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Whatever Happened to Acererak?
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<blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 7741620" data-attributes="member: 3285"><p>Fans of Ernest Cline's novel, <em>Ready Player One</em>, know that there's an entire sequence that takes place in a virtual recreation of a classic <em>Dungeons & Dragons </em>adventure by Gary Gygax, the <em>Tomb of Horrors. </em>Fans of the book will find that D&D's presence has changed in the film. Please note that this discussion contains spoilers for the book, the movie, and the <em>Tomb of Horrors. </em></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]114564[/ATTACH]</p><h3>Cline Likes D&D</h3><p><em>Ready Player One </em>author Ernest Cline is a fan of all things geeky, including tabletop role-playing games. And it's not just <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/interviews/ready-player-one" target="_blank"><em>Dungeons & Dragons</em></a>:</p><p></p><p>That fandom expressed itself in the <a href="https://amzn.to/2GtvE6Z" target="_blank"><em>Ready Player One</em></a> novel, in which players compete to find three keys and unlock the secrets of a 3D virtual online world known as OASIS. The first key is hidden on planet Gygax:</p><p></p><p>Eventually, the main protagonist, Parzival, discovers the Tomb and meets Acererak, but not quite in his demi-lich form:</p><p></p><p>There's a few things wrong with Cline's portrayal, not the least of which being that although the cover of <em>Tomb of Horrors </em>does indeed show a lich, it's not actually Acererak -- the real Acererak is a skull with gems for eyes and teeth in a pile of dust in the real tomb. The creature portrayed on the cover is in fact a false mummy made up to look like Acererak. The <em>Tomb of Horrors </em>didn't just fool players, it fooled Cline too. That said, Acererak challenges Parzival to a game of <em>Joust</em>, so perhaps authenticity wasn't quite what Cline had in mind.</p><p></p><p>Acererak has experienced a resurgence recently thanks to his inclusion in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?3285-talien&tab=quotes" target="_blank"><em>Tomb of Annihilation </em>for Fifth Edition</a>. Fans looking forward to seeing Acererak on the big screen will be disappointed, however, as the entire sequence was removed and replaced with a car race.</p><h3>Spielberg Likes D&D</h3><p>Given <em><a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/ready-player-one-17923887" target="_blank">Ready Player One's</a> </em>obsessions with 80s movies, filmmaker Steven Spielberg seemed like the perfect director for the film. Spielberg's movie geek cred is legendary: <em>Jaws </em>(1975), <em>Close Encounters of the Third Kind </em>(1977), <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark </em>(1981), <em>E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial </em>(1982), <em>Gremlins </em>(1984), <em>Back to the Future </em>(1985), <em>The Goonies </em>(1985), <em>Jurassic Park </em>(1993), and <em>Men in Black </em>(1997). He was also instrumental in bringing D&D to the big screen in <em>E.T. the Extraterrestrial. </em> It was even used to <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/dungeons-dragons-casting-et/" target="_blank">screen the cast</a>:</p><p></p><p>The D&D game wasn't just part of the screening; it also featured prominently in the film, <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeekReferencePool" target="_blank">creating parallels with the plot</a>:</p><p></p><p>This tradition of using D&D as foreshadowing would continue in the Duffer Brothers' <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?4652-Stranger-Things-Loses-its-Mind" target="_blank"><em>Stranger Things</em></a>. Given his history of including geek-friendly gaming in his films, why didn't Spielberg include a major D&D moment in <em>Ready Player One?</em></p><h3>Ready Player One (Secretly) Likes D&D</h3><p>The scene was likely cut to make for more character-building between Art3mis and Parzival. The replacement scene is fast-paced enough to hold the audience's interest while laying some of the ground rules of how the bad guys and our protagonists operate. D&D isn't completely excluded from the film however.</p><p></p><p>The main character, Wade Watts, wears a D&D Ampersand shirt; another character has a D20 sticker on his VR gear; there's some dungeon maps on the floor of Halliday's room; and the getaway van has the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1677720/mediaviewer/rm1268646400" target="_blank"><em>Tomb of Horrors</em> devil face on its back door</a>. But perhaps the most prominent display of D&D-isms is the Orb of Osuvox, the magical bomb that holds a 20-sided die at its center.</p><p></p><p>The Orb, like Acererak himself, is something of a missed opportunity: nobody ever rolls it -- it surely would have exploded on a natural 1!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="talien, post: 7741620, member: 3285"] Fans of Ernest Cline's novel, [I]Ready Player One[/I], know that there's an entire sequence that takes place in a virtual recreation of a classic [I]Dungeons & Dragons [/I]adventure by Gary Gygax, the [I]Tomb of Horrors. [/I]Fans of the book will find that D&D's presence has changed in the film. Please note that this discussion contains spoilers for the book, the movie, and the [I]Tomb of Horrors. [/I] [CENTER][ATTACH type="full" alt="dungeon-and-dragons-tomb-of-horrors-170208_1920x.jpg"]114564[/ATTACH][/CENTER] [HEADING=2]Cline Likes D&D[/HEADING] [I]Ready Player One [/I]author Ernest Cline is a fan of all things geeky, including tabletop role-playing games. And it's not just [URL='http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/interviews/ready-player-one'][I]Dungeons & Dragons[/I][/URL]: That fandom expressed itself in the [URL='https://amzn.to/2GtvE6Z'][I]Ready Player One[/I][/URL] novel, in which players compete to find three keys and unlock the secrets of a 3D virtual online world known as OASIS. The first key is hidden on planet Gygax: Eventually, the main protagonist, Parzival, discovers the Tomb and meets Acererak, but not quite in his demi-lich form: There's a few things wrong with Cline's portrayal, not the least of which being that although the cover of [I]Tomb of Horrors [/I]does indeed show a lich, it's not actually Acererak -- the real Acererak is a skull with gems for eyes and teeth in a pile of dust in the real tomb. The creature portrayed on the cover is in fact a false mummy made up to look like Acererak. The [I]Tomb of Horrors [/I]didn't just fool players, it fooled Cline too. That said, Acererak challenges Parzival to a game of [I]Joust[/I], so perhaps authenticity wasn't quite what Cline had in mind. Acererak has experienced a resurgence recently thanks to his inclusion in [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?3285-talien&tab=quotes'][I]Tomb of Annihilation [/I]for Fifth Edition[/URL]. Fans looking forward to seeing Acererak on the big screen will be disappointed, however, as the entire sequence was removed and replaced with a car race. [HEADING=2]Spielberg Likes D&D[/HEADING] Given [I][URL='https://www.patreon.com/posts/ready-player-one-17923887']Ready Player One's[/URL] [/I]obsessions with 80s movies, filmmaker Steven Spielberg seemed like the perfect director for the film. Spielberg's movie geek cred is legendary: [I]Jaws [/I](1975), [I]Close Encounters of the Third Kind [/I](1977), [I]Raiders of the Lost Ark [/I](1981), [I]E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial [/I](1982), [I]Gremlins [/I](1984), [I]Back to the Future [/I](1985), [I]The Goonies [/I](1985), [I]Jurassic Park [/I](1993), and [I]Men in Black [/I](1997). He was also instrumental in bringing D&D to the big screen in [I]E.T. the Extraterrestrial. [/I] It was even used to [URL='https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/dungeons-dragons-casting-et/']screen the cast[/URL]: The D&D game wasn't just part of the screening; it also featured prominently in the film, [URL='http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeekReferencePool']creating parallels with the plot[/URL]: This tradition of using D&D as foreshadowing would continue in the Duffer Brothers' [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?4652-Stranger-Things-Loses-its-Mind'][I]Stranger Things[/I][/URL]. Given his history of including geek-friendly gaming in his films, why didn't Spielberg include a major D&D moment in [I]Ready Player One?[/I] [HEADING=2]Ready Player One (Secretly) Likes D&D[/HEADING] The scene was likely cut to make for more character-building between Art3mis and Parzival. The replacement scene is fast-paced enough to hold the audience's interest while laying some of the ground rules of how the bad guys and our protagonists operate. D&D isn't completely excluded from the film however. The main character, Wade Watts, wears a D&D Ampersand shirt; another character has a D20 sticker on his VR gear; there's some dungeon maps on the floor of Halliday's room; and the getaway van has the [URL='http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1677720/mediaviewer/rm1268646400'][I]Tomb of Horrors[/I] devil face on its back door[/URL]. But perhaps the most prominent display of D&D-isms is the Orb of Osuvox, the magical bomb that holds a 20-sided die at its center. The Orb, like Acererak himself, is something of a missed opportunity: nobody ever rolls it -- it surely would have exploded on a natural 1! [/QUOTE]
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