Indeed. Whoever is making this movie, DON'T ENCOURAGE THEM.
Dragon already squandered enough credability when it pushed the first one so hard.
I agree with the Letter from the Editor.
The first movie, horrible though it was, got three of my nephews to begin playing D&D. The second movie, starring Paris Hilton, will probably get two or three of my other nephews into the game.
A second movie is great for the game. It brings non-gamer attention to the game. There is no such thing as bad publicity in this arena. No matter how much the movie might suck (and it might actually be decent), it will make a profit, make it to video, and bring the name of Dungeons & Dragons to an audience that might not normally stumble upon the hordes of geeks and nerds stalking dark gaming stores or conventions.
And when they ask about it, us old timers will be ready to demonstrate that the movie is not even close to the game. We'll invite them to play. And a new generation (or at least wave) of gamers will be introduced.
If I have any advice for the producers, it would be to start shpping around for an affordable script for a third movie.
I'm sorry to say that I never saw the D&D movie. The bad reviews and the snippets in Dragon magazine that I saw were enough to keep me away.
But if a new film were to be made in the wake of the LotR trilogy? With such an influence, any D&D movie can only be better than the last, right?
Well, let's hope so.
What really interested me in the first D&D movie was the wealth of opportunity that was so completely squandered in so many ways. D&D offers several particular tropes that are good for movies, and several that are bad for movies. For example, as a movie viewer, I wouldn't mind seeing a movie where a character runs out of spells for the day, but I don't want to watch a movie that is slavishly devoted to making sure that the wizard character never casts more than his allotment of spells. It's good as long as it's dramatic and interesting. So in that area, I'd want to see a middle ground.
D&D monsters are great on the big screen -- and they have so much flavor already built into them -- again, making them dramatically appropriate to the same degree that they're dramatically appropriate in the game. Mind Flayers should be sneaky and evil and telepathically dangerous, even if that means giving them abilities (in the movie) that they don't have in the game. It should be exciting. It should be interesting.
In the first movie, they had spellcasting, and they had monsters... and both of them kind of went wrong. The spellcasting was irrelevant, for the most part, which is just silly -- don't make a D&D movie with only one spellcaster, who loses her bag of magic powder for most of the movie and doesn't actually get to cast any spells. And the beholders... I mean, I know, this is a massive nitpick, but my wife, NOT A GAMER, was watching this, and she went, "Wait, THOSE are beholders? In YOUR game, beholders are scary and dangerous, and the guys go, 'Oh, s____' if they see one. And the movie treats them like guard dogs!" If my non-gaming wife knew that this was a bad idea, what happened in the creative department over there? That was kind of the whole spirit of the movie right there in a nutshell.
Overall, I left the D&D movie feeling like somebody had a really fun movie idea that used some fun tropes and didn't take itself too seriously -- and then a bunch of other writers got ahold of it and changed things without paying attention to what it did to the overall story, until the movie was about one character instead of a team.
Nevertheless, if the next movie brings people in, that can only be a good thing. D&D is a game is getting more mature in some ways as the average age of gamers increases, but we need to keep bringing in the young people to ensure that the game stays around -- and that it keeps getting printed and marketed. If that means making a movie that faithfully represents the kind of gaming I enjoyed about 15 years ago, then cool -- get the kids with some whiz-bang stuff.
-Patrick
There is a very real difference between bad publicity in the form of reviews by movie critics, and bad publicity in the form of horrid reviews from the gamers the movie was made for.
The movie was not made "for the gamers". At the time of the first movie, "the gamers" were a bunch of 30-40 year old former geeks with mortgages, spouses, and kids.
The movie was made for kids -- our kids and kids whose parents never played D&D. And enough of those went to see it to more than make up for the incessant whining a bunch of already-playing-the-game folks have been monotonously droning for over three years.
The movie made a profit. That's good enough for the producers.
It got two of my nephews interested in D&D. That's good enough for me.
Good points on both ends. One thing I'd add:
A D&D movie should be different from a fantasy movie. Fantasy movies, generally speaking, are about individual heroes who get some spear-carriers to accomplish small tasks, provide comic relief, or look good in tights. (I think RotK did a good job of showing us two movies at the same time, for what it's worth.) D&D is not about that.
D&D is about teamwork, teamwork, and teamwork. It's about a group of people who are equals. The wizard can lay down some serious smack, right up until an ogre hits him -- unless the fighter is there holding off that ogre so that the wizard gets the big spell off. Modeling a D&D movie off the usual tropes of fantasy movies, and then trying to paste the D&D feel onto it, is probably not going to work. Silly as it might sound at first, the ideal movie-type to model the D&D movie on would be...
...The sports movie.
Take any of the good football or baseball movies that involve a team coming from behind to win the big game (even if the big game is really "not losing all their games" or "proving that they have what it takes to compete as equals". Sure, they have a lead -- the quarterback, pitcher, center, whatever. But it's all about the team. The wide receiver who learns to keep his ego in check for the team... the lineman who vows to protect his quarterback or make holes for the runner... the running back who gets called in every time it's 3rd-and-short and the team needs a few critical yards... the kicker who gets no respect until it's time for him to make the game-winning field goal...
Replace quarterback with wizard, running back with rogue, lineman with fighter or barbarian, and kicker with cleric, and you've got yourself a good D&D movie. A team that comes together against all odds to get it done, when nobody thinks they can. "Alright, Dex, I'm extending the range on my hold person -- when that warlock gets paralyzed, you WILL be in position to knock him out. Mace, I need you to keep the ogre off me! Grungor, Blackleaf needs help with those goblin warriors -- can you get in there to open up a hole? Okay, critical hit on three! One, two, three CRITICAL HIT!"
Silly, yes, but I dunno. Might be worth a thought.
Contributor
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Replace quarterback with wizard, running back with rogue, lineman with fighter or barbarian, and kicker with cleric, and you've got yourself a good D&D movie. A team that comes together against all odds to get it done, when nobody thinks they can. "Alright, Dex, I'm extending the range on my hold person -- when that warlock gets paralyzed, you WILL be in position to knock him out. Mace, I need you to keep the ogre off me! Grungor, Blackleaf needs help with those goblin warriors -- can you get in there to open up a hole? Okay, critical hit on three! One, two, three CRITICAL HIT!"
Silly, yes, but I dunno. Might be worth a thought.
Not silly at all. You make some excellent comparisons. Another genre whose formula translate well is Westerns. Many Westerns involve a coming-together of various semi-heroic types by chance. One of the heroic guys sees some quest and the others tag along for their various reasons. Usually there's one guy around which the story is centered, but if he dies (and very often he does) the story moves along quite nicely without him.
Not silly at all. You make some excellent comparisons. Another genre whose formula translate well is Westerns. Many Westerns involve a coming-together of various semi-heroic types by chance. One of the heroic guys sees some quest and the others tag along for their various reasons. Usually there's one guy around which the story is centered, but...
Don't forget samurai movies as well! Those ones very much typify the sort of heroic teamwork that needs to take place in a D&D game.
Movies in general have lots of cool stuff a DM (or player) can use. Even mostly lame movies like Willow have characters like Sorsha and Madmartigan.
Sean Glenn
Art Director Dragon and Dungeon magazines
PARIS HILTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As if the first movie weren't bad enough! Where can I contact the studio? Someone has got to talk these people into some sense. I wouldn't even give the first one over to MST3K if it were still running, its that bad!
It should be like the best samurai and western movies. Maybe even like a good sports movie. (I'll take your word that there is such a thing, I hate sports)
It should be about teamwork and accomplishing goals. It should be a little gritty, a little humourous, and directed by someone that has made good movies before, like Brian Singer, or Peter Jackson. I know nothing about making movies and I could make a better movie than the first D&D movie.
end rant
I'd throw in a vote for Ron Howard as director. Apollo 13 was another movie of people working together to get a job done. I also liked Willow (and was sorely upset it didn't get a special effects make over from Lucas for the DVD release), and I think that he could pull off a D&D movie.
I reccomend anyone interested in the sequel should read THIS:
http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=13986
So, no worries, Airsucker. Looks like Ms. Hilton will just have to stick to making home movies. ;-)
Incidentally, the director is a guy named Gerry Lively. According to IMDB.com, he's mainly worked as a cinematographer, but he did direct 1999's Darkness Falls (not that movie about the witch). Not the scariest movie ever, but decent.
The cast is almost all new blood (British, mostly) and Bruce Payne will have normal-colored lips.
Oh, and a live action Magic: The Gathering movie is underway, along with real prospects for a D&D animated series on TV.
As long as these projects (along with the highly debated Evangelion live action project being done by ADV, Gainax and Weta Workshop) don't suck, the future seems bright indeed for geekdom.