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."

Comments

Oh great

[0racle]

How am I supposed to ogle an animated Lucy Lawless?

I read that in High School

[Asahi Super Dry]

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.

Re:I read that in High School

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

that is actually true, the entire series apparently spawned from one of the author's theatrical performance of his D&D character one night.

Personally I found the main arc of the series to be really good (the Dragons of * books, didn't really care for any of the others.) I think I may have enjoyed it only for the characters.
As far as game related books, I do believe the Battletech book series was spawned by the table top RPG, and I find for the most part they were excellent.

I think the one thing that makes a successful fantasy/sci-fi book is the authors. I know that Micheal A Stackpole authored many of the Star Wars novels, as well as most of the battletech books I enjoyed.

now onto another topic, wasn't there already a Dragonlance cartoon in the 80's, and didn't it suck hard (removed violence to make it a kids show or something)? Hopefully this will be more oriented towards a mature audience.

It's going to be crap

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:It's going to be crap

[Achoi77]

Here is a quote from Margaret Wies:

...Suffice it to say, Tracy and I have been working with the production team for over a year now. They've been wonderful to work with! They've allowed us to have script approval and asked for our suggestions. They've shown us all the art work and allowed us approval on that (as well as the WoTC art director in charge of Dragonlance)...

Weis and Hickman haven't lost complete control (yet), so let's reserve judgement untill we start seeing more material. They'll have a say on the script, and I don't think they are willing so mess this chance by jumping the shark on their fans.

I do think, however, that 90-100 minutes will be way too short. I'm actually more worried that the movie is animated! :-( If it looks like a Don Bluth film, I'm gonna cringe.

Re:Sutherland as Raistlan? I'm not so sure...

[shotgunsaint]

Yeah, but think about the breathy, nervous scientist in Dark City. I think he'll definitely be goot as ol' Raist.

Ten Novels I'd Rather See Made Into Movies

[Nova Express]

1. Neuromancer
2. Bridge of Birds
3. Eon
4. Permutation City
5. The Shadow of the Torturer
6. Childhood's End
7. The Diamond Age
8. Perdido Street Station
9. Hyperion
10. A Fire Upon the Deep

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?

You know what I like about Slashdot?

[Canthros]

It's that, every so often, you guys make me feel like less of a dork, if only by comparison.

Why use "actors"?

[mungtor]

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.

Keifer Sutherland? Great...

[rob1980]

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!

Re:Kiefer is a horrible choice.

[Telastyn]

On reflection, I disagree. Kiefer was quite good as an anonymous voice in Phone Booth, which is similar to the calm malevolance needed for Raistlin. Add Kiefer's general raspy overtone and you've got the vocal parts for the character. I'm a little more skeptical of the Lawless choice though.

Re:Kiefer is a horrible choice.

[chuck]

You must be thinking of Samuel L. Jackson.

Re:Priorities

[ultranova]

I haven't even read Dragonlance for over a decade, but I'm stoked.

I have, and I'm scared :(.

The Chronicles were good, as were the Legends, but after that quality went down faster than a dragon that's been turned to stone mid-flight, and the ending of "War of Souls" had to set some kind of record in sheer stupidity. Constant retcons didn't help either. Or maybe it was because Dragonlance gods were turned into glorified janitors a la Forgotten Realms that it got a bit difficult to take the whole thing seriously. Takhisis, especially, became truly pathetic, in more ways than one... Oh well, another cash cow milked to death and beyond.

So, this movie might be good, but more likely it's a thinly veiled commercial that sucks harder than the whirpool of the Blood Sea.