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TSR's Lost 1980s Dungeons and Dragons Movie Script, Reviewed
An anonymous reader writes: Over at the Escapist, games historian Jon Peterson (of Playing at the World) reviews a recently-unearthed copy of James Goldman's 1982 script for a Dungeons & Dragons movie. The synopsis sounds even worse than the Jeremy Irons Dungeons & Dragons film from 2000, if such a thing is possible. Given the resolution of recent legal problems paving the way for a new D&D cinematic universe, will we have better luck with the franchise today? How can you translate the interactive experience of D&D into a compelling movie?
After all, D&D was really an interactive version of Tolkein's world to begin with, wasn't it?
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Not another movie based on a boardgame, I already dry heaved so severely I think I broke something when I was foolish enough to watch "Battleship".
D&D just means a specific set of rules. It does not mean setting. With sword and magic fantasy you have any number of options including Game of Thrones.
If you want the real D&D experience go watch Dead Gentleman productions Dorkness rising series.
http://deadgentlemen.com/projects/the-gamers-series/dorkness-rising/
A current reasonable set is the independent Mythica series by arrowstorm http://arrowstormentertainment.com/
I am not connected to with either of those except other than throwing money their way in kickstater campaigns.
A dungeon crawl with gain orientated murderhobos, that want to steal everything. Maybe their goal outside of the dungeon are noble, but they want to get as rich as possible out of it. No story, just one scene of strange vistas, silent anticipation and the ocassional fight and/or friendly interaction with creppy dungeon critters after another. Oh, and some potty humor. Because that would be a Dungeons&Dragons movie.
It's roughly the same dumb premise. If you asked a movie company to make a fictional movie about baseball, it would be a complete disaster. Lots of good films about baseball players, or baseball teams. But not about baseball in general. "Let's capture all of baseball in this film." It would be nuts.
Same thing here. "D&D" is just a framework in which fantasies are played out. Most are fun to engage with, but ultimately have very boring narratives to an external audience.
Gotta make the movie about something smaller.
With anything, whether it's a superhero/comic book movie, a video game movie, or a D&D/Fantasy genre movie, you need a good story and a good script. You absolutely can't rely on the IP itself to make things good. It also has to be capable of appealing both to the original fans, and to the wider audience that knows jack about it. There have been good, and bad, examples of each of these. You're definitely not going to get away with just having a two hour commercial, or with something so cheesy that people can't get into the story, etc.
But it can be done, and when it happens, people in Hollywood will be falling all over themselves to make more (many of which will suck - see the recent Fantastic Four movie for instance, or, better yet, don't). I'm particularly interested to see how the World of Warcraft movie is going to turn out, because from the sound of it, they have a good story, a good director, and a general good idea of how to present their product on film. Sure, it'll be a CGI-fest, but that's kind of to be expected when going with that sort of environment.
That said, Blizzard does know how to tell a story. I remain unconvinced that anyone in D&D-land (WoTC/Hasbro/etc) knows how to do that on the big screen.
The writers for the Forgotten Realms and DragonLance series managed to pluck out some decent narrative. But that is different than a movie and script but usually a good base to start with.
It doesn't work. D&D is all about making your own experience, it just like how almost every video game movie sucks. You could in theory make a good movie that is set in the D&D universe but you need a $100 million dollar budget and someone like Peter Jackson to make it. This will never happen, it will have a piddly budget, and some no name director, I actually believe that Vin Diesel would be a good director for this movie, since he has been a big D&D guy for years. The best D&D cross over to video that I've seen is actually the Futurama episidoe Benders Game.
Will probably ruin the suspense of the ever changing plot.
The best D&D movie is the one that plays in your imagination during a gaming session.
The experience simply cannot be replicated by Hollywood - no matter how hard they try.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Mazes and Monsters
>> How can you translate the interactive experience of X into a compelling movie?
You can't. Quit trying. See "Mortal Kombat", "Street Fighter", "D&D", "In the Name of the King" (Dungeon Siege) and the upcoming turd of a Warcraft movie for examples.
We will all mourn the loss of very funny remarks about Tom STUD-MAN and his car-racing friend Fearless McHairychest, and their adventures battling stop-motion dragons.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Forgotten Realms being one of the major ones, has an entire series of books with a set story line and characters with a rich history.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
/sarcasm But come on, I mean "Super Mario Bros." the movie (1993) now was such a paragon of quality movie making .. NOT !
"Everything Wrong With Super Mario Bros. In 21 Minutes Or Less"
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"Game Theory: Why Video Game Movies SUCK!"
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
its two low-budget
Unless that movie had two different streams of money or there's an underlying lingo, I think I have found a real treasure in it.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
I mean, if they can take a game like Battleship and make a great movie of it surely..... oh. wait....
Never mind.
Mod this parent up. And this would be the answer. A good compelling storyline is essential, like a quest to destroy a magic ring, that could work. Maybe even make it to three movies. There are a few books in the DragonLance universe I think might make a decent movie. Most would not translate well but a few just might. The original trilogy is a good read but I'm not sure they would make the jump.
But to simply call a movie a D&D movie because it's based in the fantasy Genre does not bode well, you need the plot and narrative.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Journey Quest http://www.journey-quest.com/
The only way to do this is to have a sense of humor about it. There's nothing appealing about watching a bunch of nerds taking a game way too seriously - even playing D&D, the best games happen with people who have fun with it and embrace the fact that there's a bit of absurdity inherent in the process. That doesn't preclude drama or action, either. Anybody who has seen the Community D&D episode knows that you can mock D&D and celebrate it simultaneously.
I'd pay to see a movie based off of the Dragonlance Chronicles. That is if Margaret and Tracy were to allow it. Who would be cast as Hasslehoff I wonder?
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Sorry, cut off: Zombie Orpheus Entertainment.
The first one, a college film-student production, was fun and silly. The second, "Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising" (recently revived through crowdfunding support), was a bit better as a real movie that might appeal to non-players. The third, "Gamers 3: Hands of Fate", shifts focus to collectible card gaming (CCG) (though suggesting that roleplaying improves the CCG experience) and the craziness of conventions (cosplay, competitive gaming, etc.); this disappointed a portion of the crowdfunding audience that expected more continuation of the RPG-focus characters and story. The same folks have also produced a webseries "Natural 1" in a similar vein. The presentation jumps between the real world of players around a table, and the imagined world of characters in the story world, sometimes mixing the story world with voice-over narration from the real world.
Similar style may be seen in the webcomic "Table Titans" by Scott Kurtz (already known for "PVP"). Of course, in a drawn comic, it is possible to make a more dynamic and fluid transition between elements of "real" and "story" worlds; sometimes the imagined snow-covered forest looms over the "real" table and players, and sometimes the casually-clad DM walks through the imagined location, and occasionally the players around the table are shown in costume as if they had forgotten which world they are in.
The hardest question is: Is this a movie about a D&D adventure, or is this a movie about playing D&D? If an adventure, then forget the game, you can't do it, just do LOTR instead. If it's about moving from the real world into an imaginary one, then you're making "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", whether it's a piece of furniture, or a mystic portal opened by "magic"/"science", or a tabletop game gone wrong. What I enjoy about "The Gamers" movies (and especially "Natural 1") is that they are, to some extent, about the people, not the game; the people for whom this regular gathering is an important part of their social circle, and the ways in which the in-game interactions reflect who they are, or who they wish they were.
Who the hell is going to waste 21 minutes to find out all that was wrong with the Super Mario Bros movie?
It can be summed up as: lame assed live action adaptation of video game which was always going to suck. Nothing about that game was ever going to work in a live action adaptation without being terrible: not the characters, not the visuals, and not the plot. Because NO video game inspired movie had ever been successful before, and I'm hard pressed to think of any since which have been any better.
Same goes for this ... I just don't see how you can have a movie about D&D which doesn't quickly devolve into "kids get sucked into game, mayhem ensues, and at the end it either was (or wasn't) just their imagination" (the last bit being determined if there is a lasting momento or not.
But, honestly, "I roll 13 with 3d6, and have killed your wizard" is going to make a terrible movie.
I have a title for them though: Jurassic Dork.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You forgot "Doom". *shudder* However there were a few ok to good ones. Super Mario Bro's, Wing Commander, Final Fantasy, The Resident Evil series.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
I know one that was made into a really terrible movie. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt08...
:?%3D Dragons&*@On!$]2D Drawings{^*.
It's so bad, the whole thing is on youtube.
**SPOILERS**
)"3@Tika*^{The?/\|Perpetual#(!*Barwench@^&!#
&%^#Elistan*$!And&92#Laurana^%@^French^%@@Kiss^[.
**END SPOILERS**
Maybe when franchise owners learn to steer clear of Uwe Boll we might see a rise in quality.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Something along the lines of the Goonies movie is how you should go about making a D&D film!
Just bring the Drizzt Do'Urden books to the big screen, I'd go see that.
If there's a movie, then do the whole thing through the eyes of the fantasy characters, but have them behave as if they were players. THAT would be a D&D movie. It's Shamus Young's DM of the Rings" in film form.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There needs to be a live action movie based on the cartoon characters and their quest to get home!
One of the problems with every D&D movie attempt up until this point is that they're always about end-of-campaign type things. But D&D is fun for the entire campaign. Especially since HBO's Game of Thrones has demonstrated strongly that gritty low-magic fantasy has a large audience, I think it would help a D&D movie to focus on low-level adventures. Like, levels 1 - 3, where Magic Missile (the bottle rocket of evocation spells) is the flashiest thing your Wizard can do, and even then just once per day.
I think a trilogy of movies, low-level, mid-level, and high-level, could actually do very well. The caveat being that the first movie would have to be very good to ensure the sequels aren't just wasted cash.
>> there were a few ok to good ones. Super Mario Bro's, Wing Commander, Final Fantasy, The Resident Evil series.
Let me know what drugs you were on when you saw those. There'd be a hell of a market for those kind of uppers.
A D&D Movie should not be, at it's core, a fantasy movie.
That is, while it should have the Fantasy trappings, at its core It should be about a group of people, sitting at a table, playing a game.
A group of friends, with their own attitudes and problems, spending an evening engaging in a bit of escapism, trying to get away from their lives. There is no magic in their lives. There is no adventure. They are real people in the real world. Working dead end jobs, or stuck in school. And they bring that attitude into their gameplay.
It should work in much the same way that The Princess Bride did - blending the fantasy story with the real world situation (and kibitzing) of a grandfather reading a book to his grandson. (The LEGO Movie is another good example)
So, we experience the fantasy world through the players. We cut back and forth from them in the real world, at the table playing the game, to the game world, and the adventure their characters are having. Sometimes they forget they're speaking in character. Table talk intrudes. And at least once, the action should pause as a dice roll has to be re-done "because it bounced off the pizza box and that means it doesn't count!"
Over the course of the adventure, the players might even come to terms with whatever problems followed them to the table that evening, so that by the time the game is over, and adventure is concluded, and the credits roll, they're ready to face their workaday lives again.
Because D&D Isn't just about what happens in the the fantasy world of the game. It's about the experience of playing the game itself.
The other issue is that many of the people who play D&D don't pay for movies, and of the ones that do, there aren't enough of them for a movie to make money.
Most recent examples are the Firefly movie and Veronica Mars - This great groundswell of geeks that would rise up and fund these films into the stratosphere never really materialized.
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, and all the Cows said MOOOOO.
Here's the deal though... You watched all of these movies...
You will fall for it again... What are you going to do? NOT watch the movie? pfft...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to MOOOOO aghast?
Can't vouch for the quality of Wing Commander or Resident Evil, but Final Fantasy 13 had some excellent storytelling mixed into the expected action setpieces.
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after MOOOOOs.
Dorkness Rising (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0447166/) realistically shows what is like to roleplay and what the game world might look like in the players' imaginations. It is accessible to both roleplayers and normal people.
The boy stood on the burning deck
The crew had staged a coup;
The flame lit on the battle's wreck
Yet all he could do was MOOOOO.
One major reason the 2000-era movie sucked was that D&D is a universe to tell stories in, not itself a compelling story. As others have mentioned, there are many fantasy books whose characters have been in the D&D universe that make good stories, but a "D&D movie" doesn't even make sense, unless you consider the "summoner geeks" short animation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zng5kRle4FA
That's what a D&D movie means to me.
One major reason the 2000-era movie sucked was that D&D is a universe to tell stories in, not itself a compelling story. As others have mentioned, there are many fantasy books whose characters have been in the D&D universe that make good stories, but a "D&D movie" doesn't even make sense, unless you consider the "summoner geeks" short animation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... That's what a D&D movie means to me.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Wing Commander was terrible. The kilrathi ended up looking like Robot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then there were the Sonar in space? And that scene where they push the wreckage of the landing strip on the carrier, and it *falls* over the side... ? That movie is awful. I think someone took a shitty naval or submarine movie and said... ok... use this, just use spaceships instead of ships... ships is ships, amirite!!
Final Fantasy -- meh... I didn't care for it, but it was anime and I'm pretty picky about anime; and think most is pretty meh.
As for Resident Evil. The first one was genuinely quite good. The rest ranged from abysmally bad to passably good.
I used to play D&D with Gary Gygax.
He did not play anything REMOTELY resembling the commercial D&D we all knew. and loved.
He was also a bit of a jerk. He would not stand for anyone "challenging his authority" as DM and was a bit of a dictator.
Dave Arneson was much nicer as a DM. (This was before the advent of maps and multi-sided dice. It was just pencil and paper and two standard dice.) I remember one day when a two-headed giant snake was such a big surprise to us. It was much more a combat system than a fantasy framework back then.
Later I moved on to play at the DMG (Dungeon Masters Guild) in Madison, WI at the Memorial Union each Sunday (My brother was the manager there so we got the room for free.) Lots more fun. Lot more creative.
Ahh, memories...........
I'm thinking at least an argument over whether it'd be a good idea to grapple someone... And maybe a scene where 5 people take 5 minutes getting ready to open a door...
Why waste 21 minutes on it? Try this 4 1/2 minute Honest Trailer instead. It tells you all you need to know.
How could Gygax approve of a script that rarely if ever mentions anything from the actual game?
Imagine if any of the Marvel films that weren't anything remotely like the comics?
Having a someone not familiar with the game write the script is akin to the TSR move of giving the reins to a CEO who hated D&D and gamers in general.
If this film had been made it would have achieved the following:
1) Infuriated D&D fans.
2) Confused and bored non D&D fans.
Someone familiar with the game should have written the outline, and then later had that script redone professionally. At least that way there would be some tie in that fans of the game could appreciate, and then non-fans who would go on to try the game after seeing the film wouldn't be confused or disappointed by a film that was nothing like the game.
From TFA:
"They meet the flying piranha-like stekkers-which fortunately eat only one another-then are pursued by a vicious creature with the head of a dugong and the body of a sea elephant, and finally encounter a floor coated with bagguts, a sort of leech. When Fearless accidentally sticks his hand on them, Odo heals it with an application of Keoghtom's Ointment: one of the few direct appropriations from D&D rules in the film."
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I guess the name "Tom Manchild" was taken?
If you race cars, it's important to have a nickname which tells people that you are brave, because otherwise they would have no way of knowing that.
She was accompanied by her brother Victor Champion, her sister Hero Champion. and her cousin Winnie McWinsalot. But they don't do much in this movie.
It's called "peyote".
Why does he need to walk on water if he has a ship? Is it that he's clumsy and falls overboard a lot, and can't swim? And why do Baby Manboy and his two friends need to walk on water to get to a ship that's supposedly been waiting for them? Don't they have docks, or gangplanks, or launches? How did all the oarsmen get on board? Do they need to walk on water too?
Ok, I totally want to watch this movie now.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
There's one way I can see a movie being made that wouldn't suck: bringing D&D characters into this world a la Inkheart.
I'm so frickin' tired of that (looking at you, Sherlock Holmes sequel!). Can't we have a movie about some people, or elves, whatever, who just want to loot a dungeon, and maybe along the way they run into something bigger but does it have to be The Whole World Hangs in the Balance? Basically The Hobbit, but less sucky?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Give the entire audience the dice. And every so often they'd have to roll them and yell out their numbers. The most rolled number would decide the next scene. Hey, it worked for Dr. Sardonicus...well...sort of. ;)
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Uwe Boll
They don't have to suck. Dead Gentlemen Productions and Zombie Orpheus made the Gamers series where the tabletop RPG fused with the action in the game. Sure, they are cheap indie productions, poking good hearted fun at ourselves, and unlikely to become smash its, but ... they are quite a lot of fun. If you are into foreign movies, Astrópía is pretty good, and could, feasibly be interesting to a wider audience.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
After checking out any Dorkness rising videos,
check out "Humans and Households" essentially a what if the people in a D&D world role played being in our world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGVC6-Bohqk
The synopsis sounds even worse than the Jeremy Irons Dungeons & Dragons film from 2000, if such a thing is possible.
It's not.
Seriously, that's about the worst movie I've ever seen. I have trouble believing its possible to make a movie worse and still get it released and seen. That's likely how the script got "lost" in the first place.
Ah, yes.... but Prince of Persia did kick ass.
Hawk the Slayer was the definitive 1980s D&D movie. The plot is exactly like one of those pre-designed adventure source books, and the acting is about on a par with typical D&D players (which is to say excellent but kinda chewing the scenery).
The guy behind it is trying to get a sequel called Hawk the Hunter made on Kickstarter right now. It's not going very well, which is a shame.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
A Dungeons & Dragons television series for the small screen would work better than a movie. It would better capture the episodic nature of playing the game, while at the same time allowing for more world building. I would set the series in Sigil, the City of Doors. The protagonist would be a human from present day Earth that somehow becomes stranded in Sigil and is forced to team up with a few other lowly mortals in order to survive. Together they avoid becoming slaves and instead manage to gain the patronage of one of Sigil's powers, who then proceeds to send the heroes on a series of quests and adventures through the many portals of Sigil out into the various, D&D worlds, i.e., Greyhawk, Faerun, Ebberon, Athas, etc. It would be like a high-fantasy version of Stargate, with the protagonist hoping to one day find a port-key that will let him open a door back to Earth. The multi-world approach would allow the writers to create completely new worlds, when the story needed it, while still incorporating D&D's pre-established settings. Most of the adventures and quests would be episodic themselves, while the larger over-arching story line would involve the heroes trying to deduce the true motivations of their masters and their master's rivals in Sigil and beyond. A key part of the series would be that the heroes don't remain as static characters. Over the course of their adventures they would acquire new knowledge, new items, new skills, etc., that would steadily allow them to tackle bigger and bigger quests and obstacles while at the same time taking more and more control of the their own destinies back in Sigil.
I still think even though the 2001 D&D movie was flawed, it was still very entertaining for the low budget it had.. Also let's not forget, the same people are behind the new D&D movies, but with a much larger budget..
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was surprisingly good I thought.
I would pay top dollar to see a comedy/horror movie about a group of adventurers going through THAT dungeon!
YOU COWS!!
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