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The Dragon is a large, green lizard-like dragon and one of the antagonists from the 1958 mythological fantasy film, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, along with the CyclopesRoc, and the Living Skeleton. It is one of the most iconic creatures of the film.

Description[]

The Dragon's appearance bears a resemblance to a previous Harryhausen creation, the Rhedosaurus (see "Trivia" below), with its head likened to that of a traditional Dragon (horns, fangs, etc). This dragon was truly a work of imagination, for such a design for a dragon was never quite shown in previous films. It was enormous in size, being even larger than the ferocious Cyclops.

Behavior[]

The Dragon acted as a personal guard dog use by the evil magician Sokurah. Like a guard dog, the dragon was very obedient and protective, and would do whatever it could to protect, or do what it thought was protecting, which included fighting a cyclops. It wouldn't stop fighting the cyclops, and continued to fight the other beast, until it killed the cyclops by biting it in the neck. The dragon was also capable of shooting out a jet of flames from its mouth and used its sharp teeth and claws as effective weapons in combat.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad[]

While protecting Sokurah’s hidden castle, the dragon watched the entrance as a loyal guard dog. Preventing Cyclopes from entering his master’s domain, the fire-breathing dragon was soon set free as Sinbad and Princess Parisa fled from the sorcerer’s fortress. In order to escape the wrath of a Cyclops, Sinbad unleashed the giant reptile to do combat with the brute. Attacking the horned, one-eyed monster with fangs and claws, the dragon forced the creature back and crushed its throat with his jaws. While Sinbad and the princess escaped, Sokurah emerged from the entrance, instructing his loyal dragon to follow and kill.

While waiting on the shoreline, a gigantic crossbow had been constructed to deal with the deadly denizens of Colossa. A quarrel was launched, striking the dragon in the chest; the unfortunate creature subsequently collapsed and crushed Sokurah to death. With the evil magician dead, the men returned to Sinbad’s ship, and the dragon’s movements slowly ceased as it died.

Trivia[]

  • The model for the Rhedosaurus's, a monster which appeared in the 1953 science fiction creature-feature The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, was cannibalised to create the dragon.[1] The dragon model itself later suffered the same fate [2].
  • There is no evidence that the Dragon in the The 7th Voyage of Sinbad has any name at all, although the name "Magog" was mentioned in reference to it in the eponymous Dell comic published in 1958. The name "Taro" was given to it by YouTube uploader InfernoRodan, who apparently did not speak English as a first language. This poster heard the command "follow" issued by Sokurah to the Nameless Dragon as "Taro", and the name appears to have gained traction in some circles [3]. The Dragon remains nameless in the script for the film.

Image Gallery[]

Videos[]

 	Taro_vs._Cyclops 	 			  

References[]

  1. Mark F. Berry, 2015, The Dinosaur Filmography, p.36, Performing Arts
  2. Facebook post by the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation
  3. The original upload by InfernoRodan responsible for the erroneous name of "Taro"
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