Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon in animated DL

[Thornir Alekeg]

And don't forget that many good directors come from humble roots.

Heck yeah! Wasn't there some guy named Peter Jackson who did a bunch of poor horror flicks before he was nominated for an Oscar for Fellowship of the Ring?

 

[DM-Rocco]

And, however humble his roots, let us note that the director has already earned several awards. Quote from Animation World Magazine:

"Long a fore-runner on the animation front, he has won numerous industry awards including the 1999 Monitor for best director, a Genesis Award and double Emmy nominations for episodes of Captain Planet and The Real Ghostbusters. "

I hope you are not trying to say that you would be happy with a world of Dragonlance that has the look and feel of the animation talents of the Real Ghost Busters. Cause then we really will never see eye to eye.

Jackson made some good movies, and a few crappy ones, before he made LOTR, this director made slimer and four dopey animated ghost fighters.

Look, I did some home work since my first thoughts on the matter. I checked out the animation house and who else is attatched to the movie and I really can't see anything good about it other than the fact that the authors think the script is good.

Find me a trailer or animation cell or anything else to go on other than Xena and the Ghost Buster director and I may change my mind.

I want this movie to be great. I want it to rock and kick ass and take names. However, in my opinion, it will not from what I have seen.

 

[Ranger REG]

I want this movie to be great. I want it to rock and kick ass and take names. However, in my opinion, it will not from what I have seen.

Meh.

I guess this has to go through some exposure before someone realizes that DL is on par with classic fantasy literature as LOTR and Narnia.

Let's face it, LOTR first motion picture was a "rotoscope" animation.

Narnia underwent through many incarnations of BBC programs.

I do agree this should have gotten a live-action treatment but sometimes you have to take it one step at a time.

I sincerely hope that Hickman and Weis have made such a large film bible detailing the CULTURES of Ansalon. That what appeals to me in PJ's LOTR. Hobbits have a culture. Elves have several cultures. I don't know how much [artistic] detail they can get into it, but it would be nice if they could go the extra step.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I guess this has to go through some exposure before someone realizes that DL is on par with classic fantasy literature as LOTR and Narnia.

I mean absolutely no disrespect to Margaret Weiss or Tracy Hickman; I enjoyed Dragonlance well enough when I read it.

But please tell me that's sarcasm. DL isn't on par with LotR; it's not even on the same course.

 

[Nightfall]

It's not even in same universe Ari. I mean don't get me wrong folks, I love DL, but comparing it to Tolkien...that's just wrong. It's a good story, but it's not a great sweeping epic.

And Rocco, just because you "researched" it doesn't mean there's not a chance the company might decide "Gee maybe we do need outside help!"

But I do think Reg has a point about "little steps" in terms of getting DL exposed to the masses. Then those that want a live action version might have that chance after having DL go through stages. I mean look at Earthsea. They got a sucky TV series/miniseries. Now there's at least some hope with Gedo Senki.

 

[Mad Mac]

"I hope you are not trying to say that you would be happy with a world of Dragonlance that has the look and feel of the animation talents of the Real Ghost Busters. Cause then we really will never see eye to eye."

He directed a lot of quality american cartoons in the 80's and 90's. These are cartoon shows with a fairly low budget, designed by and large to sell toys, and not done by top-notch animators. Despite all those limitations, he made a lot of really good cartoons. I would go as far as saying he has a better pedigree of successful animated shows than anyone else in America. That's huge. (And I can say this because I'm a huge cartoon geek and have seen like, almost every cartoon ever. )

I mean, he made Captain Planet into a big success, despite the show being, frankly, about the hokiest, lamest idea for a show that I can think of. He made the X-men cartoon, which was the first comic-book superhero cartoon that was good enough to really take off and attract fans. The X-men cartoon was so popular it had it's own matching comic book line devoted to it for a long time. You started seeing lots and lots of licensed superhero cartoons appearing because of the success of this show, even today.

He made Exo-squad, which was a show about a couple of lamo robo-suit toys that never really sold, and made it into a suprisingly realistic (For a childrens cartoon) show about war that involved mature themes and a whole lot of dying. Exo-squad was awesome.

Some of the complaints I can see, but the choice of Director, honestly, is one of the single biggest points in favor of the movie. They chose a really talented guy.

As far as the animation goes, we'll have to wait and see what the style will be. But in terms of quality, keep in mind that the clips on Toonz's websites are for, by-and-large, low budget UK childrens shows. It's indicative of what they can do in a short time for reasonable cost. For a Feature-length animated movie, the quality of animation is obviously going to be much higher.

I'm suprised so many people have trouble with this idea. Even in Japan, feature movies and direct to video releases have much higher quality animation than t.v. shows, even when we're talking about the same studio working on the same series. That's just a natural benefit of a higher-budget and lower volume, not that inferior animators are somehow used for television series.

Also, you can't get any style notes from the animators main site, we'll have to wait and see for movie images. Toonz is going to do the grunt animation work, not the concept art. All we know about the style at this stage is that it will be a mix of 2d and 3d, Kunoichi had a hand in producing the concept art, (Their speciality is refining character design, judging from their site) that Weiss and Hickman and even Wizards had a hand in approving the art, and that Weiss and Hickman apparently think it looks pretty cool. We'll see.

 

[Klaus]

I mean absolutely no disrespect to Margaret Weiss or Tracy Hickman; I enjoyed Dragonlance well enough when I read it.

But please tell me that's sarcasm. DL isn't on par with LotR; it's not even on the same course.

True dat.

I re-read the Chronicles last year, and found them to be... not so great. Certainly not as entertaining as I remembered them from when I was 15. Too much moping and angst.

 

[Mad Mac]

Yeah, I'm re-reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight right now, and the writing makes me cringe in places. Which isn't to say its not a great story as a whole, I'm just old enough now to notice more of the flaws. Like, what is up with Riverwind and Goldmoon, anyway? They get a fairly dramatic introduction and all, but fade more and more into the background as the books go on. Riverwind in paticular is almost completely undeveloped.

 

[Nightfall]

Yeah I mean other than Rastilin and maybe Sturm, you don't see any of the vivid characters you might expect in say, A Song of Ice and Fire or even Black Company.

 

[Starman]

Wasn't Chronicles Weis and Hickman's first foray into novel writing? I think that it's quite enjoyable despite some flaws and their writing definitely improves with time. Look at Legends.