Escape to the Movies: Dungeons & Dragons

[JMeganSnow]

Oh, MovieBob, every fantasy adventure movie EVER MADE is the D&D Movie! Us tabletop gamers don't need the Official D&D logo on it-- that logo just strikes us as pandering because you can't have just ONE movie about a game that lets you tell ANY kind of story you like!

It might be cool to see a D&D tv series though, kind of like the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone, where they did a LOT of little stories of all varieties.

 

[peter337]

Coh, I love Krull. One of my favourite films ever.

 

[droppingpenny]

Why is Moviebob against fur bikinis on black people, is he racist or something?

 

[lucidofdreams]

I always looked at the two D&D movies in this way. The first movie was what most of our game nights really sounded like. (be hones all of you) And the second film is how we all hoped our games would really turn out.

 

[Grounogeos]

You'd think they could at least put out a decent movie based on the Drizzt novels by now...

 

[Doom972]

There are two good D&D movies: The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness rising.
You don't have to wait for Hollywood to do things properly.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Bob never heard of the Dragonlance movie since it wasn't mentioned anywhere but Dragonlance fansites.

 

[Arronax]

I always wondered why they didn´t make a movie about everybodies favorite emo-elf. The characters are semi relatable and the action is good, probably something for everyone in there.

If you guys haven´t seen the Dragonlance animated movie that was released a few days back you should try and find it. Even though the graphics were closer to 90s graphics than 00 it was still Dragonlance and if you liked the story it´s still there with the awesome evil cleric.

Highfive to the poster(s) before me!

 

[Johnny Cain]

There's actually another movie that didn't come up here. Granted Bob may or may not have heard about it.

"Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight"

An animated film combining cut-frame animation with 3D rendering. Birthed from the series of novels by the same name, it's pretty much the most despised of the D&D films I've seen so far.
Like all of them it is actually a guilty pleasure.

Particularly 'Wrath of the Dragon God', for some reason I just love that film. The SyFy channel leaves a distinctive marks on the look and effects of all it's products, and it's just so charming.

 

[DTWolfwood]

wait wtf, how do you make a movie out of Battleship? O.O

Presumably, you take ANY script set around a battleship and put the "BATTLESHIP" logo on the title screen

In the case of this one, it's about The Navy fighting water-oriented aliens.

and the captain/admiral will yell "They've Sunk my Battleship!" at some point in the movie. They pretty much have to! unless they are actually trying to make a serious movie <.<

 

[bojac6]

Why is that wrong? Why do we want a D&D movie? It's just as dump as a Battleship movie or a Risk movie or any other game. You don't have a story in D&D, it's a set of rules. Sure you could make adaptions of a module or some story from the Forgotten Realms or something, but then it isn't just D&D is it, it's an adaption of a story.

The beauty of D&D is that there isn't a story. It's that your world, be you the GM or the players, is, ultimately, completely unique to that campaign. No other game, even if it's with all the same people, will exist in the same place with all the same things happening. It's not something that can be done in film. Hell, it's not something that can be done in a video game. Why do we want that made into a movie?

Give me decent original fantasy. Have orcs and dragons and rangers and all those archetypes, but make it something new and fresh. Let's stop it with the game adaptions completely.

Also, another Riddick movie? Really? Dare I hope? I have dreamed of this day.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

SNIP

Three FANTASTIC D&D movies came out back from 2001-2003. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The novels inspired about 90% of the flavor in D&D sourcebooks, and therefore could be considered D&D movies. You have the basic classes and everything at various points, though it's a bit low on magic.

Yes, but by that logic Tron could be considered a World of Warcraft movie... There both based on people who get stuck in computer programs with no apparent reason & completely illogical goals & bossess with respawn timers...

You want a good D&D movie just watch "Gamers: Dorkness Rising."

-M

What? Tron has virtually nothing to do with the setting and atmosphere of WoW. Lord of the Rings, however, inspired the majority of the tropes used in D&D (Orcs spring to mind, as do rangers, enchanted rings, etc). In fact, I'd almost argue that a WoW themed movie would be more of a D&D film than a Tron rip-off.

 

[Splitfire3]

I kinda lost my vague interests for D&D after seeing that horrible, horrible show "I hit it with my axe"......... its depressing....

 

[Arronax]

Because WotC knows actual D&D fans would burn the WotC corporate-offices to the ground if they did that.

You and I both know the average gamer is so lazy and unenthusiastic about the supposed "cause" you are indirectly pointing at that most of them would go see the movie, gripe(or not) about it, then go flame a couple of threads and then love it when they release the directors cut with the extra footage.

Not to mention the off chance that it might bring those twilight loonies over to wotc and thats money in the bank.

Other than that I can totally picture you and one other guy getting arrested for attempted arson .

 

[littlerudi08107]

The problem with a D&D movie is that a lot of the D&D universe is very "out there." As far as I'm concerned the best D&D movie ever made was The Gamers, and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.

 

[littlerudi08107]

To be fair, they made a movie out of Clue with Tim Curry and it was awesome. A shame no one ever bothers to mention that.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I seem to be the opposite of Bob here. I love math. It is, in fact, the systems in pen and paper games that fascinate me. The sword and sorcery nonsense, the roleplaying, the stories - these are things I could live without. Indeed, the very idea of roleplaying is repulsive to me on some level, enough that, in spite of the fact that I own sufficient rulebooks to conceivably play any of a dozen different pen and paper games, I have never actually sought out a group to pursue the hobby with.

That isn't to say I have anything against roleplaying or people that partake in such things, but rather that I have absolutely no ability to inhabit a persona other than my own. I simply cannot, for some reason, legitimately roleplay and instead, when I play games where I have the option, create a character that best represents my own self-image projected into the universe. It is for this reason that I cannot play a game like Mass Effect as a renegade as so many of the choices are so far removed from what I would think sensible at the moment or in the grander scheme that, were I to choose them, I would then think myself an idiot.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

You explained it yourself. There Isn't a plot. The only thing a film would be able to share is the name and perhaps the lore. That's not really mouth watering for a producer. And I don't blame them. D&D has got to be one of the worst ideas for a film... ever.

That first film you talked about is probably about as good as it could possibly be. For it to actually be D&D and not just some fantasy romp. It needs all the shitty rules and god awful scenarios. They don't make good stories because they are bad stories.

I wouldn't go watch a D&D film.

I think I have to disagree here. D&D is, above all else, a series of systems that allow one to simulate any number of fantastical activities. There is a system for climbing a wall, a system for hitting someone with a sword, a system for determining if one is suitably persuasive in a conversation and so forth. Those systems, generally speaking, define a basic world where there are a multitude of sentient humanoid races, magic, monsters of various flavors and a (generally) feudal social structure. You could take virtually any idea for a fantasy epic and translate it into the D&D system.

The real problem, I would think, is that the D&D brand itself has a negative connotation. The films have (according to the general trend of posts here) been either legitimately awful, or, at their best, so bad that they become entertaining. That means you'd face an uphill battle marketing a D&D film to the people who would be best suited to watch it. With people who do not play the game, you instead are forced to contend with the unmistakable stench of nerd associated with the system which would almost certainly be sufficient cause for most to ignore the movie entirely.

 

[RTR]

Hmmm...
Is it wrong if I say that I think the Acrobat is kinda cute?

 

[RTR]

I thought the acrobat was kinda cute. Is that wrong?