Dragonlance Movie... Opinions?

[Boss]

So I picked up the new Dragonlance DVD last night and watched it. I felt that overall it was okay. They stayed pretty true to the book as far as I could remember (my books disappeared long ago) and I have to say that Keifer Sutherland as the voice of Raistlin was right on in my opinion. The dislikes was that it was animated, almost in the style of the old cartoon series I felt at times, and the Caramon character was... I don't know. I just didn't care much for the character. Oh yes, I also did not like the fact that all the draconians and dragons were 3-D rather than animated. Pick one style or the other please.

Overall, I'd give it a 6 out of 10.

What did you think?

 

[Darkwolf71]

I think you were too generous.

I also think there's a thread about it in the Media Lounge.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=215838

 

[yonagi]

3 out of 10 for me. horrible animation and, sadly, cardboard voice actors. i was left wondering how much of a budget they had and if most of it went to pay for big names ... i still bought it to add to my collection of poorly executed d&d films, of which i actually enjoyed the first. with the nameless and random dwarf.

 

[jdrakeh]

3 out of 10 for me. horrible animation and, sadly, cardboard voice actors. i was left wondering how much of a budget they had and if most of it went to pay for big names ... i still bought it to add to my collection of poorly executed d&d films, of which i actually enjoyed the first. with the nameless and random dwarf.

If it helps, early drafts of Krull were associated with D&D. While it's not the greatest movie, I still think it stands head and shoulders above the recent D&D features (and it has achieved a cult status). So, in that regard, at least we have one half-way entertaining movie to point to when people ask why all D&D movies are total ass.

 

[DaveMage]

I've watched about 2/3 of it so far, and, yeah, the animation combined with CGI is sucky.

 

[Goblinoid Games]

I more-or-less liked it. I thought there were times when the CGI was ok, like when Takhisis first makes an appearance, but pretty much every scene with the draconians sucked. I think they could have done better with it to make it blend.

Over all, though, I'd watch a second one.

 

[Dragonhelm]

The really good news is that the soundtrack, which Tracy Hickman refers to as "Oscar-worthy," will be made available for purchase. So there's some cool gaming music on the horizon.

Oh, and the best Special Thanks section EVER! Not that I'm biased...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I had no idea such a thing existed!

 

[smootrk]

it was nice to revisit the story, but the production was crap otherwise. Animation, Dialog and other sound, Voice acting was poor... just crap.

WotC should license to an Anime Company that already produces decent works... (not to imply that it should have Anime styling, but the companies know how to produce decent cartoons).

 

[Jack99]

Worst crap I have seen in a long time. 0/10 and that's being generous. If I was an American, I would already have contacted my lawyer to find out if it would be possible to sue them for something.

Seriously, stay away from it.

 

[Asmor]

I wasn't expecting very much, and I was still disappointed. I liked the animation style, very clean and colorful, but the animation was very choppy. I will say that they integrated the CGI and cel animation better than I would have expected.

The dialogue... terrible. The acting... mediocre at best. The story... terrible.

The best thing I can say about it is that it's not so bad that you can't bear to watch it... barely.

 

[Sitara]

How was raistlin portrayed? IMO the kid who played baby anakin skywalker in ep 1 would be perfect for playing raistlin's whining.

Lol, nearly everything about dragonlance has sucked after the 80's. So I am not surprised.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Lol, nearly everything about dragonlance has sucked after the 80's. So I am not surprised.

Check out the d20 Dragonlance books by Sovereign Press/Margaret Weis Productions. It's what we Dragonlance fans refer to as the "Golden Age of Dragonlance Gaming." There have been some pretty good novels in the last few years too.

 

[SteveC]

I like bad movies. I have a group of friends that purposely go to the theaters to see movies on opening night that we believe will be horrible and out of the theater in a short time.

I sat down with the group, gamers all, even though many of them have not gamed since the time when Dragonlance was new.

We shut the movie off.

The most memorable quote from my group was: "let's check the credits to see if George Lucas was involved with this. He has this habit of destroying things I loved as a child."

Ack it was bad. Bad as Benji Saves the Universe Bad.

--Steve

 

[NewJeffCT]

How was raistlin portrayed? IMO the kid who played baby anakin skywalker in ep 1 would be perfect for playing raistlin's whining.

Lol, nearly everything about dragonlance has sucked after the 80's. So I am not surprised.

what do you mean, how was he portrayed? Similar to the books - kind of dark and mysterious, but fairly weak. I didn't get the "whiner" impression from the original books or the DVD.

Personally, I think Michael Rosenbaum would have been a better Raistlin and Kiefer Sutherland a better Tanis, though Sutherland's raspy voice wasn't bad for Raistlin.

 

[S'mon]

If it helps, early drafts of Krull were associated with D&D. While it's not the greatest movie, I still think it stands head and shoulders above the recent D&D features (and it has achieved a cult status). So, in that regard, at least we have one half-way entertaining movie to point to when people ask why all D&D movies are total ass.

I don't think "Remember Krull? It wasn't bad. And it could have been a D&D movie..." is going to cut much ice.

 

[jdrakeh]

I don't think "Remember Krull? It wasn't bad. And it could have been a D&D movie..." is going to cut much ice.

Early promotional material, including some press releases, called it (i.e., the movie that would later be known as "Krull" to fans) "Dungeons & Dragons". The "Krull" name was actually adopted later, for reaons that I am unaware of (obviously, the licensing fell through, though I am not privy as to why that happened).

[Edit: So, in short, it was a D&D movie that got a name change midway through production. IMDB still lists "Dungeons & Dragons" as one of its AKA titles, oddly.]

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The wife & I watched this last night. In a moment of weakness at the video store, we picked it up ...

On the plus side, it was relatively true to the original story, though they cut one of my favorite scenes

Spoiler

with Bupu and the magic rat

. I do think the opening exposition spoils some of the story, as does the scene where

Spoiler

Fizban becomes Paladine and confronts Takhisis

.

On the minus side, the writing was poor, the editing hackneyed, the animation absolute crap, and the voice actors mailed in their performances. But it was probably better than the original D&D movie if you can see past the crap animation (which would have been merely bad had they stuck to drawn cells, but the combination with CGI took bad animation and turned it to horrible).

... thank goodness we're only out the four bucks for the rental.

 

[Goblinoid Games]

I can only assume that the animation was quirky on purpose. To me it looked like a conscious effort to use the old animation style (refer to the old Star Trek or Planet of the Apes cartoons for other examples) along with the new CGI style. Maybe they were trying to appeal to older fans and younger fans, but clearly from some responses here it backfired. I liked most of it, cheesiness and all. Not spectacular, but as someone else mentioned above, better than the D&D movie.

 

[Sitara]

Check out the d20 Dragonlance books by Sovereign Press/Margaret Weis Productions. It's what we Dragonlance fans refer to as the "Golden Age of Dragonlance Gaming." There have been some pretty good novels in the last few years too.

Ugh, I have, I'm sorry to say. The bestiary and the War of the Lance supp's are good. Rest is quite poor actually. The age of mortal supp was particularly horrible.

As for the novels, you mean the ones where people (and an annoying kender) keep getting reserructed all the time making their deaths meaningless?