History Film / ReignOfFire

12 Years later, Quinn (Bale) is leading with his best friend Creedy (Butler) a small band of surviving humans living in Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland. The people hope to survive by keeping their heads down until the dragons run out of food and starve themselves to death, as fossil evidence in Antarctica suggests they had before. Unfortunately, a dragon follows some of the people back to the village and burns their crops. Days later, a band of American dragon hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (McConaughey) and Alex Jensen (Scorupco), comes to the village. After killing the dragon that burned the crops, Van Zan reveals that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent all of the dragons seen in the world are female, and there is only one male, who fertilizes the females' eggs like a salmon]]. If this dragon can be slain, the dragons will be unable to reproduce.

''Reign of Fire'' A 2002 [[AfterTheEnd Post-Apocalyptic]] {{Science Fiction}} {{Action}} film directed by Rob Bowman Starring Creator/ChristianBale, Creator/GerardButler, Creator/MatthewMccounaughey and Creator/IzabellaScorupco.

''Reign of Fire'' A 2002 [[AfterTheEnd Post-Apocalyptic]] {{Science Fiction}} {{Action}} film directed by Rob Bowman Starring Creator/ChristianBale, Creator/GerardButler, Creator/MatthewMcCounaughey and Creator/IzabellaScorupco.

''Reign of Fire'' A 2002 [[AfterTheEnd Post-Apocalyptic]] {{Science Fiction}} {{Action}} film directed by Rob Bowman.

12 Years later, Quinn (Creator/ChristianBale) is leading with his best friend Creedy (Creator/GerardButler) a small band of surviving humans living in an English castle. The people hope to survive by keeping their heads down until the dragons run out of food and starve themselves to death, as fossil evidence in Antarctica suggests they had before. Unfortunately, a dragon follows some of the people back to the village and burns their crops. Days later, a band of American dragon hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (Creator/MatthewMcConaughey) and Alex Jensen (Creator/IzabellaScorupco), comes to the village. After killing the dragon that burned the crops, Van Zan reveals that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent all of the dragons seen in the world are female, and there is only one male, who fertilizes the females' eggs like a salmon]]. If this dragon can be slain, the dragons will be unable to reproduce.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/reignoffire.jpg]][[caption-width-right:350:''Oh, he's a Dragon Slayer. I suppose that would make you King Arthur does it?'' - Creedy]]

In [[NextSundayAD 2008]], 12-year-old Quinn Abercromby stumbles upon a sleeping dragon recently unearthed at a construction site in London. Said dragon then awakens and proceeds to decimate the construction site and kill everyone present, except for young Quinn. Before long more dragons hatch and proceed to multiply across the face of the Earth at an exponential rate, burning human civilization as they go. After Paris is burnt to the ground and attacks in Kenya kill dozens of people, [[NukeEm the humans decide to just nuke the dragons out of existence]]. [[GoneHorriblyRight Unfortunately, this backfires, and while they do kill some dragons they also end up]] [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt wiping out human civilization as we know it and sending the survivors back to the dark ages.]]

A 2002 [[AfterTheEnd Post-Apocalyptic]] {{Science Fiction}} {{Action}} film directed by Rob Bowman.

In [[NextSundayAD 2008]], 12 year old Quinn Abercromby stumbles upon a sleeping dragon recently unearthed at a construction site in London. Said dragon then awakens and proceeds to decimate the construction site and kill everyone present, except for young Quinn. Before long more dragons hatch and proceed to multiply across the face of the Earth at an exponential rate, burning human civilization as they go. After Paris is burnt to the ground and attacks in Kenya kill dozens of people, [[NukeEm the humans decide to just nuke the dragons out of existence]]. [[GoneHorriblyRight Unfortunately, this backfires, and while they do kill some dragons they also end up]] [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt wiping out human civilization as we know it.]]

[[quoteright:228:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/reign_of_fire_9813.bmp]]

-> '''Creedy:''' Only one thing worse than a dragon... ''Americans''.

12 Years later, Quinn (Creator/ChristianBale) is the leader of a small band of surviving humans living in an English castle with his best friend Creedy (Creator/GerardButler). The people hope to survive by keeping their heads down until the dragons run out of food and starve themselves to death, as fossil evidence in Antarctica suggests they had before. Unfortunately a dragon follows some of the people back to the village and burns their crops. Days later, a band of American dragon hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (Creator/MatthewMcConaughey) and Alex Jensen (Creator/IzabellaScorupco), comes to the village. After killing the dragon that burned the crops, Van Zan reveals that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent all of the dragons seen in the world are female, and there is only one male, who fertilizes the females' eggs like a salmon]]. If this dragon can be slain, the dragons will be unable to reproduce.

* AnAxeToGrind: Van Zan's hideous looking axe that he uses to finish off the dragons they shoot down.
* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: Van Zan makes it clear that refusing to give aid and shelter to his dragonslaying force is not an option, given their superior firepower.

* ApocalypticLog: As the introducing voice over explains what happened after the first dragon awakens, we see a newspaper montage covering different stages of the dragon apocalypse, from the first scientific articles to the war itself. A nib pen, presumably Quinn's, scratches out a message to his adopted son.

** The Chieftain tank -- its {{BFG}} is good for intimidating settlements, not so for blowing up flying creatures.

* {{BFG}}: A slightly obscure example. Quinn's rifle is an Ulriks Mauser T-Rex, a very rare and expensive Mauser-pattern rifle chambered in .577 Nitro Express, normally used to put down rampaging African elephants. One scene gives a very brief closeup shot of Quinn loading these ''enormous'' rounds into his rifle. With good shot placement, he probably ''could'' kill a regular female dragon. Against the big male, though, the elephant gun does little more than piss him off.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Quinn, the first person to see a dragon in the flesh, which happens to be the bull dragon itself, not only ends up becoming the leader of a group of survivors, but is the one who ultimately kills the bull dragon and saves the world.
* ConvergingStreamWeapon: The dragons shoot two streams of chemicals which collide in mid-air and ignite.

** Van Zan completely dominates his brawl with Quinn; Quinn gets a couple good hits in, but Van Zan nearly beats him to death.

* TheDragonslayer: Van Zan (and his fellow Americans) are all specialists in slaying dragons. They have knowledge of the dragons' weaknesses and exploit these with a range of specialized equipment, including a tank and a helicopter which can drop troops onto flying dragons to force them to land.

** Despite the complete collapse of human society, an entire armoured division is able to still support itself. You have to wonder how much fuel they expended just to get to Britain in a world where presumably there is no more oil extraction. This is handwaved when Van Zan admits that they're running on fumes.

* EvilTakesANap: The film has a London construction crew dig down to a hibernating dragon, which soon wakes, then roars, then barbecues everyone on site, then wrecks the place and goes flying off. This somehow awakens more dragons, until London gets turned into a scorched no man's land.

* HeroKiller: The big male, who is the original dragon and responsible for the death of Quinn's mother. When Van Zan tells Quinn about him, Quinn is visibly scared, and even Van Zan (the man who will take on a dragon with a chopper and a harpoon gun) wants a small army with him when he goes hunting for it. It even has the reputation you'd expect: Quinn relates an incident wherein a group from Pembery went to London and disturbed him, resulting in 90 deaths and the destruction of the castle. The male subsequently goes on to wipe out Van Zan's army, [[spoiler: burn the castle down, killing AJ and Creedy in the process]], cannibalise several of his own and [[spoiler: kill Van Zan]]. On top of all that, his vast size makes him the only dragon that's easily distinguishable and recognisable.

A 2002 [[AfterTheEnd Post-Apocalyptic]] [[Science Fiction]] [[Action]] film directed by Rob Bowman.

Years later, Quinn (Creator/ChristianBale) is the leader of a small band of surviving humans living in an English castle with his best friend Creedy (Creator/GerardButler) The people hope to survive by keeping their heads down until the dragons run out of food and starve themselves to death, as fossil evidence in Antarctica suggests they had before. Unfortunately a dragon follows some of the people back to the village and burns their crops. Days later, a band of American dragon hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (Creator/MatthewMcConaughey) and Alex Jensen (Creator/IzabellaScorupco), comes to the village. After killing the dragon that burned the crops, Van Zan reveals that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent all of the dragons seen in the world are female, and there is only one male, who fertilizes the females' eggs like a salmon]]. If this dragon can be slain, the dragons will be unable to reproduce.

* Kaiju: The Male Dragon. The female dragons alone are larger than tanks or helicopters, but the male dragon can completely ''eclipse'' the female dragons and grab one readily in its claws to eat.

A 2002 [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] film directed by Rob Bowman.

Years later, Quinn (Creator/ChristianBale) is the leader of a small band of surviving humans living in an English castle. The people hope to survive by keeping their heads down until the dragons run out of food and starve themselves to death, as fossil evidence in Antarctica suggests they had before. Unfortunately a dragon follows some of the people back to the village and burns their crops. Days later, a band of American dragon hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (Creator/MatthewMcConaughey) and Alex Jensen (Creator/IzabellaScorupco), comes to the village. After killing the dragon that burned the crops, Van Zan reveals that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent all of the dragons seen in the world are female, and there is only one male, who fertilizes the females' eggs like a salmon]]. If this dragon can be slain, the dragons will be unable to reproduce.

* ApocalypseHow: Class 2 (fall of civilization) with the possibility of it growing into a Class 3 apocalypse (human extinction) if the dragons outlast the humans. The survivors begin to rebuild after the dragons are defeated, bringing it closer to a Class 1 event. Shades of Class 4, due to the humans' and dragons' mutual success in devastating the biosphere.

* PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs: It was the ''dragons'' who killed the dinosaurs.

* Main/InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons: How to make a unique premise for an apocalypse? How about the most fearsome fire-breathing creatures to haunt our folklore and imaginations.

* Kaiju: The Male Dragon

Years later, Quinn (Creator/ChristianBale) is the leader of a small band of surviving humans living in an English castle. The people hope to survive by keeping their heads down until the dragons run out of food and starve themselves to death, as fossil evidence in Antarctica suggests they had before. Unfortunately a dragon follows some of the people back to the village and burns their crops. Days later, a band of American dragon hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (Creator/MatthewMcConaughey) and Alex Jensen ([[Film/GoldenEye Izabella Scorupco]]), comes to the village. After killing the dragon that burned the crops, Van Zan reveals that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent all of the dragons seen in the world are female, and there is only one male, who fertilizes the females' eggs like a salmon]]. If this dragon can be slain, the dragons will be unable to reproduce.

* [[{{Main/InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons}} Instant Awesome Just Add Dragons]]: How to make a unique premise for an apocalypse? How about the most fearsome fire-breathing flying creatures to haunt our imaginations - extra points for making them so powerful that they caused the extinction of the terrible lizards (dinosaurs).

* InstantAwesomeJustAddDrsgons: How to make a unique premise for an apocalypse? How about the most fearsome fire-breathing flying creatures to haunt our imaginations - extra points for making them so powerful that they caused the extinction of the terrible lizards (dinosaurs).

* InstantAwesomeJustAddDrsgons: How to make a unique and badass apocalypse? How about making the cause giant fire- breathing flying monsters - extra points for making them so powerful that they caused the extinction of the terrible lizards (dinosaurs).

* InstantAwesomeJustAddDrsgons: How to make a unique and badass apocalypse? How about ancient giant fire- breathing flying monsters.

In [[NextSundayAD 2008]], 12 year old Quinn Abercromby, stumbles upon a sleeping dragon recently unearthed at a construction site in London. Said dragon then awakens and proceeds to decimate the construction site and kill everyone present, except for young Quinn. Before long more dragons hatch and proceed to multiply across the face of the Earth at an exponential rate, burning human civilization as they go. After Paris is burnt to the ground and attacks in Kenya kill dozens of people, [[NukeEm the humans decide to just nuke the dragons out of existence]]. [[GoneHorriblyRight Unfortunately, this backfires, and while they do kill some dragons they also end up]] [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt wiping out human civilization as we know it.]]

* NeverTrustATrailer: The poster showed dragons attacking London, and coming in contact with the human military, implying that it's an ''Film/IndependenceDay''-style invasion movie. The movie's actually set AfterTheEnd.

Years later, Quinn (Creator/ChristianBale) is the leader of a small band of surviving humans living in an English castle. The people hope to survive by keeping their heads down until the dragons run out of food and starve themselves to death, as fossil evidence in Antarctica suggests they had before. Unfortunately a dragon follows some of the people back to the village and burns their crops. Days later, a band of American dragon hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (Creator/MatthewMcConaughey) and Alex Jensen, comes to the village. After killing the dragon that burned the crops, Van Zan reveals that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent all of the dragons seen in the world are female, and there is only one male, who fertilizes the females' eggs like a salmon]]. If this dragon can be slain, the dragons will be unable to reproduce.

* ExpandedUniverse: The video game of the movie shows juvenile dragons, who are ground-dwelling creatures looking rather like dinosaurs.

Received two {{Licensed Game}}s, one for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2, UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube, and UsefulNotes/XBox (notable for the [=PS2=] and Xbox versions to get an M rating while the Gamecube version received a T), and another for UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance. Both has the player as either a human or a maturing dragon. And by the way, in the GBA version, the dragons were able to talk

In [[NextSundayAD 2008]], 12 year old Quinn Abercromby, stumbles upon a sleeping dragon recently unearthed at a construction site in London. Said dragon then awakens, and proceeds to decimate the construction site and kill everyone present, except for young Quinn. Before long more dragons hatch and proceed to multiply across the face of the Earth at an exponential rate, burning human civilization as they go. Paris is burnt to the ground, attacks in Kenya kill dozens of people, [[NukeEm until the humans just decide to nuke the dragons out of existence.]] [[GoneHorriblyRight Unfortunately, this backfires, and while they do kill some dragons they also end up]] [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt wiping out human civilization as we know it.]]

Years later, Quinn (Creator/ChristianBale) is the leader of a small band of surviving humans living in an English castle. The people hope to survive by keeping their heads down until the dragons run out of food, and starve themselves to death, as fossil evidence in Antarctica suggests they had before. Unfortunately a dragon follows some of the people back to the village and burns their crops. Days later, a band of American dragon hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (Creator/MatthewMcConaughey) and Alex Jensen, come to the village. After killing the dragon that burned the crops, Van Zan reveals that [[OurDragonsAreDifferent all of the dragons seen in the world are female, and there is only one male, who fertilizes the females' eggs like a salmon.]] If this dragon can be slain, the dragons will be unable to reproduce.