Pete’s Dragon begins in the early 1900s with a young, red-headed boy named Pete on the run from his abusive family. Pete is an orphan because even in the early 20th century, no one wants to keep the soulless gingers. Pete is running from his adoptive hillbilly family, the Gogans, who follow up their outstanding appearance in Deliverance with this Disney gem.
The Gogans conduct a musical search of the woods, telling little poor Pete all the ways that they are going to hurt him in an attempt to get him to surrender himself. Yeah, go figure, hillbilly logic. While the Gogans are in their third verse, they are attacked by an unseen force, which is actually Pete’s invisible dragon Elliot The Gogans are all knocked into the mud, but they eventually move on, leaving Pete and Elliot to get some sleep.

The next morning, we get to see Elliot for the first time in his full two dimensional, Technicolor glory. Elliot, a very unimpressive sight by any post-Jurassic Park standard, is making Pete a breakfast of flaming apples. The duo then makes their way onto the next town, a charming little burg by the name of Passamaquoddy. Pete makes Elliot turn invisible, as to not drive up the budget on this Disney opus. They were known for making movies on the cheap in the 70’s.

Unfortunately, Elliot is the size of...