Uh, huh. 100 words you say? Guess their going for the one-dimensional, paper thin depth type of characters. Didn't they already make that movie? [Actually I like the D&D movies.]
As an aside; I once read somewhere on the blogs that their belief of why TSR adventures style changed from open / sand boxy / location based to more linear / story / plot based is because as TSR grew they hired out of work / wannabe fantasy fiction authors. I bet when WotC took over the ratio of game(as in not RPG) designers went way up. That could explain a lot of 3.x's balance / mechanics obsession. I wonder if an influx of programmer/video game designer types influenced 4.x? Seems much less clear than other two style changes. But, having a character building tool and other stuff made me wonder that.
I hated the first D&D movie. It just didn't feel like D&D to me at all. That huge city they lived in looked more like something from Star Wars rather than anything fantasy based. And as far as the acting goes, you know you're in trouble when one of the Wayans was the best character in the movie. Even Jeremy Irons mailed it in.
ReplyDeleteThe second movie however was a bit of a surprise to me. Sure, the budget was probably less than what I spend on dinner last night, and the cgi effects looked like a late 90's video game...but the story was much more D&D Adventure-y. They of course covered all the bases with the character classes and were fairly generic about it, but at least it felt like a game you would play in. Oh, and I liked the little references to other D&D related things like Jubilex, the Ghost Tower of Inverness and The Barrier Peaks.
I would love to see a series of bad SciFi channel movies based on the old D&D modules like Keep on the Borderlands, Against the Giants and the Slavers series etc.
100 words should be more than enough to write an interesting character. Mortal Kombat was an incredibly successful computer game, yet what can be said of the movies based on that game? I think the problem with the D&D movies were our expectations. Still, I agree with Brian that the second movie wasn't all that bad.
ReplyDelete> I would love to see a series of bad SciFi channel movies based on the old D&D modules like Keep on the Borderlands, Against the Giants and the Slavers series etc.
ReplyDeleteThat would be "pee my pants" awesome.
Ditto that, Norman.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the first D&D movie (I still have the DVD) and might get killed for saying this, but:
I think that Wayans boy carried a lot of weight in that movie. It was like...it was like he was role-playing. :)
100 words is quite enough, if you can write well and make good use of them. I'm kind of surprised to hear they're making another movie, but... with a low enough budget, I'm sure these kinds of things will always make a profit. Also consider that to most people, fantasy is supposed to be cheesy, and these fit the bill.
ReplyDelete100 words for a walk-on character in a "hollywood" motion picture sounds like a lot to me.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mind the first movie so much, it seemed like a pretty accurate take on about 60% of the AD&D games that I ever heard folks talk about in the 2nd edition era.
Snails, they took you too young, couldn't anyone pop for a raise dead spell?
Frankly most of the campaigns I ever played in would make hideously boring movies to all but a limited hardcore of D&D fans.