You know, if I were setting out to make a D&D movie, the first rule would be this: Make it funny.
I don't mean that it would be a pure comedy. I'm thinking something more along the lines of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which is ultimately a serious (indeed, pretty freakin' grim) show, but isn't afraid to tell a lot of jokes and poke fun at its own cliches. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in telling a story is to take yourself too seriously, and that goes double in fantasy, where writers tend to assume that because everything is SO FREAKIN' EPIC and THE FATE OF THE WORLD IS AT STAKE, the audience will hang breathlessly on every word. But since epic tales are a dime a dozen and the fate of the world is at stake in every single one of them, you have to earn the audience's engagement. And one way to do that, oddly enough, is to make them laugh.
This is something most DMs learn very fast. No matter how dramatic and harrowing and suspenseful you think your story is, your players are going to use you as the straight man while they quote Monty Python, so just roll with it. A D&D movie should learn the same lesson. Just the fact that you've got elves and dwarves and halflings is going to make your movie come across as a rip-off of "Lord of the Rings"--which it is; ripping off Tolkien is what Gygax and Arneson did back in the day, and you're following in their footsteps--so what are you going to make it? A lame imitation by a pretentious hack trying to snarfle up some of Peter Jackson's profits? Or a cheeky riff on Jackson and Tolkien that pays homage to their accomplishments while tweaking them for their flaws?
I don't mean that it would be a pure comedy. I'm thinking something more along the lines of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which is ultimately a serious (indeed, pretty freakin' grim) show, but isn't afraid to tell a lot of jokes and poke fun at its own cliches. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in telling a story is to take yourself too seriously, and that goes double in fantasy, where writers tend to assume that because everything is SO FREAKIN' EPIC and THE FATE OF THE WORLD IS AT STAKE, the audience will hang breathlessly on every word. But since epic tales are a dime a dozen and the fate of the world is at stake in every single one of them, you have to earn the audience's engagement. And one way to do that, oddly enough, is to make them laugh.
This is something most DMs learn very fast. No matter how dramatic and harrowing and suspenseful you think your story is, your players are going to use you as the straight man while they quote Monty Python, so just roll with it. A D&D movie should learn the same lesson. Just the fact that you've got elves and dwarves and halflings is going to make your movie come across as a rip-off of "Lord of the Rings"--which it is; ripping off Tolkien is what Gygax and Arneson did back in the day, and you're following in their footsteps--so what are you going to make it? A lame imitation by a pretentious hack trying to snarfle up some of Peter Jackson's profits? Or a cheeky riff on Jackson and Tolkien that pays homage to their accomplishments while tweaking them for their flaws?
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