When the frozen remains of an unknown creature are discovered in the Carpathian Mountains, Tanner and two colleagues from the museum undertake the task of examining the specimen to try to save his reputation.

Jack Tanner, an American paleontologist working for the Natural History Museum in London, suggests the theory that a carbonised Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton on display was killed by a prehistoric dragon, causing him to believe that the legends were more than myth.

As viewed in a flashback, Tanner's theory is proven true, as said Tyrannosaurus battles a female dragon in the Cretaceous but is mortally wounded.

The female, with two legs and two wings, dies from her wounds, forcing her son to survive on his own, escaping an aggressive male dragon by learning how to fly for the first time.

The museum is contacted by Romanian authorities, who discovered the alleged corpse of a dragon in the Carpathian Mountains, along with many carbonised human bodies from the 15th century.

The scientists are baffled by the corpse, discovering that despite being 900 pounds (410 kg), it was capable of both flight and breathing fire by storing bacteria and hydrogen inside its body, like the prehistoric dragon.

The Scotsman opined that The Last Dragon's computer graphics made it "awesome", but ultimately the show gave the feeling of conveying the message "Do not believe this slice of old hokum" to the viewer.

[2] According to The New York Times "it's easy to forget that [the film] isn't a serious documentary" after the fiction disclaimer at the beginning, judging the computer graphics to be well made, sometimes beautiful, but not impressive "to the point of wonder".