What was wrong with the DnD Movie?

[King_Stannis]

my wife and friends were cracking each other up imitating jeremy irons after seeing this dog. i felt bad for thora birch. here she is going through the motions, yet she must have known that this movie could have been a career-killer. i can't blame her for her wooden performance - it would be like asking someone to do backflips as they're being led to the gallows.


and that freaking ending. what was with that? "the return of snails?" good god, his death was the ONLY redeeming thing in the movie!

 

[Voneth]

The main problems I had with the movie seem to have been addressed-
Idiot Lizards posing as Dragons, No real spell content and crappy Beholders.

Oh, Voneth, if you think a dungeon crawl can't make a decent film try and find a copy of Cube- a truly excellent low budget sci fi film, which takes place in a dungeon crawl environment.

lizards and spells -- already addressed this issue.

Cube as a dungeon crawl. Only in the physcial sense, other wise I decline gaming with your group. Not much party unity there, buddy. The survival rate wasn't that peachy either. Much more Harlen Ellison than R.A Salvatore.

I agree that the Mummy or Hercules would a better model for a ensemble cast DND like movie. And I agree that story should come first. Probably the best thing to do would be to attach a DND licenced word to the project (not only because the game worlds have snazzier names, but also to detach the project from the SweetPea Entertainment curse). Then do a good fantasy movie and then sprinkle some DNDsims there for the "in crowd."

This would probably be best for the general audeince as well as the DND crowd.

Hmmm, "do it like LOTR?" Then that would mean we would use an author would be focused on making a cool, living world and populate with a history and a interesting charaters. And then we would use a director who was insipired to lovingly bring that world to life within the confines of his budget. His secondary focus was to bring the vast armies and scary minons of the world to life. Flashy spell effects seemed to be on low on his list, as it also seemed for JRRT.

Notice that neither talented indvidual decided to chain their concept to a set of DND rules that are artifical in nature as well as designed to entice repeat play, not repeat stories. JRRT made heads turn because he made up new rules, not because he followed them.

 

[Zappo]

I personaly don't see how a flim about crawling around in a dugeon for most of the movie would be that attractive. LOTR did it to a small degree, the mines got wrapped up quickly once the action got going.

The dungeons in LOTR felt HUGE. The dungeons in D&D felt like two rooms. Screen time has little to do with it. You don't need two hours of dungeons to give the impression of a large dungeon.

I agree with everything Reapersaurus said, except for #9. As I said, the dungeons just felt very small. If what was shown on screen didn't give me a different impression, it's a flaw of the movie, not mine.

 

[Villano]

Gotta agree with the guy who said "Everything"

This was a movie that just should not have been made. Nothing worked in it, from script to acting to direction. I wouldn't say it's as bad as Batman & Robin, but it sure comes close.

It also suffered from IITS (It's In The Script). Things happen because the script says so, and not for any logical reason. The "No, he must do this alone" scene when Ridley goes into the castle (or whatever it was) by himself while the elf and dwarf stayed behind is an example of this. Why must he do it alone? IITS!

Or the villain saving Snails from the carpet trap only to run around trying to kill him is another good one. What's the point of having a trap then?

Or how about the maze of death which no one has been able to solve? A maze which is completely open to view of the public and consists solely of single turn. It wasn't a maze of death, it was a hallway of minor inconvenience!

And the movie rip-offs, er, homages. Hey, look! Indiana Jones! Phantom Menace! Star Wars!

And, finally, couldn't they hire a short actor to be the dwarf? I mean, the actor admitted in an interview that all he did was stoop lower when in a scene with other actors (which explains why sometimes he was shorter than everyone else, and sometimes he was the tallest person n the shot).

Bad, bad movie.

 

[Ranger REG]

When making a theatrical movie, think big. What Courtney Solomon did is not worthy of even a TV-movie. So why should I spend my hard-earned $5 (matinee ticket price) on a TV-movie?

Don't think about the game, think about the adventure and the story, and just let a technical consultant (sorry Dave Arneson, but I'd much prefer someone actually working at TSR or WotC) to advise you on what can be done, element-wise.

Make characters more memorable and personable to the audience.

And, yes, like many posters have earlier, this is Dungeons & Dragons. But too much dragons, too less dungeon with just one character is not a good balance.

It would have been better if one of the dragons is an antagonist, not Profion (unless he is actually a dragon in polymorphed form).

Also, there is a reason why Thora Birch was passed over for the Queen Amidala role, even if she didn't audition for the part in Episode I. It's like she's just there for an paid vacation leave after having done the widely-praised An American Beauty film.

 

[Henry]

The ending would have been much better if they simply burried the Jester, said a last farewell and left the graveyard, instead they left a big unpleasant questionmark.

They shot an ending that had JUST THAT - but they didn't use it. It was just Ridley, alone, saying a farewell to Snails.

They also had an extended scene with Marina and Ridley in the map, that not only would have been good for the SFX had it been completed, but also gave more depth to Ridley's background, and the death of his father.

Too many scenes that could not be finished due to time, too many scenes that had very low SFX outcomes. In about 1990, this movie would have been cutting edge work, and probably quite popular, since 2nd edition was just hitting its stride.

In 2000, it was dwarfed by superior work around it.

 

[reapersaurus]

Re: Gotta agree with the guy who said "Everything"

This was a movie that just should not have been made. Nothing worked in it, from script to acting to direction.

My opinion:
You are blatently incorrect, and exaggerating to the point of misrepresentation.

I don't mind if people didn't like the movie, but to say "Nothing at all worked" is to ignore a lot.

You were transported to a world with commoners and rogues and mages and rangers and dwarves, etc.
THAT worked. I never heard people saying "That world is just so unbelievable, it shatters my suspension of disbelief"

A crowded bar where bunches of people hang out and have a fight. THAT worked. (The people who say "There wouldn't be orcs there" are too narrow-minded to bother with)

An evil mage creating a magic item to control dragons. THAT worked.

Dragons fighting each other in a desperate tooth-and-claw battle-to-the-death over a fantastical city for control of the empire.
THAT worked.

(ran out of time - gotta go - see my first post)
All this was of course the way I saw it, but I have looked back and seen it a couple times and can fairly objectively state these examples "worked" (i.e. for a normal, un-jaded observer who is not unduly comparing the movie to what THEIR idea of a D&D movie "should be").

 

[Villano]

Huh?

My opinion:
You are blatently incorrect, and exaggerating to the point of misrepresentation.

I don't mind if people didn't like the movie, but to say "Nothing at all worked" is to ignore a lot.

You were transported to a world with commoners and rogues and mages and rangers and dwarves, etc.
THAT worked. I never heard people saying "That world is just so unbelievable, it shatters my suspension of disbelief"

A crowded bar where bunches of people hang out and have a fight. THAT worked. (The people who say "There wouldn't be orcs there" are too narrow-minded to bother with)

An evil mage creating a magic item to control dragons. THAT worked.

Dragons fighting each other in a desperate tooth-and-claw battle-to-the-death over a fantastical city for control of the empire.
THAT worked.

(ran out of time - gotta go - see my first post)
All this was of course the way I saw it, but I have looked back and seen it a couple times and can fairly objectively state these examples "worked" (i.e. for a normal, un-jaded observer who is not unduly comparing the movie to what THEIR idea of a D&D movie "should be").

You're putting words in my mouth. I wasn't talking about the film not working in a fantasy sense. I understand a film creates its own mythology. Adapting a game is much different from say adapting a book, comic, or tv show, where characters and worlds are firmly established.

I've read reviews in which people criticized a movie because they didn't portray a vampire or werewolf "correctly". The movie is creating its own mythology. Those are the rules of the world, so they can't be wrong.

The strangest example I've seen of this was an interview with a writer who wrote a "sequel" to Dracula. She said that Dracula wasn't killed at the end of the original novel because he was stabbed with a knife and everyone knows you need a wooden stake to kill one.

Nothing like telling the person who established the the groundwork for the modern vampire tale that he's wrong.

But, the question at hand was "What was wrong with the DnD movie?". All my comments were about the movie as a movie, not an adaption of a game.

The script was awful. Characters did things simply because it was in the script, the humor fell flat, and the dialogue was terrible.

The performances were nearly all bad (reflecting both the acting and direction) and there were numerous continuity errors (find its imdb.com entry and check under the "Goofs" sections).

I could go on, but I would just be repeating what I've written in my earlier post.

If you were to go back and change all the bad things in the films, there'd be virtually nothing left of the original. When it gets to that point, IMHO, you have a film which, much like Batman & Robin, just shouldn't have been made.