What was wrong with the DnD Movie?

[I'm A Banana]

See what Lord of the Rings did?

Do that.

Seriously. Make a movie about an adventure first. Then pepper it with things that would be worthy of the D&D liscence.

Methinks that a Dragonlance movie, a FR movie, etc. will be like this more than anything...

...I have no idea what to expect from the Dark Sun animated series, myself....yipe....

 

[MeatHook]

The main problem with the D&D movie was that somebody thought it would be a good idea to make a D&D movie. D&D is a game system. It has no story, no characters, and no setting. In the movie business, if you're going to make a sub-par, derivative fantasy-adventure movie, you have nothing to lose by putting the name "D&D" on it, thus claiming a built-in audience. Lame.

-MeatHook

 

[The_Old_one]

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.
Along with those though- what the firk is that thing in Damodar's head? And did anyone else notice the Orcs in a Human tavern? Huh? Very bad, very very bad....I wish I could purge it from my memory.
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.

 

[Drakmar]

I thought that the main problem with the movie.. apart from the afformentioned issues..

was that..

it was not a true party..

just.. One guy.. who brought along some spectators.. o.. and a mate.. who died.. to give him a bit more of a reason to finish his quest..

I don't remember seeing any of that group ever working together to overcome a foe/encounter etc..

heck.. I thought that Scorpian King was more of a D&D Movie than that.

 

[reapersaurus]

Hmm.. things the D&D Movie did good just off the top of my head.

1) A world where magic, monsters, and elves/dwarves/etc exists.
2) A charming and well-played good-hearted rogue.
3) A bookish and hot "low-level mage" who gets won over by said rogue's charms.
4) Showing the creation and testing of a magic item. How many movies have done this, again?
5) Dragon battles.
6) The inklings of a look into the relationship between a high level mage and a high-level fighter doing his bidding. If you think about it, it does explain fighters being at the beck and call of wizards, sometimes against their wishes.
7) Animated, talking skeletons. You could put talking skwlwtons in My Dinner with Andre, and I'd watch.
8) Dragon battles.
9) The thief maze. People keep not getting that what was shown on screen would have represented PART of the challenge. If you assume that it wasn;t just a 3-room-and-out "deadly" maze, it should make that part work for you.
10) The wall that the mages put up against the fire-blasts from the dragons. DAMN that was awesome to see!
11) Great looking fantasy creatures that looked like Beholders. I don't care if they had "Beholders" fetching coffee - I just thought it rocked seeing them on screen.
Interesting side note - I didn't see anyone up in arms over using a Beholder-ish creature in Big Trouble in Little China - people just say "Cool creature".
Just because they name the movie Dungeons and Dragons makes the frames of film that have the creature in them less cool?
12) Frickin DRAGON BATTLES.
Just because it's a D&D movie and they aren't "By-the-book D&D Dragons" makes you ignore the fact that they had a battle with dragons over a fantastical city with in-air bites and claws and flame-breathing??!

That's off the top of my head....

 

[Frosty]

I think Aliens is the best D&D-movie yet (up until Ripley goes solo). Species was also a fine example of a D&D-movie. Now, if they could set the action in medieval times I'd be happy.

 

[Tharkun]

I honestly haven't seen it yet (perhaps a good thing? but at somepoint I will). I've heard mostly bad things about it though.

 

[Morrus]

I'll slide this over to the Sci-Fi forum.

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

Hmm.. things the D&D Movie did good just off the top of my head.

1) A world where magic, monsters, and elves/dwarves/etc exists.
2) A charming and well-played good-hearted rogue.
3) A bookish and hot "low-level mage" who gets won over by said rogue's charms.
4) Showing the creation and testing of a magic item. How many movies have done this, again?
5) Dragon battles.
6) The inklings of a look into the relationship between a high level mage and a high-level fighter doing his bidding. If you think about it, it does explain fighters being at the beck and call of wizards, sometimes against their wishes.
7) Animated, talking skeletons. You could put talking skwlwtons in My Dinner with Andre, and I'd watch.
8) Dragon battles.
9) The thief maze. People keep not getting that what was shown on screen would have represented PART of the challenge. If you assume that it wasn;t just a 3-room-and-out "deadly" maze, it should make that part work for you.
10) The wall that the mages put up against the fire-blasts from the dragons. DAMN that was awesome to see!
11) Great looking fantasy creatures that looked like Beholders. I don't care if they had "Beholders" fetching coffee - I just thought it rocked seeing them on screen.
Interesting side note - I didn't see anyone up in arms over using a Beholder-ish creature in Big Trouble in Little China - people just say "Cool creature".
Just because they name the movie Dungeons and Dragons makes the frames of film that have the creature in them less cool?
12) Frickin DRAGON BATTLES.
Just because it's a D&D movie and they aren't "By-the-book D&D Dragons" makes you ignore the fact that they had a battle with dragons over a fantastical city with in-air bites and claws and flame-breathing??!

That's off the top of my head....

Speaking personally, but saying "Hey, it's a fantasy film, just 'cause it had D&D on it doesn't mean it had to follow D&D." is a bit like saying "Hey, it's a fantasy film. Just because they called it Lord of the RIngs doesn't mean that they had to have characters called Frodo, Gandalf or Strider."

Either it was a D&D film or it wasn't. Deliberately making a generic fantasy film and then slapping D&D on it to guaruntee sales would be unethical, at best. Now I don't think this is what happened. Frankly, I think Hollywood got hold of the material and said "No, no, no. You gotta have a star, not some mish mash ensemble cast. You gotta have a black man (tokenism is alive and well). Dragons and beholders look cool but who cares if they're supposed to talk. Fans? What do they know? Once the geeks fork over their hard earned it don't matter what they think."

Anyway, cynicism aside. I think DnD the movie fell foul of the classic effect of genre movies being produced by people who have little or no knowledge ro love of the genre. I'm not talking about the director here, who I understand was very passionate about the project. I'm talking about writers, producers and the like - the people who have the ability to destroy the vision of the director without even trying.

 

[rankarrog]

The thing I disliked most were the ending and the horrid actors.

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.

The actors (except perhaps the actors of the Main-Vilain, the female Wizards Apprentice and the dwarf) seemd to be right out of place or as we would say it OutOfCharacter . Jeremy Irons in opposite seemd to be to deep in character that it seemed just ridiculus, in comparison with the other figures.
The dwarven fighter seemed to be pretty OK, but he had nearly to no Role to play, so this migth be misleading.