| Reign of Fire character | |
|---|---|
| DRAGON | |
 | |
| Species | Giant, prehistoric, fire-breathing dragons |
| Alias | Dragon(s), the Beast(s), the Female Dragons, the Male Dragon, Drakar |
| Height | (unknown) |
| Weight | (unknown) |
| Abilities |
Fire breath Napalm breath (video game?) Fireball (video game) Dangerous jaws Extreme speed Excellent burrower Picking up objects Enhanced Stamina |
|
Origins |
The Mesozoic Era to 2008 AD (Underground London) |
| Status | Unknown, presumably extinct (2024 AD, London) |
| First appearance | Reign of Fire (film) |
| Latest appearance | |
| Created by | Mick Todd |
Dragons are the highly evolved, big, fierce, dangerous, prehistoric reptiles which serve as the main antagonists of the 2002 film "Reign of Fire" and which serve as both antagonists and protagonists in the video game adaptation "Reign of Fire".
Appearance[]
These Dragons have only appeared in one film and one video game so far.
Film[]
The dragon male as it appeared in the film "Reign of Fire".
The Dragon appeared for the first time in the 2002 film Reign of Fire where they served as the main antagonists, and especially the Male Dragon.
Video game[]
The dragon female as it appeared in the video game "Reign of Fire".
The Dragon appeared for the second and last time in the video game adaptation of the film, Reign of Fire. Unlike in the film, in the game you can choose dragons to be the antagonists as you're playing as dragon slayers, or play as a dragon from a protagonist view, where the humans are the antagonists.
Biology[]
The dragons in Reign of Fire are large four limbed creatures with two glands in their mouth capable of producing two liquids that, when combined and exposed to the open air, ignite into a form of napalm. The liquid these glands produces also seems to have the potential to harm the eyes of any human it comes into contact with Quinn has the liquid washed out with water as soon as he sees his mother.
It appears that the species survives by living on ash and feeding on all life it comes in contact with. we don't know if marine life was destroyed as well.
The film is quite difficult in coming up with hypothesis as to how they truly function but as at the start the male is awakened and suddenly the planet is overrun with females as well, suggesting that the male can produce offspring as well but after doing so will allow the females to carry on spreading his genes.
Furthermore since a male dragon existed, the species must have a way to produce males that the characters and thus the audience as well didn't know of which means that the dragons might not be extinct at the end of the film.
Once the dragons have killed everything, it is unknown as to how long it will be until the male is forced into hibernation once more, maybe not if he is able to continue feeding on females but we do know that he was hibernating after the dinosaurs.
In order for the dragons to be awakened, it apparently must be found and woken. We can conclude this by looking at how much life there was between the dinosaurs and modern humanity.
One weakness that the dragons have is their vision at dawn. They have excellent vision during the day even better vision at night but seem impaired enough at dawn to make fatal mistakes that they would not usually make.
Life history[]
The dragons in Reign of Fire were around with the dinosaurs, the apparent cause of their extinction after which the male dragon went into hibernation until he woken. This implies that the male dragon has been around when the dinosaurs walked the earth, so he is biologically immortal but it can be killed.
Adulthood[]
Once a female dragon has grown into a fully grown adult, the male dragon will keep impregnating female dragons, thus keeping the species alive. While the male dragon grows incredibly large, the female dragons are always considerably smaller than the male.
The male dragon may be larger than the females in order to prevent him from being overpowered by angry or hungry females, as he is obviously the only chance of the species preservation.
Nesting[]
Quinn Abercromby holding a dead dragon's egg.
When a mother dragon lays her eggs, she tends to choose anything like a protective man made structure, like a fort for example, to build a nest and lay her eggs. It was once discovered that three female dragons had their nests inside a sea fort simultaneously. The nests are protected by a large brood of dragons circulating and moving inside the nesting area, although if anything or anyone tries to get too close to a nest with eggs, the mother will become extremely violent, protective, and will panic as it breaths streams of fire against the intruders and flaps violently with it's large wings (video game).
Reproduction[]
In every dragon colony, there is only one large malel which mates with several smaller females.
Feeding strategies[]
Dragons, while hunting, tends to burn their prey and eat the ashes.
Cannibalism[]
It was discovered that the dragons can turn to cannibalism and eats each other when food sources are scarce. During a starvation era, the giant Male Dragon is the dominant predator, the only creature that has no fear and is feared by other dragons.
Morphology[]
Mick Todd's animated morphology of the male/bull dragon's head.
Mick Todd's animated morphology of the female dragon's head.
The female dragon is considerably smaller than the large dragon male. The male dragon is gigantic in comparison to the females. The facial differences of both sexes are minimal but still very significant. While the female's somewhat shorter upper horns are quite straight, the male's longer upper horns are more curved. The male's lower horns are considerably shorter than that of the female. The female's mouth and nose is longer in comparison with the male's.
The egg of a dragon has a red/orange transparent colour and is about 1.5x0.7 feet.
Fire breathing[]
It is confirmed, both through Medieval tales and modern observations that dragons can breath fire. The fire breath is the dragon's primary weapon, and very effective and can be extremely devastating. They produce this flame via chemicals produced in two glands in the back their mouths on either side of their tongues that when mixed together proves highly combustible.
Napalm breath[]
Napalm breath is a powerful close range weapon or defense which gives dragons a good upper hand in close encounters with prey or with rivals. The napalm breath shoots out a straight stream of fire extremely fast which can be devastating at close range but isn't as effective to use against long range targets (video game).
Fireball[]
Fireballs are a kind of weapon which unlike napalm breath can be used against both close range and long range targets. It is a ball of fire which shoots out of the dragon's mouth very fast and explodes in flames when the target is hit (video game).
Flight[]
The flight pattern of dragons is currently unknown and needs further investigation, and how the dragons are even able to fly is also a mystery.
Hibernation[]
When the first modern day Dragon was discovered, it was clear that it had been in a dormant state, it is possible that this species can go into hibernation underground, maybe in a way or attempt of preserving the species. Though it is currently unknown how the Male Dragon could have survived down there in Underground London, and for how long it's been there.
Intelligence[]
It appears that dragons are a highly evolved and highly intelligent species of reptile. From the behaviours of the animals to judge, it appears that their level of intelligence is quite high making it more understandable how they could outnumber mankind so effectively, though the fire might have had a bigger part in the story but adding intelligence makes this creature into the ultimate killing machine.
Evolution[]
The evolution of the dragons still has many questions that needs to be answered. There are still mysteries and things that we don't know about this magnificent animal species.
Pre-history[]
The dragon existed long before and co-existed with the dinosaurs and they are also the reason why dinosaurs become extinct in the first place. They also have a form of ageless immortality.
History[]
Modern humans first encountered the dragon species around the viking ages and the middle ages as many were slaughtered by both vikings and knights alike.
Present day[]
The Dragons were rediscovered in 1999 when a young boy named Quinn Abercromby investigated the tunnels during the construction of Underground London, and as he climbed into a cave which the workers had discovered, it was discovered that the cave was inhabited by a huge hibernating Dragon. This is the Male Dragon. When it awoke, it incinerated all the workers during its escape to the surface. After that, the dragons quickly took over the world.
One fan theory states that the male dragon went around to all the dragon eggs left by the females before they died, the eggs still alive, and fertilized them. As all of the eggs hatched at once, this could explain why the dragon population spiked so rapidly so suddenly.
Possible extinction[]
In 2020, as a small force of surviving humans, and dragon slayers, invade the Dragon infested London, they try for several times to slay The Dragon Male (which is the origin of all Dragons and the only hope for their species' survival), yet fails. During their last attempt to slay the Dragon, they succeed as Quinn Abercromby (the first modern day person to come face-to-face with the first dragon, the Male Dragon back in 1999, shoots an arrow with napalm inside the dragon's mouth making it explode from inside, which might have marked the end of its species.
Possible future survival[]
It is yet unknown whether some dragon(s) might have survived and might bring the population back in shape in the future but it is entirely possible considering that a male was born at some point which means the species carries the potential to birth males.
The only thing that is for sure is that the death of the male dragon had a huge impact on the species since the main cast didn't see any of them in three month afterwards.
The case of these dragons might be similar to the Indian jumping ants, a species of ant in which the queen emits chemicals to keep its children sterile. When the queen dies, the females, freed of the effects of the chemicals, fight for dominance. Such a behaviour can explain why no dragons have been seen after the death of the male, they might have been fighting to become the next male.
Notes[]
The dragons in Reign of Fire more so resemble wyverns than dragons, as they have a pair of 2 back legs, and their fore legs are part of their wings. Dragons on the other hand have two pairs of legs, plus wings. The creatures in Reign of Fire are still referred to as dragons despite this.
The design of the Reign of Fire dragons was influenced by the 1981 film, Dragonslayer. Bill Basso, a member of the concept and production team, noted the dragons for Reign of Fire were inspired by the design of Dragonslayer's antagonist, Vermithrax Pejorative. Like the later film, the designers of Vermithrax was made to look biologically plausible, starting the pterosaur and bat-like wyvern appearance. With Reign of Fire, the designers sought to modernize Vermithrax Pejorative's look, with added bulk inspired by theropod dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and birds of prey.
Legacy[]
The mechanism of dragon's fire breath in the Reign of Fire was used in later works such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Gods of Egypt, and Game of Thrones.[1]
Salamence from Pokémon series might be also inspired by the dragons of Reign of Fire Salamence's debut was in 2002, the same year the third generation of Pokémon games which introduced Salamence was released. Salamence's Japanese name Bohmander was based on Salamander where the Japanese title of the Reign of Fire was the Salamander (サラマンダー). Salamence's facial characteristics share some similarities with dragons in the Reign of Fire including crests above eyes akin to that of the male dragon and horizontal horns along the heads akin to that of both male and female dragons.
See also[]
Gallery[]
Film[]
Video game[]
References[]
- ↑ Frederick Blichert, 2017, Without ‘Reign of Fire’ CGI Dragons Would Probably Suck, VICE