Pete’s Dragon starts with a dark and unforgiving event when Pete and his parents are driving in a remote wilderness. An accident changes the adventure into a tragedy and Pete is left to survive in the foreboding forests.
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He is saved from a pack of savage wolves, intent on having him for dinner, by a friendly green furry dragon, Elliot.
That isn’t a spoiler. It happens in the first minutes of the film.
Six years later, Pete is enjoying a carefree life cavorting in the deep forest with his protector, Elliot. They develop a mutual dependency involving love, trust, and a huge dose of magic.
Pete and Elliot’s serenity is disturbed by a logging company intent on destroying their forest home.
The adult world intrudes into Pete’s paradise in the form of good-hearted wildlife ranger Grace, her wise father, Meacham, a young girl, Natalie and an unscrupulous logger, Jack.
Pete accepts their good intentions innocently, innocence tainted when the loggers cut down age-old forests and capture Elliot.
As you would expect with a Disney film, the main theme deals with family values. Pete has no human family while Elliot lacks a dragon family.
Pete’s Dragon, like films such as ET The Extraterrestrial, Bambi and Neverending Story, deals with a child’s isolation from the world as a result of being separated from his family.
A central element in the film revolves around the wonder of magic and imagination. It shows us that we do not have to lose our belief in magic just because we grow older.
When questioned by his cynical daughter, Grace, about his claim that he saw a dragon in the forest when he was a young man, Meacham says, ”Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist”.
Most of the adults in Pete’s Dragon don’t believe the stories about dragons living in Millhaven’s forests. They have to see the proof with their own eyes while the children need to be convinced that dragons don’t exist.
Audiences who have any emotion in their bodies will shed a Niagara Falls of tears.
The heart-warming ending will satisfy everyone from young children to elderly adults.
