D&D Movie/TV (Yet another) D&D Movie Speculation thread.

Jester David · Dec 22, 2018

dave2008 said:
I don't know, the LotR movies made a lot of money, but the were, in total, kinda meh IMO. I don't think they were great movies or great performances. It seems entirely reasonable I think to make a D&D movie of that quality.

Ha!
The Lord of the Rings films were made with several YEARS of preproduction, designing small elements and planning the world. They were as impressive as they were because it was a labour of love to get beloved books onto the screen.

A D&D movie will almost certainly be a commercial ploy. It's just to make money. The director will be making the film for a paycheque and not to adapt a beloved story they're personally attached to.
Expect the result to be much more like the Hobbit. Only more rushed and with a less skilled director and less well designed locations.

dave2008 said:
A movie can be straight without being 'high art." I think there is as much danger in making a movie a bit tongue-in cheek as there is playing it straight. The import part is that it is good (good writing, good production, good acting, good editing, etc.), not whether or not it is humorous or serious. I think both options can work and both can fail.

There's no shortage of super serious fantasy films out there already:
[video=youtube_share;bg_t3y3zoMQ]https://youtu.be/bg_t3y3zoMQ[/video]

[video=youtube_share;gyXP2sFOViQ]https://youtu.be/gyXP2sFOViQ[/video]

[video=youtube_share;va3CQiVSfJY]https://youtu.be/va3CQiVSfJY[/video]

[video=youtube_share;XvdIQXyOOxI]https://youtu.be/XvdIQXyOOxI[/video]

Slightly better SFX and lighting won't make the fantasy elements less ridiculous and cheesy. It won't make the proper nouns and weird races any less absurd. And it won't make the inherent concept of basing a film on a game any less inherently silly than Battleship or Ouija.

Jester David · Dec 22, 2018

dave2008 said:
Serious was not the right word, just straight (as in not humorous). About 90% of the time I've played D&D it has been straight, humor has rarely been apart of our games in the past 30 years or so. So, to me, D&D isn't particularly humorous either.

I don't make my campaigns goofy. I play things generally pretty straight as a DM. No NPCs will silly names or ridiculous plots or silly quests.
That doesn't mean the games are particularly serious as my players joke around, quote movies, or make wiseass remarks to the villains. And it doesn't mean accidental comedy doesn't occur as the dice betray the PCs at inopportune times leading to the most ridiculous of scenes.

As the meme goes:

Enevhar Aldarion · Dec 22, 2018

I hope they are not stupid enough to try and base the movie on the game itself, rather than one of the worlds the game uses. I do not want there to be even a hint of actual game mechanics in the story or dialogue. They do not even need to use class names, as the characters should be clear for who is what. The old "show, don't tell" thing.

Parmandur · Dec 22, 2018

dave2008 said:
Serious was not the right word, just straight (as in not humorous). About 90% of the time I've played D&D it has been straight, humor has rarely been apart of our games in the past 30 years or so. So, to me, D&D isn't particularly humorous either.

I have a difficult time relating to that, as I've rarely played D&D sober, let alone without humor.

Parmandur · Dec 22, 2018

Jester David said:
The joke of the other continents being uninteresting and not the centre of the world would have worked without using terms like "savage" or implying the inhabitants are inhuman

The in-fiction author is a provincial Oerdian bigot, that Gygax pretty clearly means to be an unreliable narrator.

Jester David · Dec 22, 2018

Parmandur said:
The in-fiction author is a provincial Oerdian bigot, that Gygax pretty clearly means to be an unreliable narrator.

Yes. I get that.
That that would have worked just as well without referring to people as "savages" or using such pejoratives as "tribesmen" and not referring to such people as being "uncivilised".
But Gary didn't know this sort of thing.
After all, he was someone who thought "Oriental Adventures" would be a good name for a book. in 1985.

Parmandur · Dec 22, 2018

Jester David said:
Yes. I get that.
That that would have worked just as well without referring to people as "savages" or using such pejoratives as "tribesmen" and not referring to such people as being "uncivilised".
But Gary didn't know this sort of thing.
After all, he was someone who thought "Oriental Adventures" would be a good name for a book. in 1985.

I mean, the rather non-conservative WotC thought it would be a good name for a book in 2001, and that was written by one of their wokier writers in the extremely cosmopolitan Seattle environment rather than whitebread rural Wisconsin, so that's hardly something we can hold against Gary uniquely.

Gygax was a rough writer given to purple prose and ham-fisted obviousness. The over-the-top bigotry of his Medieval scholar stand-in is one example of this.

The Drow thing seems largely to have originated with an ink inversion of a standard Elf: what is black on the Elf ink drawing becomes white space, what is white space becomes black ink. A bit of 70's psychedelia, more than any racist statement.

My recommendation for the movies would be to not touch the Drow topic, as there is plenty of space to avoid it. if they must come up, make non-Drow Elf characters obviously African in features (which has D&D precedent anyway). The issue is less that they are black, though, and more the (probably unintentional) echo of the "Mark of Cain" bit from racist lore in regards to Lolth, which seems hard to get around.

LuisCarlos17f · Dec 22, 2018

Or we can give a story about the heroes helpe good drows who are being persecuted in the evil empire rule by the evil drow deities. Then the good drows are an minority suffering intolerance and persecution.

Parmandur · Dec 22, 2018

LuisCarlos17f said:
Or we can give a story about the heroes helpe good drows who are being persecuted in the evil empire rule by the evil drow deities. Then the good drows are an minority suffering intolerance and persecution.

Given that they are a player race in the game, and what ground has been laid in sundry adventure books, very doable. I wouldn't recommend going full Drow as a start, though: still problematic.

dave2008 · Dec 22, 2018

Parmandur said:
My recommendation for the movies would be to not touch the Drow topic, as there is plenty of space to avoid it.

I agree completely. There is no need to use the Drow at all. Definitely not worth it in an introductory movie.

D&D Movie/TV (Yet another) D&D Movie Speculation thread.

Jester David

Hero

Jester David

Hero

Enevhar Aldarion

Hero

Parmandur

Book-Friend

Parmandur

Book-Friend

Jester David

Hero

Parmandur

Book-Friend

LuisCarlos17f

Legend

Parmandur

Book-Friend

dave2008

Legend

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