Will the D&D movie (2016) be good?

[NecroDancer]

I want to know this forums honest opinion, and more importantly can it top the greatness that was the original

[nyjastul69]

I want to know this forums honest opinion, and more importantly can it top the greatness that was the original

I don't hold out much hope. Topping the first one is setting the bar rather low. The first one was terrible. There were some ok elements, bit overall it was terrible. I thought Wrath of the Dragon God was tolerable for what it was. The Book of Vile Darkness was also absolutely terrible. If I was forced to find a something positive it would be the slaymate.

Anywho, I hope this one exceeds my expectations.

[Ninja_Prawn]

The best it can hope for is surely 'so bad it's good', which, in fairness, I thought BoVD nailed. An objectively terrible film, but still somehow enjoyable to watch.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I want to know this forums honest opinion, and more importantly can it top the greatness that was the original

It will suck, because Hollywood has pretty consistently shown they can't handle fantasy any more (even the LotR movies are more meh on a re-watch). This will be a fantasy movie with not only Hollywood Executives meddling from start to finish, but also Corporate Executives, plus incessant sniping from fanbois over the tiny inconsequential details they've gotten wrong.

Topping the first one is setting the bar rather low.

So low it's subterranean. I've found that watching paint dry is literally a more interesting thing to do than watch that movie. (I gave up on the third after 20 minutes, and am told I missed nothing good after that point)

[Thrudd]

It has to be better than the first one and the made for TV stuff.

But who knows. I would guess this one will take place in Forgotten Realms, since that is now the official setting and I'm guessing Hasbro owns it. So fans of the Realms might get to see some familiar stuff brought to life. Would it be cool to see Waterdeep or Baldur's Gate in live action?

I also think the producers know this movie should actually have some things representative of the game in its tone and content. Like an actual adventuring party, a dungeon, representations of the actual classes and spells and monsters found in the setting.

[Rogar Demonblud]

They stated back when they originally announced the deal that the movie would be set in the Realms. They hinted that no other place is worth considering. Probably, that's a swipe at how bad the Krynn-based Dragonlance movie did.

[Winter_Wolf]

Considering how bad the first two were, don't plan to hold my breath over it. Also this is the first I've heard of another attempt at a D&D movie. At least they're off trying to remake movies that did well in their original release. For now.

[Anonymouswizard]

Now I'm weird, in that I actually enjoyed the first D&D movie. I don't know why, it's horrible and they used the wrong ending, but I can still get a laugh at it.

However, I am convinced that live action is the wrong choice for any fantasy movie. I prefer the animated Lord of the Rings film over the live action one, and significantly prefer the old Berserk anime over almost any live action fantasy film, and loved the animated Dragonlance film (although I haven't read the books). So my gut reaction is that it will be terrible unless animated.

[Ninja_Prawn]

this movie should actually have some things representative of the game in its tone and content. Like an actual adventuring party, a dungeon, representations of the actual classes and spells and monsters found in the setting.

Book of Vile Darkness had all of those things. It was still terrible.

[NecroDancer]

I feel like the movie should be about the PLAYERS in real life and then transition into the game (like the gamers dorkness rising).

[Kantaki]

Book of Vile Darkness had all of those things. It was still terrible.

Was that the one with the guy who activated a Paladin artifact by declaring himself a Blackguard?
(Seriously, how is that supposed to work? Aren't those more or less polar opposites?)

There will really be another D&D movie?
Well, I don't know if it will be better than the previous ones, but I doubt it will be worse. They would have to try for that.

[Lethologica]

If the movie isn't a direct rip of Vin Diesel and Helen Mirren's game sessions during filming for Chronicles of Riddick, I'm out.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Was that the one with the guy who activated a Paladin artifact by declaring himself a Blackguard?
(Seriously, how is that supposed to work? Aren't those more or less polar opposites?)

The ending was pretty messy... I got the impression his recovery of his paladin powers came from his realisation and acceptance of who he was and what he stood for - and his claiming to be evil was a deliberate ruse done in honest service to Pelor. But I may be mis-remembering.

Reading this... I feel increasingly confident the new film will not be a good one.

If the movie isn't a direct rip of Vin Diesel and Helen Mirren's game sessions during filming for Chronicles of Riddick, I'm out.

Oh, that reminds me... has anyone seen that D&Diesel video? That was fun. Some kind of fourth-wall-breaking thing where Vin Diesel plays himself might just work as a feature-length film.

[Kitten Champion]

I think the producer at least has a good foundational idea for a D&D movie. That is, a Guardians of the Galaxy-style ensemble-based action-comedy romp in a high fantasy setting could really work. Something that doesn't take itself too seriously and plays up the colourful and diverse imagination that goes into D&D, with an emphasis on making likable and memorable characters.

I'd personally use the 2010 IDW D&D comics that I really enjoyed as the base, it has everything you'd need character and tone-wise regardless of what direction you want to go with the actual story.

Though the thorn resting dangerously about the heart of any hope that I may have is that Warner Brothers and Hasbro are capable of screwing up everything magnificently, like malfunctioning clockwork really.

[Hopeless]

So a movie set in the Forgotten Realms imitating the GOTG movie?

How about they watch Critical Role or better yet the Force Grey Giant Hunters actual play series and turn that into your movie?

Be a good promotion for the latest Dnd adventure Storm Kings Thunder!

Oh I hope they don't try to do a movie on Acquisitions Incorporated I'm not sure the world is ready for Omin, Bronzebottom and Darkmagic on the big screen... oh that's next week?!

[Kantaki]

The ending was pretty messy... I got the impression his recovery of his paladin powers came from his realisation and acceptance of who he was and what he stood for - and his claiming to be evil was a deliberate ruse done in honest service to Pelor. But I may be mis-remembering.

Unless Pelor cares more about lawfulness than about not-being-evilness in his servants that seems unlikely.
I mean he managed to pass that zombie child. From what I remember being evil was a requirement for that.
When I watched the movie (because hey, a D&D movie, it can't be that bad right?) I was very amused how willing the „hero” was to commit evil acts. During the scene with the artifact I only thought „Boy, this thing is supposed to be a tool of good. After all the things you have done do you seriously think you can... Did he just activate it by declaring himself a champion of evil?”
Maybe it would make more sense with a bit less/more D&D knowledge, but to me that moment was really weird.

A GotG style movie? Could be interesting.
Maybe with a lawful leader trying to keep the mostly chaotic (and neutral) teammates in check?

[Hopeless]

So some kind of heist movie mixed with Leverage and a healthy dose of the best part of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit without the bad parts where they ignore the base material like Beholder Guard Dogs, Thieves who don't know dropping the rest of the way off that wall after climbing down their rope is better than picking a fight with the purple lipped Fighter wearing dragon skin armour he killed personally...

Actually liked Wrath of the Dragon God, still can't watch the Vile Darkness movie as they forgot about clerics after claiming Pelor hasn't recognised any Paladins for a few centuries...

This new release I hope they manage to pull it off as it would be nice if it was as good as any one of the Lord of the Rings movies or the first Hobbit movie wouldn't it?

[JoshL]

Short answer, probably, but I'll still watch and probably love it (just for different reasons than I'm hoping to). But let's look at what IMDB has to say (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2906216/)

One cast member (so 2016 is not going to happen) in talks. Ansel Elgort from the Divergent movies. Okay, I haven't seen them so I really don't have any opinion. But to be fair, the old one clearly blew it's casting budget on Jeremy Irons, who Shatnered his way to add some entertainment value. Not quality, but entertaining at least.

Director, Rob Letterman, of various kids movies through Goosebumps. Keep meaning to watch that. But still, not saying that he can't do something that isn't aimed at 10 year olds, but that's where his experience is. And NOT what I'd want out of a D&D movie (though to be fair, the other extreme with BoVD's "I'm so bad, there's bad with my bad!" was pretty terrible too, and is my least favorite of the three films).

Three writers:
Lindsey Beer - nothing complete, but credits include this, Barbie, M.A.S.K. Visionaries, ROM and a Short Circuit remake. Other than Barbie and Short Circuit, I kinda want to see all of those, but not really expecting anything great from them.

David Leslie Johnson - a few credits, Conjuring 2 was okay, Wrath of the Titans was...well...Orphan was bland at best, and I didn't see 2011's Red Riding Hood (but Gary Oldman is in it, so I really ought to). Doesn't seem good though.

Geneva Robertson-Dworet - Replace Barbie and Short Circuit with a Tomb Raider remake, and her credits are the same as Lindsey Beer's. Those three things have 10 writers (including Brian K. Vaughan) so probably tv/cartoon series. Still want to see them.

Anyway, lots of relatively inexperienced folks whose experiences seem skewed young. Indicating someone in the producer's food chain is thinking "D&D? That's a toy right? Let's treat it like a toy movie" so probably not going to be as good as it could be. But I hope to be proved wrong.

Personally, I'd hate to see a people playing the game scenario because there are plenty of things out there that do that very well. What I'd really like to see is a tv series. Follow a party on a campaign. Some episodic/arc side-quests. That sort of thing (and preferably tell the Forgotten Realms Avatar series). But to be honest, I do love Wrath of the Dragon God, and whatever they make I will watch it, probably more times than I should ever admit to.

[Tvtyrant]

D&D is a really bad setting for fantasy stories, so I doubt it will be very good.

The assumption of a fantasy setting is that what the main characters do is important, and usually only they can do/have the will to do it. The assumption of D&D is that the world is full of super powered heroes that would make the Marvel universe weep, even in "low level" settings like Eberron and Dark Sun.

[t209]

Consider that they are doing Greyhawk, not a good one I bet. Maybe go with Planescape, Darksun, or other "not-so-standard fantasy".

[Giggling Ghast]

I'm sure it will be as good as the Warcraft movie.

[Kitten Champion]

Anyway, lots of relatively inexperienced folks whose experiences seem skewed young. Indicating someone in the producer's food chain is thinking "D&D? That's a toy right? Let's treat it like a toy movie" so probably not going to be as good as it could be. But I hope to be proved wrong.

I'd imagine it's more a matter of Hasbro having writers contracted to do several movies for them - most of which will naturally skew young due to being toy IPs - than a superficial awareness of their own product.

Though my issue is more that these are clearly economical choices... and, while 2000's Dungeons & Dragons had a variety of issues on every conceivable level, the sense of cheapness was particularly egregious to the point that it really felt like a TV movie. It almost goes without saying but, Fellowship came out the next year as a contrast.

Point being, if Hasbro/WB doesn't put some degree of resources and ambition behind this I can't see it going too far. This doesn't have the talent behind it to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Consider that they are doing Greyhawk, not a good one I bet. Maybe go with Planescape, Darksun, or other "not-so-standard fantasy".

They are doing the Realms, and only the Realms, for every D&D movie from here on out. It's the only property Wizards has that has brand awareness.

MtG would probably beat it, but they aren't doing MtG movies 'ever'.

And for those who believed the GotG-eske pitch line, you'll be happy to know* that the terms they're using to describe the movie are now making references to heists (so Ant-Man) and mature romance (read Deadpool). So it's anybody's guess what will be the current hotness they try to imitate when production actually starts. I find it off-putting no one seems to have a firm grasp of what they want the movie to be (besides profitable), but really, half the fun of this is watching the trainwreck happen.

*note: sarcasm

[Olinser]

I have almost zero faith in the ability of Hollywood to make a good movie about it. The last attempt at a D&D movie felt like a 3rd rate hack director and script writer got cliff notes about the game from a reporter that interviewed a random guy that played a couple D&D games 10 years earlier.

If the staff in charge of creative direction of the movie have never played the game, I have zero faith it will be any good.

Also given the fact I have seen absolutely no details about the plot but everything announced keeps talking about OTHER movies like LOTR or GoTG, it sounds like they're just throwing together whatever clichés they think are popular and hoping a movie comes out of it.

90% sure I will not be seeing it unless the trailer blows me away.

[Thrudd]

A D&D movie needs:

A dark, stone dungeon with flickering torches and inhuman sounds echoing from within

A party of adventurers creeping down corridors, carefully prodding suspicious looking things with poles

Classic traps and dungeon hazards- hidden pit full of spikes, poison darts from the wall, green slime melting someone's face off, gelatinous cube that absorbs a guy and we see him dissolve, shriekers
Carrion crawler or two skittering out of the darkness and paralyzing someone,

Sliding hidden doors and secret passages

Somewhere we need to see a regenerating troll, rubbery mottled green skin and all

A rust monster

A Bigby's Hand spell used at some point
Use of magic for utility and problem solving: tenser's floating disc, dancing lights, feather fall, spider climb
Somebody collecting or handling bat guano

Hiring a bunch of mercenaries to accompany the party, see most of them get horribly killed by monsters and traps before the rest of them run away.

Hauling sacks full of loot while being chased by something.

[Ninja_Prawn]

while 2000's Dungeons & Dragons had a variety of issues on every conceivable level, the sense of cheapness was particularly egregious to the point that it really felt like a TV movie.

Was I the only one who found the cheapness of that one charming? Maybe I was just in the right (i.e. wrong) mindset when I happened to see it...

[Hopeless]

So let's assume you got asked what would be the ideal main characters and villain in the latest movie who would you go for?

For example have a villainous wizard seeking the means to turn himself into a dragon as his reason for burning down towns and cities with their own wizard school.
The heroes consist of survivors of his latest attack, say a neophyte fighter leading an aged but wise cleric, a dwarf ranger, an elvish sorceress and a halfling bard.
One lost his father in the attack, another lost her druidic mentor,the other three have their own reasons to get involved but it all boils down to stopping the evil wizard before he burns down another town.

How would you handle the plot?

[AvatarVecna]

As long as it's called "The D&D Movie" or something along those lines, no, it will not be good, because the title being so would indicate that those responsible for making it are completely missing the point of the game.

The first problem with the mindset that leads to making a "D&D Movie" is the idea that D&D is some kind of established setting; anybody who has spent even two minutes perusing the setting material will understand that D&D is a system of rules that allows you to make characters for a wide variety of settings, be it Faerun, Eberron, Dragonlance, Spacejammer, Golarion, Planescape...you get the idea. Now, having stories that take place in one of these worlds would be good, but if the movie was taking place in one of those worlds, those in charge of the movie would be afraid that setting a story in Eberron might exclude D&D fans that prefer non-Eberron settings.

From here, we're presented with some choices to make about the direction to take this movie in, and none of them are good: firstly, we can pick an existing setting and tell an existing story...but that story's probably already been told, so it wouldn't be telling a new story, and it would require getting the rights to use famous characters of the setting, which can be costly. Sadly, telling a pre-existing story is probably the best option available; I mean hell, I've never even read the books, but if it was announced that they're was gonna be a Drizz't movie, I'd go see it. Who knows, maybe it'll be great; LotR did it well, after all. Sadly, saying "but what if it ends up being as good as Lord Of The Rings?" isn't likely to get people to invest in such a story.

Next option is, unfortunately, far less ideal: make a fantasy film that doesn't take place in a pre-existing D&D universe, doesn't star pre-existing famous D&D characters, and is basically just some other fantasy with "D&D Movie" as the title. "Dungeons & Dragons" is a good example of this kind of movie; appropriate, it's only so infamous because the title is "Dungeons & Dragons", and would be far less well-known if it was called "Ismir's Folly", or something similarly unconnected to D&D. The problem here is that it's not really a D&D movie, it's some non-D&D thing that has the game's name slapped on to try and draw in fans.

Third option could be done well, but probably wouldn't be: have the movie set in a pre-existing universe, but have the story of it start non-famous characters (even completely new ones). My idea for something like this could be to set it in Eberron (allowing the movie's writers to easily make it an allegory for late 19th/early 20th century Earth, since that's basically what the setting is), and would star the protagonists (a party of badass Xen'drik tomb raiders halfway between LotR and Indiana Jones) who discover that the local giants and drow have been taken over by Quori, and are attempting to unearth ancient Giant artifacts that will allow them to perform a ritual to tie Eberron and Dal Quor into planar binds with each other, keeping the two planes in close metaphysical contact and allowing the quori to take over the world; now the adventurers must race to find the artifacts before the cult can, in order to prevent doomsday from coming early. The biggest problem with such a movie is, of course, that it would essentially be a big budget gaming story...and gaming stories are rarely interesting to somebody who wasn't taking part in that game.

Final option: if you're going to make a D&D movie, have it star the players, not the characters. This allows you to explore (in)famous gamer stereotypes, set up realistic people the audience can understand and connect with, show off the gaming stuff in a way that's easy to explain my game mechanics matter in a movie, playfully mock certain kinds of players and rules alike, and show how a bad group with a bad DM can still work together to make a great game, if they can stop being morons for two seconds and headbutting over every little things. The biggest problem with this idea, of course, is that Dorkness Rising is already a thing that exists.

TL;DR

There's already been 4 good D&D movies; one was Dorkness Rising, the other three are all Lord Of The Rings. If you want a D&D Movie to be good, it either needs to retell a pre-existing story with pre-existing characters (with the film's addition being to turn the words on the page into moving images), or it needs to focus less on the characters and more on the players (and deconstructing/reconstructing the traditions and nuances of the gaming sub-culture).

[Ninja_Prawn]

The first problem with the mindset that leads to making a "D&D Movie" is the idea that D&D is some kind of established setting;

In a way, you could say that every movie ever made was a D&D movie. If it involved characters making decisions, well that's what D&D is. You can play D&D in space, you can play D&D with ponies, you can play D&D noir mysteries and gothic horror films.

I'd love if they did a 'D&D movie' with all classic high fantasy trailers, but then the opening scene was the DM setting up a screen and saying "okay, people. Today, we're going to be starting a new campaign... in my homebrewed Harry Potter AU!" And then the rest of the film is a really bad HP knock-off.

[Aotrs Commander]

First I've heard of it...

As long as it's called "The D&D Movie" or something along those lines, no, it will not be good, because the title being so would indicate that those responsible for making it are completely missing the point of the game.

Unless you get the people who write for LEGO to do it...

Mind you, LEGO is dead smart, since their mandate appears to be "make a good movie/show, the fact it involves LEGO is incidental."

(Really, the only thing I've seen LEGO do that's a bit blagh is Nexo Knights... But then again, Ninjago took a while to pick up its pace.)

One does not feel that is going to be the mentality here.