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The D&D movie in the works looks...awful.

Started by BronzeDragon, July 21, 2022, 03:03:42 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Ghostmaker

Quote from: BronzeDragon on July 31, 2022, 07:48:21 PM
To be fair, making a D&D movie is an extremely dicey proposition.

If you make a Dragonlance Chronicles attempt, people will tar it for "ripping off LotR!".

If you make a sober "realistic" piece with limited fantastical stuff, people will tear it apart for "ripping off GoT!" and the fans will rip it for toning down the magic that would set it apart.

If you do what they seem to be doing and keep it lighthearted and semi-gonzo, you risk being too silly for anyone to truly enjoy, or not silly enough and run into tone issues.

All in all, it's a daunting task.
I think we can agree on these sentiments. Especially considering Hollyweird's questionable decision making, design philosophy, and accounting.

Manic Modron

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 31, 2022, 08:11:57 AM
To do "goofy" right, you've first got to love the source material, not make your first move to deconstruct it.

You don't need to deconstruct D&D to have it be goofy, goofy has always been there from Melf the Elf and Sir Fang the vampire to chompy treasure chests and monsters based on cheap plastic toys and puns.

Jaeger

#227
Quote from: Manic Modron on August 01, 2022, 03:39:59 PM
You don't need to deconstruct D&D to have it be goofy, goofy has always been there from Melf the Elf and Sir Fang the vampire to chompy treasure chests and monsters based on cheap plastic toys and puns.

This is true.

D&D has always been gonzo fantasy.

Not as gonzo as stuff like Chaalt or world of the last sun, but the default D&D world has always been a high fantasy gonzo mash-up of different fantasy genre's all blended together.
"The envious are not satisfied with equality; they secretly yearn for superiority and revenge."

Steven Mitchell

Quote from: Manic Modron on August 01, 2022, 03:39:59 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 31, 2022, 08:11:57 AM
To do "goofy" right, you've first got to love the source material, not make your first move to deconstruct it.

You don't need to deconstruct D&D to have it be goofy, goofy has always been there from Melf the Elf and Sir Fang the vampire to chompy treasure chests and monsters based on cheap plastic toys and puns.

That's not my point.  Goofy works when it is in appreciation for the thing.  Of course D&D movies can be a little goofy.  Trying to deconstruct the goofiness of D&D as a thing in itself without first appreciating where the goofy comes from is the issue.

Reckall

Quote from: BronzeDragon on July 31, 2022, 07:48:21 PM
To be fair, making a D&D movie is an extremely dicey proposition.

If you make a Dragonlance Chronicles attempt, people will tar it for "ripping off LotR!"

Any D&D movie will have at least two things in common with LotR: races and a fellowship. IMHO Dragonlance was the proof that you could take D&D and use its basic elements as building blocks for your own story - as nothing like that was ever seen before (or after, in a way). Pity that they burned that bridge with amateurish adaptations: I don't see a reason why DL couldn't be the basis for a good Netflix show aimed at a YA audience.
For every idiot who denounces Ayn Rand as "intellectualism" there is an excellent DM who creates a "Bioshock" adventure.

Adeptus

QuoteTo be fair, making a D&D movie is an extremely dicey proposition.

If you make a Dragonlance Chronicles attempt, people will tar it for "ripping off LotR!".

If you make a sober "realistic" piece with limited fantastical stuff, people will tear it apart for "ripping off GoT!" and the fans will rip it for toning down the magic that would set it apart.

If you do what they seem to be doing and keep it lighthearted and semi-gonzo, you risk being too silly for anyone to truly enjoy, or not silly enough and run into tone issues.

All in all, it's a daunting task.

So basically... any new fantasy movies?

BronzeDragon

#231
Quote from: Adeptus on August 02, 2022, 10:51:09 AM
So basically... any new fantasy movies?

Yes.

The only real difference would be a reputation/familiarity attached to D&D by the current popularity of the game.

If you wanted to make a movie version of say, Shannara, you'd run into many of the same issues, but fewer people are actually familiar with Brooks' lore/tone/idiosyncrasies.

P.S. : I'm often reminded of Pratchett's description of the fantasy genre post-Tolkien, "J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it's big and up close. Sometimes it's a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it's not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji."
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"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Boris Grushenko

Reckall

Quote from: BronzeDragon on August 02, 2022, 12:03:50 PM
Quote from: Adeptus on August 02, 2022, 10:51:09 AM
So basically... any new fantasy movies?

Yes.

The only real difference would be a reputation/familiarity attached to D&D by the current popularity of the game.

If you wanted to make a movie version of say, Shannara, you'd run into many of the same issues, but fewer people are actually familiar with Brooks' lore/tone/idiosyncrasies.

I didn't like "The Sword of Shannara" when I was a kid because it was a bad copy of LotR (how Brooks was never sued for plagiarism is beyond me). However, I totally loved "The Elfstones of Shannara" (which, in a sort of poetic justice, was in turn plagiarised by many plots I saw afterwards). I guess that I read it when I was of the right age, but it was a great YA novel.

The above to say that the "Shannara" streaming show, which was based on "Elfstones" was a pile of turd. They had one job: take a really well written plot with decent characters and turn it into a fantasy show with elves and magic. What they did was to turn it into what they believed were the sensibilities of modern audiences - i.e. "Every teen character is bitchy, whiny and thoroughly aggravating because today teens are such." Not only the characters in the book are all flawed but determined to push on, you just offended your target audience. It sank.

Of course "Foundation" sank, "The Wheel of Time" sank, and "The Rings of Powers" is literally the Titanic (up to the "they are trying to rearrange the chairs on the deck" moment). I think that, given the needed experience, I could show run a decent adaptation of "Dragonlance"; I simply don't think that it could be done today.
For every idiot who denounces Ayn Rand as "intellectualism" there is an excellent DM who creates a "Bioshock" adventure.

Effete

Quote from: VisionStorm on July 28, 2022, 07:57:49 AM
Quote from: Effete on July 28, 2022, 02:07:56 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on July 26, 2022, 01:19:12 AM
That more white people, purely because they're white, is what would make it better casting.

"More diverse people, purely because they're diverse, is what would make it better casting."

This is exactly what PLENTY of people in the film industry believe, and this DnD flick, at least at first blush, appears to be no different. Yet somehow I don't think you'll call them racist. You are either willfully ignorant of this blindspot in your judgment, or you're certifiably retarded.

Don't bother responding, I won't entertain your nonsense.

Does it really, though? Cuz this is D&D, and the film is set at the Forgotten Realms, which has a pretty diverse landmass, not some entirely quasi-European setting. So it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility for there to be non-white characters in it. This isn't like trying to stick black people into the Witcher, which is supposed to be based on quasi-medieval Poland. And the story isn't even set on an established IP where they're race swapping characters, but an entirely new thing.

The only reason for people to jump into the conclusions they've been hyper ventilating about in this thread from just watching this trailer is the cultural context we're currently living on and a heavy dose of being overly invested in the culture war. But there's not enough in the trailer itself to so strongly draw these conclusions on, other than "OMG! They made fun of the lead character! And he's white!!! And they're not!"

Sorry for the late response. Busy busy week.

Just to reiterate my position: I think the trailer looks fine. The movie looks like dumb fun. I have absolutely no issues with the cast, but I'm also not going to pretend that "diversity" wasn't brought up during the casting-call (we're still talking about Hollywood here, and they haven't changed their tune). I also don't see any of this "poking fun at the white man" in the trailer; it looks more like "poking fun at the bard," and that's very relatable. The rest of the banter is quite tame, and I swear that whole "I make plans" bit was stolen from another movie (it sounded very familiar, but I can't place it).

Was my previous statement colored by the culture-war? Yes, it was. I think at this point it's naive to NOT assume some agenda is being injected into films and TV. Is the trailer as aggregious as some are painting it out to be? No, it's not. Sometimes the anti-woke can be just as insufferable as the woke.

BronzeDragon

Quote from: Reckall on August 02, 2022, 12:43:43 PM
Of course "Foundation" sank, "The Wheel of Time" sank, and "The Rings of Powers" is literally the Titanic (up to the "they are trying to rearrange the chairs on the deck" moment). I think that, given the needed experience, I could show run a decent adaptation of "Dragonlance"; I simply don't think that it could be done today.

Just to clarify, I agree with you that Dragonlance Chronicles could be done in a very satisfactory way. I also agree that today that's right out the window.

It would still be slammed for being a "rip-off" of Tolkien, but it certainly could be good. I'm sure Raistlin would be a hit with the angsty crowd.
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"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Boris Grushenko

Timothe

Foundation sank because it was on Apple TV+, which I only watched because I had a free one year subscription with my MacBook computer purchase. It also had nothing in common with the Asimov novels except for the name.

Wheel of Time was terrible. I stopped watching halfway into the first episode.


Reckall

Quote from: Timothe on August 02, 2022, 04:42:13 PM
Foundation sank because it was on Apple TV+, which I only watched because I had a free one year subscription with my MacBook computer purchase. It also had nothing in common with the Asimov novels except for the name.

"The Morning Show" was on Apple+ too and it did well. Interestingly enough, it was a reflection about if the whole "woke/#metoo" brouhaha is going too far.

"Foundation" was atrocious. You can't race/gender/age/ideology swap Salvor Hardin without having the roof caving on your head (Hardin in the show sees violence as a tool exactly as wokes do: a good thing if it serves you; what made him a unique character in the book was his belief that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, full stop", and how he never betrays it).

Gaal Dornick (rage/gender swapped) basically "invents" mathematics out of thin air and then she is kept alive through so many plot contortions that the show hasn't plot holes but lacerations. Why? Mystery.

The irony is that the only good part of the plot is the Emperor story and Lee Pace acting - which isn't a perverted part of the plot but directly made up (Jared Harris as Hari Seldon would have been perfect, too, but the writing is atrocious). No one of these showrunners, however, will ever do an original show: they know that they are hacks and never in the life they would renounce to the name of a famous franchise.
For every idiot who denounces Ayn Rand as "intellectualism" there is an excellent DM who creates a "Bioshock" adventure.

Steven Mitchell

So the consensus seems to be that the most likely outcome is that the movie will be about the same as the other stuff Hollywood puts out.  Which means for me that my initial reaction of sitting it out is probably correct, since I consider it a rare film these days from that crowd that isn't drivel, fantasy or otherwise.

cavalier973

I have an idea for a D&D movie plot line: "The party is hired to map unknown territory. The area might once have been familiar but is now overrun or destroyed; a strange tower might mysteriously appear overnight in a familiar area."



(From Moldvay's Basic Set, p. B51)