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Kiefer Sutherland Headlines Dragonlance Movie
Pre-production on the animated Dragonlance film is continuing apace, and the voice casting for the Companions has been completed. Kiefer Sutherland will be headlining as the voice of Raistlin Majere. Other case members will include Michael Rosenbaum (Justice League's Flash) as Tanis Half-Elven, Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon, Michelle Trachtenberg at Tika Waylan, and Jason Marsden as Tasslehoff Burrfoot. From the site: "The film is based on the first book in the Chronicles series, "Dragons of Autumn Twilight". The director is comics and TV animation veteran, Will Meugniot, and the screenplay has been adapted by George Strayton with plenty of involvement from Margaret and Tracy."
How am I supposed to ogle an animated Lucy Lawless?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
He's also Smallville's Lex Luthor! It's a much bigger role.
It's not really mature to make such post don't you agree? By the way, when will it be released?
I was just about to post the same freakin' thing. And in answer? I have no freakin' idea. Slow. News. Day.
By the way, how 'bout those wars in the middle east?
Fall 2007 is the target according to the website
I have a lot of trouble putting Sutherland and Raistlan together. It's probably just the whole Jack Bower thing, but Keifer Sutherland has built such a tough-as-nails, show no mercy personna around himself thanks to 24 that I'm having a lot of trouble picturing him as the sickly, yet sinister Raistlan. Granted it's a voice acting gig, so hopefully that will help with any potential suspension of disbelief issues some may have with this casting choice. :\
Not one of those names is replete with the required f'antasy punc'tuation.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's my understanding that the book was basically an edited transcript of a Dungeons and Dragons game run by the authors. Is that in fact the case? Regardless (and this is of course just my opinion) it made me never want to read a book based on a game ever again. I can't think of a single thing I liked about it. If D&D really was the instrument of Satan then the guy has remarkably questionable taste.
I have always been a fan of the Dragonlance books. For a year or so I even sat on the Whitestone council who does the new 3rd Edition D&D books for Dragonlance. Went to GenCon met Margaret and Tracy got recognized at the Dragonlance Author Reception etc... was great. Now I am slightly... well I don't like the idea of an animated Dragonlance film. Its something that can do JUST as well at the box office as LOTR did... and I just have a feeling that this MIGHT just MIGHT destroy it for me. I want to see a live action version of the movie.
Also what happened to Aron Eisenberg playing Tasslehoff? He volunteered to play it years ago and hes being pushed off? WTF? (BTW Aron is Nog on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for those of you who don't know.)
I am going to take this with a gain of salt for now I suppose. It has potential... but I don't like the idea of animated movies from a book. I didn't even like the animated version of LOTR. Can't connect with it as much. Ah well.
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Raistlin is a subtle, quiet-spoken, calm, cold and calculating character. Kiefer could not be more different. Based on his antics in 24 and other roles, he does everything over-the-top. His gestures and voice are always exaggerated and phoney. As silly as it may seem, Sir Ian McKellen, speaking softly might do it (I honestly do not mean to type-cast him, but the man is could be perfectly suited for this). (And damn, there is another actor I am thinking of who would be just as good, but I cannot remember the name at the moment.)
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How do I know? In browsing their website I found these two little nuggets:
Who's written the script for the film?
The script for the film has been adapted from "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" by George Strayton. Strayon has penned several episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and was a key staff writer on Xena: Warrior Princess.
What will be the running time for the film?
The movie is an animated feature film and will have a running time of approximately 90-100 minutes.
So it's written by a guy whose best work is absolute tripe. The dialogue of Xena and Hercules is one of the worst parts of those shows. And 90-100 minutes is not "feature length" for a book adaptation like this. 120 minutes would be a bare minimum, and 150 would make me feel a lot more comfortable. I would love to think this movie is going to be decent, but right now it looks like a disaster.
Yeah, but think about the breathy, nervous scientist in Dark City. I think he'll definitely be goot as ol' Raist.
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
What all these have in common is that they would be based on original novels, rather than, say, spinoff novels based on a particular campaign setting based on a particular Role Playing Game based loosely on The Lord of the Rings. Really, do we need a movie based on Dragonlance anymore than we need, say, a novelization of the video game Doom? (You've got to hand it to Linaweaver and ab Hugh for written four books based on a game who's actual description would be "He ran. He ran. He shot the monster. He ran. He shot the monster. He flipped a switch. He shot the monster. He got a bigger gun. He shot the monster...")
How about making a movie based on the best speculative fiction has to offer? Sure, 9 times out of 10 Hollywood is going to screw it up. But that's true of anything Hollywood touches. Why not at least reach for greatness?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
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i'm curious as to why they chose to do it in CG... perhaps they're going for a younger demographic? that would be unfortunate, as the Chronicles had a sinister tone to them. (closer to the LotR trilogy than to the Hobbit, for those of you who have never read Dragonlance)
It's that, every so often, you guys make me feel like less of a dork, if only by comparison.
Canthros
Chris Lambert should voice Raistlin. Just check out his Raiden in Mortal Combat.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I don't recall his name but he played Rochford in the Three Musketeers movie from the mid 90's or so. Keifer was playing the role of Athos in that movie(and Chris O'Donnell was in it too.) That guy has the evil-like raspy voice that Raistlin needs. I wanna know who is gonna be the voice of Sturm Brightblade. Being the proud and noble knight that he is he will need a fitting voice. Micheal Dorn (Worf from Star Trek:TNG and DS9)comes to mind.
Why bother with Keifer and Lucy at all? Why not hire some real voice actors to bring some personality to the characters? That way we could become involved in the story and the characters without having to think of Xena at all.
Billy West is right... this is a strange trend of animating characters around who you want to do the voice rather than the other way round.
I wonder if we'll see a ring of dwarves thrusting hauberks at the heroes.
Or whether the 'good' priest will disappear for a while just like in the books, where even the authors found him so dull that they forgot to include him for several chapters.
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He's going to fill the role great. He's a perfect wheezing, coughing Raistlan.
But nonetheless this movie would be a billion times better with real people.
I was just scrolling through /. this morning, and I was like "Oh.. Inflatable space station, huh? That sounds kind of interesting, future of mankind and all that.. I'll check that out.. OMG DRAGONLANCE MOVIE FTW!"
I haven't even read Dragonlance for over a decade, but I'm stoked. Even if the movie is terrible, its like tasting some forgotten candy you haven't had since you were a kid, even if you found the candy in the couch.
My name is Raistlin Majere, and this is the longest day of my life.
Feeling a bit scared? Afraid? That's just death lurking around.
What do you care, when you can't even spell the characters name correctly?
His lines are all going to be:
1) Dammit!
2) We are running out of time!
3) Dammit, we are running out of time!
4) DAMMIT!
If making this movie is anything like the books, I would half expect the recording studio to explode after the actors leave the building.
It drove me nuts in Margaret Weiss' books. Every friggen place blows up the instant the heroes leave. Even if they win it blows up. "Yahoo, we just defeated the 'more baddest creature yet', for good measure, lets set it on fire, taking out everything in a 30 mile radius as well. Also, I peed in the well. Before we go, lets stab this guy trying to build a road."
Don't use the latrine, it is rigged with C-4. Maybe thats why they needed Jack Bauer?
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... will be the first to welcome our masked Dragon Over(high) Lords...
Bupu, the gully dwarf, also was spawned from their sessions.
To claim it was a transcript, however, is a bit of a reach. The ideas came from the sessions, and the basic outline of the plot was based on the modules, but most of it was their own.
And the Legends series, AFAIK, was completely independent of the modules. I consider that series to be fantastic, much better than Chronicles. But both were fantastic. Fizban rules.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
This opens the gates for a more D&D movies Dark Elf Trilogy or IceWind Dale movie. Or Magic The Gathering movies would be cool, too.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nP43M5ov118
I didn't realize that was him in Dark City. That was such a great movie, its too bad it seems no one every saw it.
Dragonlance is a big deal - can't wait to see it but I was personally hoping for some Raymond E. Feist action coming to the big screen. Ever since Dragon Heart came out I'd been thinking that it was now possible to bring all of these great books to the screen - hopefully this opens more doors (just like lord of the rings did).
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One of the first CRPGs I ever played was a Dragonlance game. I recognise all of these names, but I can't remember what the name of the game was. I remember that the goal of the game was to take your paltry band of adventurers (including Tanis, Goldmoon, and so forth), make your way down this hexagonal grid, finding items and rescuing refugees along the way, and then fight your way through a mountain cave that was only open certain times during the day. Does anyone have any idea what the name of the game was?
he played Littlefoot's daddy in The Land Before Time X. Don't ask me how I know...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
The good thing is that the whole War of the Lance will now be over in 24 hours.
The bad thing is that Raistlin will have more kills than anyone... wait, I think that's how it worked out last time.
Until I read the summary (which was after I read this post) I immediately had Sutherland as Tanis stuck in my head.
I've been wanting this movie to come out for quite some time, and now they get some cheap hack to direct it. So, let me guess. I'm supposed to be thrilled that the guy who directed such winners as "The Secret Files of the SpyDogs" and "The Real Ghost Busters" gets to screw around with one of the most influential books of my childhood?
I know from first hand experience that the gentleman who is writing the script is a fantastic RPer and I personally feel confident that he will do the series justice, especially if he is working with Margaret and Tracy.
Joe H.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
David: Now you know what we are, now you know what you are. You'll never grow old, Michael, and you'll never die. But you must feed! , the creepy doctor from Dark City, and the son of Donald Sutherland. I think his voice will match.
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And why would I not want to think about Xena?! I think about Xena quite regularly. Quite often 4 to 5 times a day (more if I don't develop a chafing rash).
Often it's the stuff the other poster mentioned about they want to put names on the movie posters.
Pixar doesn't use the actors names on their posters, but they also want certain kinds of voices. As versatile as Billy West, Tom Kenny or Elizabeth Daily might be, they end up either sounding boring or like cartoon voices. Neither is something the movie companies are looking for.
Billy West is right. And usually the reviewers and attendance respond positively to these techniques. I agree there are downsides to it too, it makes it difficult to make character-driven animated movies, instead creating "star vehicles". This isn't much different than the non-animated movies made by Hollywood.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I always imagined Raistlan with a gritty voice. The whole 'living in constant pain' thing. Not high pitched and screechy, or super deep. But a solid, commanding, gritty voice, broken up by coughing fits.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I tried reading the next one in the series, but I just sort of stopped caring about half way through. "The writers actually recorded their own play sessions? Really? No, seriously. --They write these books from their game notes? Really? You're joking, right?"
I just couldn't get past this aspect, and I don't know if my response was entirely fair. Just because my D&D games happened to be dumb didn't mean that a group-created novel would necessarily stink. --And it didn't stink. It just wasn't particularly brilliant. There were no big ideas or grand vision to be found in the Dragonlance series. --Though I'm told that as the books progress, the story becomes filled with Mormon imagery to reflect the writer's religious bias, but that's hardly a selling point. Otherwise, it's just a fun swords and sorcery yarn. Innocent Popcorn; good hearted but ultimately meaningless. Kind of like Salt Lake City.
Whatever the case, I just couldn't manage to get into the series. --Although writing a book series based on a D&D game was also perhaps one of the most clever marketing tactics I've seen in publishing. I mean, they still keep those books in print after all these years! Not many pulp fantasy novels can make that claim.
-FL
Caramon: There is a big dragon coming towards us!
Raistlin: Caramon, you and Sturm get the sword protocols! I will open a socket to the magic protocols while Tanis handles the arrow protocols!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
They better have more talented animators than the trash found on the internet. Blech!
Karma: NaN
So I was thinking, if it gets done to look something like Shrek, maybe it'll work. But then I read the details on animation - a cartoon style of animation and an Indian animation company.
...but on the positive side, because it will suck, there will hopefully be no sequel, paving the way for someone to do a *decent* version of it or the other books in the future...even the Twins series.
Will this be a wake up call for the animation industry in California - ILM and friends?
I doubt it.
While I was happy and surprised to read about the book being turned into a movie, the choice of an Indian animation company and the style being adopted makes it clear they're looking to make a quick and easy buck whilst keeping the costs low due to the perceived(?) high risk.
So this movie is going to suck...
At first I heard Keifer and was a little surprised but upon remembering Dark City, I can't think of any other mainstream actor who could pull it off (That being said, I'm sure there are plenty of Voice Actors out there that could put ole Keifer to shame but I bet he'll be better than Jada Pinkett Smith in "Princess Mononoke").
On a related and, to my mind, more interesting note, this animated film is supposed to be coming out later this year, based on one of R.E. Howard's final Conan stories, with Ron Perlman (as Conan) and Mark Hamill providing voices-- both of whom have actually done extensive voice work, for that matter.
More here.
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
I've got faith in Sutherland after he did the Lost Boys. I know he can play a sinister type very well. So, erm, there. :P
Alan Rickman as the pessimistic yet lovable blue-crystal staff!
"Reality continues to ruin my life" - Calvin and Hobbes
It is going to be horrible seening all those mythical creatures be taken down soon after meeting Jack Bauer.
Various lines have already been released for this film lets read some of the lines, shall we.
"Everybody down on the ground now! It's an Orc terrorist attack!"
"Don't lie to me, mysterious hermit witch! Who are you working for!"
"The army of dead creatures is comming and it has a weapon of magicial destruction hidden some where in the king's castle! The alchemy used will literally turn everything to glass and destroy to terrorize the pesantry and to launch a full scale attack against the kingdom!"
"They've sent agents from far away to retaliate for the kings decision to join the crusading armies."
"That woman weighs as much as a duck! She is one of the terrorirsts! Everybody get down, now!"
Also slated to star in the film might be Samuel L. Jackson...
"We have snakes on a motherf***ing flying machine!"
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
I haven't read TFA, or all of the posts, but Will Meugniot was the executive producer of Exosquad. I don't know much about his other work, but in my opinion, this is good news for fans of Dragonlance.
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
How about Valis the Opera?
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Kiefer's acting in it? I felt it was a terribly hammy, overacted performance with little depth. It seemed to me the character had no characteristics besides nervous breathiness (or is that breathy nervousness?).
That said, he has done some good work in the past, although I am doubtful that voice acting in a cartoon is going to be a huge plume in his head covering.
Thank god...for a second there, I was wondering how Michelle Tratchenburg was going to "fit the role" (in a manner of speaking) for Tika.
That's what I was thinking; This should definately be interesting.
as the worst fantasy series I had read to date. It was just bad writing with no suspense or irony, cardboard cutout characters who were only defined by some vague labels and the magic items they carried, the cracks filled with an alphabet soup of terms that were somehow supposed to impress me. It was the crappiest writing I had ever read.
But to be fair, I hadn't read Dune yet.
Sutherland is a good enough actor, but my first (and only) experience of him as a voice actor was in the form of Armitage the Third: Poly-Matrix.
Simply put, he was AWFUL. I have honestly hardly ever heard anyone as bad as he was for voice-overs. Lacked ANY sense of emotion in his Ross Syllibus character.
I still remember the trailer to that movie: Every major character had his voice actor named and we heard it's voice thereafter BUT for the Syllibus character, which showed him(the character) on screen after the Sutherland credit, yet the character was completely silent. It felt out of place that he didn't talk like the others in the trailer.
When i watched the movie with a bunch of friends, we all have understood why he was silent.
While I agree with your point about marketable names, are you telling me that Frank Welker couldn't do an appropriate Raistlin? Not all voice actors always sound cartoony - it's just that the majority of roles they would be involved in are cartoons which are looking for exactly that sort of treatment.
It sometimes feels like voice actors are on the cusp of major regcognition, but true fame is just eluding them. Certain voice actors have become very famous, but just a small subset. It would be nice if the starring voice actor names were in opening credits of television shows.
Now that would be a better series to turn into a series of movies or tv shows, would definately be adult themed. I've no idea who to have voice Drizzt though.
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I'll go the other way.
I don't see any reason the star actors of live action should be in the opening credits of televison shows.
In a way, I'm like Mr. Pink in his famous tipping speech. You say this person deserves a credit and this one doesn't? I don't see why any of them get a credit. If you're interested in who's on a show, we have the internet now. If you're not, let's just blast through to the actual show.
And I certainly don't need to know who the casting director (often an opening credit) is or the craft services (an end credit) was.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Same guy for Flint as Fewmaster Toede? Thats almost a slap in the face ^^
Everyone knows only Chloey gets to touch the protocols. Tony, Michelle, and Edgar have all THOUGHT they could initiate a protocol... and we know what happened to them. I don't care if Raistlin is the demigod of supercool or whatever he is, you just don't mess with the protocols. Its like a computerized Hand of Vecna -- great if you Vecna, great way to get yourself killed if you're anyone else.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.