Dungeons & Dragons movies

Caledfwlch

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What do people think of the D&D movie franchise.

The first one was a long way from perfection, but I did really enjoy it, the second was iirc absolutely awful, I can't even remember the plot.

The Third - Book of Vile Darkness was imo much better, it was also much darker than the other two.

It also has the horrific, creepy/terrifying thing, as the Mage explains "an Undead Child, betrayed in life by its God"
 
They had all kinds of D and D lore draw from this this the best that the films could come up with? Ive seen the first two films and found both to be of poor quality.

The best D ad D stuff I've ever seen with the animated tv series they did back in the mid 1980's.
 
They had all kinds of D and D lore draw from this this the best that the films could come up with? Ive seen the first two films and found both to be of poor quality.

The best D ad D stuff I've ever seen with the animated tv series they did back in the mid 1980's.

That's the one where the kids from our world go on a fair ride or something and get thrown into another world, with the little grey haired dungeon master? Aye, used to love it!

The Dragon Age series of games are heavily inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, but are not official D&D (Bioware saving on licence fees) - IIRC, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 which are official D&D games (i think set in the "Forgotten Realms" D&D Universe/rules were made by some Company, possibly called Obsidian, and the games, whilst the Plot, and so on was interesting and really good, the game had all sorts of technical issues, poor coding being behind it. And eventually, with the first game at least, the publisher brought in Bioware (the makers of Dragon Age & Mass Effect) to patch the game and get it fit for purpose - this is why there was a lot of confusion, and many people not understanding that Bioware came in after the game was built, and got it working, were blaming Bioware for the games problems on release.

There is an animated film set in the Dragon Age universe - Dawn of the Seeker which is pretty decent and a fun D&D style movie. It introduces Cassandra Pendaghast, a character who appears in cutscenes in the 2nd game, Dragon Age 2, and is a major character/Companion to you in DA 3: Inquisition. In Thedas, for various reasons, Mages are distrusted, and at the behest of the "Chantry of Light" Mages are kept in "Circles", magic academies if you like, where they are watched over, and if necessary "terminated" by the Templar Knights, who are the armed militia of the Chantry - they daily ingest Lyrium, a substance that in mages boosts mana/magic ability and allows objects to be enchanted, when taken regularly by a non Mage, such as a Templar, it gives them the power to dispell/suppress the magic of a Mage, making the Templar's perfect anti Mage weapons. Mage's who have escaped the Circle's notice, or who have escaped are known as Apostates, and the Templar's hunt them. If a mage is not careful, they can be posessed by Demons and become Abominations.
The Seekers of Truth are the people who watch the Templar's for Corruption, The Seekers are the people who formed the First Inquisition, after the Tevinter Imperium, which had occupied most of the continent of Thedas collapsed, and Thedas fell into chaos.
The Inquisition was not like what we had in the real world - in the lore of the games/movie many people believe, wrongly that the First Inquisition was like the one europe suffered, bloody, nasty, full of heretics being tortured and executed, but that is not true.
The Seekers administered Justice evenly, whether the suspect was human, elf, dwarf, poor, rich, a Lord of a Peasant, whether they were a Mage or not, they would convene a fair Trial, it's the fact that they were even and fair to everyone, and did not pick on a particular race, or the Mages that got them the bad reputation from disgruntled Lords, Racists and so on.
The Seekers brought Order and Justice back to Thedas at a time when both were sorely lacking, and thousands of Demons roamed the countryside. They then took down their banner and gave their support to Andraste's Chantry of Light when it was founded.
 
That's the one where the kids from our world go on a fair ride or something and get thrown into another world, with the little grey haired dungeon master? Aye, used to love it!
Agreed, so far that's as good as it's gotten! The Dragon's Graveyard stands out in my memory as a good one. Some may regard it as hokey Saturday morning cartoon fare, but at the time viewers didn't have a lot to choose from in that particular genre.
 
I loved the first one (saw it twice at the cinema and then had it on VHS) but then I had a massive thing for Justin Whalin, so... I didn't even know there were others.
 
I would love to see Peter Jackson or Guillermo del Toro do a D and D film. Imagine what they could come up with.:)
 
Dungeons and Dragons could have been as big as Marvel superhero films are if they'd been given competent writers and directors. Sadly they got swept up by smaller names and also by that german director whose only intent was to funnel vast funds into his own subsidiary companies and thus make himself a personal fortune off the backs of mediocre product (although I did like the overall first film its CGI was backward even for its time -a great shame that they couldn't even live up to Draco from Braveheart).

Sadly I think DnD is popular but not popular enough to get into mainstream Hollywood; its other problem is it lacks big heroes. Oh its got some big games made off it, but it doesn't have a superman or batman. There's no instant fanbase screaming to pay to see certain names and the closest you might get is Drizzit the dark elf. Otherwise paladins with small giant space hamsters in their pockets are just going to be too niche to really work on the big screen to get the big investors interested.

I do still hope that perhaps after Marvel/DC we could see fantasy rise to the fore; DnD could certainly be a part of that; but I think we might not see it. Also considering how movie studios work with regard to copyright and the mess that they've had with thing like Xmen right - I think Wizards of the Coast would rather hold onto their IP and rights than risk losing them to big Hollywood studios that might well change just enough to throw their own copyright onto it or otherwise steal the lionshare. Indeed contracts with big studios in Hollywood might well be the reason we don't see some things make it to the big screen; its just a huge risk to put your work up and potentially lose out or get something like Northern Lights film where it fails before a vast audience (and also makes a mockery of the original source material).

Heck if Wizards tried anything I'd wager they'd do a Magic the Gathering film instead; far bigger fanbase potential and a huge revenue boost through card sales for them directly without having to make any changes to their product production (beyond short term up-scaling of production to cover raging film fans).
 
Guillermo del Toro do a D and D film. Imagine what they could come up with.:)

Guillermo would be fantastic, he not only likes fantasy he's a very competent director. Jackson I feel can suffer a bit from the Lucas effect - ergo gets super lucky but otherwise can sometimes have some issues making another "great" film. I also feel that Guillermo has a rare talent in making a film feel like its got some serious depth to characters and stories within it.

Tarantino also has that same skill within his films; he'd be a quirky risk for a big fantasy/DnD style film but he could certainly do well and could do a fantastic "B" movie style fantasy flick (heck if he did I'd wager he'd look back and use inspiration from films like the old Conan)
 
Dungeons and Dragons could have been as big as Marvel superhero films are if they'd been given competent writers and directors. Sadly they got swept up by smaller names and also by that german director whose only intent was to funnel vast funds into his own subsidiary companies and thus make himself a personal fortune off the backs of mediocre product (although I did like the overall first film its CGI was backward even for its time -a great shame that they couldn't even live up to Draco from Braveheart)..

Totally agree that D&D could have been a huge franchise with a competent team behind it.

I believe the German Director, who you mention's name is Uwe Boll. AFAIK Uwe Boll had nothing to do with the 3 Dungeon & Dragons movies - he did make the movie of the game Dungeon Siege - that's part of Boll's "scam" to manipulate and profit from the crazy tax loophole system for film makers/production companies in Germany - he buys cheap licences to popular computer games.
 

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