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?

Comments

LOTR

[Kiaser Zohsay]

After all, D&D was really an interactive version of Tolkein's world to begin with, wasn't it?

Re:LOTR

[RogueyWon]

To an extent, yes.

D&D isn't actually just one universe. It's a number of settings linked by some core board-game source material. The problem in translating it to the big screen is that its best-known settings - Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, I suspect - are fairly undistinguished "generic fantasy" stuff, with bog standard elves, dwarves, wizards and so on, which are going to seem horribly clichéd to the modern audience used to watching Game of Thrones on TV. It has some more "out there" settings - Planescape in particular is fairly unique - but that probably goes too far the other way. It's hard to imagine anything so eccentric translating into a major commercial movie.

That's not to say there's never been good D&D storytelling - there are, I'm sure, any number of tabletop Dungeon Masters who have managed to make the setting shine. The Baldur's Gate computer games managed to tell a pretty good story in the Forgotten Realms setting, but they had the benefit of having some phenomenally talented people work on them.

For somebody starting out to create a Hollywood blockbuster, there are just more promising places to start than D&D.

Re: LOTR

[flopsquad]

So that's the movie that would've been made if I'd invented the Finglonger!

Re:LOTR

[Pseudonymous Powers]

I don't think any settings are too esoteric for audiences to enjoy a good story set within them. In the final equation, people are people, even if they're modrons. Audiences will enjoy seeing, and pay to see, the heroes relating to each other, their enemies, and the funky environment they have to navigate, as long as the story excites them and the characters ring true.

Which, of course, they won't. A good story requires good writing, and most movie executives place pretty damn close to zero value on storytelling. They seem to just pick a screenwriter at random. Even that might be okay, if they let that writer work without interference. But they won't.

Even putting the plot and characters aside, when a movie executive gets their hands on a particular "property" to make a movie out of, they're completely, willfully, and perhaps actually proudly out-of-touch with and uninterested in whatever special sauce it is that makes that property so great to begin with. To put it in D&D terms, it's like going on a seventeen-year quest to find Vecna's hand and eye and then eating them as jerky. The original source material is invariable drowned under a veritable garbage chute of "notes", as these executives attempt to put their own egotistical stamp on the finished project, though if they had more sense they might instead take their names off of it completely before release.

So, yes, any Forgotten Realms movie that actually got produced would somehow be about the 18th Century Polish monarchy. The Dark Sun movie would end up being set on Waterworld. The Planescape movie would take place in a single, featureless locked room. The Spelljammer movie... well, the Spelljammer movie might potentially be so awful that it would eventually become a cult favorite, though it would bomb all the harder at the box office for that.

Re:LOTR

[ChromaticDragon]

First of all, plenty of people actually did do just that. That is, several novels were written by various authors based on their own experiences in a role playing game.

Indeed, not only do we have a number of books and series of the vanilla fantasy type which credit their role-playing group and friends for the genesis of the story, we also have a slew of books which overtly involve people crossing from the "normal" world into their role-playing or fantasy world.

Everything depends on what someone means or wants when they talk about translating D&D to a movie. If you want a fantasy story, then the reference to tolkein and the recent six movies was incredibly appropriate. The entire fantasy genre owes a heavy debt to Tolkein, including all fantasy RPGs.

But to extend this thought, as others have stated, by now (decades later) there are TONS more sources to draw upon to create good Fantasy movies. Why try to blow the dust off a 30-year old script?

If instead you want a movie about teenagers playing D&D, you've got an entirely different challenge to create a compelling script, especially one that is believable, realistic and appeals to a broad audience.

How about a movie that spends the first hour with character generation? Or rage-quits? Or endless arguments about what WOULD be possible in the game-world? Or arguments about the difference between what the PLAYER knows vs. what the CHARACTER would know? (you know... where the GM argues the fireball is volume-based; so cast in cramped quarters would end up frying the party while the player argues the mage would have known that!)

Re:LOTR

[LaurenCates]

Well, I suppose the big problem is that, though you may have D&D fans like crazy (husband is one, I never had the patience for it), you never really had a canon story that people can get into: no inside jokes to cheer at, no story beats to hold your breath in anticipation of, no great epics that you could introduce anyone to as "great storytelling".

Great if you WANT to be creative and make your own adventure. Bad if you're an executive that wants the comfort of having a property that is popular enough to sell tickets, but otherwise has to create a story from whole-cloth.

Let's make a movie called "Baseball"!

[DoctorNathaniel]

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.

First...

[Fire_Wraith]

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.

You can't

[Higaran]

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.

Re:You can't

[Culture20]

The TV show "Community" actually had two episodes of people playing D&D much as you describe, and both are excellent.

Finally Tom Hanks can revisit his role

[imatter]

Mazes and Monsters

Gaming movies suck. Get over it.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> 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.

"The Gamers", Dead Gentlemen / Zombie Orpheus

[DutchUncle]

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.

Re:Gaming movies suck. Get over it.

[gstoddart]

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.

Drizzt Do'Urden

[Predathar]

Just bring the Drizzt Do'Urden books to the big screen, I'd go see that.

Don't skip the low levels

[Vyse of Arcadia]

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.

Re:Books based on the D&D realm

[Dracos]

The only D&D book character a studio would want to adapt is Drizzt Do'Urden. Built-in audience is a huge studio requirement these days, and Dark Elves haven't been on the big screen before.

D&D isn't a story, it's a setting

[indros13]

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.

I am totally loving the synopsis

[QilessQi]

The story begins with Tom Boyman, a 23-year-old Californian who has finally saved up enough money to begin his studies at Yale.

I guess the name "Tom Manchild" was taken?

On his way to catch the bus east, he meets Milton "Fearless" Gilroy, a car racer who convinces him to go to a county fair before leaving.

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.

At the fair, Tom chances upon Margot Champion, a senior at Wellesley who is summering in California at an archaeological dig

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.

The three of them strike up a friendship and visit the dig site that night, where, among howling winds, a mysterious power brings them all to another world.

It's called "peyote".

They awake near a strange body of water, where an oared galley awaits them. From this ship emerges Odo, a water-walking cleric, who bids them to come along. He then transfers the water-walking ability to the party, who join him on board--

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?

--to travel to the island of the Master. The Master explains that he, and this world, were created by the Onelord. Every seven hundred years, the power of the Master fades, and a Child will be found who is destined to replace the Master. However, because "nothing can exist without its opposite," the Onelord also created the Nightking, who is "dark beyond your powers to imagine," and whose strength grows as that of the Master fades. So a Chosen One is summoned from our world to help maintain the balance. The Master reveals that Tom is this Chosen One, and charges him with an urgent quest: the Child has been discovered, but has already been kidnapped by the Nightking, and can be saved only by Tom.

Ok, I totally want to watch this movie now.