D&D Movie/TV What would a good D&D movie be like?

[Remathilis]

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing them adapt the Baldur's Gate trilogy to a series of feature films or shows. WotC doesn't seem to be shy about using Minsc and Boo as a marketing tool in their products.

To be honest, Baldur's Gate would be a good story to adapt. You have a young protagonist with a destiny, a good mix of side-characters, a badass villain, and hints of a larger threat. A team with the Protagonist, Minsc & Boo, Imoen, Khalid & Jahiera, and Viconia would make a good a good group.

 

[bogmad]

To be honest, Baldur's Gate would be a good story to adapt. You have a young protagonist with a destiny, a good mix of side-characters, a badass villain, and hints of a larger threat. A team with the Protagonist, Minsc & Boo, Imoen, Khalid & Jahiera, and Viconia would make a good a good group.

Vin Diesel as Minsc. That one's easy to cast.

 

[Ristamar]

To be honest, Baldur's Gate would be a good story to adapt. You have a young protagonist with a destiny, a good mix of side-characters, a badass villain, and hints of a larger threat. A team with the Protagonist, Minsc & Boo, Imoen, Khalid & Jahiera, and Viconia would make a good a good group.

Yes, that would be the ideal group. And they could reprise David Warner's role as Jon Irenicus if they're able to make a sequel.

EDIT: Or maybe not. The dude is 74 years old now.

Vin Diesel as Minsc. That one's easy to cast.

I think Vin would be better as Sarevok.

 

[Greg K]

I'd be up for Baldur's Gate...if they left out Minsc and Boo. I found Minsc about as annoying as Noober

 

[collin]

I think some other posters here said it best:

D&D is about story telling in a fantasy setting.
Make the movie in a D&D world, don't make the movie about a game.
don't describe everything in D&D terms either, that was part of the mistake of the 3rd movie: "epic", "Cleric/Paladin", etc.... what they got right was the bag of holding, the gate keeper, some of the settings.

Some of my thoughts to bring Fantasy to the masses (ala Comics):
1. A ghost story in a fantasy setting
2. Mob/heist movie in fantasy setting (Zhentarim as Mobsters)
- Kinda like the idea of a Quentin Tarantino/Guy Ritchie movie here
- I like the multiple stories that intersect type of plots.
3. Mystery/Serial Killer story in Fantasy setting
4. Tomb of Horrors? White Plume Mountain? as a movie
- classic dungeon crawl with traps fantastic creatures, very Indiana Jonesish
- Though the module concept fits better as an episodic TV series type of thing.
5. The dirtry Dozen as a fantasy war movie?
6. Western in a fantasy setting
- Clint eastwood drifter type rolls into town, Bad guys abound.

I think you have some good ideas here, but I would like to take it a step further (or a step back, depending on how you look at it). To make a good D&D movie, you need ... a good story, good dialogue, and acted well. Pretty generic, I know, but the really good movies have nothing to do with the setting. Whether you talk about a sci-fi film, a space opera, a western, a swashbuckler/pirate film, or whatever, the setting makes little to no contribution to how good a film is. It all starts with the story. Get a good script, any good script, and you can make it a good film with all the other trappings. Good films that are period pieces (like a fantasy D&D film could be considered being) simply overlay the period-part over the good story. So you have language, slang, costumes, set pieces, etc. that help take you visually into another time and place, but at the end of the day, if the script is bad, no great director, fantastic cast, or excellent special effects is going to make it better. A silk purse from a sow's ear, if you will.

 

[transtemporal]

I'm saying look at the evidence. The race-themed backlash against properties predominantly casting non-whites in roles in which they will be using makeup to simulate alien skin tones borders on nil, even when those skin tones somewhat resemble those of earthly races. It neatly sidesteps the issue of raising the specter of "blackface" being echoed in brown/black/blue/purple skinned aliens.

Instead, minority geeks such as myself were happy to see Klingons get played by guys like Michael Dorn and James Worthy instead of Patrick Warburton and Larry Byrd.

I realised after I wrote that it might've seemed I was having a go at you specifically. I didn't intend that, so apologies Danny.

Diversity in our media is always a good thing and any offensive caricatures of real-world racial stereotypes should be avoided (Star Wars, Transformers, Cloud Atlas I'm looking at you). But I think chosing actors for an entire race based on their ethnicity is a bit weird too - at that point it seems like you're trying to make a RL statement about the fantasy race.

And Drow? I think theres a risk of being accused of blackface there (and it might be warranted) but I think the audience can assess that on a case by case basis, based on the merits of the film itself. Some directors are better at handling this than others. I would hope that the director of a Drizzt film would have sensitivity to those issues.

 

[delericho]

To be honest, Baldur's Gate would be a good story to adapt. You have a young protagonist with a destiny...

I have no problem with them adapting Baldur's Gate (good choice, in fact), but I really hope they stay away from the whole "you have a destiny" thing.

 

[Remathilis]

I have no problem with them adapting Baldur's Gate (good choice, in fact), but I really hope they stay away from the whole "you have a destiny" thing.

You can't avoid it; the protagonist is

Spoiler

the son of Bhaal

and Sarevok is trying to kill him for it. Without that, there is no plot.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I realised after I wrote that it might've seemed I was having a go at you specifically. I didn't intend that, so apologies Danny.

I didn't get that sense at all- no apologies necessary.

Diversity in our media is always a good thing and any offensive caricatures of real-world racial stereotypes should be avoided (Star Wars, Transformers, Cloud Atlas I'm looking at you). But I think chosing actors for an entire race based on their ethnicity is a bit weird too - at that point it seems like you're trying to make a RL statement about the fantasy race.

Agreed.

And that is one reason why the ST franchise caught so little flak for casting Klingons- they cast people of many races. However, as time went on, more black actors got more of the prominent roles as Klingons...

And Drow? I think theres a risk of being accused of blackface there (and it might be warranted) but I think the audience can assess that on a case by case basis, based on the merits of the film itself. Some directors are better at handling this than others. I would hope that the director of a Drizzt film would have sensitivity to those issues.

Unless you're only casting Caucasians as Drow- or all the major Drow roles- you're not going to get accused of putting on a minstrel show.

(FWIW, I'd love to see a bunch of Bollywood actors playing Drow...)

 

[Hussar]

As far as the idea that you can't do "D&D" as a movie, I would point to several popular movie titles that have certainly started with less. Pirates of the Carribean is based on a, what, ten minute Disney World ride. Disney's taking another swing at the cat with Tomorrowland. Not sure how well it's doing, but, it's certainly being tried.

D&D has a mountain of built in flavour to use. No, it really isn't "generic fantasy" and, as proof of that, I point to how hard it is to actually mold D&D around existing fantasy worlds. D&D does a terrible job of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Trying to do Game of Thrones in D&D is an exercise in frustration. So on and so forth.

Earlier someone said that Harry Potter isn't what they want to see. But, honestly, I think as far as the world goes, Potterverse is probably closer to a D&D world than Conan. Revel in it. D&D is pretty high magic - so, make fantasy worlds where magic is everywhere. Keep it in the background, similar to the Star Wars movies. Heroes are walking down the street and see a cart being drawn by giant beetles while a procession of priests are being carried aloft by flying whosits. Magic stuff all over the place. If they do a "dungeon crawl", which, in a D&D movie, they probably should, then Hogwarts should be the inspiration - floating stairs that move, talking statuary, ghosts, etc.

IMO, that's how you differentiate a D&D world franchise. It's not just a Medieval world with a bit of magic, it's a Magic World set in a medieval period. Dragon born were mentioned earlier. Why the heck not? That's a purely D&D race, one of the very few. I'd expect to see Dragonborn in a D&D movie. Easy action figures and they look cool. And you have the added bonus of not being another Tolkien rip-off.

I mean, if you do the typical setup with an elf, dwarf and halfling, it's too derivative. All the "standard" D&D races are yanked straight from Tolkien. Why not actually use D&D races in a D&D movie? Main guy is human, but, his buddy is a dragonborn. What's the problem?