Danny Glover was available for only eleven days for filming, so they wrote into Ahab's backstory that he was burned by a dragon, and could not allow his skin to be exposed to the sun. The few scenes where you see his face, were indoors, at night, or during a snowstorm. The other scenes were played by a double, with the lines read by Glover in a studio on his last day of availability.
The film's original title was "Dragon Fire".
This is a land-bound interpretation of "Moby Dick" with Danny Glover as Captain Ahab chasing an elusive white dragon in his tank, the Pequod.