Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
WotC's Nathan Stewart: "Story, Story, Story"; and IS D&D a Tabletop Game?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 7704332" data-attributes="member: 19857"><p>That's a big part of it. But also because D&D is unlike other adaptations and so it's hard to see how it can succeed. It's not a literary adaptation like "Harry Potter" or "Lord of the Rings". It's not an adaptation of a beloved children's cartoon from the 1980s/1990s like "Transformers" or "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". It's not an adaptation of the adventures of a long-running serialized comic book character like all of the Marvel movies or the Batman franchise. It's not even an adaptation of a video game like the Resident Evil movies.</p><p></p><p>They're attempting to adapt a tabletop game to a movie. This is not an easy sell. Previous attempts to do this brought us "Clue" (a movie I love but was not a success) and "Battleship" (ugh). What's more, D&D is a narrative game so on the one hand it seems like it would be easy to build a film narrative around something in the game and make it work, but so far there have been three D&D movies and none of them have worked (though the second one was kind of hilarious in a "Hercules the Legendary Journeys" sort of way).</p><p></p><p>I think this is why a lot of people say things like "Why don't they just do Dragonlance?" or "Why aren't they doing the Drizz't stories?" Because those would be literary adaptations and it's easy to see how they could be done (though I think they are problematic for their own reasons). The concern is that whatever is done with the D&D movie it'll be a generic fantasy movie with the D&D name slapped on it. Or if we're "lucky" a generic fantasy movie with a few fanservice namechecks thrown into the dialogue (i.e. a "Why I haven't seen danger this severe since that time we fought those cultists of Elemental Evil - remember that one boss?" sort of thing).</p><p></p><p>I'm hopeful it turns out good but it's uncharted territory. You need a writer (or group of writers) who can come up with a screenplay that holds to the spirit of D&D who don't really have a plot laid out before them to adapt. They're not doing something wholly original, but they aren't just taking someone else's vision and putting it on the screen. That's going to be hard, and you'll need some special people to do that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jer, post: 7704332, member: 19857"] That's a big part of it. But also because D&D is unlike other adaptations and so it's hard to see how it can succeed. It's not a literary adaptation like "Harry Potter" or "Lord of the Rings". It's not an adaptation of a beloved children's cartoon from the 1980s/1990s like "Transformers" or "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". It's not an adaptation of the adventures of a long-running serialized comic book character like all of the Marvel movies or the Batman franchise. It's not even an adaptation of a video game like the Resident Evil movies. They're attempting to adapt a tabletop game to a movie. This is not an easy sell. Previous attempts to do this brought us "Clue" (a movie I love but was not a success) and "Battleship" (ugh). What's more, D&D is a narrative game so on the one hand it seems like it would be easy to build a film narrative around something in the game and make it work, but so far there have been three D&D movies and none of them have worked (though the second one was kind of hilarious in a "Hercules the Legendary Journeys" sort of way). I think this is why a lot of people say things like "Why don't they just do Dragonlance?" or "Why aren't they doing the Drizz't stories?" Because those would be literary adaptations and it's easy to see how they could be done (though I think they are problematic for their own reasons). The concern is that whatever is done with the D&D movie it'll be a generic fantasy movie with the D&D name slapped on it. Or if we're "lucky" a generic fantasy movie with a few fanservice namechecks thrown into the dialogue (i.e. a "Why I haven't seen danger this severe since that time we fought those cultists of Elemental Evil - remember that one boss?" sort of thing). I'm hopeful it turns out good but it's uncharted territory. You need a writer (or group of writers) who can come up with a screenplay that holds to the spirit of D&D who don't really have a plot laid out before them to adapt. They're not doing something wholly original, but they aren't just taking someone else's vision and putting it on the screen. That's going to be hard, and you'll need some special people to do that. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
WotC's Nathan Stewart: "Story, Story, Story"; and IS D&D a Tabletop Game?
Top