D&D Movie/TV D&D Movie - Wild Speculation and Poll

What do you expect/hope to see in the Setting, Tone and Framing of the upcoming D&D Movie? (Pick 3)

  • Setting - Forgotten Realms

    Votes: 50 53.8%
  • Setting - Eberron

    Votes: 4 4.3%
  • Setting - Dragonlance

    Votes: 4 4.3%
  • Setting - Homebrew/Unique

    Votes: 25 26.9%
  • Setting - Other (Specify)

    Votes: 8 8.6%
  • Tone - Grimdark

    Votes: 3 3.2%
  • Tone - Serious Fantasy (LotR)

    Votes: 21 22.6%
  • Tone - Lighthearted Fantasy

    Votes: 41 44.1%
  • Tone - Action Comedy

    Votes: 26 28.0%
  • Tone - Other (Specify)

    Votes: 4 4.3%
  • Framing - In Universe Storyteller

    Votes: 24 25.8%
  • Framing - Gaming Table

    Votes: 14 15.1%
  • Framing - Sucked into the game

    Votes: 4 4.3%
  • Framing - No Frame

    Votes: 35 37.6%
  • Framing - Other

    Votes: 2 2.2%

I saw this listing Dave Arneson as a writer, but thinking the (game) part is saying he wrote the game the movie is based off of. Not sure what that means for Gary Gygax, or Blackmoor, or any talking with Dave about the movie.

Directors:​

John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Writers:​

Dave Arneson (game), John Francis Daley (screenplay) | 2 more credits »

Stars:​

Regé-Jean Page, Chris Pine, Sophia Lillis | See full cast & crew »

That is also IMDB, where anyone with a login can go and add and remove and edit stuff. Not much different than Wikipedia. Maybe someone with an account there should go and add Gary's name to it.
 

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Dausuul

Legend
The Princess Bride doesn't have stakes. No one is sitting on the edge of their seats worried about the characters. It's a comedy - people enjoy it because it makes them laugh, not for the adrenaline rush.
TPB absolutely has stakes. If those stakes didn't resonate with you, that's okay (there are plenty of Very Serious Movies whose stakes do not resonate with me one little bit), but that doesn't mean it has none.

TPB is a lighthearted adventure movie in the same vein as "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Indiana Jones." It's a bit further toward the comedy end of the spectrum than those two, but it is nowhere near a straight-up comedy like "Spaceballs" or "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
 

Dausuul

Legend
Well he passed away over a decade ago, so he's certainly not writing the movie!
There could be a screenplay that Arneson wrote in secret, discovered posthumously, that turned out to be just what the producer was looking for.

I feel a bit doubtful that this is in fact the case. But maybe that's the frame story! :)

Another, slightly less wild, possibility is that the plot is based on a module Arneson wrote. Temple of the Frog?
 

OB1

Jedi Master
I saw this listing Dave Arneson as a writer, but thinking the (game) part is saying he wrote the game the movie is based off of. Not sure what that means for Gary Gygax, or Blackmoor, or any talking with Dave about the movie.

Directors:​

John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Writers:​

Dave Arneson (game), John Francis Daley (screenplay) | 2 more credits »

Stars:​

Regé-Jean Page, Chris Pine, Sophia Lillis | See full cast & crew »
Gygax is also listed under writers, also with the (game) parenthetical next to it if to click on the "2 more credits". They are being listed because they wrote the source material that the film is based on, not because this is based on a script they wrote.
 

Dausuul

Legend
Gygax is also listed under writers, also with the (game) parenthetical next to it if to click on the "2 more credits". They are being listed because they wrote the source material that the film is based on, not because this is based on a script they wrote.
Well, yes, that's the obvious logical explanation. But it's also boring, and the title of this thread is "Wild Speculation," so I'm sticking with my "secret posthumous script" angle.
 


OB1

Jedi Master
Well, yes, that's the obvious logical explanation. But it's also boring, and the title of this thread is "Wild Speculation," so I'm sticking with my "secret posthumous script" angle.
Well then let's take it one step further and make it a full meta-circle!

- Daley and Goldstein received a "secret posthumous script" from Gygax and Anderson

- The movie is about a group of actors who play D&D after their shoot

- Whose characters go on an epic quest as seen in the film

- And end the quest in the Outer Planes, where they tell Gygax and Arneson the story of their adventure

- Mid credits scene - Gygax and Arneson write down the story on a scroll and send it through a Gate to Daley and Goldstein in the real world.

Bonus idea: Daley and Goldstein get the script by visiting Gygax and Arneson in their home in the Outer Planes.
 

TPB absolutely has stakes. If those stakes didn't resonate with you, that's okay (there are plenty of Very Serious Movies whose stakes do not resonate with me one little bit), but that doesn't mean it has none.

TPB is a lighthearted adventure movie in the same vein as "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Indiana Jones." It's a bit further toward the comedy end of the spectrum than those two, but it is nowhere near a straight-up comedy like "Spaceballs" or "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
The difference is, the characters in Pirates and Indiana Jones are real, at least within the fiction of the movie. The only real characters in TPB are a little boy and his grandpa, and they are never in any danger. If anything bad happens to anyone grandpa can just change it.

That makes it much closer to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
 



There are so many things about the script that just don't square up. That Gygax approved of it and praised it so, despite it being so far afield from D&D (while at the same time blasting Conan the Barbarian). And that James Goldman, the writer of the amazing Lion in Winter (well worth watching if you haven't) and the darkly thoughtful Robin and Marian created such a simplistic piece of nonsense.

Uff - that reads like a really really bad script. And the problem is not the Frame-Story ^^
 

ART!

Deluxe Unhuman
There are so many things about the script that just don't square up. That Gygax approved of it and praised it so, despite it being so far afield from D&D (while at the same time blasting Conan the Barbarian). And that James Goldman, the writer of the amazing Lion in Winter (well worth watching if you haven't) and the darkly thoughtful Robin and Marian created such a simplistic piece of nonsense.
Stan Lee oversaw the creation of some pretty terrible/inaccurate Marvel adaptations to tv in the '70s. I'm sure the history of media adaptations is full of the creative forces behind successful IPs being adapted with full consultation of the creator into terrible and/or far-afield adaptations. I'm not sure what causes this. Probably studio/committee interference.
 

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
The difference is, the characters in Pirates and Indiana Jones are real, at least within the fiction of the movie. The only real characters in TPB are a little boy and his grandpa, and they are never in any danger. If anything bad happens to anyone grandpa can just change it.

That makes it much closer to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Not to anyone just enjoying the movie rather than nitpicking it in order to have a hot take.
 


ART!

Deluxe Unhuman
Different people are able to suspend their disbelief more readily or less readily, and in different ways. The story within a story in TPB isn't inherently less capable of engaging the viewer just because it's overtly a story being told to a kid - it just depends on the viewer.
 

Well if one were to look into it further there already is a d&d movie out there and it is quite good as it was. It brought together a group of hero's of the main four races elf, human, dwarf, and halfling. They basically made it as an adventure in the mind if the characters and from a dms perspective it was kind of how I see a session for a campaign could go. The story building and character development were quite well done as well
 



OB1

Jedi Master
I enjoyed The Princess Bride, I enjoyed Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Because they where funny, not because they had stakes.
I wonder if we are using different definitions of the word "stakes". Because funny relies on communicating the stakes of the scene to produce the emotional response of laughter just as much as a drama does to make you cry or an action story does to get you to the edge of your seat.
 

I wonder if we are using different definitions of the word "stakes". Because funny relies on communicating the stakes of the scene to produce the emotional response of laughter just as much as a drama does to make you cry or an action story does to get you to the edge of your seat.
I want.... a shrubbery!
 

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