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Do-It-Yourself "Dungeons and Dragons" Film Review
"I honestly think that this is a disgrace to everything I had hoped it would be. The plot line was thin at best, the acting was horrible, the lines sounded like they were being read from cards during some scenes. The movie stole so many parts from Star Wars that I'm sure George Lucas is going to be trembling and crying if he sees the movie. All of them too, not just one of the Star Wars movies but all four. A slew of other movies were taken from as well to try to make some semblance of a plot, Indiana Jones, there was a Jurrasic Park scene, we even found a way to bring in Goonies. I was pretty suprised that Ewoks didn't jump out of the background in parts.
I guess I was hoping for more from the movie. I don't think many people are going to be happy with it, the dragon scenes were about the best parts, and those seemed way too short, considering that the rest of the acting didn't do much for the plot anyway. Why not throw in some more eye candy? At any rate the dragons were really neat, but a lot of the other CG was pretty poor. And no amount of special effects were going to make up for the poor acting, plot, and obvious rip offs of other movies."
of all the world creations from Fantasy role-playing games, I feel that Dungeons & Dragons were plauged by some of the weakest. IMHO only Dragonlance setting showed what could be done to make an interesting setting to D&D gamers. Far better are the worlds of less well-selling games such as Greg staford's Glorantha www.glorantha.com (now supported by a new game system Hero Wars) and M.A.R Barker's Tekumel www.tekumel.com. D&D gamers could find much to inspire them here, and both are far more worthy of literary or screen treatment.
O.K. so at the end we have .. say 12th Lv. Thief, probably a 18 Dex, 16 Cha, 12 Str Wielding a
"Broadsword?". and he kills a ... say 18th - 20th Lv Fighter wearing partial Plate ? .. Then the Mage .. say
he's 19th Lv pulls out a staff ,.. ok.. say its a +5 staff big whoop a 19th Lv mage has what, a 15 Thac0 ..and
the mage is able to beat him down like a little girl ?? STUPID !!! and what's with the fairy dust doesn't
anybody memorize spells anymore ?? .. and what the hell was the blue headed guy D&D doesn't have enough monsters?? they had to make up there own ?? It looked more like Star Wars then a D&D Realm .. all in all, it would of been an kind, o.k. movie if it wasn't suppose to be D&D but as a D&D movie it sucked ass!... Its a rental at best !
"I know where you wanted to go today, But we decided to stop here instead!"
This director WAS the producer and I believe he was involved with the writing. I, too, believe there should be more fantasy movies, but NOT if they're going to suck this bad. I would've rather seen the D&D cartoon made into a movie than this.
42
I have never seen a movie as badly mis-directed as this one. I feel cheated out of good memories of my childhood. D&D has been a significant part of my life for the last 15 years. Every time I pick up a D&D book from now on I am going to remember that travesty of a movie and want to retch. It's enough to make me never want to buy anything from Wizards of the Coast ever again. I'm insulted that the D&D logo was actually placed on that eyesore.
I was looking for a movie that, at the least, would give me some visual pictures to go with the actions of the game: how spells are actually cast in combat, maybe some admiration of fighter or thief skills, perhaps getting some insight into the mindset of the cleric? Too much to hope for. This movie doesn't even begin to approach that level of sophistication. I would be embarrassed to take a child to that movie and tell him that it represents a game I've been playing since I was his age.
The movie was painful to watch. Did anyone else notice that the Empress' lines were dubbed over in the dramatic parts? She was so quiet most of the time her voice was flat. Then during the cumulation of her threats to the council, her voice suddenly was loud, resonant, and didn't match her lips?
Just one specific of a movie I cringe to think about. The party "mage" was totally ineffectual (not even one magic missile!), the thieves sucked, but you were supposed to take them seriously during the dramatic parts? There were some lame attempts at drama and history in the elven "tree" (What's all that crap about elves being a "part of magic" anyhow?) The dwarf had like three good lines, and what was up with that huge-breasted "form-fitting" aluminum body armor?
And like I'm supposed to believe that intelligent thieves had been trying to get through that stupid three-room maze (when they could watch everyone else solve the puzzle) for fifteen years? I tried my best to generate some "suspension of disbelief" for this movie, but it was simply impossible. Believing fifteen impossible things before breakfast won't make it through this mess.
I was relieved when the killed off Snails because it made the movie a bit less painful. I could rant all day. The plastic talking skeleton was a joke, the plastic dragon staves were a joke, the elven "cleric" was a joke, and what the hell was up with that ending? "Your friend is waiting for you". Aaaarrgh!
The CGI wasn't even that good. The dungeons sucked, the dragons sucked, the plot sucked. Richard O'Brien (The thief guild leader) was the best part of the movie. It's pretty much impossible to mis-direct him, he's such a freak in real life.
Ugh. (shiver)
There is nothing more painful than watching good actors forced into doing a bad job. I know it's not their fault. Blame the director? Blame WoC? I don't know, but I feel dirty having just seen it. Please don't let any more people spend money on this movie. I'm glad I only paid matinee price, but I still wish I could take it back.
I feel that, if you're making a movie based on a game that has been around as long as D&D, and has such a large following, there is a responsibility to make the movie intellectually appealing to people who played the game. Having watched this movie, I feel horribly let down. I feel that my intelligence has been insulted, and the years I have enjoyed playing the game have been cheapened. I'm pissed off, and I want an apology.
The CGI for the movie was good in parts, lackluster in others, brief in many instances and lacked any artistic beauty. The acting was overdone except for the dwarf. :-)
The score was just plain bad. The director may be a novice, but that is still no excuse for this movie.
I hope that no one outside the sci-fi/fantasy fan community will not go see The Lord of the Rings just because D&D was such a horrible movie. Hell, even that movie with Tom Hanks about D&D was better! ~syrneus
...
> I paid not only for myself but for my girlfriend
> and I feel fairly satisfied.
That's the only part of the movie that really got to me. I thought, "One movie I can go to where I won't be the only one over twelve years old without a date", and I was wrong. Maybe I should have talked to the pimp who was sitting four rows behind me.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
I think the movie was marginally okay. The computer graphics were pretty cool, though all the night shops zooming up the side of the tower reminded me of the intro sequence to Unreal. I think that the most significant room for improvement of the movie lies with the following:
- Thora Birch's acting sucked. The soft-spoken freedom-for-all I-will-not-let-my-people-die princess/empress echoed Queen Amidala from Star Wars I.
- The black thief used an awful lot of modern day slang. He even flashed the peace sign once. I could see this happening if the movie were about a D&D game from the inside. Unfortunately, the movie should impress the general audience too. I've had better roleplayers in my own D&D games than whatever guy was roleplaying the black thief.
- Character development was umm.... lacking. Non existent perhaps? The first minute of the movie was spent by the narrator giving the audience background on the setting. The first half hour of the movie was spent introducing basic D&D concepts to the audience. That left approximately one hour for the adventure with no time for character development. The two thieves were picked right off the street and immediatly get into their first adventure. When one of the thieves died, I felt no sympathy simply because I did not feel attached the the characters.
- A minor point, but when going through the maze, I always thought thieves were more careful than that. Due to his carelessness, I think he should have gotten hurt.
Solutions:Here's another review on the movie disecting it: http://www.charred.net/extra/review-d&d.asp
Was there a scene in JPark Director's cut where the lead guy (forgot his name, the paleontologist) is in like an egg incubuation room being chased by raptors, and he uses an egg to distract them by rolling it on the ground? I swore i saw that in the theatres but i never saw it watching the movie on vhs. Havn't checked the dvd yet. Maybe i'm just imagining things :)
Full review at: http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/07/revie w.dungeons.dragons/index.html.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Actually, it didn't remind any of the people I saw it with of a campaign. How many times did your characters survive against odds like that? Or have portals directly into the badguy's lair? This is one of those stories that you may have found a scroll or artwork depicting, but never take part in. I played a few games where we went after items that were used in battles like this, but I don't ever remember being part of one.
> there is some good news coming. Apparently a really cool director's cut with some 14 extra scenes is going to be released either on DVD or even possibly in some theaters as a late release reel.
Take a bad movie by a bad director, add on a half hour of what the director felt were the most worthless scenes of the movie, and that's "good news coming?" To whom? A future incarnation of MST3K?
My English teacher once told me that I was using double negatives. I said to her, "No I'm not!"
--
Program Intellivision!
Program Intellivision!
But then, my expectations were set decidedly low... *grin*- -----
As a movie, I think it was terrible. It moved too quickly, nothing was adequately explained, the acting was mostly bad, etc. However...
Those are some of the better qualities of a typical game, so.. *grin* Seriously, how often do adventurers just charge forward through a session with little regard for background details and plot? If the audience is comprised of average gamers, they shan't do too badly!
Besides, the girls were hot... *wink*
-----------------------------------------
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
The dwarf was as much a part of the storyline as the average tree - useless background. You could have replaced him with just about anything else and the movie would have been pretty much unchanged. I consider this a plus, because I didn't like him.
Considering it was based on an RPG, I consider this an upside - I mean, without that (and comments like 'You're a mage! And a low level one at that.'), it wouldn't have been D&D, it woulda been a low-budget fantasy action flick that no one woulda thought highly of (but without the D&D name, it probably wouldn't have been blasted as much).
I seriously would have had less complaints about the movie if they'd replaced him with the actor that played the dwarf - even one actor quite obviously playing two major roles is better than a Wayans brother playing one of them.
Now, my beefs:
Just my two bits
~Sentry21~
Then we go to comic book-based movies. Batman was cool, but the sequels were awful. I decided to stay away from Spawn. Oh, well. At least we have X-men. X-men is good. X-men is the way.
If you want to see what I really thought of D&D, though, see my other post.
Dexter4242 "I must be a computer geek." - Sicko
FWIW, I know exactly 9 people who play the lute:
- 2 are full-time professional musicians.
- 1 is a combination English teacher / music teacher ("multiclass", in D&D terms).
- 6 are computer geeks.
Also FWIW, at least 4 of the 6 geeks work in Unix environments. (I don't know the other two well enough to know the details of what they do.)--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Come now... don't forget the good ones. Johhny Mnemonic ;based on NetRunner.
And... uhm..
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
I hate people who hate apologetics.
I'm not exactly sure what you're accusing me of, but I firmly believe that Dungeons & Dragons is an evil game that is designed to immerse insecure people who probably don't have many friends into a fantasy world and cause them to lose their grip on reality. This has been documented numerous times. Dungeons & Dragons is a pox upon the geek subculture.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
There's plenty of good fantasy in Anime. Record of Lodoss War and Vision of Escaflowne come to mind. Gotta get them in the original Japanese, though. The Esca dub on Fox was horrible (terrible VAs and overzealous editing), but RoLW is going to be on toonami pretty soon.
I don't care what rule set they used. I only played D&D once (I was trying to lay some girl who was also playing :-)) I thought the movie was decent (not great but decent). For those of you complaining about reuse of ideas, that is how stories are written. They call these basic plot elements. Some of you might want to take a few more creative writing classes. My girlfriend liked it (different girl than the one who played D&D), so thats all that matters. BTW if everything has to be thechnically correct how do you get new and novel ways of doing things w/o breaking the rules?
I no longer question my sanity.
Whoof. Wow, you guys are a bunch of critics. I watched it with my wife, at full price, and it wasn't all that bad. It wasn't as entertaining as watching Star Wars for the first time, but it wasn't horrible, either. (My theater and my popcorn, on the other hand, sucked. But that's not part of an impartial review.)
The scenery, sets, CGI, costumes, and general stuff were all excellent. I have only three complaints, and they all deal with plot. Many of Snails's actions bothered me; one of the Empress's actions was difficult to understand; and much of the acting was just bad.
Some specific good stuff: I hope Anne McCafferey watches. The dragons were great. I'd love to see a Pern movie soon.
I thought the main thief character (who I'll always remember as Jimmy Olsen) showed talent and charisma. I believe he was a major hunk. I'm not qualified to make these determinations, though; my wife says "He looked good, but he wasn't THAT good."
I liked the maze. He did everything I would have done, were I the thief. I value cleverness.
The fight scenes were interesting enough, but not spectacular. Luckily, the director didn't dwell on them.
Before moving on to the bad stuff, which contains minor spoilers, I do want to address something I've seen a lot of lately, dealing with Star Wars.
While watching D&D, I knew that there would be lots of comments on how it swiped from Star Wars. I think they're unfounded.
Star Wars was built on ancient archetypes. Lucas admits it, even advertises it. Any other movie built around old storytelling ideals will have elements similar to Star Wars. All the films are stealing from the same source. Learn to live with it, or come up with something new yourself.
* Spoiler Warning *
I was very disappointed with Snails' death. It served no purpose, other than getting rid of a character we didn't really need in the first place. The Mage justifies his death by saying he died for a good cause; but he didn't know what the Empress's position was when he died. Why did he throw away the map? Idiot.
I also had trouble understanding why the Empress brought out the gold dragons. It didn't seem necessary. Perhaps this is a side-effect of the lack of urgency I felt; the Empress mentioned a three-day deadline early on, but didn't explain why. It seemed very arbitrary, and bringing out the dragons was arbitrary, too.
What kind of sequel setup was that? Completely unexplained. Ridiculous. Could've made a sequel any time, with almost no explanation, in a completely different plotline, with an entirely different character set... but NOOOooooo...
* End Spoiler Warning *
Anyway, it was good enough to go see, but not to see twice. Based on how long we talked about it afterwards, this is a 4-mile movie.
Judebert
For geek dads: Contraction Timer
The R rating was seen as low for Saving Private Ryan. I read a review on it in 'USA Today' (a bulwark of the journalistic community) and it said that for all intents and purposes, it was an NC-17 film due to the violence, but the MPAA moved it to an R rating because of the film's artistic integrity (and Spielberg directed it).
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
They're using new 3rd Edition rules...it makes multiclassing much easier and more common. But yes, biggest beef was the mid-level thief doing in Damodar, although to non-DnD players, Damodar fell to his death, we were convinced that he had not taken enough damage (1-2 for the scratch, 1d4+5d6 for the backstab) such that a fall from that height would kill him. (There is a maximum amount damage that can be taken from falling, IIRC.)
The thief just made a successful bull rush to push him over the railing.
So, hurt? Definitely. Dead? Not so sure on that.
Also, the new rules are such that a round lasts 6 seconds and most spells only take an action to cast. (Since you roll a d20 for initiative, an action is roughly 3/10ths of a second)
What I thought was interesting was the fact that I wouldn't necessarily consider a minimum 5th level mage to be worthless. Well, without access to her spellbook, she would be.
I just wish someone could explain the 'magic dust' to me...it was no mere spell component because if it was, that means the "low level apprentice mage" was throwing around dimension doors like wily nilly.
So it was a multipurpose magical dust of sorts to create wormholes OR incapacitate people.
Another thing I noticed was that there were NO saves! If the spell got off, it did its thing to full effect...
Other tidbits:
BAD use of the gold dragon at the beginning. Unless it was a young dragon (which it wasn't) it would have been capable of oh, speaking...spells, a high intelligence and even perhaps a breath weapon not afraid to use? Why it did the stupid "charge like a Rankor" I just can't figure that one out...I guess it felt the need to 'further the story'
Rule #1 of virtually any mage (much less high level ones under the threat of an empress with a wand of gold dragon control): Gold dragons and red dragons are immune to fire! That also means...yep, fireball. So Profion was the only one with a clue and threw up a wall of ice. Ummm, yeah...I can buy that one.
I admit, I liked the CG beholders but they all disappeared kind of suddenly from the encounter. Why? Beholder's Union (local 223) go on strike?
How in the sam hell does a contigent of knights in shiny armor (and bright red cloaks) sneak unnoticed into a thieves' guild?
Why does a chaotic neutral thief walk in to a treasure room and only take the rod he had no intention of keeping himself? In that horde, (if he's so smart and quick thinking) why doesn't he also grab one of the other rods lying around just in case they run into Damodar on the way back so he can fake him out? I don't recall anyone knowing what the rod looks like. There was no innuendo of him coming back to clean house on that horde either.
What is the deal with the total lack of priests? Oh, I suppose somebody might cry devil worship it there was any priesthood mentioned so lets give the Time Lord, er...Elf Lord the power to heal.
Hell, for a quick 1,000gp (or a good cause) a good priesthod would have raised Snails back from the dead...so why the big hissy fit about Snail's death? An 8th level thief should be able to afford to have his best buddy, Snails, raised. He must have been working for a good cause or why else would a couple of gnomes give him a really powerful sword of defending?
At least it has great MST3K potential.
Any well done D&D movie would have to be 2 hours of everyone re-rolling their character to get the stats they wanted. This is apparantly what you get when you go with your fisrt roll.
'Same speed C but faster'
I believe they referred to it as a 'hold person' in the movie.
I used to be a big D&D player, and I found this especially horrible. I figured it would probably just be an easy, "d&d for dummies" sort of show. Not so. Being bombarded with crappy acting, corny and predictable plotlines, and stupid characters for two hours was almost unbearable. It's like the producers decided to steal elements from actual popular movies and incorporate them all together... (Star Wars anyone? Child rulers, glowing sword fights with arch-nemesises...) The characters were pathetic! The movie was more of a slapstick than anything else. I'm glad Snails got his ass kicked, it should have happened before the opening title. Ridley, the-saviour-who-lived-on-the-street-all-his-life-y et-can-kick-trained-soldiers-asses-at-swordplay... riiight... The elven ranger, who is supposed to be both mysterious and sexy, and turns out to be neither. Don't forget the too-tall, not-fat-enough dwarf, who happens to be mentally retarded. And the romantic interest! Whiny and corny, almost unbearable to watch.
Compare this movie with X-men, which was bringing a subject familiar to only a select group of people and making it easy to understand for the masses. They pulled it off just fine, and had a good balance between action and comedy. D&D? No.
Cliches, bad lines, bad acting, horrible corny character voices, the list goes on. Not only was this movie a disappointment, a waste of my money, but it actually hurt to watch, and I feel disgraced the true Dungeons & Dragons.
OMG, that's so true... It's hilarious once you stop and think about it like that. You're right, the plot made no sense at all! :)
All in all, it was an OK movie, but nothing to write home about. Some parts made absolutely no sense, and some of the lines were downright LAME. It seemed like they cut quite a few scenes, so maybe a director's cut would be slightly better.
If you do see the movie, get there in time for the previews. The Mummy Returns looks like a much better movie than the first, and Tomb Raider needs no explanation.
I kinda feel bad for the producers though, it opened against Vertical Limit and Proof of Life.
Ah well, $7 down the drain.
"This film's only hope is to reach an audience too young to recognize its blatant rip-offs." -- E! ONLINE
"Dungeons and Dragons is the fantasy genre at its worst and will likely disgruntle even the most die-hard role-playing wonks." -- Rob Blackwelder, SPLICED ONLINE
"Gamer geeks, I speak your language! And I warn you: Flee!" -- Cody Clark, MR. SHOWBIZ
"As inept as his direction is, Solomon's script is worse, an awful screenplay that shamelessly swipes some of its characters and scenes from the Star Wars movies without as much as a simple acknowledgment." -- Jeff Vice, DESERET NEWS
--
It's Justin Whalin. I only know this because my girlfriend want to bork him when she was younger.
Check out his resume here:
Justin Whalin
Execute? [Y/N] _
Uh, what was your point again ?
BTW thanks for sharing this elightening bit of American insight with us European readers.
--
Fred in Paris. (Started playing D&D about 20 years ago. This post isn't really by me, it's the voices, aaah, the voices in my head !)
PS: If you have any left of whatever it is you're smoking, don't leave it within children's reach.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
..And the Church isn't? Pretty much everything you are claiming D&D will do to impressionable young minds the Knights Templar did in the name of the Christ. Not to mention the horrors visited upon every pagan in the old and new world in the name of Christianity. Rape, torture, burning, mutilation...great examples. Betcha more horrors have been committed in the name of God than D&D.
Thanks but no thanks. The guys I played D&D with are all decent, hardworking citizens who are productive members of society. Haven't yet met a truly tolerant Christian. ( Not that there aren't any, just never met one..) Mention homosexuality or wiccan and they rush to find the sections of the bible to support their bigotry and self-righteousness. Nevermind the sections that talk about tolerance, love for one another... that doesn't matter... IIRC it was religious nuts that stood outside the funeral of the Matthew Shepard who was beaten to death and hung on a fence in Montana by homophobes, not D&D players. "Christians" chanted and demonstrating that he deserved what he got and telling his parents that the boy was burning in hell... riiiight. And you claim D&D promotes unhealthy attitudes...
Color me a D&D player of old, and a Freethinker. Keep your organized religion. I'd much rather my son and daughter play D&D than absorb the values taught by your religion...
3C
Actually, that stems from watching Monty Python movies. Don't get me started on them.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
I agree with your post up to this point:
> Comic books do better, probably because they have plot and character development.
> Superman, Batman, and X-men have all been made into successful movies.
> Games don't have enough literary depth to carry over into film.
You haven't played many games, have you? Or if you have, I would imagine they're probably FPS/action games. The problem with games is the good ones have *too much* depth; I challenge anyone to make a movie of Planescape: Torment or Xenogears and have either one fit within a few hours.
Although I think the real problems with movies based off of games are the director tries to be as faithful to the game as possible and they always have to throw cheesy jokes in; for an example of a movie based on a game done right, watch the anime "Fatal Fury: the Motion Picture." It basically takes a few characters from the Fatal Fury game, forgets about the rest, and makes up its own plot. It's a pretty darn good action flick. And there's not a single bad joke (well, that isn't within a character's personality).
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
----spoilers---- The council wants to take the empresses' gold dragon staff, so she's going to get another one and make everyone happy. Wasn't the point that they wanted to take her power from her so if she just got another dragon controlling staff they wouldn't exactly have let that slide would they? They'd still go to battle. Maybe they weren't suppose to find out about the other staff or something...I don't know. Other than that the thiefs were complete clutzes, the mage didn't seem to do anything at all to help except once(note to self: bring the things you need to cast spells when you're going on an adventure). Also, she didn't even believe that commoners were equal until the end....would you risk your life for an idea that you didn't even believe?? If I was a good actor and read the script that's what would scare me away.
Things just didn't add up.
There was nothing pseudo about it - it was Java proper.
Clue is a great movie, with Tim Curry as the butler and Lee Ving from Fear as Mr. Body.
Aside from the intro, this MP3 is a rip of the sound track from the Summoner D&D-goof movie.
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
I think the producers over estimated their audience base with this movie. Unless you are a die hard fan of D&D, save your money for the Grinch.
Is it possible to loose slashdot karma by stealing a seat at a movie?
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
> What is a troll?
Look it up in The Monster Manual, silly.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The acting and special effects were far more superior in rugrats goes to paris then in dungeon and dragons!
Ok, I thought slashdot was going a little off topic on some things, patents, a little too into GNOME sometimes. But Slashdot has totally hit its target market in the last few days by having an article about The Might Be Giants and DnD.
Slashdot - I solute you.
btw, the movie is funny if you want to laugh at bad films.
There was also never any real character development and throughout the movie I found myself wondering how come they all started acting almost as friends and why I was supposed to care about them.
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
With books and games the trick is trying to figure out what to throw out and what to keep. While still being faithful to the original story.
Book adaptations have had more success for two reasons.
1) A lot more practice.
2) Some books are written with a movie in mind.
With FRP games the volume of information is huge, and generally disorganized. Deciding what to keep and what to throw out, while still being true to the game is difficult, and there are few if any good examples to work from.
Probably the best thing for the D&D movie would have been to take one of the many books and adapt that story to film. First their would be a story, and well developed characters. Second, many of the books would not require excessive special effects scenes, so the money could have been spent to make the few that were required, really good.
Finally, I think comic books are a little easier than both books and games. Mainly expectations are lower, and I think it is easier to write a comic book style story than to try and write more lengthy and serious piece of work. I think it is also easier to write a story from scratch based on characters and scenery, than to try and adapt a novel to film. How many comic book movies try to take an exact storyline from the comic book?
Just my two bits...
Dastardly
Dungeons & Dragons is one of the worst movies I've seen all year. Fortunately it's so bad that it transcends badness and becomes unintentional camp. I was giggling all the way through it. Some reasons to laugh include:
* the pretentious introductory narration
* the Queen's attempts to argue politics (I wanted her to explain things a little more clearly at the end. For example, she could have said: "You are all now equal! Well, except that we still have all the magic powers and I still have the power to control dragons and I'm still the Queen. But besides that, equal. Whatever that means, since I never made it clear what it was that you lack [voting rights? ability to own land? what?] and the other characters haven't expressed any want for it.")
* the Main Villain's overacting
* The Assistant Villain's overacting (Keanu Reeves would have been perfect in this role)
* Elf's aluminum breastplate. (She's a thin model wearing plate armor that gives her the illusion of huge metal breasts. It reminded me of the fake rubber butt-muscles in the Bat-suit, in that any foe who interacted with such a character in real life would fall on the floor laughing, making it easier to dispatch them.)
* Repeated attempts to fix continuity problems by having Elf say something like "you must do this alone."
* Weird time and weather changes from scene to scene. (How can it be dark and stormy in all the computer-generated castle exterior shots when it's bright and sunny in the concurrent outdoor scenes?)
In other words, this is a must-see bad movie. Bring a friend to a matinee and prepare to laugh yourself silly.
I play Nerd-Folk!
I think you should take into account that the 'rape of innocent minds' is happening every day, whether it be in church, school, on the computer, in front of the tv, or listening to parents. Authority, in all its forms, rapes the innocent mind of its ability to make its own decisions based on variety. Authority, as you put forward, is a fall-back position for those who seek forward for new horizons, find none, are scared, or feel inhibited, and need to fall back onto something safe. It's good for you that you have your beliefs. I held them too, once, for years. In fact, I was planning on being the missionary of the computer gaming industry. But do you realize that it is Christians, of all people, that made me loose my faith, because they were the most intolerant, narrow minded bigots I had ever been around? There was no such thing as objectivity, or justice, or thought, or decision: all was but authority and belief. If you want to build a world based on thoughtlessly following ancient traditions for no other reason than because you were told about them so many times that you finally gave in to them, fine... but allow those who would like to play constructive games in which they are forced to think for themselves, invent solutions, and be creative and positively social to do so, without calling into question whether they're headed to a plausible but totally unnecessary (in the grand scheme of things) heaven or hell...
not bad -- probably not that good for people who didn't play D&D too much as a kid -- but in Berkeley, we used to be hardcore...
willis/
there is no thing
what else could you want?
This is and will be the most horrible movie I have ever seen.
I play D&D. I played when the Christian population was mislead by the media into thinking it was evil. I work hard with my friends, co-workers, and anyone that is interested in listening to expound on the good things about the game. This movie has just set back all these efforts.
I am pissed about the money and time that I put into watching that peice o' dragon turd. Moreover I am upset that in my mind I now have the memory of the movie to contend with.
Anyone interested in starting a support group for other Dungeon and Dragons film watchers?
"A sample size of one is really just statistical masturbation."
Here's some that I think are good, but most of them are influenced by nostalgia. I'm skipping anything in the "sci-fi" or anime realm of fantasy. And I realize my picks aren't big on action.
Anyone know some good fantasy movies I missed? Ones that have a little more action? Anyone know why fantasy movies always flop, yet everyone you know has seen and loves them? Think D&D will do this?
And though I haven't bothered to see it, it sounds like they could have made a better movie had they just gotten some role players together, wrote down everything they said, than turned it into a movie.
"Sliders" fans (all two of us :-) ) might remember her as Logan St. Claire, the "alternate Quinn" villain from the episode "Double Cross". Logan St. Claire is widely considered to be the best villain in the history of the show by the "Sliders" fandom, so of course Ms. McLellan was the one actress that the dimwit producer of "Sliders" -- the one who ruined the show after its promising start under another producer -- refused to bring back for a second appearance.
Anyway, many of the "Sliders" fans who knew she was going to be in this film were hoping it might turn out to be good. It's too bad that that isn't the case, for whatever reason. Hopefully this won't kill the career of Ms. McLellan, since she has generally shown an affinity for the sci-fi/fantasy genre in her role choices and I think that sort of thing should be encouraged.
ChicagoFan
I disagree with your opinion.
As with playing D&D, watching a movie should entertain. Yes, many of the games I have played had the quality, look, and feel of this movie.
But I do not go to the movies to watch someone else bumble about on my behalf.
It is a sad thing when the only reaction in the theater was when one of the three or so people to die (common really?) was cheered. And he was supposedly one of the player chars?
I posted earlier. I think this movie sucked. So bad it will not only hurt the studio that put it out but also the role playing world.
"A sample size of one is really just statistical masturbation."
Randall.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
Dungeons and Dragons is the Diakatana of movies. 'nuff said.
A movie is supposed to tell a story. If I wanted an hour and a half of CGI, I would stare at a computer screen for free. I don't pay $6.50 to $8 to see eye candy projected with THX sound (although some who purchased Ultima IX would argue that we paid $50-80 to see that).
Go Lakers!
Actually, if you've read all the star wars books and you have a good GameMaster, Star Wars RPG is actually lots of fun. of course a good gamemaster is probably good for any RPG, but I've only played Rifts and SW:RPG
It's not a 3-in-1 god, it's a buy-one-get-two-free god! ;)
krenshala
krenshala
I KNEW it would suck when I saw Jar-Jar Wayans in the previews. What kind of movie would throw in such an obvious token to PC...and still blow it?
.sig in the bush is worth...how would you get a .sig in a bush anyway?"
"Ok Jar-Jar...errr...Mr. Wayans, you're frightened in this scene, so try to bug your eyes out REAL big, ok?"
I'm not PC, but this kind of Buckwheat tokenism sucks anyway. Thanks for the opinions, all, guess I'll save a few bucks. Damn! and I'm such a sucker for CG eyecandy, I really had my hopes up.
BJG
"A
"To be fair, I was left completely unsupervised." ~Anon
For example, when they're captured by the elf woman and her crew, and the dwarf is forced to ride a horse, and he's bugging out. They just had to say "Dwarves hate horses, you know?" and having the dwarf squirming around as if they expect our reaction to be "hahaha - Dwarves DO hate horses - it's funny cuz its TRUE"
And when the name dropped off the tombstone? Argh, I wanted to punch somebody right then. The stupid comic-relief thief was dead, and the last thing I was willing to handle was him coming back.
When the thief and the mage starting kissing, WHERE IN THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM? There was no dialogue motivation for it whatsoever, it was probably just the only scene with them alone, so they had to throw it in because of a focus group or something.
The point is, D&D the movie sucks goat scrotum, and no one should spend money or time watching it. Rant off.
I have, since high school, become acquianted with at *least* 40 different people who play D&D on a semi-regular to regular basis. Not a single one of these has ever shown any symptoms like those you spoke of.
;)
Those who were devout Christians before they started playing remain devout Christians today. Those who had no interest in any religion still don't - they didn't turn to wicca or anything like that because D&D convinced them to.
Someone else who posted a response to the main topic included a link to a movie called "Summoner Geeks" or something along those lines. Go watch it. The video was a recent addition to an older audio-only clip which started off with a rant a bit like yours ("Dungeons and Dragons... a game which corrupts the minds of young people around the country... come with us as we observe a typical session of this demonic game" or something like that), and then proceeded to show a typical session. And it really is a typical session (more or less). Go watch that video.
D&D is absolutely NOT in any way corrupting. It's something entertaining that quite a few people enjoy. I would argue that playing D&D is a MUCH better influence on kids than football is - you actually have to talk to each other, you have to act as a team when in a party or as a leader when acting as the DM, you have to think on your feet to solve problems... whereas football (american-style that is) teaches you to hit the other guy as hard as you can to win. Hmm...
I think I understand why so many people in the late 70's (when D&D first appeared) were so quick to judge it as evil. Look back a few hundred years- church used to be the ONLY source of entertainment a common person had available to them. Whenever any other sort of entertainment came out (radio, tv, video games, etc etc) there have been some reactionary christians who shouted "It's EVIL!" - not out of a real belief that its evil, but because they knew it would take away from church attendance as people found more interesting things to do. Why should people go to church every week anyway? If you understand what the bible was meant to teach and live by it, you're a good christian. Being reminded of it every week regardless would be like going to driver's ed once a week even if you're a good driver - it just doesn't make sense. Remember that the church makes money by encouraging people who (needlessly) attend every sunday to pay a certain percentage of their income... if less people come, the church takes in less revenue. Of course D&D is evil for anyone thinking from this perspective - people might find something better to do than waste their time being told things they already know!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a D&D player (I've only ever role-played two or three times... just not my thing), and I'm not some sort of radical anti-religious nut. I just get annoyed by the fact that people can take something they know nothing about and brand it as evil simply *because* they know nothing about it.
Oh, to be a bit more on-topic: I saw the D&D movie last night, and it is pretty much trash. There is little to no redeeming value in that film. A few parts were funny, but only accidentally.
Didn't mean to make such a long post... I'm just feeling too lazy to do anything truly productive today
-MoonSammy
And worshiping a god that is not one, not two, but three, three, THREE beings in one shows your grasp of reality how exactly???
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
Street Fighter has earned the high-camp cachet of being "so cheesy it's great". Mario Bros., unfortunately, did not do so well, mainly because it was a quite good little movie. It didn't exactly resemble the games it was inspired by, but it had its own cyberpunk-parody feel to it. It was too grown-up for kids and too kiddie for grown-ups. That, I believe, is why it failed.
The game movie to keep your eyes on is Final Fantasy. I firmly expect this movie to ROCK the house. It's not based on any of the previous games, leaving the door wide open for a brand-new plot and some awesome character development. I don't know if there'll be chocobos or moogles or even summons and magic spells, but one thing is for sure: there WILL be a Cid in this movie. And it's coming from the Squaresoft team that made little pixelated sprites come alive with emotion and depth. Imagine what the cutting-edge CG is going to be like.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Mod this up!
Execute? [Y/N] _
heh, very observant.
nonetheless, how does a typo apply to sticking one's foot in one's mouth?
pimtamf
"- a Wayans brother
'nuff said."
Go see Requiem for a Dream. It has a Wayans brother in it who does a REALLY good job. I'm not kidding!
-MoonSammy
true, but then again final fantasy:the movie hasnt come out yet. That may probably become the defining CG/fantasy/games movie.
I think what we have here is a case of over-generalization. D&D does indeed need a certain mentality, but to say all players of it, "don't have many friends" is about as valid as saying everyone who lives in the mountains are hermits.
D&D is a way for friends to get together, and it is thought-provoking. A good game has players solve puzzles and get their way through a situation alive...and so on and so forth.
Back to the review. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I hear it is pretty bad. Hopefully the Middle Earth movies are MUCH better...
http://www.lordoftheringsmovie.com
This movie is a total huge disappointment.
:P
I'm actually an ENFP, so
but I've played ad&d for years and years and this movie does nothing but give d&d a really really bad name.
Our only hope is to wait for the hobbit movie, which looks awesome.
___________________________
http://www.hyperpoem.net
hyperpoem.net
The D&D movie is a joke. But in a good way.
Any director knows that working with a license is hard. But a D&D liscense is terrible to work with, because there multiple official worlds, hundreds of official rulebooks, and thousands of pieces of official fiction.
Compound that with the limitless supply unlicensed D&D supplements out there, and you realize quickly that if the movie was taken seriously, it would please no one.
So they chose to make a comedy. The movie has the kind of silly plot that would come from a teenage guy dungeon master trying to give his players an epic adventure. Nothing more than a silly parody of "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings," it is clear that no attempt was made to win an Oscar.
The acting is overdone, and all given a terribly unrealistic bent, as it would be done coming from the mouths of gamers. One characters death results in his friend's greatly overacted grief, and it send the entire audience into a minute long laughing fit.
Throw in the endless gay jokes (A good example is a man dressed head to toe in black leather, with blue lipstick and a shaved head, saying "Give me the rod.") and a drunk dwarf and the movie becomes what it always should have been - a screenplay of a D&D session.
While I agree that games tend to lack literary depth, games DO provide a wonderful, common frame of reference to work from. The worlds and characters tend to be very rich in detail and history. The films could really capitalize on that, really rewarding people who have played the game. Don't get caught up in explaining all of the minute details. In Alien, they didn't both trying to explain what laid all the eggs, or building a whole background of the alien ship on the planet or anything. The _plot_ revolved around other things. Still, if Alien were adapted from a game, they could have made the alien ship a species that game players loved to hate - kind of an inside joke for the enlightened. Movies based on games do not have to be bad. Script writers should _gain_ by having such a rich, detailed background to work from. Bad writing if just plain bad writing.
"You meet in a bar fight." I damn near got up and left when it immediately degenerated into a bar scene.
"Human hits on an elf 10x his age."
"Silly dwarf syndrome."
"The rock in the opposite direction trick."
"The black guy always gets it."
"There is NO honor amongst thieves."
"Item used to control dragons more than faintly resembles a dragon."
"Preordination."
"A guy, a girl, and adventure..."
"The adventure continues......"
"A dungeon out in plain sight."
"Escaping into sewers."
On a gib-scale of 1-5, I'd give D&D 2 gibs. Basically, go see this movie at a matinee. Only pay full price if you have no other option.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The reality of the lives of "geeks" (technical geeks, not "biting-heads-off-chickens-at-the-carny" type) is, it seems, changing.
I was a nerd in school, plus we moved around the country and the usual "alienation" resulting from the mindless contempt and persecution I encountered was unavoidable. My son, who is at least as nerdy as I was, has always been viewed by his peers (even "jocks", "rich kids", "stoners", etc.) as having some value BECAUSE of his knowledge of computers. The kid who can get your burned copy of D2 to work , or pump out some wild Photoshopped Rave flyers has some social standing. Not as much as a dealer, maybe, but not aggresively discriminated against either.
This should, over time, produce techie types who less often fit the old sterotype. Of course, the stereotype will linger even when techies are more like people from a beer commercial than the pasty, flabby, asocial, Little Debbie-fueled freaks they are perceived as now. Not YOU, of course.
BJG
(The above was submitted without referencing or even THINKING about Jon Katz' ideas on the subject.)
"To be fair, I was left completely unsupervised." ~Anon
From the previews, I knew that this movie had the potential to suck really horribly, but I was hoping for the best. I thought Marlon Wayans would ruin the movie, but he was the only interesting character. I was expecting more actual dungeon crawling with parties and monsters in the dungeon. I was hoping for more cool looking spells and stuff. I was actually hoping for Dungeons & Dragons. I swear, the director must've gotten everyone together before filming and said "Don't act." I suppose it was good if you discount the dialogue, plot, characters, and directing, but the 5 minutes of dragon CGI was not enough to save it. In short, this movie sucked so much ass that I now have big black hickeys on my butt.
Dexter4242 "I must be a computer geek." - Sicko
We better hope we can look foward to LOTR because if it is as bad as D&D we may have to raise hell with New Line. Pray to God they don't screw LOTR up.
...In a reaally twisted horrible way. I must say that it was really quite fun to sit there and look at a piece of work that sounded like it was written by a 13 year old who just got his hands on the Players Handbook.
My favorite parts include the lead male's wonderful Shatnerian yell "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!" (on his knees no less) when Sgt. Whisper (of the lavender lip brigade) does something really overdue.
Other wonderful additions are the fact that two characters do precicely NADA in the film, instead saying things like "This is up to them." and "We're not allowed to enter and help." I was really glad that they were there. A personal fave of mine was the 50 year old male queen who "lays on hands" (if you catch my drift) the strapping young buck who lies in his bed. Nice overtones that really adds depth to the movie.
And of course the wonderful subtlety of the good versus evil thing. While movie tends to point to Prothion as the evil one, it is the queen who after refusing the council's request to turn over a weapon of mass destruction, then uses the weapon and summons some 25-30 gold dragons to raze the city and destroy the somewhat undergunned mages. You see the mages do such dasterdly things as a shield of ice and run around ducking fireballs. Occasionally they shoot some fireballs back (I would to if 30+ dragons were trying to fry me) but they miss.
Then after the resolution of said battle, the people get to hear "You are all equal" from the lips of the tyrand herself. Man, I bet they were glad she was fighting for them, as their house burns to the ground and people lied dead under the bodies of fallen dragons. I'm sure those tears were for joy.
But of course I didn't expect the audience to catch the subtle "What is good and What is evil" argument. They were too busy waiting for the Queen to cast the "Power Tits stun" spell at Profian. And I guess I was too. God bless america.
humor for the clinically insane
great comedy company.
He played Jimmy Olsen on "Lois and Clark" after season 2.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The only thing that was cool about this movie was that the dude from Rocky Horror Picture Show was in it... or a guy that looked just like him. (I'm talking about Riff Raff in RHPS playing the head theif guy).. Well anyway, the empress was a blatant ripoff of Queen Amidala.. it was not funny enough to be a parody. Now Final Fantasy looks good.. lets see how that one turns out!!!
- yezzz, my name is a joke.
>Mario was neat
Are you insane? That movie is quite possibly the worst adaptation of a game ever. First off, all the little kids who went to see it got something that had basically nothing to do with the games. Secondly, it was rated PG-13, if I recall. Kudos to the idiotic director for scaring off his own target audience. When I saw this movie (I was about 10 or so), I actually found it scary! Definitely not what Mario is supposed to be in the least. And of course, as in all bad movies, the acting and plot was paper thin.
Sheesh.
You know what's funny, though, is how in video game form, Street Fighter is a vastly superior game than Mortal Kombat, but the Street Fighter movie by all accounts sucked, and the Mortal Kombat movie was not bad. I garuantee you that the absolutely excellent soundtrack for Mortal Kombat (thank you KMFDM) helped a bunch.
There's also the Tekken anime, which is supposedly wretched. Too bad, because the game is great, and the massive amount of backstory could have lended itself well to a feature length movie. I guess that's how it always is, there is almost the potential for a good movie, but bad directors almost always mess it up.
Actually I wrote it myself a few days ago. I figured there would be an article about the movie.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
> Dungeons & Dragons is a wholly evil, demonic, and dangerous game that corrupts the minds of our nation's youth.
Au contraire, I think D&D is a nice, safe way for young children to learn to handle magical weapons and dangerous spells before they grow up and get their hands on the real things.
Responsible behavior is the result of a socialization process.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Aside from the intro, this MP3 is a rip of the sound track from the Summoner D&D-goof movie.
Um, it's the other way around.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
- The scene where Thulsa Doom strikes the head from Conan's mother's shoulders as she holds his hand. The look on Thulsa Doom's face is pitiless. Conan stares at his mothers hand until she falls from his grasp. He then looks at Thulsa Doom. This sets up the whole movie, IMHO.
- Conan walking about in wolf skins after the scene where he was chased by wolves. Just classic.
- "Lions Ate Him?!" The way Max Von Sydow utters this line is just great.
:) The scene just after where he ends up throwing gems at Conan's group is also quite nice. "There are times when the gems cease to sparkle, and all that's left is a father's love for his daughter." A truly magnificent monologue there.
- The whole scene where Conan and friends attack Thulsa Doom's orgy, coated in black and white paint. The chaos is beautiful, though Sandhal needed a bit more training with the sword.
- The whole scene where Conan and friends (-1) are attacked *by* Thulsa Doom and friends on the hill. This, in addition to a great battle scene, is also the turning point for the princess.
- The ending, especially in the Director's cut version. It's rare that I like the way a movie ends. This was one of the few that I did like. The silent dropping of the torches, one by one, like some well-ordered ritual resignation, the spurning of the princess by Conan, whether you interpret it as attempting to show her she needs no idol to cling to, or that he simply does not care for anything but his revenge, and missing that, cares for nothing -- showing that Thulsa Doom was correct. It's a satisfying ending to an epic.
Definitely one of the very few fantasy epics that I feel are worth the time it takes to watch them. The other, in my mind is "Excalibur" (here, Nicol Williamson shines as Merlin -- his whole demeanor is one of humor and hidden power, also a very satisfying movie).Yes, the Imperial March is stolen from Holst; The Klingon theme is taken almost entirely from various works by Prokofiev. But neither John Williams or Alexander Courage is guilty of anything that hasn't been done by almost every successful composer, ever. In music, they call it "influence." In writing, it's plagarism, and in movies it's "stealing." But really, look carefully. Indiana Jones, the Star Wars movies, etc. are all cliche after cliche, but they are well executed cliches. That, I think is the difference between those movies and D it was not well executed.
Actually..... the movie was made from the MP3 (if it's the same movie we're talking about; the people sitting at a table playing D&D and the one guy in the kitchen is a dragon like thing and it's all done with 3d models)... if you look at the credits at the end of the Summoner D&D movie it gives credit to the Dead Alewives skit. Henceforth the Dead Alewives did it first.
No amount of drinking (short of passing out) could have made up for the suckiness of the file!
The one tiny amusing part, at least for me, as the No Honor Among Thieves bit, reminding me of that little picture somewhere in the old books I played from oh-so-long-ago.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
You sound like Jon Katz put in a blender with the worst sort of closeted geek.
You know, we understand things other than pseudo-C++...
Unfortunately, I don't think that post was a troll. Some Christian, probably intelligent enough to work in IT or something, actually beleives this crap. You /.ers are just to cool to beleive someone could be so wrongheaded. This is an unfortunate side effect of a)Christians being told, and beleiving, that God and/or the Devil are down here micromanaging everything and b)beleiving that if you read the Bible hard enough you'll be able to understand everything in this world. These people see an undeniable negative effect of todays' culture on "impressionable young minds" and look for the Devils' handiwork.
I'm a Christian, and I don't beleive either of those things, and I'm freaking embarrased by people like this. Pretty funny tho, if you've got a weird sense of humor.
BJG
"Hey! What about those of us who have OLD minds that are still impressionable? Could I be sucked in too? Guess I better be careful..."
"To be fair, I was left completely unsupervised." ~Anon
"The story often thrills with its message about the sinister homogeneity of evil and how good can prevail only if diverse types join together to do what's right."
-- Nancy Chumin, Dallas Morning News
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.
..."This movie should be contemplated on the Tree of Woe."
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Yeah, why don't we just cut out the middle man and have little Billy watch Saving Private Ryan instead?
I saw Saving Private Ryan twice in the theatre, and both times was appalled to see that parents had brought their young kids when it was clearly inappropriate (One was an infant who cried during each battle, and there were young kids who got very upset at the beginning, etc.) In fact, when I saw the re-release of The Exorcist, some jackass woman had brought her young daughter (maybe 7 or 8 years old), and she CLEARLY wanted to leave, but they made here stay for the whole thing.
Fuckin' awful parents....
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
- Tom Baker
Did anyone else catch that the healing elf was frickin Tom Baker? w00t!
See! Those jelly-babies are good for SOMETHING.
It also shows exactly how versatile a vehicle a TARDIS can be!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Are you *out* *of* *your* *mind*??!?!?!?
I imagine every single viewer of this movie is going to want their two hours back, let alone their $7.50. You think it would be better if it were longer???
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
In any case, I'm wondering if you have any other of your writings online. (Reading is a good way to avoid studying for finals week. :)
"The food here is so terrible."
"Yes, and such small portions."
Dan
Incorrect. That movie was based on the Johnny Mnemic short story by William Gibson.
And that movie adaption was just terrible.
i can't say i agree with you there. sure, the violence was "extreme", but that was because they were trying to give the audiance a feel of how bloody war is, and to give them a reason to feel for the poor grunts who have to go find some guy to send him home, while THEY have to stay, and put up with more of the violence.
Now here's the thing - all the posts I read make some comment along the line of "I could've written a better script". Well then, why are there so few decent fantasy movies out there? Every fantasy nut (I'm one myself) seems to think that every fantasy that comes out is nearly garbage, and that it would be terribly easy to make a better film. Will somebody please do it then? The guy who directed this got it made out of sheer will (first time director - just pushed until he got the deal). I wish to god that some of these genius scriptwriters/directors at Slashdot would put the effort in - half so that there would be a better film, and half so that they would shut up for a while.
I'm an amateur filmaker myself (Vendetta: A Christmas Story). No matter how much I suck, at least I'm doing something.
It's been about 6 years since I opened it but I remember that illo too, it was in the Dungeon Master's Guide. It was by Dave Trampier who has since disappeared. Really. Even his brother in law (the great Tom Wham who designed Awful Green Things From Outer Space) who worked with him a lot doen't know where he is.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
What did you expect? An oscar performance? Yes it was complete cheese. I knew it was going to be when I went in and I was right. I also laughed throughout the entire movie, not only at the joke but sometimes at the sheer nonsensical nature of the movie. There are only so many ways to have a fantasy movie with out doing something someone else already did. THERE ARE NO NEW PLOTS. They simply recycle old ones to make them seem new. Therefore every movie is a "rip" of something else. Ever notice how starwars rips on alot of mythology? Not specifics of course, but the lone hero against insurmountable odds. Lucas even admitted that! Every good hero movie has parallels to mythology, this one just happen to hit on all the ones we know best.
There where lots of scenes where I immediately spotted the "rip-offs" like the Elven Village, the cave with the dragon staff, etc... I don't understand why they did it that way but when you think about it some of them really aren't as strong a rip off as people are saying. I think we noticed them only because we are the type of people who can recall those movies with exacting presicsion and when we see the faint or even moderate similarities we jump all over them like it's sacrilegious or something. The vehement reaction most people have here seems undeserved. Yeah most of the movie was cliche`. So what? It's a movie, not a social commentary. Most of the acting was silly but how do you expect a dwarf or an elf to act? The characters were complete stereotypes of what we would expect of those fantasy races and character classes. What else would they put in the first D&D movie?
Some people clapped when Snails died, but at least in this movie the "comic relief" bit it, unlike another movie I could name... *cough* Episode 1 *cough*... And don't even mention the ending. I still haven't figured that out.
The summary of my point I think boils down to this. Movies of any of our favorite subjects are never ever going to satisfy hard core gamer/geek people such as ourselves. Could you fit a decent campaign within 2 hours? No! Why did you expect a movie to? You can only hope that it presents the subject matter in a way that makes other people understand what's so enjoyable about it to us.
The next remark is false. The previous remark is true.
Okay, while I admit that the signs you suggest (withdrawl, lack of interest in schoolwork, apathy, etc etc) would be likely signs of "D&D addiction", I think your post is kind of a cop out, because these signs are very general and can be applied to MANY different situations (drug abuse, depression, or just being antisocial tend to all have the same apparent side-effects).
I suffer from clinical depression and exhibit most of the same symptoms you describe. It would be rather asinine (and irresponsible) of you to convince my parents that I am a D&D addict and am this subject to the possibility of committing murder, rape, mutilation, etc etc. Thats surely not the case at all, but my parents, like many, would see your post as a total red flag and likely have me locked up.
While I have never been involved in D&D and really have no interest in it, I find it somewhat hard to believe that completely normal youth will fall victim, so to speak, to the evil Dungeon Master (read: cult leader). However, I find it easy to believe that youth with emotional/social disorders could fall victim, in which case, I would hope that the parents would already be aware of the child's illness (and yes, most emotional/social disorders are treatable). For youth that have not exhibited any common symptoms of emotional/social disorders, the risk of being corrupted, so to speak, is probably nominal.
Also, I don't mean to rain on your parade, but I hold the opinion that we are all born with the right of religeous freedom, and some of us are not "God-fearing Christian youths". This negates the validity of the last paragraph of your post (and as a side note, if the youth really is a God-fearing Christian, I'd think they'd be much less susceptible to D&D-type brainwashing).
I'm sure you mean well, but please try to be more objective and factual about this stuff. I'd be intrested to see where you've gotten your information regarding your post.
And please refrain from scaring the parents of today's youth with notions that will make MANY of those parents exteremely paranoid toward thier children. This is equally unhealthy. Just because you imform parents of this supposed imminent danger hardly guarantees that they are going to handle things in a positive way, and really, you're not doing anyone a favor unless you can post some information as to how to go about rectifying a situation such as that you describe.
-DP
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
Isn't this how the "moral majority" keep their numbers up? Oh well, I'll think about that (briefly) as I practice my religion of sleeping in on Sunday afternoon.
--
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Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Are you talking about the Princess Bride movie I know? And you think it was maybe an attempt at comedy? It's obviously intended as comedy, and I think it completely succeeded. Of course it also has elements of satire, romance, and real adventure.
... "Have fun storming the castle!" "The Dread Pirate Roberts!" "He's not all dead..."
I can think of a dozen great scenes from that movie:
"Inconcievable!" --- "This word, I don'not think it mean what you think it means" "Mawage... Bwings uf twogwever today"... "I'm just going to have to get myself another giant"
And of course, the immortal line: "My name is Inigo Montoya.... You killed my father... Prepare To Die!" The Princess Bride is on my top ten list of favorite movies ever.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Okay I didn't like the movie all that much... but I thought the Wayans Brother actually did the best job out of all the characters... if you think of it as a campaign then he is simply the character that goofs off the whole time you're playing... when I first saw the preview and saw he was in it I thought "stupid wayans brother will ruin the movie"... but then I thought about it a little more and realized that I play that type of character in D&D...
On a side note the empress didn't deliver her lines for crap. She just threw them out as separate words instead of complete sentences...
That aside, the D&D movie really wasn't that bad. As someone on SFFnet put it, it has great actors, pretty good CGI, but a poor script--but fortunately the actors were by and large able to rise above the script. I enjoyed it; the gamers I saw it with seemed to as well, for the most part. But then, there's no accounting for tastes.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I'm going to see it because I want to see more fantasy movies in the future. Hollywood execs are lemmings, if DnD fails, you can forget about any more fantasy movies for a while. LotR will probably be great, but everyone knows that one has extremely favorable circumstances (talented and passionate director, many well-known actors working for less than normal just to be in it, good budget, and their own special effects company). Support the fantasy genre guys. I've gone and seen every fantasy movie that's hit the theatres since I was a young'un. Just my 2 cents. -17028
they have trailers for this on finalfantasy.com. It looks awesome. (hmm, the site seems to be down, here's a meta one) I've been playing FF9 and the CGI in there is some of the sweetest I've seen. Blows away any other movie stuff I've seen.
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+&x
It was a movie it did not have to fowlowing the rules of the game. It was a good movie all in all.
Admittedly he didn't sneak up on him like a self-respecting theif would. But hey, if Ridley was as good as he was supposed to be, that should be some pretty HEFTY damage with a magical longsword.
Of course the entire blow was wasted. The defenestration alone would have killed baldy.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Now that's really offtopic. But what's up with your Java naming? Since when are we using al lowercase letters with underscore for variable naming? Is that C/C++ for you? it should be someTitle instead of some_title. Enjoy!
http://dtum.livejournal.com
Jeremy Irons was in the remake of Lolita. I almost turned the film off halfway through because it was making me sick to my stomache. I watched it all because it was so well done. For me, that was JI's most memorable performance.
first off you have to have played the game in order to understand the movie. This movie is not a theatrical masterpiece, because the subject matter is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
then you have to deal with a first time director. the director secured the movie rights when he was 19 (ten years ago) and he was coerced into directing the movie because of how diligent he was in getting the movie done in the first place.
third, you have a bunchy of whiners that go into the movie expecting perfection or the best cgi ever, but forget that the entire movie was only done on a budget of $35 million.
forthly, people also lambasted star wars episode one for its campiness, but forget that its more a childrens movie than a serious movie for adults. just because the reviewer has no grasp of the subject matter doesn't always mean that he knows what is best for the rest of the populace.
remember you can't be serious when you see this movie. take it for what it is, a table top game with all of its over the top antics turned into a movie.
i would write out my entire diatribe, but this will remain modded down to -1, like all my nice comments....bah...slashdot moderators suck!
patience is a virtue... anger is a gift
good point. i now have an account. thanks.
... but you *have to actually like D&D*. Or at least, you have to be comfortable with it. It has to seem normal to you for a bunch of people with nothing in common to suddenly start going on a quest together. Weird unique items which can't be duplicated must seem logical.
:)
If you accept the premises on which most D&D games are built, it's a pretty fun movie. The fight scenes are good; they would have been great with better use of the cameras. The plot is much more coherent than, say, The Matrix, or Mission Impossible 2, and it serves the same basic purpose; provide a vague justification for whatever you were going to do next.
I had a lot of fun. I might even go see it again. There were problems, but mostly it was a lot of fun.
However, it *really* requires you to have the right sort of suspension of disbelief.
The dialogue was a little weak - but *D&D IS LIKE THAT*. I saw nothing wrong with Profion's dialogue; I spend a good four to six hours a week either running characters that talk like that, or listening to someone else do it.
I run a couple of D&D games fairly regularly, and I play in another one.
I think the big lesson is this: This is a movie that you will like about as much as you like classic D&D. If you don't think dungeon crawls are fun, you won't like the movie. If you think gaming is for geeks, you won't like the movie - and I pity you. If you don't buy into the basic premises of the heroic fantasy world, you won't like the movie.
The acting may have been a little off, but compared to a middle-aged programmer saying "So, we tell her about the quest, uhm, and the gem" these guys were *into* their roles.
It's all relative. What amazes me is that people who liked the Matrix are complaining about the plot and the acting in the D&D movie. The thing the Matrix did better was effects and camera work. It did them a lot better, but that doesn't mean it had a plot, or that the actors were remotely convincing.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
The fact that there is a discussion about this movie from people who have already seen it, and here I am, still waiting patiently for the cinema release.
-sigh-
Why MUST the USA get the releases before the rest of the planet? And then impose silly things like zoned DVDs so that people like me suffer to purchase DVDs, just because the local movie distributers deem certain films non-profitable to import?
This may seem off-topic, but that's exactly my point... please refrain from discussing films on an worldwide open forum of the likes of Slashdot.
I have no self-control, so sue me...)
Dom.
The theatre staff laughed at me when i went up to the refeshment area and asked for a new sword and some better armor. I will have to destroy them for that later...
I am !amused.
Anyway, if moderators mod me up of their own accord (over and above what I think my post should have gotten), then does that still make me a whore?
I just wanted to pass on some humor that the majority of the readers wouldn't have otherwise seen, and I wanted to show that most "professional" reviewers agree with the SlashdotSentiment.
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I would guess that it is because in their daily life, the computer nerd is very logical, indeed Spock like, and generally fits the INTP Myers Brigg personality profile (INTP = Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving). They also find it difficult to relate socially with other people, and indeed resort to usenet, IRC, weblogs etc such is their secret hunger for socialisation.
I think that fantasy allows an escape from these logical and social bindings. The computer nerds are free at last to let their imaginations soar upwards to the high plains of fantasy, and the roleplaying elements of D&D allow for socilisation as well.
Indeed, it has been known for some to become so entranced and invloved that they refuse to come out of it, which can become unhealthy. I have personally known two such people, and one of them had to be treated by a psychiatrist.
Still, in moderate amounts, I think that fantasy, D&D, and the like are very healthy pursuits for a nerd, and may give hime confidence in the wider world. As long as he is old enough to deal with the reality confusion that in depth play can sometimes engender, I have no problem with it.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
To learn more about Myers Brigg and work out your own personality profile check out this page.m pl.htm
http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/tt/t-articl/mb-si
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
If it was all that great of a movie, it wouldn't come on Comedy Central in the middle of the night, right after "Earth Girls are Easy".
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
i haven't seen the movie, but i wasn't too happy when i woke up the other day to find an email from something@dndblah.com with an embedded flash movie telling me to go watch it.
i mean, i'm not on any movie mailing list, so i'm not sure who's giving them addresses.. but it's plain & simply spam to me.
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
If done right, it could actually be a decent movie.
a sp ?searchid=2499
/. audience.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/news/newsarticle.
Apparently Wes Craven's going to be directing it, which should be quite interesting. There's also rumors that Natalie Portman's going to be in it, which is bound to excite at least portions of the
Don't forget Double Dragon, it had Alyssa Milano in it and was horrible.
I'd have to say that "Spawn" was the worst movie I ever saw in the theater. Yes, even worse than "Short Circuit". The only reason I didn't leave was because I thought my friend wanted to stay. The only reason he didn't leave was because he thought _I_ wanted to stay.
I haven't seen the movie, nor do I intend to. I'd only have the tiniest of interest anyway since Hollywood takes fairly esoteric or old franchises and completely ruins them on a regular basis.
But after seeing the trailers, I _really_ don't want to see it. I could smell the wooden acting a mile away, as well as what I strongly suspect is a lot of lame attempts at humor.
A friend commented that it looks like "Bill and Ted Excellent Adventure". I disagreed because:
a. Bill and Ted was supposed to be stupid
b. It was actually very clever.
Anyhow, let's hope that the LOTR movie lives up toour expectations. I suspect that a few people in Hollywood are actually beginning to catch on about actually making movies based on something that the fans of that something would actually want to see. The X-Men was very good, but I think they've got a long way to go in general. After all, unless it would be an adaptation of one of the modules or novels (and the only one of those I ever read was so much of a rip-off of Tolkien than I never finished it), that would mean that a Hollywood person would have to actually write a plot, and we all know that there more creative writing talent in the average kindergarten class than in all of Hollywood.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I went and saw it with a bunch of the guys from BioWare (I'll let them post their own responses ;p), and I can honestly say it wasn't as bad as I expected. It could have been a lot worse. Some of the CGI was pretty, and the overall plot wasn't horrible, and it was essentially a pretty average movie. ... the Empress specifically. I've seen junior high drama students who've got better acting ability. Most of the other actors weren't much better, and even worse, they weren't given much of a script to work with. The dialogue was clumsy, it was seriously Hollywood-ized at points, and there were far too many Star Wars references to count.
Ultimately though, for the sole reason that it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, I'd call it a 2 star movie. Certainly not something I'm going to buy on DVD when it comes out, but I've paid seven bucks to see worse movies. If you're going to go, go with a bunch of friends and heckle the hell out of it ... at the very least you'll leave the theatre knowing that you could have written a better script.
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Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!
Unfortunately, there were more than a few moments of complete and utter suck. Usually these moments happened when one of the characters opened their mouth. There were honestly groans at some of the dialogue at quite a few points in the movie
I was blown away by Marlon Wayan's performance in Requiem. Truly suprising. Other than the fact that I was seriously depressed for the rest of the day, it was a damned good movie.
-josh
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
Wow, that came out badly... I mena to have a in there. :)
Well, at least that's what theDM's thinking...
"Dogammit... if they don't stop messing up this campaign, I'm gonna send a demon after them!"
Are there any? DnD obviously isn't, what other past fantasy films have been decent? I can't wait for The Lord of the Rings series to come out, as it looks REALLY good. Of course we have to wait another year for the first one. :-(
Blake
Thus it could be the case that lute-playing is independent of profession, and one would still find that 2/3 of one's lute-playing acquaintances were computer geeks.
* extrapolating from my weekday environment, I conclude that only 12% of the world's population is female, therefore the need for gender-neutral pronouns is much less than previously supposed.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
What is the gate that the mage opened? She is either extremely high level, or this is a new spell I am not aware of. And what spell did she use to tie up the thieves in the beginning? That was not "web", nor do I recognize that spell.
I had a bet going with a friend to see if there would be women at the theater, and there were actually a few woman, some very cute ones too! There is hope for us yet! As another friend said, any woman that goes to this movie is marriage material <GRIN>
- Alain
...are you one of those poor unfortunates who missed out on Willow? That must suck. Poor guy. You should really watch that when you get a chance. =P
-Kasreyn.
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
That guy who played the elven Cleric, that was Tom Baker! Yes, THE Tom Baker, of Dr. Who fame!
:)
I kept expecting a little balding man in a robe to pop up and have everyone shout "Dungeon master!".
Seriously, though, the movie wasn't THAT bad. Yes, it was a little reminicent of Star Wars. So was "Gladiator" in a lot of ways. Just because you have an empire under seige, a young empress, a nd a war, it does not follow that you have Star Wars episode 1. There are plenty of historical examples that follow this formula, and believe it or not, none of them stole their history from Mr. Lucas.
Yes, I admit, when theif boy came out onto the balcony in the elf tree-village, I leaned over to my girlfriend and said "But you have a power I could never understand". And admittedly, the glowing blue good magical sword, and the glowing red evil magical sword... well let's just say I was waiting for someone's hand to get cut off in that scene. I'm not sure that these similarities were intentional though.
I agree completely. It was a fun, lighthearted movie. The special effects were great, and not overdone. Some of the props looked like plastic, and the custumes were kinda cheesy, and a couple people's acting coulda been better, but it was full of action, an easy to follow story, and wasn't the "I'm going to hit you with my +1 staff of ass-kicking with a +4 bonus to touching my toes"-fest I thought it would be.
It was worth it, in my opinion. Just don't expect a timeless tale.
"Please don't sigh like that, maam"
(*&@#ing lameness filter not allowing short posts)
The cure for 1933 is 1917.
Nice .sig! <grin>
-Ben
Say what you mean, mean what you say! But please know what #$@% you are talking about!
Let's not forget Tomb Raider and the Infernal.. SORRY, i mean Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. Which was basically Tomb Raider with Indiana Jones...
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ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
I just got back from seeing it. After sitting through some of Hollywood's more abysmal efforts over the years -- remember the Dark Crystal, anyone? Conan? -- I'd have to say that this movie isn't half as bad as the know-nothing butchers make it out to be. The supporting cast is indeed questionable, but the construction of the movie is not. It plays exactly like a D&D roleplaying session, complete with bits of humor, a loose plot where things seem made up along the way, and so forth. Not all of the supporting roles are badly done, though: Tom Baker was excellent as an elven healer. Others were underutilized, such as the dwarf that winds up in the party. The ending was fairly awful, but more because of the timing (certain things ought to be done in a hurry in a real game) and what was shown onscreen than because of what happened. (Hopefully only those of you who've seen it will figure that out :)
I have to forgive that and the ripoffs of other movies; I'll bet there was a studio note to insert each and every one of them...
The effects were better than any live-action fantasy flick I've seen thus far, and I've probably seen most of 'em. Spells needed components and zapped around impressively. The dragons were done reasonably well, but still smacked a bit of artificiality. A minor spoiler paraphrase for those of you who actually read the credits: "No dragons or other animals were harmed during the making of this movie." :-)
All in all, if you've ever played D&D, go see the movie. If you want typical Hollywood plot, acting, etc., see something else.
what do you expect from a film with weeny looking dragons and next to no elves?
i'm only waiting for the next showing so i can go to the movie prepared with rotting produce and broken computer parts to lob at the screen.
!-- wit --!
I swear - that sounds truly great, man :). I mean, that's what any great artist does - just expresses their obsessions, ideas, etc. Then if a lot of people agree, they're a "good artist" and if only a few people agree, they're a "bad artist". Well who cares. I say you go for it.
An interesting exception (personally) was Double Dragon. I was expecting a true groaner... and I was right, but because the movie didn't take itself seriously at all, and actually tried to make you groan (and chuckle and laugh, including the ex-henchmen on the side of a California highway holding up a sign saying "Will Hench for Food").
When I got to the credits and saw one of the story credits went to Paul Dini (of Batman/Superman fame) I suddenly understood where some of the goofy, odd, and funny moments must have come from.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Oh. my. God.
This has got to be the worst movie I've ever seen. If LOTR spawns any more knockoffs like this one, the genre is doomed for the next five years.
I'm a special effects geek, and I detest spoilers, so I'll totally restrict my comments here. (erm.. as if there were any real plot to spoil! But I wo't really addres that.)
1. PG-13. OK, so we can expect some violence, maybe a bit of language. Probably no sex. Which, of course, is bogus. Every D&D campaign I was ever in involved the barmaid ending up in our room at the end of the night. And let's not discuss the captive elf maidens.
2. Bad smoke effects. This does not bode well.
3. Unnecessary, non-scary shot of a red demon statue. I have no idea what this is doing here.
4. Pan over a nice looking bridge. Shot on location. Nice sets. Pretty to look at. Looks a lot like the castles in The Phantom Menace.
5. Confusing swirly dragon globe thing. Dragon orb, we realize, after seeing it a second time. Got it.
6. Dark, imposing castle.
7. Close-up of dragon face. Totally non-scary and unimpressive. This was done better in Dragonheart, several years ago. You'd think they could at least have bought a Pentium II to do the CGI on.
The one bright point was the soundtrack (mixing in particular). While the score was not particularly impressive, the sound effects were actually quite good, which surprised me since so little attention is paid to sound effects these days. Everyone spends so much time on eye candy / bad CGI that the sounds may as well be tin cans.
Well, this movie was actually an exception. Unfortunately, I doubt that many other people care about that particular kind of detail. It certainly does not redeem the movie.
That said, if all that you want is an excuse to snuggle in a dark theatre, this one is as good as any. But don't expect the movie to provide the entertainment. (wink wink, nudge nudge)
Imagine how aweful a movie that tried to take itself more seriously would have been. It would almost certainly not have satisfied the self-declared "purists", and would have been even less understandable to the rest of the audience.
I think you should save your dissatisfaction for "Lord of the Rings", which is actual a wonderful story, and will undoubtedly be ugly and mangled beyond recognition in its film rendition.
Sarcastic? I think not! The rape of thousands of innocent minds should hardly be considered funny. Your casual attitude about such a critical topic disturbs me. How would you describe your relationship with God? Have you found Jesus?
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
I think this movie was fantastic otherwise though. It *felt* like a game of D&D and not to mention that every game of D&D is just a bunch of geeks sitting around being nerdy ("Where are the Cheetos?--Can I have a Mt. Dew?!" "Uhm, I'm, uhm, attacking the darkness!" "No no no! I wanted gray eyes! *waaah*").
Of course, every dragon in the movie was just, astonishing.
Hey, we also got to see teh Final Fantasy movie trailer!! That was more than worth my 8 bucks. :-)
I saw it last night, and yes, it does suck as much as everyone says it does.
I went into the movie expecing it to be about the shittiest movie ever. Usually that's good for the movie, because when I'm not expecting much, it doesn't take much to make me happy. This however, did not make me happy.
Some bad parts that stick out: (SPOILERS -- but don't worry, it will suck whether you read my spoilers or not!):
--After the scene where the two main characters *finally* kiss, the girl decides to alter her clothing to "slut mode." She starts wearing a choker, and low cut shirts. I guess this could be looked at as a good thing, but storywise it's just lame.
--They kill off Snails, but then in the end have him maybe-sort-of come back to life. Dude, he died. Get over it. Bringing back a character that sucked, will just make the movie suck more!
--The Emperess. I haven't seen such bad acting in a *loooong* time. Pretty much every line that comes out of her mouth hurts your ears.
--The CG at some points is _almost_ okay. But some of the computer generated characters stand out about as much as the "you-can't-tell-they're-new" stormtroopers Lucas added to the desert scenes in the special edition Star Wars.
--There were some horrible fight scenes. Specifically, in the final battle between the main good guy, and the evil servant guy. Sorry, all the names have already been flushed out of my brain.. They decided to copy the light sabre fighting style from Star Wars Episodes IV-VI instead of the newer fighting style. They pretty much just bang their swords together and make pretty colors shoot out.
--The Elf and the Dwarf becoming friendly in the end? Come on... Get real!
--Evil look of power when main character dude get a hold of the Rod and thinks about killing big bad dude. I think the director should have done a second take for that scene.
There's plenty more that sucks, but I'll leave that up to you to find, since I'm sure no matter how much people tell you this movie sucks, you have to see it for yourself to appease the geekiness inside you.
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
Well, there's the guy at http://www.betterstarwars.com who's rewriting ST:TPM. I guess that's a start.
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
I think that the movie's overall badness was a plus. It made it feel like a real game :)
The movie of course lost many points from me for not including a Bard-class character.
I must also point out that there were enough star wars and indiana jones references to play The Drinking Game.
Was the movie bad? Yes
Should you see it? Hell No
The ending battle-scene was nice, and you should definatly see that on HBO sometime, just for fun. You'd have to pay me to sit through the movie again, though.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
As per usual, Paul Tatara gives the best and most dependable lowdown around. http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/07/revie w.dungeons.dragons/
And he thought it stunk bad.
If people don't have many friends, I think that they'd be more likely to play solitaire.
I can't speak for D&D, but having done roleplaying throughout my youth my grip on reality is just peachy. I can explain the citric acid cycle or the effect of merchantilistic culture on Darwin's theory of evolution. That matches the sociologically accepted definition of 'having a grip on reality', right?
Perhaps you'd like to provide just a little of the documentation which shows that "D&D is designed to immerse insecure people who probably don't have many friends into a fantasy world and cause them to lose their grip on reality" . Honesty is 9/10th cynicsm, after all.
And just for the record, a troll, according to the dictonary of computer and internet terms is definded as; "a message that is posted solely in order to stir up as many replies as possible. Trolls often contain deliberate misinformation or insults. Naturally, the person doing the trolling looks foolish, but some of them don't mind. (from troll, a fishing term.)
If the term fits...
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Just posting a positive comment since I see so many negative ones.
Yes, I'm your typical computer/math/science geek who played AD&D in highschool and college.
It wasn't amazing but it was definately worth seeing. And if a movie entertained me I think that is reason enough to say it did not suck.
Hopefully the folks making Lord of the Rings will take some lessons from what worked well and what did not.
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Backstab damage? Everyone knows a stab is the same whether it's in the front or back. _Magic_ missle? Whatever. Find traps? Dimension Door?
Okay, I haven't seen the movie yet. I'm sure it sucks. I'm just saying that it must be a tough movie to make.
Suggestions to directors of future D&D movies: (1) Don't call it "D&D"; and (2) use one of Gary Gygax's Gord stories. The Gord stories are not perfect examples of literary form, but they are cinematic and memorable.
I am not a lawyer.
Just a thought, but I wonder if, perchance, the director was attempting to simulate your typical DnD adventure.. I mean, when we were kids playing, we'd perloin ideas from just about every fantasy source we could find.. heck, I still do occasionally for my sessions. (Dark evil demons wielding swords of light in black robes and using psionic powers, anyone?). Remember, "Bad writers plagurise , Good ones steal" ;)
The problem with the movie is that it was definetly orintaed towards D&D players
:P
No, the problem was that it WASN'T. They oriented it for mass-market appeal instead of making it D&D-ish. I understand the arguments for campiness, and I agree in part. I personally prefer a more serious campaign, but everyone has their own opinions. This wasn't campy though, this was just poorly-done.
I have not seens any magic items that permit contorl of dragons
Potion of Dragon Control. Dragon Orb. Certain high-level charm and control spells could do it, too. You stand corrected. =P
Personally, I'd have preferred a movie aimed solely at D&Ders, or one aimed solely for mass-market appeal. Part of the trouble here is that the producers couldn't decide which and so decided to try some half-assed mixture of the two. The directing did suck, and few movies overcome that. This one couldn't, though it might have if other things had been done differently.
Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Tomb Raider is in production. That could be the next Indiana Jones franchise, but probably not.
Comic books do better, probably because they have plot and character development. Superman, Batman, and X-men have all been made into successful movies. Games don't have enough literary depth to carry over into film.
You're not a troll? *cough* *cough* ;-)
I sure this had been said a lot in the replies to this artical probaly written buy someone who belives everything they here in chruch that D&D is bad. I ask this person is acting in a movie bad it is very much the same thing. You had a pretty funny story above about ow a DM cruppts kids. and ofcource they had to metion that people who play D&D tell new player to stop beliveng in god and warship the gods in the D&D worlds. I found that very funny. In my group alone is multi racial and we all come from differnt relgions. I however do not warship any god, but i respect the beliefs and oppinions of my friends in my group. I am sure the one who posted this artical is a very good christain who goes to chruch every sunday and listons to the paster tell them all that they must help save the world from the great evils of D&D, paganism, and what ever else is on their hit list that week. THe one thing i dont think they relize is this is America the land of the free. We in America anyay are free to do what ever we want with our free time. Wha ti have been trying to say is people who do not like D&D that is fine. If you think it is evil that to is fine. If you want to post articals about it. That to is fine but please do so in your own news group. We do not want to here about it. If this is a message board for D&D fans then clearly we do not want to here you ranting about how we need to be saved. In closeing I would like a say that I am sorry if I affended any religous people on here like i said above I have a respect for your oppinions and know that 99% of you dont add to the problem here but this was to that 1% that feel it necicery to tak it upon themselves to start a holy war against a bunch of people playing a game.
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
I don't know how many of you have played a game of D&D that could be turned into an Oscar winning movie, I know I haven't. Yes, there are minor issues with lame dialog and plot, but it's not much different from an actual game of D&D.
The only thing I didn't like was how the dragons were shown as a weapon that could be weilded, come on. The best scene with a dragon was the first scene with a dragon, that glimmer in it's eye when it disenchanted that staff of dragon control. Classic dragon.
'Nuff said.
NarratorDan
"If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
I am not a D&D fan, but was interested about the movie once the romours began. I was pretty excited and had high expectations because so many fans have been clamouring for it for so long. Once I saw that first commercial, I was digusted. How good a movie can it be if Marlon Wayans is one of the stars? He's a comedian, not an actor.
It looks like no one at the IMDB didn't like it either.
The director is new, and the writers don't have any qualifiable background to write a well themed, action movie.
I say take the movie out of theaters and have Kevin Smith write a new script for it. I feel deep regret for anyone who wated their money on this movie.
lol - too realistic? perhaps all of the soldiers who died in the war should have died a little bit less realistically to protect our freedoms, eh?
::sighs::
From Paul Tatara's review: (my emphasis)
"The inexplicable box office bonanza of "Scary Movie" (2000) will keep Wayans and his equally unnecessary brothers working for years to come"
Heh, when I first read that I thought "holy shit, what a racist bastard", and then I realized that he didn't mean "brotha's" but rather fraternal relations.
Look on the bright side...at least we have the Lord of the Rings movie to look forward too! :)
I hate people who hate people
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Though he's being a little inconsistent there- he did highly praise one of the Wayan's Brothers for being good in Requiem for a Dream.
I read fantasy and I like it. There is a subtlety and craftsmanship that goes into telling a good story.
Good taste in art is a matter of two things. Variety: Can you find the beauty in something as humble as country music? If so then I applaud you. Depth: I am an avid reader of comics books. To truely appreciate Asterix books you have to read each one at least once and Asterix in Norway 17 times. The art is fabulous and the dialogue is witty and the story is great.
The fact that you can't appreciate that there is beauty to be found in fantasy novels reflects poorly on your sense of aesthetics. The fact that you think that makes you better than other people reflects poorly on you as a person.
I haven't seen this "Dungeons and Dragons" movie. It's probably awfull. But fantasy is a valid art form. And people who like it don't have to take any crap from you.
Das Königreich Izmir war lange Zeit ein geteiltes Land. Auf der einen Seite die mächtigen Magier, auf der anderen Seite die arme Bevölkerung. Aber nun ist Kaiserin Savina an der Macht und will endlich Gerechtigkeit für das Volk. Doch der böse Erzmagier Profion raubt das magisches Szepter, mit dem sie die goldenen Drachen kontrollieren kann und überzeugt das Konzil der Magier davon, die Kaiserin zu entthronen. Die einzige Chance, das Reich vor dem bösen Magier zu beschützen, liegt darin, den legendären Stab von Savrille zu finden, mit dem man die roten Drachen beherrscht, die das Gleichgewicht zwischen Gut und Böse wieder herstellen sollen. So macht sich eine Gruppe junger Helden auf die Suche nach diesem Artefakt. Ihre Abenteuer führen sie in die Fängen der Diebegilde von Antius, durch eine sagenhafte Elfenstadt und in das Verlies der verfluchten Festung. [vergrössern]
Das offizielle Filmplakat Die Dreharbeiten in Prag und Umgebung sind beendet und auch die Nachproduktion wurde bereits abgeschlossen. Das Budget beträgt 35 Millionen Dollar und es wird rund 20 verschiedene Monster aus dem Computer geben, die D&D-Rollenspieler bereits aus dem Monsterkompendium kennen (z.B. Betrachter).
This alone will make me see the movie. Cool.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I first heard Jeremy Iron's voice in The Lion King. I thought "Wow, that is the coolest voice I have ever heard in all my life." Then I saw what he looked like in Die Hard 3. That was a little odd with the accent and all, but I thought he was a really cool actor still. Then he was in The Man in the Iron Mask, and I felt it to be another very good performance. I've read a few reviews about him over the years, and it always seems like he is a man of dignity, choosing which parts he accepts carefully. I read once that he's never made a movie in Hollywood (don't know if that's true.) Anyways, what I want to know before I go see this movie is this: Am I going to regret having seen it? Will I hate him for it? I might go tonight but I want to at least brace myself if it's that bad. One review said that he seems to have lost all shame. Someone clue me in!
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Well, here's what I thought of it: (warning, spoilers ahead, usual precautions used, explanation at end)
Unys n yrnthr, unys n yrnthr,
Unys n yrnthr bajneq,
Nyy va gur inyyrl bs Qrngu
Ebqr gur fvk uhaqerq.
"Sbejneq, gur Yvtug Oevtnqr!
"Punetr sbe gur thaf!" ur fnvq:
Vagb gur inyyrl bs Qrngu
Ebqr gur fvk uhaqerq.
"Sbejneq, gur Yvtug Oevtnqr!"
Jnf gurer n zna qvfznl'q?
Abg gub' gur fbyqvre xarj
Fbzrbar unq oyhaqre'q:
Gurve'f abg gb znxr ercyl,
Gurve'f abg gb ernfba jul,
Gurve'f ohg gb qb naq qvr:
Vagb gur inyyrl bs Qrngu
Ebqr gur fvk uhaqerq.
Pnaaba gb evtug bs gurz,
Pnaaba gb yrsg bs gurz,
Pnaaba va sebag bs gurz
Ibyyrl'q naq guhaqre'q;
Fgbez'q ng jvgu fubg naq furyy,
Obyqyl gurl ebqr naq jryy,
Vagb gur wnjf bs Qrngu,
Vagb gur zbhgu bs Uryy
Ebqr gur fvk uhaqerq.
Synfu'q nyy gurve fnoerf oner,
Synfu'q nf gurl ghea'q va nve,
Fnoevat gur thaaref gurer,
Punetvat na nezl, juvyr
Nyy gur jbeyq jbaqre'q:
Cyhatrq va gur onggrel-fzbxr
Evtug gueb' gur yvar gurl oebxr;
Pbffnpx naq Ehffvna
Erry'q sebz gur fnoer fgebxr
Funggre'q naq fhaqre'q.
Gura gurl ebqr onpx, ohg abg
Abg gur fvk uhaqerq.
Pnaaba gb evtug bs gurz,
Pnaaba gb yrsg bs gurz,
Pnaaba oruvaq gurz
Ibyyrl'q naq guhaqre'q;
Fgbez'q ng jvgu fubg naq furyy,
Juvyr ubefr naq ureb sryy,
Gurl gung unq sbhtug fb jryy
Pnzr gueb' gur wnjf bs Qrngu
Onpx sebz gur zbhgu bs Uryy,
Nyy gung jnf yrsg bs gurz,
Yrsg bs fvk uhaqerq.
Jura pna gurve tybel snqr?
B gur jvyq punetr gurl znqr!
Nyy gur jbeyq jbaqrerq.
Ubabe gur punetr gurl znqr,
Ubabe gur Yvtug Oevtnqr,
Aboyr fvk uhaqerq.
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This post has been rot13'd for your protection
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
errr...tacticle only applies to stratagem designed for a direct assault on the scrotum, as in "I'll Rochambeau you for it." Perhaps you meant...oh never mind.
Spelling Nazi
"To be fair, I was left completely unsupervised." ~Anon
The point is not that the Council wants the Empress' staff, it's that Palpatine -- sorry, Profion -- wants the rod.
He tries making his own, and fails. So he manipulates the Council into trying to strip Amidala -- sorry, Sarvina -- of hers. But when he learns that there's another rod of dragon control out there, he sends Darth Maul -- sorry, Damodar -- to recover it. (But he still wants the other one, to further weaken his opposition...)
For my take on the movie (written at 2 A.M., so I lose steam near the end) go to my K5 diary.
Jay (=
How a/b random races that don't really exsist, like the 3-eyed thief?
Or an Elf being affected by the hold spell?
Warriors being able to cast magic?
While wearing armor?
Although my favorite error wasn't a DND error. When Ritley gets stabbed, it is across the chest with a horizontal slash. However, after being healed the injury on his shirt shows a verticle slash by the shoulder blade.
Spellcasting I think is best in those little spells that require almost no special effects. Light spells, unlocking spells, featherfall, false images, persuasion.... these are the spells that a real mage would be casting on a regular basis, not waking up everyone within a mile with a huge fireball to fry an oponent that he could have just made go to sleep.
What was the coolest thing obi wan did in the first movie? "these are not the droids you're looking for". A clear indication that he was something more special and powerful than Luke had ever seen, and the "effect" used was dialogue. Real magic doesn't need a big special effects budget.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
'nuff said.
How is more of a bad thing a good thing?
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
I found Jesus once. He was hiding behind the couch. I said "Ha! Found you Jesus!" and he said "Yay, the time has come for the Lord to seek. Go forth my child, and hide in such a way as to make it difficult for Me to find you." So I went and hid, but he never came looking. He didn't even try! Why Jesus? WHY?!?!?!
I severely doubt that Saving Private Ryan is a film to triumph historical accuracy. Neither is U-571, The Patriot, or any of the other revisionist Hollywood cinema which either simply places Americans is the shoes of other allied nations during battle, or [in the case of the latter film] simply create tales about enemies to enliven the story [no, that particular British general did not kill all those children, and nor has anyone ever alleged those events occured].
It surprises me for a country that seems to concerned about race and sexual relations [the birthplace of `affirmative action', and where it seems socially forbidden to describe someone whose skin is dark or light in color as `black' or `white'], the US has a tendency to pretty much create history in any war film.
//Puts flame retardant suit on//
I ENJOYED THE MOVIE!
Thats right, I thought the movie was entertaining. I know there were obvious flaws with the acting/directing and thought they could have had more monsters from the books, but I still had fun. I found myself trying to figure out what spells were being cast and such. When our group plays D&D, we try and do our best to make each game as tacky as possible. It adds to the fun. I found the movie to be very much like the way we play the real game. I suppose some will sugest that people watch it when it comes out on video tape, but I think the only way to see Dragons is on the big screen. All in all, it gets my thumbs up.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Why would they make such a horrible movie? I would much rather see R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale trilogy brought to the theater! Now THAT is an action movie all the way through it. I would love to see Drizzt Do'Urden brought to life and set off hacking and slashing giants and demons. ;-)
Amen. I'll have to come visit the Netherlands some time. I'm sick of PC and all the related crap that goes with it.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
I can think of several of the novels that would've been a far better basis for a D&D movie - the Dark Elf trilogy comes to mind immediately - than... well, this... thing. With all that is in the D&D worlds, the movie is a disappointment.
Two thumbs down.
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
Upon a revisit to this thread, I was dismayed to find I'd been moderated with a score of "2: Funny". I was completely serious about that.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
Good taste in art is a matter of two things. Variety: Can you find the beauty in something as humble as country music? If so then I applaud you.
You've obviously never listened to Johnny Cash then! Very little new country does anything for me though. Actually, any country music that becomes popular isn't really "country" anymore it seems.
In general I can't stand country, rap, or techno. Every once in a while, however, I do find something in each that I do like.
"There are no cool guys in musicals." -- Coach McGuirk
He wasn't talking about Tomb Raider as being an "adventure" movie, he was talking about Tomb Raider possibly being very similar to the Indiana Jones trilogy. Compare Tomb Raider's themes, plotlines, etc. to Indiana Jones; very similar. But not at all a generic adventure movie, as you've implied.
I wanted a movie with a lot of good eye-candy and wicked graphics. I got what I wanted. There were some parts when I wanted more action and less acting because the acting was terrible. As well I think the nipple armour went over the top, but on the whole...I liked it for what it was.
.. by proving that something CAN suck and blow at the same time. *Shudder*
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CitizenC
My name is not 'nospam,' but 'citizenc'.
It is more than just a thinking game it was the first "imagining" game. If Imagination is anti-churchy then no wonder these kids want out.
Stop saying Bandyopadhyay!
Hands up, who would rather see a movie based on Knights of the Dinner Table? ;)
Zahlman Q. Namlhaz, esq. {:> "Zahl Incorporated - the Last Word in Everything(TM)"
LOL Hey man, I can't wait for the MSTifications that are sure to pop up on the web. Really, for it to be the average D&D session around here, it should contain references to pro wrestling and 'Gladiator'. I'm gonna see it on video. With friends, and yell shit like "Dost thou smell what Maximus is cooking!!??" and "Methinks I shall LAY THE SMACK DOWN!!"
But hey, that's me.
Also, concerning the unusual frisson between geeks, computers, roleplaying, and reality: I discovered the trick is to withdraw so completely from reality, freak out so totally, and construct such and elaborate fantasy that you'll come out the other side and be hip again.
Kinda like how Neil Young dresses.
And who is this Keanu Reeves-looking clown they've got starring in it??
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
- the literal dungeon becomes a metaphorical one; a dank, underground pit of despair from which there is no escape...
Included is an image titled "Vader, we meet again... oops, wrong movie".One wishes one could enter Dragons' fantastical world solely to punch each and every one of [the actors] in the mouth.
--
It's an interesting factual book (a boring read) but it draws some thoughtfulparallels & links to the past. I wouldn't take it all at face value (I don't know enuff about the history) but you may have more knowledge.
--Clay
You thought Mortal Kombat was bad: Mortal Kombat's SEQUEL was WAY WORSE.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Gee, my kid liked it...
I may be the only one here obsessed with tanks, succubi, elves in leather, and Mountain Dew. While a movie about that would be kind of cool, no one would want to see it but me, and Jon Katz would probably write an article about it.
Fame would ruin me.
I was a little upset and in a hurry and I didn't proof read...
I like computers. I don't cut my hair as often as I should. I read fantasy. And I took the poster's comment too personally.
sorry.
I meant Asterix and the Normans.
LOL I'm bleary eyed, and I just read that "boy, I know a lot of gay assholes".
Wow. Dyslexia can be entertaining.
You nailed it, and contrary to what some of the replies suggested you did not make this a sweeping generalization of geeks. There are a significant number who have completely undeveloped senses when it comes to literature, art or cinema.
I recall being stuck in a car with two of them once. These were fairly successful engineers in our company. One had just purchased some painting at some sort of Tupperware of Art party the other had hosted.
"I bought the only picture there that looked like something real. It has to be a picture of something real to be worth anything." Okay, no problem, everyone has their own preferences.
Then the other guy chimed in: "Yeah, those paintings that you have to look at for awhile and figure out--they're awful. It reminds me of this literature class I had to take once. Everyone sits around analyzing the story and seeing stuff that isn't there. It's a stupid waste of time."
"Yeah, just a bunch of art fags."
Ah well, the benefits of a purely technical education...
I know this sounds cruel or pompous, but there are geeks who are so far from "getting it" - who will never understand why we could tell a movie like this was a stinker from a thousand miles away - just as there as some people who are so clueless about technology that it's almost pointless to try to explain it to them. Which is fine - we all have our blind spots - until they try to engage you on those topics. Having a discussion with a stereotypically 'unlettered' geek about film or books or art is as frustrating as having a conversation with a suit or your grandma* about technology. And like the luddite who brags about being clueless about computers, it's also sort of sad to see geeks brag about being clueless about art, literature, and film outside of science fiction.
*Please, no anecdotes about your asm-coding circuit-soldering grandmas. You know what I'm talking about.
and go see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Look, neither D&D or Christianity is inherantly evil. They are what you make of them. You CAN have a cult-oriented group of D&D players looking for new members, or you can have a healthy group of well-adjusted people playing D&D together just as a way to spend time enjoying each other's company. In the same way, if you want to look to the Bible for justification for a holy war and rape/pillage/murder/whatever, I'm sure you could - it's been done before, for crying out loud. But that doesn't make Christianity evil. In the same way, a few wierdos don't make D&D evil.
These are similar to tools/computers, in that they have no intrinsic goodness or badness to them; they are simply what people make of them. If you twist D&D, sure, it'll be evil for you and your gaming group. If you twist Christianity, it'll be evil for your congregation, too. But neither of those cases make either of the items in question evil.
EOT
The real danger of D&D is like the real danger of pot: Building stuff you wouldn't have built otherwise. Yeah, you buy a coupla miniatures just out of curiosity..."I can quit anytime"...
Well, be warned! Next thing you know, you can't use your kitchen because that's where the resin casting stuff is set, there are 40k books next to the toilet, and a big, heraldic, skull n' wings crest on the wall with 'Roll to hit, monkeyboy' carved under it in runes...
I found out too late, and now look at me. Next thing you know, I'll be looking for a fast food job, just so I can temper my chainmail in olive oil after I heat it in the pizza oven...
> Yes, it was a little reminicent of Star Wars. So
> was "Gladiator" in a lot of ways. Just because
> you have an empire under seige, a young empress,
> and a war, it does not follow that you have Star
> Wars episode 1
Oh come now!
"Magic is all around us, in everything"
"A Human uses Magic for attack, not for knowledge and defense."
"When 234 years old you reach, *hot* you will look"
"Every time a bell rings, a dragon gets its wings" (oops, strike that one)
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
It has to do with the same thing that further relates all of the above with music as well. I think if you were to do an indepth study of "nerds", you'd find a very large proportion who not only appreciate Sci-Fi and Fantasy works, but are also musically inclined - or artistically inclined via another medium.
What is this "thing" I speak of? It's called imagination. One cannot be creative if one cannot imagine the solution to a computing problem/compelling work of fiction/cutting edge song/fascinating painting/etc.
The fact is, all computer geeks are creative individuals - they have to be or they cannot possibly understand the complexities of modern computing environments. It is a strong imagination that fuels this creativity, and that lends itself perfectly to the appreciation of all things creative. Sci-Fi and Fantasy arts tend to push the edge of the imaginary possibilities, and are thus favored by those with the strongest sense of imagination.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
We all know that Mr. Irons is a great actor. I personally thought that Thora Birch was good in American Beauty. So why is the acting in this so bad? The director didn't have a clue.
Some of the stinkyness of this movie can be blamed on the studio for not supplying a good mentor for the first time director. I think they did a good job for the small budget and lack of directing experience. But it is still a stinker of a movie.
This is not the sig you are looking for...
humor for the clinically insane
great comedy company.
I don't think you got the point he was trying to make. He was just stating that one can associate hatred/violence/bigotry with D&D no more then they can with Christianity. Yes, there are some D&D frieks out there but it's the same with just about anything - including Christianity.
As far as the atheist self-righteous rantings go - can you really blame him? I myself am an atheist and I constantly have people knocking on my door, giving me pamphlets, and simply put - getting in my way. It gets to be very frustrating and just pisses me off. No one belief is to blame - they all have their part. My problem isn't with religion so much as it's with the way many people insist on forcing their beliefs upon me. The religious people who do this are most definatly in the minority. I know many wonderful people from various different religions who would _never_ do this. The problem is, it's the assholes that stand out from the crowd. This gives religion a bad rep - hence the negative attitude.
It comes down to this: No one wants another person pushing their views onto them. When conversing with another individual don't bring up anything that has to do with religion. This goes for atheists and Christians alike. We'll never agree so why bring it up?
Also, one should just disregard any negative postings / comments they read. The comment of one individual doesn't speak for the group - be they atheist or Catholic.
Willy
Every single joke fell flat on its face, the deliver was there, they just weren't funny. As for plot, it lacked. And the directing was obnoxious. EVERY SINGLE Scene opened with a spiraling shot around the surface of a building. I can now say I've seen about 20 computer generated towers from all angles whereas before I hadn't seen any.
If a two-star movie is TRYING to be a two-star movie, then does it deserve 4-stars if it succeeds outright?
I hated the D&D movie, and I loved the game when I was growing up. I loved fantasy in general, and D&D was often the source of inspiration for many stories that I wrote and still wanted to write. I got a degree in creative writing specifically so that I could prepare my skills to one day write the next Lord of the Rings (or whatever...).
I went to the movie with two friends for one of their's birthday. They both loved it. When they did their campaigns, their characters and plot devices frequently were reduced to the absurd. Their dialogue was of the spontaneous, thrown-together-by-committee and melodramatic extreme that was necessary when you either say something RIGHT when the band of orcs walks in the room or you get to say nothing at all.
They said that the movie, in all its cheesiness, was a fair representation of the way real campaigns went. Much like a Sam Reimi Hercules episode, no point trying to aim for quality when you're probably going to end up laughably short anyways. Better to be in on the gags yourself.
Personally, I'm suspicious of any movie that's supposed to be appreciated for its mediocrity. I expected a little more, but I guess I'll get that when the LOTR movie finally comes out...
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Haven't yet met a truly tolerant Christian. ( Not that there aren't any, just never met one..)
i would bet that you have. there are a lot of christians out there that don't spell it out to the world in big bold letters that they are christian. most of my friends probably don't realize that im christian. i don't try to hide it, i just don't bring up the subject unless somebody asks me. (and i imagine if you were my friend you would never ask me if i was a christian in between games of d&d)
and anyway, now that i think about it, i would say that jesus christ himself was the perfect example of a tolerant christian, as were most of the early disciples. read the bible if you don't believe me. fascinating stuff, even if you don't believe in it.
One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but when He's good, nobody can touch Him.
-- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
"I hate it when you christians get things wrong and stereotype us pagans or things related to us, after all, all you are is a bunch of murdering raping dumbasses that don't believe in freedom or anything truly good and do bad stuff to innocent people. That's a contrast to pagans/athiests, who have done nothing but good in this world and are responsible for all good acts, and are just too modest to brag about it, like christians would. It's been proven that Christ was a pig-fucking orangutan and I'VE never met a single good christian, so by my population sampling you all are a bunch of ignorant asses. There have been documented occurances where christians ate babies and shot kittens then laughed about it later, and by those cases I think we can judge all other christians and their beliefs. I'd rather kids learn about anything else than about Christ and how he taught to murder, rape and hate, because even though I haven't been polluted by actually reading the bible or paying attention at a christian mass, I've heard that stuff from my other pagan/athiest friends who also hate christians, and I think we can thusly just take it as fact."
Sound familiar? We've all seen these posts responding to a religious zealot who says something stupid, who then becomes hated and is called ignorant. These responses, unfortunately are themselves by religious/anti-religious zealots who say things that are ignorant as well, but get praised by everyone else because it's always popular to bust on "those darn oppressing christians"... Don't get me wrong, I don't care what they believe in, nor do I judge them on it. What I judge them by is their apparent hating prejudice of people they don't know, like me, my family, and a some of my friends, and that they then have the audacity to claim it's all because people like ourselves are self-righteous, judgemental, and filled with hate.
Congratulations, you have all the qualities you claim are in the people you hate most.
"Ah Doctor Pepper, my old friend... it's been a long time... did you really think you could elude my grasp forever? I h
1) Final Fantasy Trailer (whoo hoo!)
2) Tom Baker...for all you Dr. Who fans out there
The rest of the movie was just garbage. Speaking as a D&D player, it didn't even stick to their rules. Elves not needing to cast spells? Pixie dust as universal spell component? WhatEVER.
"Property is theft, therefore theft must be property, right?"
I just got back from the movie and I thought that it was a pretty good escape from reality. I wasn't looking for a bullet proof story line or 5 star acting. I just wanted to be entertained by a fantasy adventure, and I was.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
Yes, you could practically hum along with the Imperial Death March. Yes, the acting was not first class. Yes, it was campy at best.
Exactly what I expected.
I personally wasn't dissapointed at all. I'm not a DnD player, and have played maybe 3 times in my life. I couldn't tell you that red dragons are always chaotic evil, or the exact names of the spells used (though I hear that about 99% of them were made up for the movie). But I did enjoy the movie. Why? Because it was what I expected.
When I went to see "Battlefield: Earth", probably the worst movie around in the last year, I went in *knowing* that it was bad (I read all the reviews first of course) so I went in expecting nothing more than a fun and cheesy sci-fi movie. And that was exactly what I got.
With DnD I knew that it was going to be a campy fantasy movie, so I wasn't terribly dissapointed. In the movie I laughed, I jumped, and to be honest, had a good time. My SO gnawed on my shoulder in the tense bits, and when the director said "ok, now we make the audience jump by making something jump out unexpectedly", I did.
On the plus side I though that the sets were awsome, the costuming was great (except that the red dragon army guys seemed to stick out from the rest of the crowd a bit too much... maybe the metal on their armor was just a wee bit too bright), and the CGI was (mostly) fantastic. I have to say that the dragon battle was, in a word, breathtaking. The long swooping shots of buildings were also very impressive.
Again, I'm not a hard core DnD guy by any means, so I wasn't mortally offended when [insert some DnD mortal offense committed by the movie here].
My $0.02
In all honesty the best part of D&D was the Final Fantasy trailer on before it. 'Took me nearly 30 seconds to realise that it was a cartoon. Let us all hope that this film at least vaguely approaches decency while we wait for the Lord of the Rings.
No, if you MUST show your kids this movie (which I won't necessarily dispute) you should do it at your OWN FUCKIN' HOUSE. Period. As it was, I had to listen to upset kids being disruptive while I was at the movies, because their parents were inconsiderate asses. The only lesson the kids learned, was that there are no repercussions for being an asshole.
By watching it at home, a parent can better monitor their kids reactions, and possibly stop it to answer questions, etc. I DOUBT a six year old is prepared to handle all the ramifications of Saving Private Ryan, but if they want to leave a movie theater, and are crying, and their parent doesn't remove them from the theater, then that is abuse. Of ME!
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
The whole point of D&D is (was?) to create a fantasy adventure. That could also be a sensible goal for a movie, to create a fantasy adventure.
But why would a director need D&D to do that? This is kind of like simulating a simulator.
As usual, marketing concerns win out over substance.
ps - Thanks for the review; now I can add it to my list of things not to do this weekend.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I have not seen this movie yet, but I intend to before it leaves theatres. That said I would like to say this:
Frankly being offended because someone stole something from Star Wars is laughable. Why? Because Star Wars is almost completely stolen from other places itself. The pod race is stolen from Ben Hur. The whole setting is essentially stolen from a dozen fantasy/fairy tales. Darth Vader is a black knight. The Emperor is an evil wizard. It goes on and on. Get the picture? Star Wars is a fantasy movie dressed up as a space opera. Do not blame an actual fantasy movie from drawing from its fantasy roots and coming out similar.
Also, do not criticise the movie for "copying Ep 1". This movie was written ten years ago, thats before Lucas started writing episode 1. Hence any coincidence between the plots (such as they are) of ep 1 and D&D are almost certainly due to working in parallel not due to "theft".
In short, just because Star Wars and D&D have many of the same characters and plot twists does not mean the D&D is intended as a copy of Star Wars. Both are movies deliberately making use of standard fantasy architypes. They should have many things that are similar.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
At the end they "went on to their next adventure" although I doubt they will have another movie, this poor excuse for a relation to the game, has been poorly constructed and even more poorly developed, what happned in the movie MIGHT have been more properly done If they had made it longer than the Evil that was Titanic. Do I lose Slashdot Karma for mentioning the Evil that is Titanic?
Wasn't it "Nee"? The Knights who say "Nee"?
Phyrkrakr "Always be yourself, regardless of state or federal laws."
Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind's elation.
As usual, the film industry is going to point to this example and say "See? We tried to do a fantasy genre movie, but it bombed! People don't want this stuff."
Your name is "A Dam Troll" and you're asking what a troll is?
--
First off, America sucks. ... you can't figure out how to make holes in paper and you haven't quite figured out how democracy works ... I saw the movie when I was 15 or 16
;)
Look here wippersnapper, you are not even old enough to vote
---
You may have willingly or even proudly served, but if you would have "gladly" served, you know nothing about war or service.
Actually, I think Cate Blanchett is an excellent choice. And don't forget Sir Ian McKellan as Gandalf. I can't wait to see him.
Remember, LOTR is about 1200 dense pages long. Even done as 3 movies, there will have to be _major_ elements of the story glossed over or left out entirely... it's a limitation of the medium. Also, people have been reading these books for about 50 years, we've seen extensive artwork depicting the characters and places (I consider the Hildebrandt's work to be definitive myself), we all have mental images that the movie will contradict, perhaps gratingly, but I still think it's going to be worth the wait.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
If spielberg wanted the movie to be realistic and acurate, and remind people what has been done to protect our freedom, then maybe the movie should have portrayed something other than just realistic violence.
You SHOULD take kids to see movies like Saving Private Ryan, to see the consequences of violence up close and personal. Somebody gets shot in an old Clint Eastwood western, he'll just fall over, you wont see any blood and after that he's forgotten. A G.I. gets shot in the head in Saving Private Ryan, you see blood and brains flying out from the exit wound....hmmm, maybe violence is a bad thing.
some games actually have a real cohesive plot, but many don't -- they're more flexible choose-your-own-adventure-like (such as D&D). choosing D&D to make a movie out of doesn't make a lot of sense because there isn't really an overall plot, it's different every time. if producers would choose a game with a true central plot (like magic the gathering with the brothers war, or something of the like) it *could* make for a good movie. otherwise it just pisses all the hardcore gamers off for not being true to the game and makes all the people who don't play say "what the hell?" here's to hoping the doom movie will be good, and that maybe they'll make a half-life movie. that could own.
While I have to admit that I have never actually acted in a Shakespearean
play, the sheer concept of such a production appalls me. Such works are
designed to lure impressionable young people who are seeking companionship
into joining the Cult of Theatre. A first time actor is given the
opportunity to join an imaginary community lead by the "director." Children
who are starved for companionship and human interaction are the most
susceptible targets for these types of cult tactics.
Once an actor (read: "impressionable mind") is recruited, the "director"
(read: "cult leader") attempts to subvert the new player's grasp of reality
to an even lower point by immersing a player in a fantasy world where the
player has total control over his or her chosen role, personality, and means
of expression. This kind of "free will" is not only unhealthy for children
to be subjected to, but in a few cases, is outright dangerous. Due to the
wide selection of possible Shakespearean plays, the Director (read: Cult
Leader) can incorporate such immoral activities as stealing, mutilation,
human sacrifice, murder, rape, etc., into the theatrical production. As
these acts of violence and perversion have no real-world consequences, a
young actor can easily be lead to believe that these blasphemous acts will
go unpunished in the actor's real life, as well.
The effects of a Shakespearean play addiction can range from almost
unnoticeable to fatal. (Parents: Please listen closely, as your child may
be at risk.) Some of the first signs may be a withdrawl from family and
friends; and a lack of interest in well-paying, off-Broadway jobs. As the
theatrical production progresses and the play's delusions become more
ingrained into the mind of the actor, certain
more apparent signs of a Shakespearean play addiction may manifest
themselves. These can include harassment by hecklers and failure to
maintain proper, strictly-Modern-English vocabulary. If you notice that
your child is apathetic about his or her sworn duty to conform to society's
fashion norms; fails to obey a strict, unyielding, obsessive-compulsive
daily routine; suddenly demonstrates the normal, physical signs of
adolescence; or begins to dress in togas, he or she may be falling victim to
Shakespearean plays. Such children are often labeled as 'drama geeks' among
their peers. Several more extreme cases have been documented in which
Shakespearean plays are linked to nudity, drug use, and suicide, all
occurring at the suggestion of the director (read: David Koresh), or in the
last case, as a direct result of the actions of the Casting Agent (read:
Adolf Hitler). In most of these cases, the victims were so totally engulfed
in their fantasy world that they could not grasp the consequences of their
actions.
Shakespearean plays also teach otherwise God-fearing Christian youth values
that are atheistic or "monotheistic" (read: polytheistic) -- that is, values
presenting a belief in many gods rather than one God. As the Shakespearean
play, Julius Ceasar, asserts, the world is ruled by Jove and other
Olympians; and these beings meddle in the affairs of Man for their own
amusement. This contrasts with the biblical teaching that there is only one
true God and that this God is moral, not amoral. Most Shakespearean plays
also have unbiblical views on God; and totally
super-duper-double-dodeca-abiblical views on the existence of fairies,
witches, and ghosts.
Shakespearean plays are wholly evil, demonic, and dangerous works that
corrupt the minds of our nation's youth.
--This satire brought to you by the twisted mind of Rico.
The movie was SHIT.
Let's back up a bit, shall we? I've played various roleplaying games since I was 8, when I started with (surprise) D&D. I still say this movie is utter and complete crap. It's not a matter of failing to understand the background material (how many people had read the X-Men comics before seeing the movie? How many people saw that film?), it's that the filmmakers had their heads firmly lodged in their asses on how to bring the material to the screen. Movies should not require a concordance to watch.
As far as the target audience, who cares that it's for kids? When did "made for kids" suddenly have to equal "utter unwatchable crap for adults?" As much as I hate to admit it, at least Disney usually tries to give a couple of sly asides to parents in their better films. And if you want to take your kids to a good family film, try Iron Giant.
Beyond that, I think it's pretty fucking hypocritical to say that something is made for kids when it's got a PG-13 slapped all over it for violence. Yeah, why don't we just cut out the middle man and have little Billy watch Saving Private Ryan instead?
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
I am able to distinguish between movies that are good and movies that I liked or enjoyed watching. Movies like D&D are not meant to be good movies. Its nice when they suprise you, but that is simply not what it was meant to be in this case. I find it hard to beleive that anyone would have paid to see D&D expecting it to be a a good movie. The Snails character is not the type that shows up in Academy award winning movies. Comedy releif that relys on a character having the inteligence or common sense of a sack of hammers is not the mark of high art. How anyone could have seen his character in the commercials, then paid to see the movie, and walked away with a feeling of disgust should be hit. END COMMUNICATION
D&D had its fine points. After all, it did make a good show of how bureaucratic magery can be, and what the difference between experience in battle (see big, badass, disarmed warrior against Tiny Thief Guy fight..) can do in a fight. Though, 7 High Level Mages all missing with their fireballs... I mean, you'd think they'd break out some unerring Magic Missiles or something. The only -really good thing- is that we didn't 'explore his full potential' (like he turned out to be a sorceror or something along those lines instead of the 'wizard' type). And, well, the Dwarf was good coming relief ("...with some nice chin hairs to REALLY give you something to hold on to..."). It may not be entirely worth the money for the theatre, but it'll make a good renter.
Where are you when people call D&D evil? Where is your tolerance and love when people denounce D&D as demonic and foul and anything else they can come up with? You only speak when the gays/D&D players/others who are attacked in the name of christianity speak up to defend themselves.
The day I see the defenders of christianity loudly denounce, in forums such as these, the people who use the name of Christ as a tool of hate and intolerance is the day I regain respect for christians in general. But as long as the radical anti-gay, anti-D&D, anti-other-religian christians are allowed to use the name of Christ to support their views, without a voice of dissent from the rest of the flock, I have to assume that the radicals speak for the rest of you, as well.
---sheath
Damn. I've been playing AD&D since the early 80's, and damn I wanted to see this movie.
Now it looks as though it will be a waste of money. Why hasn't anyone made a great sword-and-sorcery fantasy movie since Conan the Barbarian? It's a great genre, and seeing as fantasy books are selling better now than ever, a great one would make a ton of money...
The D&D franchise has been dying ever since Lorraine Williams (who hated game players) forcibly took over TSR and ousted creator Gary Gygax. If there hadn't been something special about it, it would have died totally long ago, it's almost stayed around despite mismanagement.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Look up http://www.religioustolerance.org
superbadass site on R/P games, and the religious right's attack on them. it goes into lots of detail but essentially all the "many documented cases" are completely anecdotal, everyone "heard about it on the news" or somesuch. 'sides for a good while everytime a kid went to jail and had ever touched a ouija board or had friends who played dnd it was the games fault.
BLAH BLAH BLAH.
Ruler of creeper, mortal and scallop.
can anyone say "by your powers combined...i am captain planet!"
Apologies in advance for the flame-tone of this, but: that is the one of the stupidest things I've heard in I don't know how long. A bad movie is a bad movie is a bad movie, and any movie that depends on you having interacted with its source material to be enjoyed or appreciated is a bad movie. You know what the movie should do? It should make you want to play the game, or read the book, or whatever. Peopl don't spend $35 million to filming a collection of in-jokes. Jeez, you should just watch the Summoner Geeks video if that's what you want.
1. - Wasn't as bad as Battlefield Earth 2. - Yummy mage in tight bodysuit 3. - Several funny cameos and homages (I didn't catch Tom Baker - but I did catch the Rocky Horror Picture Show writer Otherwise - just barely worth watching. I was a player, so I had to see it, but it just didn't do it for me. Ah well, what can you do. RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Should have played the game.
Should have known the story.
Should have known the characters (at least to some detail).
Otherwise the movie is waste_of_time_and_mind for you. I personally loved Mortal Kombat movies because I had played the games, and I knew who_should_win,etc.etc.
BTW, about that "positive thing" of not spending money.....why not look it as if you "wasted_your_time_and_mind_for_a_freebie"? ;-)
By the way, you mixed up "monotheistic" and "polytheistic."
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
The movie certainly had the "D&D funk" to it. Think about it:
The movie had really bad acting...
Just like a normal D&D game.
The movie had really bad dialog...
Just like a normal D&D game.
The movie had a really bad plot...
Just like a normal D&D game.
The movie stole mercilessly from other sources...
Just like a normal D&D game.
The movie had a cheese-factor so high, it *almost* made the movie good, even though it was so bad...
Just like a normal D&D game.
In case you couldn't tell, I don't really like D&D much. TSR/WotC should be happy someone managed to capture the true spirit of D&D so well.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
I thought it was odd, that the entire movie the dwarf didn't get one chance to use that very large axe of his to actually chop at someone. He attempted a few times, only to hit them with it, instead of cutting through anything. There was no indication that it was sharp at all, or heavy for that matter.
I thought that the ending was very cheezy, but thats another story all together.
___________
"don't eat that, I don't think its human"
"but should it be?"
More on the topic of Slashdot and less on the topic of this post. Did you guys know that TSR (and now probably WOTC) owned a registered trademark on the word "dragon." A friend of mine was sued by TSR for using the word in his publishing business having nothing to do with D&D or any other TSR product. Apparently there domain for the word is the publishing and gaming businesses. The word has existed for centuries before TSR ever existed, but apparently they believe they own the word.
I also did see D&D Friday night. I played D&D many years ago. Lately I've been more into Shadowrun. I do agree that the movie was fairly inconsistent with the game rules. However, D&D rules have always just been DM advice. The world used in the movie is not the typical D&D world. So the DM over the movie could have modified some of the rules some like any good DM should to fit their world.
The two other people I went with thought it was one of the worst movies they had seen lately. I really didn't think it was that bad. I keep seeing images of the dragon CG in my head from the movie. I guess they could have just taken those clips and it would have probably made more people happy. I thought there were a few good jokes in the movie. The ending was just fairly random, ominous, and didn't really make for a good ending in my opinion.
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
Don't make the mistake of judging Jesus by the actions of some of those who claim to bear His name. Read the Bible and look at who Jesus was, what He taught and lived, and why He died. THAT is Christianity, not what you described.
And as for tolerance... Abraham Lincoln once said "Important principles may and must be inflexible."
If the movie included a DFA scene, it'd make the movie absolutely worthwhile. Picture: Character does something outrageous which the DM/Director doesnt want... While the character does this, there is a shadow around the player... The Woolly Mammoth Hits with an impressive speed. (The scene then cuts back to just before the death from above scene... as if the incident didnt happen). (Just like in a REAL d&d rpg).
This movie did NOT suck. If you think it sucks, you're on crack. Or maybe you're not on crack, and that is the problem. But, if you look at the articles earlier today in /. you can go buy some crack(.com).
.. the dragon fight was incredible. It's unfortunate that they didn't have enough cash to keep the action going on that one for longer! That could've been quite a beautiful scene.
It was actually a rather decent film, as far as fantasy type films go. I found myself after it was over saying "wow, it's over already??" and looking down and being shocked that it had gone on for closer to two hours!
It was a pretty good film as far as fantasy type films go, although yes the development was lacking.. a bit more action, less plot development than it should've been, IMHO. But at least you get the idea of what's going on, and the special effects were nothing short of "cooler than I expected them to be"
Anyway, it doesn't suck. It's pretty good. And the fact that you finally get to see how the designers envision a lot of stuff in live motion is pretty freakin awesome, and I hope that they make another movie.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Nonsense... As high archmage of the Elven counsel I can attest to the virtue of the folk of my realm. We haven't been brain-washed a bit. In fact these powerful magics we've learned have improved our lives in many ways. This cult you speak of must be an Orcish thing, those disgusting and unholy creatures are meant to destroy the minds of good upstanding citizens, including those of this quaint little Christian cult you speak of. It must be one of the fringe religions I haven't yet heard of. By the way, could you have your priests contact the Christian diety and ask him or her or it to stop asserting its supreme and unique existence. Tyr is getting rather upset, and seeing as how he's the god of war and truth in these here parts it wouldn't be wise to upset him, or contradict him.
- Wayans = stupid comic relief character... Jar Jar Binks
- Hero's friend dies half way through... Obi Wan Kenobi
- Princess wanting freedom... wasn't that Episode 1?
- Sword fight w/ dragon battle simultaneously... Light saber duel w/ star battle
- Hero goes through maze alone... Hero races car-things alone
- Evil mage has brute-force-man to do his bidding... Emperor has Darth Vader to do his bidding
- Terrible movie made after successful pen & paper game... Terrible pen & paper game made after successful movie.
Some of that might be a stretch, but I'm no expert in either one. And I have no goal to be. One thing sure - The Final Fantasy movie had better not suck out loud like D&D. D&D all but killed pen&paper RPG games for me. Let's hope FF doesn't kill video RPG games for me either.Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
There's just something incredibly funny about a buff bald guy with blue lipstic saying, "Give me the rod"
Anne Marie? Is that you?
Work is for people who lack the imagination to play.
please people, you need to learn some tolerance, i mean i am a self proclaimed atheist, but my girlfriend is a hard core catholic, and you wanna know something i don't care, and she doesn't care either, cause its really not that important in the scheme of things.
yes it pisses me off about what those christians did out side of matthew shepards funeral, in fact it makes me sick but how is it any better for you to belittle the hell out of christianity, that just perpetuates the rift.
i am not going to say there aren't christians out there that piss me off, but it works in the opposite direction too, i don't care what you believe in (or don't), just don't force our views on me, and don't belittle another religion just because a few nuts decide to start self-righteous quests. think about it, why should anyone's religion matter to anyone, i never use it to judge a person, and you shouldn't either, and i am sure you have met truly tolerant christians they just didn't let you know cause they didn't think it mattered.
why is it that stuff on slashdot generally tends to degenerate into a religious conflict, and yes i recognize that it was not your doing but you perpetuated it, hopefully my post won't. basically people just need to ignore people like that and like you cause in the long run it doesn't matter, your opinion doesn't effect my life, and mine doesn't effect yours. and yes i realize and speaking out and that does contradict with some of what i am saying about just shutting up but someone had to say this and i figured i might as well.
A Bugg
A Christian is someone who acts like (or whole-heartedly attempts to act like) Christ. Everything you have said that these "Christians" have done, Christ has taught against. Unforunately people take the Bible out of context and God gets the blame.
We all have our faults. We just need to learn to accept others and change our own.
In the climax of the movie, the thief is up on the tower behind the two bad guys, they don't know he's there, and he does NOT do a backstab. No, he announces his presence so they can turn and kill him more easily.
What was the dwarf FOR? He didn't even get to hurt anybody in any of the fights. (A half-dozen melees, and nobody killed I could tell except that "spoons" guy...
I liked the ruby at the end with the disintegrate trap on it. "No thanks, I'll walk..."
So the elves hand over a magic sword to a race they dont' like "just because"? Would have been nice if they'd had REAL subtitles for the elvish whatserface was translating. Probably something like "It's cursed."
They all seriously needed a "ring of acting", "brasiers of acting", and maybe an ioun stone of +1 to acting... (I figured out what the curse on the red dragon sceptre was. Bad acting. Automatic failure of all acting rolls for the rest of the movie.)
Rob
Ok, the maze looked huge from the overhead camera shot. Then he goes into the maze and its just a few rooms. Its not even a maze! Did anyone else notice this? I thought they could have done great things with the maze scene.
- yezzz, my name is a joke.
DENOUNCED!! I am a Christian and the fact that fools like Pat Robertson and James Dobson don't get run out of town on a rail is a continuing frustation. Look at the whole Y2K thing, these guys have no credibility, at least not with anoyone who reads ANYTHING besides the crap they publish. And when (with Y2K) they were SO OBVIOUSLY wrong, did they come out an admit it, or apologize for makeing the faith and lots of people look stupid? Nope. They're little flyers still get stuffed in church bulletins all across America. Like I said, I am a Christian, I run a youth group, etc... but I'll be the first in line to hiss at these guys, and to admit that Protestent Christianity as a social whole has alot of growing up to do.
Using "Common Sense" is being either to arrogant or to ignorant to ask people who know more about something than you.
The movie itself lacked in many important areas that caused my enjoyment to be seriously hindered. The most glaring of the problems were the paper-thin characters and the delivery of the film. While the two thieves Riddly and Snails (although a Waynes was casted) acted much like a normal character should, the elf, in particular, and others, lacked any real enthusiasm and quality or depth to the person they were trying to be.
Another problem was the manner in which the movie introduced the world to the viewer. At first it is assumed that the audience understands the basic ideas of a fantasy world as the setting is laid out but as time progresses the characters constantly refer to themselves as the stereotypical dwarf or state obvious facts like "I'm short, I'm fat, I'm a dwarf." I was expecting on of them to pull out the D&D handbook and read of a class description.
Other problems like misplaced fight scenes with the dragons, while the empress rode on back of one, and the story which seemed somewhat hollow, did the film little justice. Despite these problems, there was a nice feel of D&D in the movie, but I would never watch it again.
All who believe in telekinesis raise my hand.
Some people can't handle some movies wether they're 4 years old, 14, 40 or 84. Plenty of adults cried during that movie too, especially at the end.
Which was my point: it was supposed to be a shocking film.
In a moment of boredom, I checked out their web-site, and found that they're making 3 films, each based on one novel (although there is a slight element of event shuffling so that Boromir for example dies at the end of Part 1 and not at the beginning of Part 2. The worst thing they've done to the plot that I know of is that they've cut Tom Bombadil out of the story.
What's even more worrying is the casting. Some decisions I can agree with, such as Christopher Lee as Saruman. But Cate Blanchett as Galadriel? And some bloke whose previous roles stop at a character in Xena is playing Aragorn, which as he'll almost certainly foul it up horribly is a shame indeed.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
OK, first the bad parts.
- piecemeal character development
Did the dwarf even have a name? D&D the game (not that I play it) is all about character development, and the movie lacked it sorely. Of course, the main few characters were explored decently, but at the expense of everyone else, apparently. (also made many individual scenes highly predictable)
- cheesy RPG style plot
The Empire is in danger. To save it, an unlikely assortment of characters band together. They need to find a magical artifact. To get that one they need ANOTHER one. Swashbuckling along the way. Yadda yadda, blah blah. Good guys win.
- a Wayans brother
'nuff said.
But now to the upsides...
- effects used tastefully
In recent years there's been a glut of eye-candy movies, that have no draw besides the special effects. This was not one of them. Effects were used sparingly and appropriately, and the integration of computer animation with live action was nearly seamless.
- decent acting
Snails was rather annoying, but I suppose in some sort of good way. Damadar was highly convincing. And the "not all mages are evil!" scene, though extremely cheesy, demonstrated that some actors can actually ACT like REAL PEOPLE in a movie.
- Tom Baker
Did anyone else catch that the healing elf was frickin Tom Baker? w00t!
- it was entertaining
In the end, does anything else really matter, so long as the movie was entertaining? The guy quoted in the official post must have really high movie standards if he thinks he could have spent 2 hours and $0 just sooooo much better in some other way. I paid not only for myself but for my girlfriend and I feel fairly satisfied.
MoNsTeR
I am a long time D&D player, and a very faithful Catholic. I just wanted to make it known that the two can exist very peacefully. To me, D&D at its core, is telling a story, something man has done since before recorded history. I am sorry so many christians mock and scorn what they don't understand. Too many evils have been committed and will be committed under the guise of faith, or divine will. So I say, go forth and grab your dice, pour your coke, sharpen thoss pencils, and may God Bless your dexterity check! Harmonics
When a post like the above can have a DEFAULT score of 2, some thing is WRONG with the current moderation system...
All things aside, if he'd just needed it for rent, I'd lose a little respect..but...anyone who can throw in thier *castle* as part of the excuse...ya gotta give them props for that.
Now, if you 'll excuse me, the hot tub in my castle dungeon sprung a leak, so I'll be in to work late, as I have to wait for the repair guy to show up.
See how it works? : )
There really is only one response for a rant such as the above (whether it was meant to be serious or not is completely irrelevant):
...
:)
"Roll the dice to see if I'm getting drunk."
"You're not there, you're getting drunk!"
"Okay, but if they're any girls there, I wanna DO them!"
Taken from "Dungeons & Dragons" by The Dead Alewives.
Here for more on the band, here for the sketch.
Listen. Enjoy. Stop the ranting.
It makes them more likely to use thier "claw, claw, bite" attack on you and that will kill most people below 4 hit dice. Remember to use fire or acid to finish them off though!
I have a hard time believing the "unbelievable" when I can imagine it
That should have read "I have an EASIER time believing the unbelievable when I can imagine it", as opposed to when I actually see it played out on a screen.
I saw it last night with a bunch of friends. My advice is that before you go into the movie prepare yourself by repeating the mantra "This will be possibly one of the worst movies I will ever see". Having lowered your expectations enough then the movie will actually be enjoyable because it is so easy to make fun of.
In the cinema where I watched the entire audience seemed to enjoy the movie. Mainly becayse they couldn't stop laughing throughout. It all started from the point where the elf opens her cloak (you'll know what I mean when you see the movie). From there on in it degenerated, people started shouting things like "Roll for find traps!" in the dungeon and laughing extremely hard whenever the queen made a speech...
All in all it was enjoyable, but just make sure that you are prepared for what you are about to see.
I tend to disagree with you on a few points. I have not seen the movie as of yet, so I can't site any specifics from the D&D movie, but I do have an opinion nonetheless.
For one, unless the director wrote the screenplay, he is NOT responsible for holes in the story, that lies on the shoulders of the Screen writer.
Also, you can blame bad-acting on the director only up to a certain point. A director has limits as far as getting the actor to do what they want. The director tells the actor what to do in a particular scene, and how they want it to be portrayed, but the rest is up to the actor. The director can't do the acting for them. Any person who's had experience in either acting or directing can tell you that. It's not the director's fault if the actor doesn't do their job well, or isn't right for the part, that's the actor's fault.. or the casting director's. If the actor doesn't do their job, then it's nearly impossible for the director to do theirs, espically if they're new to the directing arena. I'll tell you, when you get to directing, it's an entirely different universe.
Learn to know whose responsiblity is what in a movie before you go around pointing fingers. A film is a team-effort, and you can't blame everything bad about a film on just one person, unless that one person did the acting, the directing, the writing, the producing, etc...
Also, I am of the opinion now, and I will be after I have seen the movie, that despite however many flaws and gaps and whatever else there is in the movie, there are simply not enough fantasy films that have been made, or are in the making, and it is definately a step in the right direction.
Bad Spellers of the world UNTIE!!
Folks,
I think the reason why the Dungeons and Dragons movie has not resonated well with this crowd is the fact it totally misses the point of "mythology" in the way that the late Joseph Campbell has described it.
Think very carefully about this: remember the original STAR WARS trilogy (Episodes IV to VI)? Subtract the technology, and every element of a good mythological story is perfectly there. And yet we all really like these three movies. Two of the three INDIANA JONES movies (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE) read like a very good mythological story if you subtract being tied to world of the middle to late 1930's--and again, we all give these two movies very high esteem.
The problem with most fantasy movies is that they don't "resonate" well with the human ideal of "mythology." That's why they have not been well-received by moviegoers, to say the least. And NONE of them have made any money close to what the STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES movies have made so far.
I think we are going to be EXTREMELY interested to see how the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and Joanne K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER books are adapted to film. From what I've seen so far it appears the LoTR trilogy may actually get a very decent treatment, and because J. K. Rowling is closely involved with the movie treatment, the HARRY POTTER movies may actually come out quite good (it better be given the US$100 million budget Warner Brothers has allocated for the first movie).
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
As much as you'd hope for this to be the case, that is not, practically speaking, Christianity. That is Jesus Christ. Christianity, unfortunately, is filled with hypocrasy (that's not to say that every Christian is, or that every denomination of Christianity is, but many are). I have nothing against religion at all, although I personally hold no beliefs beyond what I can gleam from facts of my own experience, but I do have something against hypocrasy.
I'm not going to argue with the statement on tolerance you made. (Yay preterition!)
Looking back on this post, I should probably correct myself. People can be complete hypocrites regardless of their religious status, so making a general statement like "This is Christianity" is a bad idea. Just like language is whatever is accepted by the majority of the populace (take, for example, our definition of problematic vs. the dictionary's--look it up), religion is what is practiced, not what is idealized.
It's probably way too late for this message to even be read, but I'll give it a try.I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
I could have sworn I heard an Olympic Theme or something John Williams or Alan Silvestri-ish in the trailer, and I know I'd heard it elsewhere too.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
DENOUNCED! (loudly). There you go. Don't be blind now.
Particularly i was noticing how few halflings, gnomes, elves and dwarves there were, no really interesting spells, wants, cloaks etc. Then it dawned on me... could it be possible the studio was worried about being sued by, or at the very least pissing off, the producers of Lord of the Rings, and that's why they didn't (or couldn't) really show off so many of the very Tolkein-ish aspects of the D&D mythos?
"Eagles may soar, but weasels dont get sucked into jet engines."
Too bad movies based on video games don't do as well as TV shows based on video games. That wisecracking "Pac-Man" was amusing in a demented way.
You know... i have two words for that movie: Bastard GM.
I'm just waiting for someone to turn the movie into a actual campaign, but they would have to be really pissed at the players to do pull something like that
Please mark down the above post as a troll.
thank you
LOL...
This is one of the best trolls I've read in a long time. Not like those stupid hot porridge down natalie portman's dress trolls...
For those people who think this isn't a troll, read to the part where it says that their peers may start calling them "geeks".
You may now burst out laughing.
Rufo
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
You forgot to mention how D&D also turns us all into homosexual cross-dressers that like to say "niep!" and worship shrubbery....
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
Isn't troll in the Fiend Folio?
.:.
:tedd
I think this movie could have been MUCH worse. It was entertaining and good escape. Worth a matenee ticket. Yes the plot was weak, the acting bad but it did have Thora Birch (goddess alert!)and had some fairly decent special effects.
Hopefully in the future the movie execs with get a clue and try turning Baldurs Gate or some other DnD campigne into a movie. Those have a much much better story line.
Thanks! I haven't read anything this funny for a while. Your grasp of the knee-jerk reaction that most uninformed and ignorant members of the 'moral majority' display is perfect... even down to the misunderstanding of monotheistic vs. polytheistic.
One of the masterfull twists was bringing in David Koresh's name, implying a link between a fantasy game and a man involved in a cult massacre, even though no such link existed (which you don't mention). This really shows your understanding of how a person looking to influence weak minds would act - use emotions, not facts.
Another nice touch is to make sure that it is evident that your 'character' is a devout Christian, who takes the view that anything that makes children think about the bible, instead of simply accepting it as fact, is evil and should be destroyed.
The one thing you really forgot was to show that God-fearing (instead of God-loving... oooh, your're good. I just saw that one.) people managed to show some problem with the old D&D saturday cartoon, and get it pulled. Well, I'm sure you'll work it in next time.
Well, again, thanks, and keep the laughs coming. Next time, try to be a racist or bigot.. I'm sure you'll do well, as your portrayal of a supremely ignorant reactionary is superb!
Wouldn't it suck to be a high level fighter, and lose a swordfight to some thief who happened to have what must have been a [+10 experience level/class change to warrior] magic sword...
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
That evening we sat between two groups of people who used to play D&D alot, I know this because they were talking about statistics and spells that certain characters should have, heh. After the movie both groups were saying stuff like "Just goes to show you that hollywood really knows how to f**k up a good concept." and "I think I'll start playing VtM instead of D&D from now on." The funniest part of the evening was when I saw a big red monster truck parked at the movie theatre with a tiny white honda civic literally underneath it's back bumper.