Movie studios have been doing this for the best part of a decade. I think that there's so little good content in the movies outside of the action scenes that there's nothing else to put in the trailers. They rarely even bother with setting up characters to give you a reason to care about what happens to them.
@@DC-hw7fw I'm in my early 30s, own and run my own business, have a family, workout 4 - 5 days a week and I enjoy movies. Stop trying to get people to agree with your life choices. It's obvious as hell, you don't enjoy them so you want to feel justified or you wouldn't have wrote that.
@@TroySavarySo, all the stable hands, kitchen staff, blacksmiths, merchants, cleaners, bakers, cooks, etc, etc that did not get her memo were all just a causality of her wrath. I bet you were the type of person cheering Daenerys while she burned hundreds of thousands of people in Kings Landing. There seems to be a running theme where some viewers are compelled to support genocidal girl-bosses just because they’re woman.
It was interesting when the villain wins at the end, joins up with the evil dragon then leaves an entire kingdom to starve after killing their leadership.
Plot twist: this movie was just a slow intro to a sequel where the power vacuum left behind creates a bitter civil war. All the dukes, land holders and royals in court are in fear of the usurper outsider from a frozen duchy who now holds the power of a dragon. She has left them in a state of confused panic as they question their positions in court and whether their past association with the royal family will cause the dragon to punish them by being adjacent to the family that killed her children. That’s my funny take, but it’s likely they want us to think elodie has taken the mantle of power and is a benevolent and perfect queen, but resides on her families land and can just make the long distance work.
@@surette2012 They only wrote MEN as deserving of justice for their evil actions, act as though women should just be handed power no matter what evil things they do, and they call US the mis0gynists.
So.... why wouldn't you watch a movie and make your own opinion? It's like me eating a chocolate candy bar, and if I don't like candy in general I tell you to avoid it.
i watched anoother review about this, which pointed out that the Dragon, who for hundred of years was eating innocent women, but that's ok, because the Dragon is a female. So that's ok, the film ends with the Dragon being bestie with the not-so-princess. So a Dragon killed women for years, because of a deal with a King. doesn't change the fact women were sacrificed. the dragon can't sit there acting like a victim because they were deceived after they ate innocent women
She left out a huge part of the movie. The king of Oria made a deal with the dragon to sacrifice 3 daughters because the king slaughtered the dragons 3 hatchlings ending the dragons lineage. So there was a revenge plot to the sacrifice part. Just thought you need some more context
Ever After with Drew Barrymore preceded all these girlboss films. She had all the girlboss good aspects (strong will and determination) but not the bad ones (she was girlie, vulnerable, and receptive to good advice from men like Da Vinci): the at first immature and bumbling prince is inspired by her to step up and be the hero she can respect and love and be rescued by. Then again that was in 1998...
Shriek had a damsel that could kick ass, also in the 90s. Red Sonja was about a kick ass woman and that came out in the 80s. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was predicated on the idea of flipping the damsel in distress trope. None of this is new.
@@kd9749 BUT all those you mentioned, like Ever After (and Terminator and Aliens) didn't need to denigrate / humiliate the men to make the women look good. They helped each other. Heck even the Aliens butch Vasquez respected and loved her teammate Drake, and respected Hicks enough to follow his lead. You get what I'm saying? The last movie to be like that was Wonder Woman 1: NOBODY complains about that one...
@@kd9749 None of those examples count because they were all sexualized in some manner. It's only "true girlbossing" when men hate it because "No Male Gaze Cheesecake".
We also had Princess Leia in Star Wars. She was captured and presumably tortured to interrogation in the Death Star, and she saw her home planet blown up. The heroes come to save her only because she can't break the cell open, and fighting all those stormtroopers alone would be too stupid of a move to do. When she is saved, she fights along with her saviours and arguably kicks as much ass as Luke and Han. This was back in 1977. If she were a mere damsel-in-distress, she would be a background character and walking plot device, incapable of kicking ass and asserting herself over Han's misogynistic takes.
@@ransakreject5221It wouldn't surprise me at all if the script for Damsel started as a modern feminist remake of Dragonslayer, but they realized greenlighting it would require a ton more money and dealing with Disney for the rights, so they made some changes and TA DA! Instant "original" story!
I've got beef with trailers that show you literally nothing about the actual plot of a movie and instead just scream at you to get excited anyway, but it seems like Netflix is overcorrecting lol
Modern day writers are so morally bankrupt that they keep writing ‘heroes’ who straight up act like villains. The freakin’ Punisher has a stronger moral compass than the average girl-boss.
Wait til Disney releases their own version of the Punisher. The "Discipliner" is gonna smack people with a stick and tell them to stop doing crimes like an 80 year old retired school teacher.
@@quantomstrangeSomething, something, girlboss, something. In other words, your guess is as good as mine. She killed the people who tried to sacrifice her to a dragon. If it had been a guy, they would be cheering, but somehow, girls doing anything but be eye candy is wrong. The perpetual outrage crowd on RU-vid literally has nothing except "girlboss" and "Mary Sue". Desperately trying to cling to relevance in their echo chamber.
Out in space two alien life forms are speaking with each other. The first alien says, "The dominant life forms on the earth planet have developed satellite-based nuclear weapons." The second alien, who looks exactly like the first, asks, "Are they an emerging intelligence?" The first alien says, "I don't think so, they have them aimed at themselves."
@@manoz6194 😂😢 the smart ones designed it, the clever ones built it, but the intelligent ones are not allowed anywhere near it. So long and thanks for all the fish, I guess.
@@hardensoul7248Correction, the squire boy FAILED to save the damsels (all but his love interest anyway). We even get a lovingly-detailed gory scene of the kingdom's princess dead and her bits being chewed on by the dragon's babies. That movie don't mess around!
@@barret-xiii gotcha been so long since I’ve seen Dragonslayer. I recall liking the movie as a kid. I liked anything about dragons 😂 But it’s still not same, Dragonslayer has the Squire as the main Hero trying to save the damsel.
I LOVE the Fire Breathing of this Dragon and no one seems to talk about it. The moment they show that the dragon can talk and understand, and she ran and refused to communicate, tone of the story was set for me. I was hoping she would find a way to talk to the dragon but that did not happen until it was too late, for the story point of view. And clearly she was not alone in doing so. Many Other pricesses were smart and brave enough to get to the safety, and they too decided not to utter a single dialogue about what was going on? Dragon was clearly smart enough, if more girls would tell the truth while in hidden, knowing they would be killed, dragon would take notice. We are not talking about few years, it was going on for generations.
I watched it after just stumbling upon it on Netflix - knew nothing about it - and can confirm that the scene where he just tosses her into the dragon pit was pretty good.
"Your Kingdom is basically California at this point". "I mean, she wants to travel, he also wants to travel, like, you know, what are the odds?" And the yeeting of the princess "This is art". As always, the dry humor is your strenght.
I liked her in Stranger Things but I only liked Stranger Things because of how much Lovecraft they shoved into it. Even though they're supposed to hate the man.
"Politician's wife from House of Cards"........LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL She's freaking BUTTERCUP..... Princess Bride. She was literally the sacrificial princess.
lol duuuuuude that’s what inspired me to watch it! I wanted to see evil princess buttercup and how it played out. I really enjoyed the movie and seeing her comeuppance 😜👌🏼
Perhaps having a dragon attack your village results in you not wanting to have more around. It's scary how our society is so messed up that killing pests/dangers to our society is now somehow a bad thing.
I was so MAD that she didn't kill the dragon. That dragon killed all those innocent girls -- all those girls Elodie SAID she cared about and SAID she wanted to avenge. The dragon lost three babies centuries ago; these kingdoms have lost COUNTLESS girls. So freaking mad.
The politician's wife in the house of cards is the best you can say about Robin Wright? How about, She is Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride?! Sheesh. Disappointed in you Lauren. That is one strike on your nerd card. Do better, Lauren, do better. 😉
I can’t stop thinking about how much loot and experience points, she missed out on for not slaying the dragon. Surely, the kingdom would have rewarded her for freeing them from their dragon problem.
hearing lauren say "yeet" was certainly not on my 2024 bingo card... 😂😂😂 and man, did they absolutely waste the magnificent vocal talents of shohreh aghdashloo...
I was lucky enough to have watched it without having even seeing the Netflix trailers. It was a great break from the several crime drama series that my wife is really into. I guess it’s best to see films without having someone tell us how we should feel about them before we see them.
Imagine a Legend of Zelda game where Link tries to kill Zelda, and then Zelda teams up with Gannon to help murder everyone in Hyrule but especially all of the men.
She didn't target the men. She specifically went after the queen. You want so bad for this film to have an agenda for you to impotently rage against that you are just making shit up. Pathetic.
@@iamnia336 I'm comparing The Legend of Zelda to Damsel. The end of Damsel clearly shows the dragon killing everyone in the kingdom, not just the prince.
@@iamnia336@iamnia336 Yeah, it killed everyone, including innocent people. In the intro of the movie, it says that the dragon was killing innocent villagers, and the king and his knights were sent to dispatch the dragon, which they failed to do, prompting them to make a deal with it. The dragon is not innocent. It killed all of those girls. It doesn't matter that it was tricked into doing so. It still killed innocent girls, and instead of holding the dragon accountable for its actions, the movie simply blames everything on the prince, his family, and his kingdom. Are you suggesting that the Dragon was somehow justified?
Reminds me of that famous saying of Spock 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one'. So the King has a choice, lose his daughter, but save his people, or he can refuse and see his people die or leave.
When the prince yeets her off that bridge is how we all feel about ridiculous girl boss protagonists. Selene, Ripley or Sarah Conner would’ve never fallen for this😂
*Elodie* : Is kind to all creatures like the little bird that was on fire, the glowing slugs etc. *Also Elodie* : Sent off a horse as a decoy to get roasted by the dragon without any hesitation.
What's sad is that if that dragon sacrifice scene was done right it could've been a fantastic scene. But obviously the film had several other issues. Thanks for the review!! Also I love that marble statue thingy behind you! Any1 know where I could get it? Thanks again! Loving the review so far!
My rewrite would be keep all the marriage of convienience at the beginning, but in promise of "Creating an heir". behind the scenes the royal family could be bargaining that an heir sacrifice is coming soon for the dragon. fast forward to when its like her 8 year old that then they tell her the truth, then steal her child away. Then everything else after could be similar, but it's her trying to save her child instead and actually killing the dragon.
Tbf, you left the part were the King of the evil kingdom, killed the 3 hatchlings of the dragon ending her lineage (without the dragon doing anything to deserve it) thats why the dragon, in seek of revenge, put this curse on the kings family. Also, fun fact, the amount of times men exchange dialogue in this movie is less than 5 times.
Unsure how attacking a village equals doing nothing to deserve repercussions? While the hatchlings technically were still innocent, they would grow up to be dragons as well and the only thing we know about them is that they attack villages and eat innocent women.
I haven't seen this film but I agree with Lauren. If this dragon snacked on all these innocent women in the past, how can anyone trust this beast to turn vegan cold turkey?.. if they had a maguffin.. like a magic gem that controlled the dragon.. then okay... but to take this murderers word??.. crazy 😂
@@TroySavary It would've been somewhat more justifiable if instead of her three offspring it was her entire race and they did nothing wrong other than exist. But then again...just leave? You have wings. Fly away.
@@TroySavaryGuess telling that the dragon was attacking the village which resulted in the king trying to kill it is inconvenient for your argument? And who in their right mind would want 4 of those things flying around attacking you, so killing the offspring is a sound decision for anyone responsible for safeguarding the safety of their subjects.
Yeah, I honestly thought beautifully shot and intriguing up until she escaped the cave. The film got SO rushed after that. Like we spend an hour struggling to escape just to quickly montage back IN to get the sister like super easily. Then all the dragon stuff you mentioned. Maybe better is the dragon learned the truth and somehow sacrificed itself for her to "make it right" or something. Just really rushed and muddled at the end for such a strong start. Still enjoyed, but bummed at ending.
When i watch a movie or play a video game made more than 10 years ago it's genuinely refreshing to see depictions of normal, happy hetero couples. Also to see white male heroes...it's like they don't even exist anymore for most movies and games.
I saw the synopsis and rolled my eyes and was like no girl boss begone from my kingdom 😂 I cast you out hope the dragon eats you. Thank you for watching it so my eyes didn't roll out of my head from rolling them so much 😂
The disdain for the whole they both want to travel thing is fed primarily by people that have little concept for how difficult travel would have been during a period like that. Set aside that there is a dragon, the general gist of the setting implies roughly a 16th century, European backdrop. Travel would not be something even royalty would see as easy. Commoners would likely spend their entire lives in one place and never consider moving unless forced. It’s not unimaginable that two people sharing a dream of travel, and having the means, in that period, would be less common.
Okay I said it before and I'll say it again, BUT: although the premise in general may be quite generic and has been done before several times (Minotaurus, anyone?), but boy oh boy do I have flashbacks of reading a book with the exact same story, and it was written several decades ago! And I also doubt that it is available in English🤔🤔 anyhow, the MC is Princess Uta and the dragon is Arman, period.
@@StimParavane what does that even mean. I wasn’t expecting the zone of interest here. A fun romp where kids can enjoy. People are dammed if they make it too much for kids and dammed if they make it too light and fun. Jeez
Doesn't the whole Dragon thing kick off with the Dragon terrorising and eating innocent villagers? That was way before any Royal deal. Yeah, so Dragon = Badness even without the consumption of generations proto-princesses.
I watched the movie without seeing the trailer, so I did enjoy it. However while waiting for my wife to join me, the trailer began. It spoiled the prince sacrificing her and I immediately turned it off. I figured if they were going to show that, the rest of the movie would be spoiled as well.
The biggest takeaway I got from this is that YOU'VE NEVER SEEN STRANGER THINGS?! Legitimately gasped out loud. 😅😅😅 (It's getting about time for me to do another rewatch, as it's been a couple of months.)
Was little bit confused, because in cave there were ton of names on the wall, but when she returned to the castle she said “you are third”. So how many were there?
Ok, I saw this movie and it started off good but left me with more questions than answers... 1.- If supposedly the dragon kept to herself and it was the humans that started the violence... why would they go into the dragons lair in the first place if it was not a threath? And why of all the people the king had to be there? Why not send dragon slayers or offer a reward? 2.- According to other websites they had to offer 3 girl every 10 years (for 300 years!!!) Did they have to marry the prince or king several times every 10 years? did no one notice the missing or disappearance of princesses over the years? was there no gossip in this kingdom? 3.- Of all the items she removed from that clunky ass dress... why on earth she kept the damn corset on??!! 4.- If the slugs were magical that could cure anything... why not use them on her father?? 6.- Did she really just touch her father sword and suddenly knew how to use it?? is she a Disney-Jedi?? 7.- How does a dragon get burnt by it's own fire?? (all of my D&D freak friends lost it on this one) 🤣🤣 8.- At the end the dragon and Elodie killed more people than the royal family!! she practically turns into Dracarys levels of evil!! 9.- The real hero of the story in her makeup!! I don't know how this movie was supposed to be feminist when they portrayed women as evil, cruel, dumb, vain and racists!! I guess it was just a popcorn cheesy netflix movie, and not to be taken seriously at all... like the Barbie movie!! 😅😆🤣😂
Even back then, people were finding fairytale subversions to be the norm rather than the rebel. I mean, the original novel of Howl's Moving Castle was written as a tongue-in-cheek fairytale parody, just like what Shrek would be like, but decades before that film. But when it was adapted into a movie, Hayao Miyazaki turned it into a straightforward fairytale like what Disney would've made in the '90s, just without musical numbers. It was because fairytale parodies like Shrek and Hoodwinked were becoming much more popular and the norm back then, while sincere fairytales were seen as outdated and cheesy. Miyazaki instead chose to adapt a parody as a straightforward fairytale to subvert expectations, and it worked really well. Miyazaki chose to subvert expectations by making a straightforward fairytale, when most people would be expecting a fairytale parody filled with meta commentary and quips, like what was popular back then and like how the original novel was. The only obvious subversion Miyazaki made would be the brutal war sequences, and the anti-war message in the film, which is more of a Miyazaki thumbprint and a commentary on the War on Terror. I am not kidding about the last part. That was back in 2004. Even back then, some people wanted to do a straightforward fairytale to subvert expectations from all those constant fairytale parodies or dark twists.
Ok, Robin Wright is the politicians wife from "House of Cards". Please give me a break She is the title role in "The Princess Bride". Nothing can compare to that.
The movie was decent. There was no “girl boss moment” at the expense of men, and the biggest villain was the queen of anyone. There’s no more unbelievable moments than any other action fantasy film, and I like the design and visual effects of the dragon
thats what im saying like its just a "girl boss" bc she is in fact a girl? like wtf is that. def was a good movei for what it was. AND HTE CGI WAS ON POINT.
I didn't think the movie was terrible, but I did think the writing was horrendous. My expectations going in were that it was going to be trash, but I didn't get that entirely. A part I hated, was when the dragon impaled her in the side with a claw a third her size; a fatal wound and she wasn't even fazed. Had me leaning back like Fat Joe.
Recently when Hollywood writers write a sympathetic villain, they turn out to be evil and despicable but when they write an irredeemable villain, they turn out to be reasonable and sympathetic. When they write heroes/heroines, their overall journey turn out to be villain origin stories.
My big red flag is how the royal family supposedly found a loophole with the whole blood mixing crap (which doesn't make sense anyway) to not actually sacrifice their daughters. But of course the main character tells the dragon that she has been deceived and they weren't actual descendants of the king that killed her hatchlings. So my problem comes with the fact that it would be a different case if the dragon never spoke thus the MC (and the audience) just believed that it was just a wild beast. But then it would beg for its life after she beats it thus realizing that it can talk. The problem comes with the fact that the dragon never shuts the hell up throughout the entire movie. So right off the bat the MC can say that it is being lied to because this dragon is actually intelligent. And you are expecting me to believe that after all of these girls that have been sacrificed that not one of them was able to convivence this dragon that they weren't a direct descendent? Or the fact with how diverse the princesses are that the dragon not once put the two and two together. "Damn you all look nothing like the king that killed my children." Did they even try to make the girls look like they were from the same family or did they just grab any princess from any family and just call it a day? Why did it have to be princesses if you just needed to mix blood? Hell they don't even have to do the wedding ceremony as we see with the little sister. Any of the other kingdoms find it strange how their daughters go missing if they marry into this family? The writers probably thought they were being clever with the whole blood mixing loophole twist but it actually is what causes the entire movie to collapse in on itself.
Lauren saying Elodie chopping wood 4:07 "is a subtle and nuanced attempt to characterize Elodie as empowered" had me rolling on the floor! Chopping wood is what it's like trying to watch the entire film - wooden plot, wooden writing, wooden acting. Fellow viewers, you'll need your axe to get through this one!
The fact that people still can’t get over race in a fiction fairytale is crazy. Like being bothered that Angela Bassett is playing the stepmother because she’s black is just mind-boggling.
Maybe I misunderstood it, but I was under the impression that the dragon was going to kill the king that ordered the death of the Dragon's babies but she spared him when he begged her on the promise of his decendants being sacrificed in his place. I also didn't see anything that showed the dragon was terrifying the people to start the conflict off. As much I thought the as the Dragon's behavior was horrendous, it was somewhat satisfying seeing the dragon being used to enact revenge on the royal family for their duplicity.
I'm surprised they gave her basically immortality throughout the movie, she could've died so easily. The Dragon could smell the ROYAL blood but of course gets distracted every time it has the moment to kill her. Like the one where it goes after the guide who definitely doesn't reek of royalty and before that when it was about to burn her to ashes but delays to check out her father in the cave later to interrogate him about his daughter's whereabouts.. Cool CGI and story but damn it was confusing.
I didn’t think it was real bad. I also don’t think they were going for a trophy case filler. That being said- expectations are fairly low for “entertainment” these days. I am/was annoyed by things like when she’s walking away and the dragon flies above, their shadows don’t match. I found myself stopping & rewinding a few times.
The royal family was evil but so was the girl who didn’t lift a manicured finger to help the starving poor people leaving them in ruin without food, without money and without protection! What a “great” movie! Lol 😂😂😂😂
Well Ms. Lauren I saw a previous review of this Netflick's movie by the Critical Drinker; which pretty much agrees with everything you said. And I kind of figured that this movie would another flop Female-Empowerment fantasy movie just going by posters.
I'll probably watch it just for the yeet. But i don't remember you mentioning the king killing the dragon's babies or eggs, before it made the agreement to let them live if they offered their own descendents.
It wasn’t so much an agreement as it was the dragon decided he would live and have to sacrifice them, but yeah I don’t think she said that until the end of the review. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great either.
You forgot to mention the reason behind the sacrifice: the first king killed the dragon's 3 hatchlings (children), so the king made a promise to sacrifice his own daughters to make up for it.
I actually enjoyed the movie, the princess wasn't a man hating b***h just a normal tomboy. I didn't watch the trailer, I actually felt sad when the prince threw her into the pit since she seemed to actually like the guy & I liked them together. I loved the dragon's voice it made my skin craw. I did roll my eyes at her cutting her hair, girl your sis could get eaten any second but your wasting time styling your hair just tide it in a pony & done. as 4 the dragon's... let's called it redemption arch cause I think that's what they were trying to do but it went so fast that I'm sure most missed the sound of the dragon's crying, which I took to mean she regretted all her wrongs but admittedly it could also be because she regrets being con & nothing else.
