Your ideal D&D movie/TV show?

[NewJeffCT]

well, the Lord of the Rings series is pretty much the perfect D&D movie. You have a mixed class (ranger, fighter, rogue, wizard) and mixed race adventuring party (halflings, an elf, a dwarf and humans). The party starts out at lower levels, but becomes more proficient over time (the hobbits in The Scouring of the Shire). The journey over many miles through different terrain on an epic quest to save the world from the ultimate evil, defeating various foes (orcs, goblins, balrogs, gollum, nazgul, etc) and avoiding traps along the way.

Maybe some of the popular knock offs of Lord of the Rings could work well as a D&D movie - I remember liking The Sword of Shannara when I was in middle school. Maybe some of the Raymond Feist Riftwar books, which I think are based on some of his D&D campaigns? (or, was rumored to be years back...)

I haven't done a lot of fantasy reading over the past decade, other than George R.R. Martin, so my memory could be fuzzy.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I think a Drizzt series of movies would easily have commercial success outside of the gaming community.

 

[Quickleaf]

A prequel series about Snails from the Dungeons and Dragons movie would be pure gold.

In which all his goofy white sidekick buddies are ignominiously killed by crappy CGI monsters? Heck yeah!

When I followed the reviews for the first IDW D&D comic, there was a common feeling that where it most felt like D&D was the inter-party dynamics, the banter, good-natured ribbing, the "we come from wildly divergent backgrounds but must work together" vibe.

To me that screams TV series, one making fun if it's own genre conventions.

 

[Thanael]

Maybe one of Paul Kemp's novel adaptations of a classic D&D module would work.

You mean Paul Kidd.

Though I'm a Greyhawk fan and I even like Kidd's novels for the fun read they were, I would prefer Paul Kemps novels to be adapted in a non-cartoon series...

 

[Thanael]

I'd like to see an actual series about gamers playing a pen and paper RPG. So there lives around the table and their characters in the world.

Gah, no. There are too many of these movies around and none ever really were good.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I think a Drizzt series of movies would easily have commercial success outside of the gaming community.

As much as I'd love to see a Vin Diesel-type kick orc ass on the big screen*, there's one big problem with this: black-out is illegal in the US, and even a really black actor would have to wear black-out to be as black as a drow. Come to think of it, this is a problem for any live action production involving drow.

*Oh wait, that pretty much already happened:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wazFS6cbGE"]Oh wait, that pretty much already happened.[/ame]

 

[delericho]

A cartoon series, with much the same look and feel (and tone) as the "Justice League Unlimited" cartoon of a few years ago - a fairly small core cast of characters, but a much wider group of bit players (allowing some shifting of roles). Set it in a classic sandbox-style campaign, allowing the adventurers to go off on various episode-long adventures, but have a season-long metaplot bubbling along as we go.

I would probably go for a fairly vanilla setting - Nerath or Forgotten Realms, rather than Eberron or Dark Sun. And, actually, I'd probably avoid FR, because that's probably a license you want to protect in case the show bombs.

 

[Dykstrav]

As much as I'd love to see a Vin Diesel-type kick orc ass on the big screen*, there's one big problem with this: black-out is illegal in the US, and even a really black actor would have to wear black-out to be as black as a drow. Come to think of it, this is a problem for any live action production involving drow.

Sorry to de-rail the thread a bit...

Do you mean blackface? Did a state somewhere make appearing in blackface illegal? Last I heard, appearing in blackface was still considered protected under free speech laws--blackface performers have appeared in American-made movies within the last decade (almost always in parody of minstrel shows). It wouldn't surprise me to hear that there's some sort of municipal ordinances or something that specifically address it, but I hadn't heard about that. Could you tell me where you got this information?

 

[TarionzCousin]

Your ideal D&D movie/TV show?

Monica Bellucci running, jumping, and otherwise exercising... shown in slow motion... and wearing as little clothing as legally possible.

... um, doing D&D things. Sure. Whatever.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Do you mean blackface? Did a state somewhere make appearing in blackface illegal? Last I heard, appearing in blackface was still considered protected under free speech laws--blackface performers have appeared in American-made movies within the last decade (almost always in parody of minstrel shows). It wouldn't surprise me to hear that there's some sort of municipal ordinances or something that specifically address it, but I hadn't heard about that. Could you tell me where you got this information?

My best friend is an actor; it's entirely possible that I'm forgetting some important detail that he told me on the topic of blackface.