The Reluctant Dragon: Discussion Guide for Parents

Walt Disney Pictures, 1941

All information below is general suggestions and ideas. 

Always adapt to your family’s situation and beliefs and the needs of individual children. 

Content Warnings:

• Guns - Man pretends to hunt plastic ducks.
• Tobacco - smoking, cigarettes and cigarette butts
• Alcohol - momentary exposure at a celebration

Discussion Questions

• Mr. Benchley learns about making movies at the Walt Disney Studios. Why is it important for us to learn new things? 
• When making movies, there are teams for everything - a team for music, a team for words, a team for drawing characters, a team for drawing the background, and more. Why is it important to work in teams to complete big projects? How is this like the Body of Christ? (Think about how each of us has a different role to play, and each part is important to the whole of God’s plan!) What is a job that you do in the Body of Christ? 
• Mr. Benchley sees the storyboard for a new film, “Baby Weems.” Why is it important to have a plan when beginning a project? What do we do when things don’t go according to plan? 
• In the short, “The Reluctant Dragon,” the boy, his father, Sir Giles, and the whole village expect that the dragon is the kind that attacks villagers, devours flocks, and kidnaps damsels. The dragon turns out to be a poet who does not want to fight. What is the danger of assuming things about others before we get to know them? 
• God created everything. We are God’s children and are made the image of God. This means that we can be like God. When people create things, they are becoming like God, who made everything. What do you like to create? What are other ways that we become more like God? 

Scripture Connections

• Learning. Prov 1:5; Dan 1:17; Luke 2:52; 1 Nephi 1:1; 2 Nephi 9:29; D&C 88:118, 90:15; 93:36, 93:53, 130:18
• Body of Christ. Rom 12:4-21; 1 Cor 10:17, 12:13-31; D&C 107:99
• Children of God, Image of God. Gen 1:26-27; Deut 14:1; Ps 82:6; Acts 17:29; Rom 8:16; 1 Nephi 17:36; Mosiah 7:27; Ether 3:15; D&C 20:18, 76:24; Moses 1:13, 2:26-27, 3:5, 6:9, 6:68; Abraham 4:26-27

Ideas for Further Study

• Learn to draw a favorite character from a book or youtube tutorial. 
• In the film, artists learn to draw by having a live elephant or baby in their studio. Learn about the research that was done to make one of your favorite movies - did they look at animals, too? Did they research another country’s music or clothing? 
• In the film we see a team creating the sound effects for a movie. Try making your own devices for sound effects. 
• This film starts off in black and white but switches to color. Research the invention and use of Technicolor. 
• Learn more about the multi-plane camera. Who created it, and when? How does it work? 
• In the “Rainbow Room,” paint is mixed into all different colors. Do some art and experiment mixing different colors. 
• How has the process of making movies changed from this movie to now? 
• This film shows us all the things that go into making a movie - animation, music, voice, sound effects, operating the multi-plane camera and more. Try incorporating all these elements and making your own movie!