I will keep this simple. Perhaps the worst made movie I’ve seen in years. Horrendous script. Poor acting. Bad CGI. This happens and then this happens and then this happens… none of which furthers the plot or makes sense.

Comically bad.

The one from 20 years ago was WAAAAAAAYY worse.

A friend recommended it to me. I quit watching halfway through. As much as I enjoy Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez, their performances weren't enough to outweigh the retard wizard and the half-crazy druid.

Yep! It sucked ass.

quote:

Originally posted by creslin:
The one from 20 years ago was WAAAAAAAYY worse.

Yep. Believe it or not, this was the best of the various D&D movies, though that's a pretty low bar.

Hollywood just can't manage to get D&D right, despite sitting on a treasure trove of decades of D&D's classic fantasy stories and ideas to mine.

Just go watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy again.

Or, if you don't mind the juvenile humor (lots of swearing and sex/fart jokes, which is admittedly a part of most D&D groups anyway), The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime is an excellent animated adaption of the Critical Role D&D campaign, and it's probably the best option for a D&D on-screen adaptation, though they don't have the rights to the explicitly copyrighted D&D material. Though that's not much of a problem, since it's set in a custom homebrewed setting, not one of the usual D&D worlds with copyrighted people and places.

If I were going to make a D&D movie I'd take the biggest D&D nerds available, sit them all down and play a series of games. Take the best of the series and story board it and then put that on film.

Has this been done?

Kinda, but not with any of the official D&D movies. That's what happened with the Critical Role animated adaptation I talked out in my above post, The Legend of Vox Machina. It was originally a live video series of a group of actor friends sitting around a table playing through a weekly D&D campaign, which over the years exploded in popularity, and eventually got enough traction for their tabletop D&D campaign to be made into an animated streaming series.

But even if they had taken a similar route with this big budget D&D movie, just like with any big Hollywood production the studio execs and money guys and and script doctors and diversity consultants and marketings reps and etc. would all have their way with it as it works its way through the Hollywood studio sausage factory, and if you're lucky the end product might have some passing resemblance to the original D&D nerd campaign. (See the Star Wars sequel trilogy, or the recent LotR Rings of Power travesty, or any number of other similar examples of Hollywood finding ways to fuck up what started out as good foundational material.)

The reason why the Critical Role adaptation is so well-done and faithful is because it didn't go through the usual Hollywood studio channels. The Critical Role folks had enough popularity and enough money (gathered via Kickstarter) to be able to partner with a small animation studio and make a truly faithful adaptation on their own terms, which was then shopped around to the big streaming platforms just for distribution, with Amazon having the highest bid. But Amazon didn't get to meddle with it from the start, like they do with their own in-house stuff. The original creators retain full creative control.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
...I'd take the biggest D&D nerds available...

Hey...I resemble that remark.



Back when creativity and imagination were used for entertainment. The point and click generations are missing out, I do believe.

quote:

Originally posted by Orguss:
I quit watching halfway through.

As did I.

Wanted to like it, but couldn't.

Pace40, you have all the books of a devil worshipping teen from 1979, including that evil box with the encantation bones.

I played D&D decades ago. The movie was entertaining enough for me. Among the many things notable was the lack of sexuality especially between the main leads even after the very noble conclusion.

It even had plot twist upon plot twist - the real reason they did the heist in the first place, who the main actual villain is, and the ultimate goal of the villain. I like how the magician doesn’t have all the answers like Dr. Strange of Marvel universe.

It amazes me what they will try to turn into a movie to get the masses to part with their money, so the new trendy thing is to make video games into movies?

Really do think 90% of all this nonsense like this garbage and all the comic book superhero movies are aimed squarely at the China audience. It's been well established that the Chicom masters/censors don't have a problem with mindless fantasy stuff, just don't make any movies that might get people to start thinking for themselves.

I know it's trendy for folks of a certain older generation to shit all over video games, and especially on "movies these days", but you're way off on a number of different counts here, PASig.


#1. Dungeons and Dragons has been a thing since the 1970s, and there have been a number of earlier TV and film adaptations of it and inspired by it.

#2. Dungeons & Dragon is not a video game. That alone is a glaring demonstration that you don't know what you're talking about here. (Though there have been video game adaptations made based on it over the years, just like there have been movies made based on it over the years, and novels written, etc.)

#3. Video game movies have been a thing since 1993. That's not a recent trend. But again, that has no bearing here since D&D isn't a video game.

#4. "Mindless fantasy films" have been a thing since 1903, with fantasy literature and plays predating even that by thousands of years. D&D itself is a branch off this long-running earlier fantasy tree, originally coming about as result of the creators' love of the fantasy stories they encountered through things like the fantasy film epics of the 50s/60s/70s, ancient mythology, and classic fantasy literature like Tolkien, Howard, and Lewis.

#5. D&D has a massive fan base (~50 million people generating over $1 billion in revenue yearly, not even counting all the numerous other non-D&D fantasy RPGs out there), and most D&D players and fans are not Chinese, but American and Western European.


So while making a profit off Chinese theatrical showings was certainly a factor here, as it is with all films made today since movie studios are businesses trying to make a profit and China represents such a massive portion of the global film market, it is grossly off base to imply that the only reason this "newfangled D&D vidya game" got made into a movie is to please the Chicoms.

quote:

Originally posted by 4.40s1nine:
Pace40, you have all the books of a devil worshipping teen from 1979, including that evil box with the encantation bones.

Except that I was well passed my teens and married with 2 kids in 1979

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:


I know it's trendy for folks of a certain older generation to shit all over video games, and especially on "movies these days", but you're way off on a number of different counts here, PASig.

LMAO, are you calling me old?

I'll bet I'm younger than you

I will admit I was wrong on this one not being a video game it was based off of. Of course I know about D&D having been a kid in the 80's when this was at it's height. We were not allowed to play this "satanic" game but I do know all about it.

I was just trying to make a point about the market flooded with superhero and fantasy movies which you have to admit is WAY more than 10 or 20 years ago and I still maintain is being done for a Chinese audience where movies like that have a much lower chance of being banned and therefore not making any money for the studio.

Age is a just a number. Crusty old fart is a mindset.

(Based on what you said, we're probably just about the same age.)

quote:

Originally posted by pace40:

quote:

Originally posted by 4.40s1nine:
Pace40, you have all the books of a devil worshipping teen from 1979, including that evil box with the encantation bones.

Except that I was well passed my teens and married with 2 kids in 1979

I hope you understood I was joking. I was a young boy who was not allowed to play it during the late seventies due to all the bogus hysterical news reports of that time period. One of my favorite cartoons was the D&D series that ran briefly on the Saturday morning cartoons. I bet you would have made an awesome DM.

quote:

Originally posted by 4.40s1nine:
I hope you understood I was joking.

Of course.

quote:

I bet you would have made an awesome DM

I designed a couple hundred pretty awesome campaigns and quests if I do say so myself.

Nerds!

I remember bringing my D&D: 1981 Moldvay Basic set over to a friends house. His dad came over and asked to look at it and took it into the kitchen to examine w/ the wife.
When he came back he told me they didn't believe in that stuff and I should return it to whence it came (The evil Toys-R-us).

Weeks later they took me to their church that was having a movie on the occult. D&D was featured.

Now, I consider myself a Christian. I just couldn't understand why D&D was considered satanic.
I think this was my earliest taste of the influence MSM could have. There had been national news on some kids being murdered and they blamed it on D&D because I guess at that time, they couldn't figure out a motive.

About this movie, I hated the one with marlon wayne and just knew this was going to be a huge turd so didn't bother watching.

Glad to see that my spidy sense is still working good.