Pitch me your ulitmate D&D movie

[TwinBahamut]

Pretty much take the 13th Warrior, add in a little magic, perhaps a real "fire dragon" and I would say you are good to go.

The 13th Warrior is an adaptation of Beowulf, you can't possibly get much closer to the roots of D&D than that. Unfortunately, Beowulf had another movie made about him recently, so I doubt making yet another would be a good idea.

I support the idea of Eberron being a good setting for a D&D movie. It is different from a lot of cliche fantasy, and yet it is still undeniably understandable by an audience and is deeply rooted in the unique quirks of D&D. Not to mention the visuals of the magic city of Sharn, eternally drenched in rain and held up by magical supports, with layer after layer built up in different styles, would be a great thing to see in a movie.

 

[GammaPaladin]

Yeah, Sharn is kind of the obvious setting... It sort of dictates a gritty, political, urban plot, but that's ok, I like that

 

[doghead]

general - movie pitch


Shakespeare's Macbeth by Baz Luhrmann set in Eberron.

doghead
aka thotd

 

[haakon1]

I kinda like the "High Fidelity in a game store" concept -- a movie about D&D and the people who love it, rather than a movie taking place in the D&D universe.

However, for a less "indie" idea, I'd go with: Keep on the Borderlands. Highest name recognition, and good intro to the basic concept.

That said, D&D 2 was a decent movie and probably helped with sales, whereas D&D 1 was kobold snot and I felt like I had to apologize for it to people who accidentally watched it.

 

[Ilium]

The nice thing about Keep on the Borderlands is that it's just a great title. You could add any kind of story to it you want (a heroic defense of the keep against all the weird humanoids, political machinations involving the unlucky noble sent to man the place, whatever) and the name and basic setup still work.

 

[Klaus]

I kinda like the "High Fidelity in a game store" concept -- a movie about D&D and the people who love it, rather than a movie taking place in the D&D universe.

However, for a less "indie" idea, I'd go with: Keep on the Borderlands. Highest name recognition, and good intro to the basic concept.

That said, D&D 2 was a decent movie and probably helped with sales, whereas D&D 1 was kobold snot and I felt like I had to apologize for it to people who accidentally watched it.

I agree that D&D 2 was a better movie than the supposed-to-exist-1. But I think that they failed in a few points:

- Characters need to lighten up a bit. It's not LotR.
- Bad make-up. There are great make-up studios working on TV budgets, like the one that did Buffy. At any rate, if you can't create your skeletal lich, go for a mummified look.
- On a related note: make the "PCs" look kickass. The cleric and rogue? Hmm... not so much.
- Scattershot approach to special effects. The budget is limited. Focus it.
- Needs more Ellie Chidzey:

 

[Tagnik]

a D&D movie? Simple...

Make it about D&D! Have a group of people of all ages and maturities playing the game itself. Then have their imaginations represent whats going on.

Then go from Fantasy world to reality for different reasons.

The old guy wants to play a paladin. A teenage girl wants to play the barbarian male warrior. a little kid plays the psycho rogue who wields an axe, a normal guy plays a mage who always gets his butt kicked and his spells always fail.

make it kind of funny.

Done.

 

[Truth Seeker]

Animation... is the way.

Going Live is costly and time consuming.

The Village of Homlett, Prelude to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy Klaus!

Oddly enough I had a bunch of non-roleplaying friends watch the D&D2 movie on Friday night and a the response was generally positive, if not exactly glowing.

I agree that D&D 2 was a better movie than the supposed-to-exist-1. But I think that they failed in a few points:

- Characters need to lighten up a bit. It's not LotR.

I disagree. I think a fantasy film needs to be played seriously otherwise the audience won't take anything seriously. This is the difference between the first and second D&D movies. The first is played for laughs and ends up nothing more than a joke.

- Bad make-up. There are great make-up studios working on TV budgets, like the one that did Buffy. At any rate, if you can't create your skeletal lich, go for a mummified look.

I actually thought the lich looked okay. Certainly in comparison to some of the CGI. The two dragons looked great, but those gargoyles could have been better. I think always using practical effects if you can is a great idea. Those Gargoyles could have been actors in costume, then CGI the wings or something like that.

- On a related note: make the "PCs" look kickass. The cleric and rogue? Hmm... not so much.

The tattoos on Dorian the cleric looked really silly. I know these things sometimes look good in illustrations, but so did Damodar's blue lipstick and look how that turned out.

But I thought the Rogue was a great character. I think what the D&D2 movie did well was avoid casting a load of fresh faced twenty-somethings in the main roles. That meant that the PCs actually looked like real people rather than necessarily a bunch of O.C. rejects.

- Scattershot approach to special effects. The budget is limited. Focus it.

I think they did pretty good all things considered. Both Dragons looked excellent. The Spectres looked really good, I only wish that scene had been at night it would have made it so much more atmospheric.

- Needs more Ellie Chidzey:

Couldn't agree more.

My problems with the movie were as follows:

1) There was no action scene at the start. To me that means tv movie. Think big, hit the audience from the start.

2) Fight choreography. You always know when you have either untrained actors or bad choreography, because the camera will be in close up to mask exactly whats going on. This was one of those movies, quick cuts really ruined the fights, what there was of them. Note how long the actors trained with lightsabres in the Star Wars movies so you could pull the camera back and actually see whats going on.

3) Spatial awareness. Again related to point #2. That battle with the bandits didn't make sense. The fight with the White Dragon was also a bit weird. What they should do is actually play out the fight using D&D miniatures and put this on a handheld camera. That way when you come to shoot the movie you know where everybody is (and you have a cool special feature for the DVD extras).

4) Throwing knife aside, none of the characters had any missile weapons. I think this may have made the movie more dynamic, at least have one archer or crossbow wielder in there. In the movie Hawk the Slayer, the five heroes between them had a bow, a repeating crossbow and a flying sword.

5) Damodar was ridiculously bad in every way. Its weird because Bruce Payne was actually pretty good in Passenger 57. But here he was channelling Jeremy Iron's Profion performance. Added to which every scene he was in was terrible in its conception. I mean the Throne room scene had potential, the elf mage getting stuck in the wall was cool, but a cage out of nowhere just happening to fall on both the remaining heroes!! Then the heroes get free and its a quick one chop to the arm and thats our action scene. Poor.

Firstly they should have had Damodar flanked by Orc or Gnoll guards. The heroes teleport in and manage to defeat the guards only to have Damodar animate a Stone Golem, as one hero deals with that the other attacks Damodar (who has a sword). Damodar gets his arm chopped off, loses the orb, but just as reinforcement guards are piling into the room. The heroes make a hasty exit.

Then the end fight and AGAIN Damodar puts up absolutely no challenge - this guy used to be the Captain of the City Guard for goodness sake and hes running away from a fight.

6) Falazure. I think they missed a great opportunity to do something original (in movies that is) with the Dragon God. An energy draining breath weapon animating the townsfolk would have been all kinds of awesome. Then have the wizards (protected against the energy drain) have to fight their way to the top of the tower, hold the zombies at bay and keep one eye on Falazure.

Still, it was a surprisingly entertaining effort.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Hello DM-Rocco matey!



Well the problem Revenge of the Sith had (or rather one of the problems) was that the main character was ultimately the villain and the rest of the cast seemed like a bunch of fools.



So when Sam & Frodo didn't burst into flames (before the giant eagle picks them up) did it destroy your whole experience?

Yes, a little. However, there was enough suspension of desbielf that one or two over the top moments didn't totally ruin it for me. Oh, and Sam and Frodo weren't fighting with lightsabers an inch above a lava lake. In the real world, they would have died that close to a lava flow, just from the ambient heat

Vader actually took a blaster bolt to the hand (Empire Strikes Back) and it didn't phase him, being close to lava isn't going to unduly phase a jedi, certainly not a jedi master.

Actually, it hit his hand, a metal hand. Notice he used his other hand to use the force to pull the weapon towards him? At least that seemed plausable.