Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 892 posts (1,317 including aliases). No reviews. 2 lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character. 3 aliases.
After a year in the wilderness - mainly due to Paizocon UK being scheduled on the wrong weekend last time I am finally attending!
Huzzah!
Looking forward to being a kobold on Sunday morning...
Now to sort out transport with the Snort-meister.
Also, this is my first proper post on paizo.com since November 2014 (I'm not counting a 3 word sentence about the next D&D movie) so you can all tell how momentous this all is!
They should make a fantasy version of 7 samurai. Now that would be freaking awesome.
I agree it would be awesome, but it runs the risk of being remembered as "That 'allegedly' d&d movie that ripped off 7 samurai instead of being original. We thought the idea of role-playing was to create your own story?"
No matter how good the execution, it would have that hanging over it - the idea that it was copying in some way. IMHO of course!
One thing I think they need to focus really hard on is the team-work aspect. Remember the scene at the start of Thor: The Dark World where the Asgardians are fighting that army? And Thor is confronted by the big guy? Well, in my vision of the D&D Movie, Sif and the Warriors Three, along with Thor, take that dude on together, with similar results to the film, but based on the actions of everyone together are better than the sum of their parts (or something like that), rather than one guy doing all the heavy lifting (so to speak :-)).
The audience needs to feel that "Wow! These guys are awesome when they work together!" and then we spend the rest of the movie with the Big Bad keeping them disorganised so they can't effectively counter his plans. Well, up to the final 3rd act, that is! :-)
First off, it's very, very hard for me to take a character called "Captain America" at all seriously -- but they somehow managed to rope me in despite that. I thought that alone is pretty impressive. The acting and the pacing I thought were both outstanding, much better than I've become accustomed to from summer blockbuster-type movies. And I liked how they gave pretty much everyone at least one scene to be awesome in.
In the movie itself, I absolutely loved the scene in the elevator: ** spoiler omitted **
I found the scene in the nursing home or whereaver, near the beginning, to be surprisingly touching.
Finally, I have to admit, after seeing "Avengers" I was feeling pretty sorry for everyone who wasn't Thor, Iron Man, or the Hulk. I mean, you've got three apocalyptic gods or near-gods smiting everything around them, and then you've got a bunch of puny mortal nobodies trying to keep up with a bow and arrows or a shield. Lame. But giving Captain America his own movie, with him presented as a superhero, gave him a lot more credibility as a protagonist and also made Black Widow and Falcon seem like they weren't just extras.
Agree with pretty much all your points there Kirth. Your final comment about power levels is interesting. I noticed a significant power bump given to Cap in this film which he didn't really have in Avengers, nor in his first film (IIRC). It will be fun to see how that is integrated into Age of Ultron.
For reference, in the films, Thor & Hulk are the current MCU heavy-hitters. Below them (by quite a margin) is Iron Man (because everything he has, power-wise, is in a suit instead of him, and that's a vulnerability). Below Iron Man (slightly) is Cap, and that's only because he can't fly without some preparation. Then you have almost-normal humans like Black Widow and Hawkeye, who are pretty much at the bottom of the superhero pile.
Hope that helps... well, unless until someones argues with me at any rate :-)
Damnit. I finally saw "Winter Soldier" and was hoping to find a thread discussing it. Instead I get a bunch of stuff about variant comic book arcs and realism and "deconstruction of mutant morality" and so on. (Cries)
Just go back to page one, where someone has started off by posting a beautifully-written and well-reasoned review of the movie, and move on from there!
There is no dress code but it's a great chance to wear a bow-tie. Stilleto heels are probably not a good idea and stilletto knives are banned entirely.
Look, my post was supposed to end this madness! Not continue it! Time to FINISH THIS!
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"I'll go... uh... check on Mr Scruffy."
Sinister?
Yeah, that struck me as a bluff check, where nobody was paying enough attention to bother making a sense motive roll. Guaranteed he's stalking the vampire.
it struck me as "the best way I can help is by being out of the way"
Possibly. Just reread it & I noticed that he's kind of looking directly at Durkula as he's saying it. I suspect that Fromper & strayshift might be on to something...
Either we're totally right, or Belkar really is just worried about the vampire eating his cat. :P
Or it's both. Also, the nesting quotes are starting to look like either a pit or a pyramid, depending upon how my eyes look at it.
Both pit and pyramid are appropriate for OotS :P
That's a pretty weirdly proportioned
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Just remember, you didn't have to click on that spoiler tag. It was your own free will.
Or the influence of the Elder Gods, you choose.
Also, the record for number of tags used in one post! Get in!
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Until someone quotes me.
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Ok, record for number of tags used in one post, whilst trying to do something other than get that record. Yes!
Yeah, that struck me as a bluff check, where nobody was paying enough attention to bother making a sense motive roll. Guaranteed he's stalking the vampire.
it struck me as "the best way I can help is by being out of the way"
Possibly. Just reread it & I noticed that he's kind of looking directly at Durkula as he's saying it. I suspect that Fromper & strayshift might be on to something...
Either we're totally right, or Belkar really is just worried about the vampire eating his cat. :P
Or it's both. Also, the nesting quotes are starting to look like either a pit or a pyramid, depending upon how my eyes look at it.
Both pit and pyramid are appropriate for OotS :P
That's a pretty weirdly proportioned pyramid...
I suppose it'll look right when it gets to about 35 'nests'.
That's what you get when you make pyramid out of sticks.
I think its starting to look more like a longhouse.
ALL HAIL THE NEST-QUOTE-A-MID.
50 Shades of Nest Gray pattern's forming there.
At what point does the background in the middle swamp the print?
An intriguing question. I suppose we can find out while we are waiting for the next OotS comic.
So, the OotS thread is now the how deep
...
Well, I'll end it here with an ubernest! you can all go back to waiting for the next update! :-)
Yeah, that struck me as a bluff check, where nobody was paying enough attention to bother making a sense motive roll. Guaranteed he's stalking the vampire.
it struck me as "the best way I can help is by being out of the way"
Possibly. Just reread it & I noticed that he's kind of looking directly at Durkula as he's saying it. I suspect that Fromper & strayshift might be on to something...
Either we're totally right, or Belkar really is just worried about the vampire eating his cat. :P
Or it's both. Also, the nesting quotes are starting to look like either a pit or a pyramid, depending upon how my eyes look at it.
Both pit and pyramid are appropriate for OotS :P
That's a pretty weirdly proportioned pyramid...
I suppose it'll look right when it gets to about 35 'nests'.
Do the messageboards support that number of quotes?
Yeah, that struck me as a bluff check, where nobody was paying enough attention to bother making a sense motive roll. Guaranteed he's stalking the vampire.
it struck me as "the best way I can help is by being out of the way"
Possibly. Just reread it & I noticed that he's kind of looking directly at Durkula as he's saying it. I suspect that Fromper & strayshift might be on to something...
Either we're totally right, or Belkar really is just worried about the vampire eating his cat. :P
Or it's both. Also, the nesting quotes are starting to look like either a pit or a pyramid, depending upon how my eyes look at it.
Both pit and pyramid are appropriate for OotS :P
That's a pretty weirdly proportioned pyramid...
I suppose it'll look right when it gets to about 35 'nests'.
Yeah, that struck me as a bluff check, where nobody was paying enough attention to bother making a sense motive roll. Guaranteed he's stalking the vampire.
it struck me as "the best way I can help is by being out of the way"
Possibly. Just reread it & I noticed that he's kind of looking directly at Durkula as he's saying it. I suspect that Fromper & strayshift might be on to something...
Either we're totally right, or Belkar really is just worried about the vampire eating his cat. :P
Or it's both. Also, the nesting quotes are starting to look like either a pit or a pyramid, depending upon how my eyes look at it.
I can't believe no-one has come up with the most obvious solution here yet - insurance.
Treat having superpowers as equivalent to owning a car (with caveats). If you're running a car, you have to have insurance. If you own a car but are not actually driving it, then you declare that you are not (in the UK at least). If you don't own a car, you don't do anything. The level of insurance is based on the level of risk. That in turn is based on your ability to drive, along with other factors.
The same could work for superpowers. Once you know you have a superpower, you either buy insurance, state that you won't be using your powers (if that's possible) and all the law has to do is check you have valid insurance if something happens in your neighbourhood.
There will have to be some government subsidy for those who cannot afford insurance and cannot choose to not use their powers, but hopefully they're a minority.
The amount paid would be proportionate to the risk those powers present to the community, and again there will be subsidies based on the use of those powers for the greater good.
So it all turns into a commercial enterprise, with law enforcement/government being involved at the bleeding edge and when individuals need help (which would be the minority of cases).
You get 1 "I didn't know I had superpowers" excuse before insurance is required, and yes, there will be a database of everyone who has powers, but this can't be accessed unless there's a Good Reason.
Open to abuse? Certainly. But better than the overwatch described above.
Also, has anyone read Powers, by Brian Michael Bendis? I've heard that this is a lot more 'normal' treatment of superheroes but haven't picked up a collected edition yet.
If an infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite amount of time, could eventualy type the complete works of Shakespeare, then
assuming they would be using one-finger typing;
and assuming octopi, using eight limbs, would be able to one-digit type at four times monkey speed;
Would you be able to rely on [infinity/4] number of creatures, to carry out the work by the same deadline,
or would an equal number of typists complete the task in [infinity/4] hours?
Depends on the size of infinity.
I kid you not.
[ot]By the way, can you tell the difference between text messages which are time-constrained, and those which are not? Your recent behaviour says not![/ot]
You're kind of missing the point I was making. The way that human beings evolved towards tool use and sentience is not the only way it could be possible. Just because things are not human-like doesn't mean that these things would impossible for them. Intelligence and culture often allow workarounds to compensate for anatomy, they definitely do for humans.
That's why octopi feature heavily on people's lists for 'next race to inherit the Earth'.
They don't have opposable thumbs, but they have multiple limbs, each of which is far more flexible than a human arm, and covered in multiple suckers.
Learning to hold complex tools should come far more easily to them, than to other potential contenders.
The question then becomes, what would an octopus want to build?
Do they need to build anything?
Mind you, I missed the bumper sticker too, so that probably tells you more about my ranks in Perception than any subjective assessment of the artwork.
I imagine now that the airship will be slowed down, which might make Durkon worry about missing his deadline (whatever that is) and take action, which may further reveal his true intentions to the others...
That is all that is being asked for here.
Not some detailed flowery oscar winning speech.
And again, the player doesn't know x. The DM has no reason to ask for x. X is completely irrelevant. Please explain to me why the player needs to tell the DM x.
Not wanting to imply You'reDoingItWrong, but in a roleplaying game, why would a player notwant to tell the GM x? Interacting with the game world inhabitants in a free-form way is one of the pleasures unique to an RPG.
My own GM annoyances (things I annoy the GM with):
"Are we underground?"/"Are we in an urban setting?" whenever I'm perceiving. Sometimes, Favoured Terrain doesn't always look like favoured terrain. But I tend to ask all the time. Sorry Snorter.
Going very quiet when my character is about to die and there's nothing I can do about it. I think it guilt trips the GM, and I don't mean to.
Also, as the above dying is happening (which can take 30 minutes in real time!), frantically looking up random rules and also asking the GM on the exact timing, circumstance, 5'x 5' location and other stuff in order to suggest (but not outright state) that somehow the GM is wrong and my character is fine or "...shouldn't have been there". Again, sorry Snorter.
Me (when filling out Chronicles): How much gold did you get on your day job?
Player: I rolled a 17.
Me: That's nice. How much gold did you get?
Player: However much a 17 gets me.
Me: It's your day job check, dude, not mine. Look it up yourself instead of expecting me to memorize the table.
Maybe the player was trying to avoid looking like they were cheating or misreading the table. If he just said "75" or "100" would you just have nodded and carried on? Or for higher level, "150"?
I defer to the GM whenever something needs verifying. They sign the sheet after all.
Yeah, System Admins globally have had a hard couple of days or are going to have a REALLY hard couple of days in the future I think. Luckily most big companies are on the ball with their updates.
That said, I like a policy where people change their passwords every so often and keep different passwords for different purposes at the very least and I know I will be changing a bunch of passwords this weekend regardless. =)
Good advice there. A few more points:
1. Some big companies are safe because they don't update all the time. I'll qualify that - the version 1.0.0 is not vulnerable, but still supported. Unless the functionality offered by 1.0.1 is really wanted, a big company has no real impetus to update "just because". That's why bleeding edge is called that - you might get cut!
2. It's open source so it's easy to work out who put it in. The big question is did they know they were putting it in, or was it just a coding error? It sat there in plain sight for 2 years and wasn't fixed - that implies it was hard to spot. Although I admit that government agencies use the Hide In Plain Sight strategy all the time (yay Pathfinder ref!)
3. There maybe a bit of an overreaction to this, due to media hype:
"The odds of getting a key using this technique are incredibly low to begin with, let alone being able to recognize you have one, and how to correlate it with any useful encrypted data.
Supposing you do hit the lottery and get a key somewhere in your packet, you now have to find the starting byte for it, which means having data to attempt to decrypt it with. However, now you get bit by the fact that you don't have any privileged information or credentials, so you have no idea where decryptable information lives.
Assuming you are even able to intercept some traffic that's encrypted, you now have to try every word-aligned 256B(?) string of data you collected from the server, and hope you can decrypt the data. The amount of storage and processing time for this is already ridiculous, since you have to manually check if the data looks "good" or not.
The odds of all of these things lining up is infinitesimal for anything worth being worried about (banks, credit cards, etc.), so the effort involved far outweighs the payoffs (you only get 1 person's information after all of that). This is especially true when compared with traditional means of collecting this data through more generic viruses and social engineering.
So, while I'll be updating my personal systems, I'm not going to jump on to the "the sky is falling" train just yet, until someone can give a good example of how this could be practically exploited."
But hey, better safe than sorry! I'm changing all my passwords in about a week. It's also given me the push to use a password manager, so I'll be scoping them out until then.
4. Just because OpenSSL is patched, doesn't mean that everyone can fix things right away - some vendors bundle OpenSSL into their products, and you can't shove in a vanilla patch without it hurting somewhere. Admins are still waiting for some vendors to release platform-specific patches.
A good debate on the topic is here. I got the above quote from there.
I believe there are multiple reasons for the "Winter Soldier" moniker.
1. Cap was frozen for a long time so it is a nod to Cap.
2. "Winter Soldier" was kept in cryo-sleep between missions.
3. This was a Cold War era plot line revolving around struggle between the U.S. and Soviet Union so. Many career soldiers were called "Cold Warriors" but Winter Soldier probably sounded better.
4. For those who know the Winter Soldier storyline there is also the concept of an agent being "out in the cold", haven't seen the movie so I don't want to say anymore in case that plot element has been included.
Not sure anyone who says it is because it snows a lot should be taken too seriously but maybe the movie people have latched onto that?
One way I haven't seen explored yet (and obviously wouldn't be an explicit part of the movie as this would confuse everyone) is that Captain America could be seen a a Winter Soldier.
And then how John Kerry refers to those words during the Winter Soldier hearings: "We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out."
Bolded for emphasis.
Spoiler:
Captain America is doing just that. It was easy for him to 'fight the good fight' when it was simple and he knew who to fight against. Now it's harder, and he could just put his head in the sand and be a good little soldier and follow orders, but he is not like that. He will face what needs to be faced. And if that's calling out SHIELD on what it is doing wrong, so be it, no matter the consequences.
Spoilered not for specific events but the general trend of the movie.
You see, I watched this knowing it would have plot holes, so to preserve immersion I never really examined it too closely. But the critical part of my brain was whispering "You know, there's things here you normally pick up on... just examine it a bit" but I ignored that voice as I was having too much fun with my children.
When we watch the DVD I'm likely to engage that bit of my brain though.
But still, none of my children complained about the plotting, so it's not a big issue for me, similar to what other posters have put down.
Even for those of us who know the winter soldier is <redacted> from the comics, or suspect that Robert Redford is playing Dell Rusk (That's not a spoiler is it?) part of the fun of seeing the movie is (for me) seeing how the actors carry the part. I didn't need to be surprised how Johnny Blaze was the Ghost Rider, for example, I wanted to see Nick Cage chew the scenery in the only Ghost Rider movie (there was only one). If it turns out that <redacted> is an LMD, I want to be surprised, because it wasn't in the comics, for example.
I want to see how Chris Evans portrays the man out of time, for example.
Ha, Dell Rusk is not a spoiler, unless people google for it, and even then they're likely just to get confused.
Captain America is very well-written in terms of his history. There are lines of dialogue and expressions which evoke his WW2 origins. There are further conversations where he is coming to terms with this new age. Notable is the list of things he has written down to remind him to look up later. This changes from country to country and for the UK has some UK-centric items which are a bit... odd. Likely that the USA list is still funny, but not quite as incongruous as the UK list.
Chris Evans plays him straight, but without falling into the 'uninformed dullard' mode of a man out of time. I really like him, he is believable, and not just someone pretending to not know how things are these days. He also shows that his old sensibilities are still relevant here, and there is one scene which would be a spoiler if I described it which really brings his man out of time aspect to the fore. Very emotional, in a sad way.
I thought the Winter Soldier name referenced This, actually.
Yep. Exactly that.
Ed Brubaker wrote:
I came up with the name in 2004, when I was pitching for [Captain America]. I liked the sound of it for a Russian assassin from the cold war, and also liked its connections to Thomas Paine, my personal favorite founding father. The “summer soldier” quote is from The American Crisis, and I believe he meant that the summer soldiers are only patriots when it’s easy to be, but the winter soldier is a true soldier for the cause.
But yes, the first time I heard the specific name was when reading about the Vietnam War and the Winter Soldier hearings. I think that sparked something, a name that could imply Russia’s cold winters and the cold war, that was also tied to atrocities in another war, and that connected all the way back to the American Revolution. It’s a very evocative name for a Captain America villain.
Who knew a Marvel blockbuster would enlighten me to American military history? I like that...
But this thread is about the movie. Why are people upset that we are discussing the movie in a thread for discussing the movie?
Discussing it isn't the issue, not using spoiler tags is. People read these to work out whether or not to go see a film as well as compare notes with those that have seen it. If you read my initial review I took great pains to avoid anything close to a spoiler in there, and made sure people knew that up front. The continuing conversation ought to flow from that just because the huge Domestic US audience for this film (a large part of this community) have not had the chance to see it yet.
Spoiler tags are just being nice to your fellow posters. Not using them does upset people. If you aren't familiar with that concept then fair enough, but you are now and you did upset a few people. If I were you I'd just take it on board for future posts really... (let's be constructive :-))
I've searched and couldn't find a thread about this movie, so seeing as I've seen it last night, I thought I'd start one! Mainly spoiler free, as you guys haven't got it yet :-)
First things first, I'm an old fan of Captain America, but haven't really kept up with the comics, so if there's stuff in the film which is based on these comics I won't really recognize them (I haven't read the Winter Soldier comics yet, for example).
Ok, here are my thoughts:
The movie is very well done - well acted, plotted, scripted - all of that. At over 2 hours I thought it might drag, but it does not. The pacing and mix of action to dialogue is just great.
Chris Evans is better here than in Avengers - with more scope to develop the character, he really brings it to life and I totally believed him as the Sentinel of Liberty. He was suitably emotive during scenes of stress, and he definitely kept up with the pace of the action (I'll get to that a bit more later). He is also witty and charismatic, which was something I didn't get that much of in Avengers Assemble. Brief mention his suit choices (yes, there's more than one) being really well done, totally in keeping. You'll know what I mean when you see the film.
The support cast here is equally skilled. I love Scarlet - she makes Black Widow a much more rounded character here, and has some of the best lines in the script. Sam Jackson is still the definitive Nick Fury for me, even though here he does show his age. One scene in particular had me cheering for him to succeed!
New addition to the MCU - Falcon, is well-done also. His introduction ("On your left") feels natural and authentic, and when the gear change happens for him, it does so credibly. The actor is good too - not heard of him, and can't remember his name, but why should that matter?
The plot, whilst fairly complex and convoluted to begin with (but not quite Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy!), is nevertheless easy to follow and has some twists and turns which I found fresh and exciting. There are also some Easter Eggs for comic historians as well, so look out for those.
Now, I have to mention the action. It is superb. Captain America has somehow amplified all that super-soldier serum and now acts as if turbo-charged. It was exactly how I imagined him to be. The shield is awesome, and he uses it with fantastic skill and grace. I'm getting goosebumps just remembering the various manoeuvres he pulls off using this.
Cap is also a lot more athletic and seeing as he has to keep pace with the Winter Soldier that's absolutely essential.
The Winter Soldier himself is enigmatic, foreboding, seriously good at what he does, and manages to scare with his sheer implacability. He has a development arc in this film too, and without putting spoilers in, what happens is very affecting. Cannot omit mentioning one confrontation he has with Black Widow which really excited and scared me at the same time! Talk about an unfair CR encounter where you're hoping for 20s!
The only thing about it that I thought was a little implausible is the scale of the action - it's an order of magnitude greater than we've seen Captain America handle solo before, and sometimes his actions and achievements against such epic danger jar as being beyond the laws of physics. But hey, it's Marvel, it's superheroes, it works.
Final thought - can't believe they mananged to up the game so much from The First Avenger. I liked it, but it didn't exactly thrill me as I thought it should. This is brilliant, and almost knocks Avengers Assembled off my favourite film pedestal. The only reason it doesn't (and it's very close) is because that film had the Hulk, Thor and Iron Man in it as well as Cap.
Even greater expectations for Age of Ultron now! Gah!
PS: Two stingers, the first one halfway through the credits and plot-driven, the second right at the end and character-driven.
Saw this on Saturday with my 11, 8, 7, 3 year olds.
They all loved it (littlest never tried to move from his spot next to me - which is very rare)!
I loved it too. I got a minor "this might not work" moment when the twist happened, but it was ok in the end (if ever-so-slightly too long).
Spoiler:
"Spaceship Spaceship SPACESHIP!" Made me laugh and remember how my brother and I loved to just build epic space ships when we were young.
Even the RL lego model is called "70816 Benny's Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!"
As an aside, he got all the cool parts as he was eldest and my parents never thought to give me the best model for Christmas/Birthday. Yes, he got the 928 set. I got 381. That is so not fair - Galaxy Explorer versus Police Station - which would you play with, bearing in mind your brother has the other set?
Lots of moments which I wish I could pause and look at again, but the Blu-ray will turn up eventually.
Totally satisfied (with the minor acknowledgement that future viewings may lead me to spot thematic plot holes).
Fake Healer - I feel your pain about not passing down the legacy of lego to your children (Legocy?), but I have a solution: just keep on having kids! My first, second and third offspring are ambivalent about Lego, but number 4 - he loves the stuff!
PS: Everyone, please do not pluralise Lego. Think of them as sheep.
I mean, people, look at what you are doing here. You are defending the inner logic of a movie based on a big guy with a hammer bashing stuff. More thought has been put into the movie by posters here in the thread than by the screenwriters. I just noted that the way the laser rifles stood out as something that doesn't fit the themes of the movie very well lessened the experience for me.
You are attacking the inner logic of a movie based on a big guy with a hammer bashing stuff.
It's just not aimed at you, and you decided to point it out on a message board full of people who go above and beyond in their approach to suspension of disbelief and adoption of the rule of cool.
Not that I mind, as I can be fairly critical myself sometimes, but I think there's little common ground to cover in this conversation.
Just for the record, during this movie my willing suspension never saw gravity. I loved it.
If a movie like Battleship can be greenlit, then D&D can be greenlit. It's all about the pitch.
I don't think people will flock to it because of Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or Drizzt or Dark Sun or Planescape or even a combination of these factors (or any others that float our boats for D&D).
Mechanics represented as reality will also not be a determinator - a barbarian raging, a smiting paladin, a wizard's magic missile, a clerical turn undead, a druidic wildshape or a rogue's trap detection or sneak attack will not make this movie more accessible or bankable. All of these will make it cooler, however.
Being endorsed by the company that makes the game will have an effect, as it will connect movie-goers to other properties they have had a hand in (for good or ill).
The main thing though, is direction, writing, acting, script. If these are good, then the marketing will follow, and we as gamers can then hope for whatever D&D-specific references are thrown in as nods to the enlightened. They must not ever be allowed to determine the path of the movie though.
The story must stand on it's own and a complete newbie should not be scratching their heads and asking "Why is this character acting like this? Why is that place important? What are they talking about?" It should just flow from the script itself, self-contained but with subtle references we can grin at.
The idea of the D&D cartoon writ large could be viable, as the characters could ask all the questions a movie-goer would have in being plunged into a new world. But there is enough familiarity now with major fantasy tropes that it isn't required.
Forgotten Realms is one of the more well-known IP Hasbro could use, as the branding helps place the location within the game, which could then be built into marketing and loosely referred to in the film.
Drizzt is another aspect - readers of fantasy will probably know the character, or at least the series, and a "dark elf as hero" plot isn't a common trope in films, yet is not too great a stretch for fans of Twilight, The Mortal Instruments, Batman and X-Men.
Personally, I think the key point of making a D&D film is the tone. The LOTR trilogy had it right, with funny moments and epic battles sharing screen time with sensitive characterisation and genuine soul. It really worked.
The tone for D&D I would like to see is: magic is powerful, dangerous, and easy to turn bad; characters with emotional strength will prevail over those without; luck can turn the tide (both ways); and everyone gets their turn to shine (think of the Avengers NY battle for that one, not a case of the fighter saying "Oh darn it, we need someone who can shrink to get past this door", and the wizard replies "I may have a spell for that" convenient necessity).
Oh yeah, it needs to be a team. And it needs a really good enemy.
FWIW, I like the idea of: Drizzt "and friends" in Myth Drannor (Forgotten Realms) against undead (which are more bankable than dragons, less controversial than demons, and very versatile - plus they weren't major villains in LOTR so that's good).
Also, make someone other than Drizzt the viewers point of view within the story. The emotional core should be more relatable to us than a non-human, evil-but-not, brooding loner. Think Rogue and Wolverine.
Saw this film last weekend rather than this week (realised I was at Paizocon UK this weekend so something had to be done :-).
I loved it, with (minor) caveats.
I got the see it in Vue Xtreme 3D, which was definitely the best way to see it, outside proper IMAX.
The 3D was completely appropriate and helped immerse the viewer in the action. I never thought any detail was lost in darkness despite 3D being dimmer with glasses.
The plot was good, not amazing, but good. It took a bit to get past all the introductions and set up stuff (first fight involving Gipsy Danger notwithstanding) before really getting going, but I wasn't bored. It increased the believability of the setting to be honest - we knew the world was on a precipice of doom. Once we got to the HK Shatterdome everything was in top gear and stayed there. Didn't notice the time passing at all.
All of the characters were believable and had a reason to be in the film, and if they weren't fully three dimensional (that's the SFX), they didn't come across as cardboard cut-outs either. The weakest link I'm afraid is Raleigh - he was a bit predictable to be honest, but offsetting that were the fabulous Stacker Pentecost and Newton Geiszler, the mad scientist - these great characters came from great performances by Idris Elba and whoever that other guy was. Charlie Hunnam wasn't bad in this, but what he had to work with was a little bit formulaic unfortunately (although the Drift sequences and associated psychology was pretty cool/interesting/evocative).
After which, we get to the real star of this picture and it's the CGI-heavy action scenes. Some might take that as a pretty harsh criticism, but it's anything but. I have not grinned ear-to-ear like I did during this film since Avengers Assembled. And AA is my favourite film of ALL TIME.
The scenes thrilled, surprised, delighted, entertained and AMAZED without exception. Standout (spoilerific) sequences (from the first major battle only!) include:
Crimson Typhoon
Spoiler:
using rocket boosters to perform an overhead 180 spin whilst grappling a kaiju, then flinging the monster across the sea.
Cherno Alpha
Spoiler:
taking unbelievable amounts of punishment before finally succumbing to the onslaught of 2 kaiju.
Gipsy Danger
Spoiler:
running
Spoiler:
punching
Spoiler:
jumping
Spoiler:
tanker-wielding
Spoiler:
changing it's hands to plasma guns
Spoiler:
cartwheeling through the air and still landing upright
Spoiler:
"making sure"...
A kaiju
Spoiler:
with wings
American football
Spoiler:
touchdown!
There's more, obviously
Spoiler:
hidden sword
Spoiler:
another hidden sword
but you get the idea.
I've taken too long with this so I'll leave it there.
tl;dr version: If thinking about giant robots makes you smile, go see it, you will want to see it again and then you'll buy the Blu-ray. Probably on 3D.
I also can't wait to see this film. Have been absorbing background info since it was announced. Mikaze - thanks for the spoiler warnings, I'll not go near TV Tropes until after...
20th July is the earliest I can go, so everyone can feel smug relative to me this weekend :-)
Other points:
I watch Drama on my TV, I watch blockbusters at the cinema. That's my only criteria.
Gipsy got me worried for a bit (not for myself, but that the British press might try to stir up trouble for the film in getting some sensitive types frothing at the mouth over it - I don't mean you Jon) but I think after looking at Wikipedia the name is acceptable and non-pejorative in the context of the film's style (HMS Gipsy, Gipsy-class destroyer, General Intensional Programming System) and in modern media in general (Gipsy Kings) so I'm not worried now.
And nukes WERE used before Jaegers were invented, but repeated usage for monster after monster just does not work.
And now I have to add another word to my spell-checker. No, not Intensional - I doubt I'll use that one again.
Still not seen the rocket punch trailer - determined look tonight!
