D&D: Cartoon vs. Movie

[ExploderWizard]

The cartoon was fun to watch and kind of cute, but not super great.

The movie was a train wreck. D&D was slapped on to a bad fantasy movie. The script was proof that the writer didn't understand what D&D was all about. It was fine example of how not to run a campaign and let one character hog the spotlight.

The 2nd movie was suprisingly better than the first. It was made for TV but at least it centered around a group of PC's having an adventure. Lipstick dude could have been left out and it would have been even better.

 

[Dragonbait]

ooftah

The cartoons varied from "entertaining" to "typical 70's and 80's animated drek"

The first D&D movie was terrible on so many levels (Hey, I got a great idea! Let's just remove the explanation of the plot, the character's motives, and heck, let's remove the scene where the character's introduce themselves. None of those are important!)

The second movie was bad, but.. Okay..? It was better than the first and better than most movies that one would see on the Sci-Fi network.

 

[Masquerade]

I enjoyed the first movie. The second movie, not so much.

But I love the cartoon!

 

[Fifth Element]

The series benefits from rose-coloured glasses for me. The first movie was terrible. The second was better, and not bad for a direct-to-video thing.

 

[The_Gneech]

First Movie: Awful. Not even good from a fanboyism POV.

Second Movie: Weak, but at least they got the D&D part right.

Cartoon Series: Been way too long. My guess is that it was neater than anything else going at the time, which is to say it was fairly weak but miles ahead of anything else.

-The Gneech

 

[avin]

You gotta be kidding D&D cartoon is reprised until today here in Brazil. They call it "Caverna do Dragão" and people had no clue what D&D is

 

[Nebulous]

This thread has got me thinking that they SHOULD remake the old D&D cartoon! Really, with a decent script and animation, not the hackjob that was the Dragonlance movie. Man, if only Dreamworks or Pixar would jump on that...

 

[malraux]

This thread has got me thinking that they SHOULD remake the old D&D cartoon! Really, with a decent script and animation, not the hackjob that was the Dragonlance movie. Man, if only Dreamworks or Pixar would jump on that...

I could kinda dig either an Eberron based cartoon, or a classic module based cartoon. Either of those might work as an episodic but ongoing story line.

 

[Nebulous]

I could kinda dig either an Eberron based cartoon, or a classic module based cartoon. Either of those might work as an episodic but ongoing story line.

I guess i was thinking of a theatrical release, but yeah, a new serial cartoon would be just as welcome. The setting itself doesn't really matter to me, so long as it gets made.

 

[malraux]

I guess i was thinking of a theatrical release, but yeah, a new serial cartoon would be just as welcome. The setting itself doesn't really matter to me, so long as it gets made.

I think that for real story development these days, tv is where its at. For a movie, you've gotta think that 30% of it will be badly written exposition explaining the political world, how magic works, who the races are, etc. A tv series can draw that out and do a much better job of showing rather than telling. I'm sure a great movie writer could avoid those problems, but realistically, you aren't going to get the absolute best writing a DnD cartoon movie.