Does D&D Next need to be a success for D&D to be a success?

[Wicht]

So, you cited half a dozen sword & sorcery films from the 80s, some very obscure (Ator?)

Also, Ator the Fighting Eagle obscure? I could see some people saying that... but a Dungeons and Dragons player who claims to have lived through the time period?!?

I do wonder what you were paying attention to in the 80's...

Now, Ator the Invincible II (aka Blademaster, aka The Cave Dwellers), I could understand not seeing (though MST3K should have remedied that) but I would think watching the 1st Ator was as much a part of the D&D experience in the 80's as knowing all the lines to The Holy Grail.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I love the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. But the source material predates D&D. Not to mention that there was a Hobbit and Lord of the Rings made earlier, so those are a wash. The D&D movies I will grant you as being post 80s. But that is balanced by the D&D cartoon of which there were many more and they were better. There was one new Conan compared to 2 Conans in the 80's... The Narnia movies are hardly D&Desque but I can cite the Narnia PBS series from days of yore. Eragon, okay. Also The Name of the King and 13th Warrior, sure (13th warrior I grant is a very good D&D film, albeit based on a 1976 novel). Pathfinder is a remake of a movie from 1987, so a wash. Beowulf... (which one?) Now some of these (Narnia) are stretching, but most of them are pretty well counter balanced by the many sword and sorcery films of the 80s which were much truer to the tropes and genre of the game.

I will concede the made for tv (sci-fi channel) point. But I still don't see that many actual sword and sorceries getting churned out today.

Well, you're citing Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit as predating D&D, but then so did Conan, as Robert E. Howard predated Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. The Hobbit came out in '37, Howard died in '36. And, you can't really compare a modestly successful cartoon like Lord of the Rings to the mega blockbuster multi-Oscar winning trilogy and call it a wash.

And, the Narnia movies features magic, evil witches, minotaurs, centaurs, gnomes, dwarves, fauns, etc. Many staples of D&D.

 

[TwoSix]

Also, Ator the Fighting Eagle obscure? I could see some people saying that... but a Dungeons and Dragons player who claims to have lived through the time period?!?

I can safely say that I've heard of all the movies you mentioned in your post, but I've never heard of Ator.

 

[Wicht]

Well, you're citing Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit as predating D&D, but then so did Conan, as Robert E. Howard predated Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. The Hobbit came out in '37, Howard died in '36. And, you can't really compare a modestly successful cartoon like Lord of the Rings to the mega blockbuster multi-Oscar winning trilogy and call it a wash.

And, the Narnia movies features magic, evil witches, minotaurs, centaurs, gnomes, dwarves, fauns, etc. Many staples of D&D.

I grant you there is a lot of Fantasy being made right now. But most of it has little or no relationship to Dungeons and Dragons in my opinion. YMMV. Narnia still does not strike me as owing anything to Dungeons and Dragons. Pan's Labyrinth and Photographing Fairies both had fairies in them also, but I don't think of either as being particularly D&Desque.

I will also grant the tremendous commercial success of The Lord of the Rings, which has led into a few other fantasy titles being made (success breeds success) but the first Conan film did the same thing, lest we forget...


That being said, one should still acknowledge that the eighties were a hey-day of the barbarian/fighter sword and sorcery fantasy genre in low budget film (and a few high budget). The Princess Bride, Ladyhawke, Excalibur, The Barbarians (starring the Barbarian Brothers), Yor, Hawk the Slayer, Clash of the Titans, The Dark Crystal, The Last Unicorn, Dragonslayer, Willow, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Krull, Legend, The Warrior and the Sorcerer, The Gate, The Neverending Story, Sword of the Valiant, Red Sonja, Big Trouble in Little China, Amazon Queen, The Company of Wolves, Labyrinth, Highlander, Erik the Viking, Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, plus those we have already mentioned: Conan, Conan the Destroyer, Ator the Fighting Eagle, The Cave Dwellers, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Beast Master, Death Stalker 1-4, and, lest we forget, Mazes and Monsters...

Many of these are rather notable movies and stack up very favorably against most things being made today...

 

[Wicht]

I can safely say that I've heard of all the movies you mentioned in your post, but I've never heard of Ator.

I am saddened for you. You should look it up. He fights one of the largest spider puppets to grace the big screen. (Though really, what were you guys watching in the 80's to miss these things?)

You can also easily find the MST3K treatment of the sequel The Cave Dwellers (if you have Amazon Prime you can stream it for free), but its... well lets just say that the original, while cheesy, is a far, far better movie. Though its worth watching just for the hang-gliding grenade dropping scene,... (Crow: You gotta be kidding me!)

The Ator series, a summation

 

[TwoSix]

I am saddened for you. You should look it up. He fights one of the largest spider puppets to grace the big screen. (Though really, what were you guys watching in the 80's to miss these things?)

Cartoons, mostly, since I was only 11 when the 80s ended. Cartoons like He-Man and She-Ra certainly played a role in the development of my fantasy preferences. I think of the movies you've listed above, I've seen about 6. The Neverending Story was certainly the most impactful one for me, although I remember Legend and Labyrinth fondly as well. And you left the Princess Bride off your list, which was also a pretty big deal.

I guess that lack of movie exposure, combined with the fact that I never read any S&S material until I was in college, probably explains why I've never felt S&S to have any D&D resonance. For me, D&D has always been a mix of Dragonlance, Final Fantasy, and a lot of anime.

 

[Wicht]

I would also add that I would not look at the last 15 years for films, as that's cheating, I would let each decade stand on its own...

The 1990s had some good fantasy films, though nothing like the output of the 80's. Kull, the 13th Warrior, Dragonheart, Quest for the Mighty Sword (Ator 4), Beastmaster 2, Neverending Story II and III, Army of Darkness, and Princess Mononoke are the main ones that come to mind. It was rather a lackluster decade for the genre, though anime began to come into its own...

The 2000's saw a major uptick in the genre with the 2001 release of the Lord of the Rings and I will admit that the genre has ticked along much better than it did in the 90s. But the 80s was still a rather stellar decade for the Sword and Sorcery schtick in films.

 

[Wicht]

Cartoons, mostly, since I was only 11 when the 80s ended.

You are excused then...

And you left the Princess Bride off your list, which was also a pretty big deal.

Ack! How did that happen. I thought it twice... fixed now.

I guess that lack of movie exposure, combined with the fact that I never read any S&S material until I was in college, probably explains why I've never felt S&S to have any D&D resonance. For me, D&D has always been a mix of Dragonlance, Final Fantasy, and a lot of anime.

You should really watch as many on that list as you can. Some are pretty bad (Ator, Deathstalker), but many of them are quite good considering their budget. Well over a dozen of them were actually major releases...

 

[TwoSix]

You should really watch as many on that list as you can. Some are pretty bad (Ator, Deathstalker), but many of them are quite good considering their budget. Well over a dozen of them were actually major releases...

Eh, I don't have enough time to watch recent movies, let alone old ones.

And honestly, dark and gritty has just never been my preferred fantasy flavor. I like my fantasy in full CGI Technicolor. There's probably just as much self-selection in my "seen" list as opposed to lack of exposure.

 

[pemerton]

I grant you there is a lot of Fantasy being made right now. But most of it has little or no relationship to Dungeons and Dragons in my opinion.

<snip>

the eighties were a hey-day of the barbarian/fighter sword and sorcery fantasy genre in low budget film (and a few high budget). The Princess Bride, Ladyhawke, Excalibur
<snip> Clash of the Titans, The Dark Crystal <snip> Time Bandits

Of the films you list, at least these ones are not sword and sorcery.

The Princess Bride is swashbuckling romance. Excalibur is Arthurian romance presented in a very tight thematic package. Clash of the Titans is Greek epic. The Dark Crystal is an epic quest. Time Bandits is a Monty Python romp. Ladyhawke is a romance too, and the Matthew Broderick character gets swept up in it in spite of his more prosaic initial motivations.

What they owe or don't owe to D&D I guess is a matter of speculation - but the Princess Bride has its origins in a book that predates the game (and also has very little fantasy in it), Excalibur's pre-D&D roots are obvious, and Terry Gilliams' love of the fantastic and the absurd, evident in Time Bandits, clearly predates D&D.