and also acts very childish and immature. He's also a hundred years old, as every dragon "year" is equivalent to ten human years.
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My Father's Dragon / int_38072b53	type	Wrong Assumption
My Father's Dragon / int_38072b53	comment	Wrong Assumption: Elmer believes he's had an epiphany about what causes Wild Island to sink—the roots he used to climb on the first place. However, not knowing the island is one giant plant, he almost destroys the island by getting Boris to rip off all roots but one, until the latter sees the island's core and realizes the real answer.
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My Father's Dragon / int_392372f9	type	Actor Allusion
My Father's Dragon / int_392372f9	comment	Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Ian McShane has voiced an antagonistic white-pelted talking animal. The difference is this one got to repent for his villainy.
My Father's Dragon / int_392372f9	featureApplicability	1.0
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My Father's Dragon / int_3ed23024	type	Surprisingly Realistic Outcome
My Father's Dragon / int_3ed23024	comment	Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Early in the movie, Boris talks about how his brother Horatio told an old tortoise named Aratuah how to save the island so that the next one could ask him. However, dragons only come to Wild Island every 100 years, and he was mentioned to be old by the time Horatio came. By the time that it's Boris's turn to raise the island, it turns out that Aratuah has died from natural causes, leaving them lost on how to actually save the island.
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My Father's Dragon / int_40cc0c7e	type	Bittersweet Ending
My Father's Dragon / int_40cc0c7e	comment	Bittersweet Ending: More sweet than bitter. Boris and Elmer save Wild Island...but Boris has to go back to Blueland, meaning that they might never see one another again. Thankfully they still have their friendship whistle, and at the very end of the movie a familiar tune coming from the clouds shows that Boris is still out there.
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My Father's Dragon / int_59a9605d	type	Never Smile at a Crocodile
My Father's Dragon / int_59a9605d	comment	Never Smile at a Crocodile: Cornelius presents himself quite menacingly, but he's also quite comedic with how unable he is to control his family. That, and he isn't really a bad guy.
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My Father's Dragon / int_6bda9a30	type	Meaningful Name
My Father's Dragon / int_6bda9a30	comment	Meaningful Name: Nevergreen City. It's dark, dreary, rainy, and there's not a tree to be seen.
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My Father's Dragon / int_6ef6417b	type	Disney Death
My Father's Dragon / int_6ef6417b	comment	Disney Death: At first, Boris seems to sacrifice himself to save the island, but he turns up just fine not long after.
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My Father's Dragon / int_7eb2bc15	type	Ambiguous Time Period
My Father's Dragon / int_7eb2bc15	comment	Ambiguous Time Period: The setting of the film seems to suggest that it takes place during The Great Depression. However, the three kids that Elmer tries to befriend at the beginning appear to be wearing more modern clothing. Background dialogue from a paperboy also indicates that it's a recession that hit Elmer's hometown hard.
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My Father's Dragon / int_95428daa	type	Rite of Passage
My Father's Dragon / int_95428daa	comment	Rite of Passage: The reason Boris stays on Wild Island is because of this; every hundred years, a young dragon must go to Wild Island to prevent it from sinking into the ocean, after which the dragon will become an "After Dragon" and gain the power of breathing fire. Unfortunately, Boris has been kept on the island for much longer than normal, with the animals forcing him to pull the island out of the sea whenever it sinks too low, and he still hasn't gotten his fire yet. Towards the end of the film, he finally figures out how to complete the rite of passage and save the island; jump into the center of the island and absorb its core.
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My Father's Dragon / int_9b7de69c	type	False Friend
My Father's Dragon / int_9b7de69c	comment	False Friend: Elmer starts out as this to Boris, wanting to help him save Wild Island so he can come back and use Boris for a while to get enough money to open a new shop for him and his mother. However, as the movie goes on and their relationship deepens, he and Boris eventually become friends for real.
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My Father's Dragon / int_9d12bbc1	type	Foreshadowing
My Father's Dragon / int_9d12bbc1	comment	Foreshadowing: While explaining how he is supposed to become an After Dragon, Boris fumbles his explanation of how Wild Island is involved. He tries to say that the island is like a flower and dragons are like bees, only to disregard that explanation. As it turns out, that attempt was more accurate, and the island is a giant flower rooted to the bottom of the ocean whose "pollen" allows dragons to breathe fire.
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My Father's Dragon / int_9f6fb586	type	Leitmotif
My Father's Dragon / int_9f6fb586	comment	Leitmotif: The same tune that Boris and Elmer's friendship whistle carries is used multiple times in the soundtrack for bonding moments between them, and is even used as the melody in the credits song.
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My Father's Dragon / int_a03b1d9f	type	Failure Hero
My Father's Dragon / int_a03b1d9f	comment	Failure Hero: Boris's chief worry is that he'll end up like this, because he has no idea what he has to do to save Wild Island, and is also very scared of what he might have to do, to say nothing of how he's worried that none of the dragons back home will ever be proud of him because of his impending failure. Elmer helps him overcome it.
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My Father's Dragon / int_b7fa9b36	type	Adaptational Explanation
My Father's Dragon / int_b7fa9b36	comment	Adaptational Explanation: The movie expands on why Boris left Blueland in the first place before being held captive by the animals of Wild Island; the island holds the only way he can become an After Dragon and obtain his fire breathing.
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My Father's Dragon / int_ba46585b	type	Adaptational Backstory Change
My Father's Dragon / int_ba46585b	comment	Adaptational Backstory Change: The movie changes the context of Elmer's journey entirely: he wants to help his mother have enough money to reopen their shop in the city after moving, and the Cat offers him an option as thanks for giving her milk after he runs away from home. In the book, Boris fell out of the sky onto Wild Island, where the animals captured him and forced him to ferry them from one end of the island to the other. In the movie, Boris voluntarily went to Wild Island both to complete a Rite of Passage and to save the island from sinking, but the animals have kept him for much longer than necessary and force him to repeatedly lift up the island whenever it sinks too low into the ocean, and nobody knows how to do it properly to make sure the island stays above the water for a hundred years.
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My Father's Dragon / int_c4500946	type	Break His Heart to Save Him
My Father's Dragon / int_c4500946	comment	Break His Heart to Save Him: Elmer attempts this at the climax, attempting to crush Boris's dreams of becoming an After Dragon out of worry that he'll get hurt if he dives into the island's core. It backfires hugely, leaving Boris heartbroken and angry and blasting Elmer away with his wings.
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My Father's Dragon / int_cf8135c1	type	Just Whistle
My Father's Dragon / int_cf8135c1	comment	Just Whistle: Boris and Elmer come up with a "friendship whistle" that they can both use whenever the other needs them, which gets used a few times as they both make sure the other is okay. When Boris and Elmer say goodbye to each other, they tell one another to whistle if they ever need them. We also see it at the very end of the movie, where a familiar whistle in the clouds above Nevergreen City lets the audience know that Boris is still out there.
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My Father's Dragon / int_d39e327f	type	What the Hell, Hero?
My Father's Dragon / int_d39e327f	comment	What the Hell, Hero?: Multiple different characters get called out for their lies and behavior at the climax. Saiwa is called out by Kwan for not having a solution to the island sinking, Elmer is called out by Boris for not believing in him, and then Elmer is called out by Saiwa for tricking Boris into thinking Elmer was his friend by taking advantage of his fear and naivete.
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My Father's Dragon / int_d7c3ba61	type	Race Lift
My Father's Dragon / int_d7c3ba61	comment	Race Lift: Elmer and his mother, Dela, may be people of color (their ethnicity isn't specified), and it's implied that Dela (who's voiced by Iranian actor Golshifteh Farahani) is an immigrant.
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My Father's Dragon / int_d88e125e	type	Our Dragons Are Different
My Father's Dragon / int_d88e125e	comment	Our Dragons Are Different: Boris (and supposedly his family) are striped dragons with tiny wings, that glow when they are about to take flight. They also age the equivalent of one human year every 10 years. To breathe fire, they also need to go through the process of becoming an After Dragon, by absorbing Wild Island's core, which threatens to sink every 100 years.
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My Father's Dragon / int_dda99fa8	type	Despair Event Horizon
My Father's Dragon / int_dda99fa8	comment	Despair Event Horizon: After Boris and Elmer find out that Aratuah, the old tortoise who was supposed to tell them how to save the island, is dead, Boris crosses this for a time.
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My Father's Dragon / int_e54482ee	type	Keet
My Father's Dragon / int_e54482ee	comment	Keet: Boris is a very happy-go-lucky, giggly, playful, chatty young dragon, enough that when he hits the Despair Event Horizon late in the movie it is a very noticeable change.
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My Father's Dragon / int_fd4f8299	type	Well-Intentioned Extremist
My Father's Dragon / int_fd4f8299	comment	Well-Intentioned Extremist: Saiwa and the other animals don't have any ill will towards Boris or Elmer, but their island under threat of sinking, and Boris' failure to enter the island's core out of fear, leads them to force Boris to lift it up repeatedly. With their home threatened, they take more and more extreme measures to capture Boris again, threatening Elmer if necessary.
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My Father's Dragon / int_name	itemName	My Father's Dragon

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

My Father's Dragon	hasFeature	Dragon Works / int_f8b90dd2
My Father's Dragon	hasFeature	Films of the 2020s / int_f8b90dd2
My Father's Dragon	hasFeature	Rite of Passage / int_f8b90dd2
My Father's Dragon	hasFeature	Struggling Single Mother / int_f8b90dd2

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