D&D Movie/TV Dungeons & Dragons 3 Movie Trailer

darthfrodo · Jun 26, 2012

Mr. Patient said:
It's tough to gauge just from the trailer, but it looks like they've once again managed to make a D&D movie that bears little relationship to the core D&D experience: a small, diverse band of characters exploring some underground environment or ruin. The second movie did this to some extent, at least.

There are already a million terrible generic fantasy films. Why make one called Dungeons & Dragons unless it represents the game as actually played? I don't want to see generic human bad guys, huge pitched battles, or love interests. I want to see five PCs fighting a displacer beast in a cave somewhere. I want to see the characters perform a full cavity search on their slain opponents to recover every last copper piece. I want to see the Shrine of the Kuo-toa or the Slave Pits of the Undercity. And I want to see the PCs bickering over minutiae.

Yes! Exactly! Except, will it be based on 3.5, Pathfinder, 4E or D&D Next? And should we allow Opportunity Attacks...

Mr. Patient · Jun 26, 2012

darthfrodo said:
And should we allow Opportunity Attacks...

That's where the bickering comes in.

Brom Blackforge · Jun 27, 2012

Someone mentioned Battleship and the contrast really struck me. Here we have two properties owned by Hasbro. The one with little or no built-in narrative gets the big-budget blockbuster treatment (and throws in aliens, which had nothing to do with the original game), while the one that is inherently all about telling a story has been relegated to low-budget, SyFy-movie/direct-to-DVD purgatory. Talk about stupid....

There are so many ways that a good D&D movie could be made, and so many Hollywood gamers who would probably be willing to be part of it (Vin Diesel as Regdar!), that it's just mind-boggling that they can't do any better than this.

Brom Blackforge · Jun 27, 2012

Someone also mentioned "Scourge of Worlds," the computer-animated interactive DVD from a few years back. It wasn't perfect, but I still think it's better than any other D&D-branded movie I've seen (and certainly better than this new one looks). Also, I appreciated that they set it in Greyhawk, I thought it did a good job of depicting D&D-style magic and D&D monsters, and I liked the way it brought Regdar, Lidda, and Mialee to life.

Warunsun · Jun 27, 2012

Klaus said:
As for Solomon Kane, I think you can order the UK DVD from Amazon.

That is an idea. However, we Americans would have to order it on Blu-Ray disc. A UK DVD will not play here. Most Blu-Ray discs aren't regionally coded where the majority of DVDs are plus the PAL vs. NTSC issue on DVD. HD is HD everywhere isn't it? Wonder how much they would charge in shipping...

Edit:
Just checked and the English Blu-Ray is regionally coded. Bummer. Most blu-ray movies aren't coded but some are. Seems to be a lot of counterfit looking copies of this movie on Amazon.com listed as imports. I wonder if any of them are legit.

Klaus · Jun 27, 2012

Warunsun said:
That is an idea. However, we Americans would have to order it on Blu-Ray disc. A UK DVD will not play here. Most Blu-Ray discs aren't regionally coded where the majority of DVDs are plus the PAL vs. NTSC issue on DVD. HD is HD everywhere isn't it? Wonder how much they would charge in shipping...

Edit:
Just checked and the English Blu-Ray is regionally coded. Bummer. Most blu-ray movies aren't coded but some are. Seems to be a lot of counterfit looking copies of this movie on Amazon.com listed as imports. I wonder if any of them are legit.

Well, it is out on DVD in Brazil.

And there are area-free DVD players available, IIRC.

Hussar · Jun 28, 2012

What's even more mind buggeringly bizarre, is that other Hasbro games are going to get big budget treatments in the near future, including My Little Pony and RISK!!!!

Obviously this is all tied up in someone screwing the pooch with the movie rights.

Zaran · Jun 29, 2012

Remember that contest WotC did to get a part in the movie? I think the main actors were all the winners. That way they didn't have to pay them and put the 100 bucks they had for a budget into the special effects.

hopeless · Jul 7, 2012

Book of Vile.... I'm not sure Darkness really deserves that comparison!

Zaran said:
Remember that contest WotC did to get a part in the movie? I think the main actors were all the winners. That way they didn't have to pay them and put the 100 bucks they had for a budget into the special effects.

That would answer a lot of questions!

So why was it so late being released?

GameDaddy · Jul 8, 2012

This is a movie based on the book by Monte Cook?

...and none of the filmmakers considered asking him to consult on it?

I liked the first movie, it kept that campy flavor that was unique to early D&D, didn't really like the second though... took itself way too seriously.

This... looks terrible. There's way better home produced Youtube videos.