I f**king love D&D.
Having discovered it regrettably late in my
life, in the last two years in which I’ve
been both a player and Dungeon Master
the latter of which I much prefer, as you
can see,
it quickly became one of my most passionate
hobbies and has already given me so many great
experiences that I will fondly remember for
many years.
I could tell you about the time that one of my
players ate a magic bean, then during a combat
the next day, he shat out a lifelike stone 
statue of himself
that insulted him and tried
to get everyone to kill him. He loved it.
Or the time one of my players became a coke
addict.
The character, not the player.
Or the time we were playing a Christmas-themed
one-shot and one of our characters got polymorphed
into a giant mechanical furby with the stat
block of a T-Rex.
Or the time we fought an actual giant feathered
T-Rex that could teleport and shoot bees out
of it’s mouth. Yeah, we noped out of there
pretty quickly.
Or the time my dim-witted Barbarian decided
to use his lioncloth - only thing he was wearing -
as an Indiana Jones-style counterweight.
It didn’t work, and all but one of us
got eaten by a Frogemoth.
I could go on. But basically, I’ve seen
a lot of weird sh*t. And I love it.
And I’m hardly alone in this.
Ever since Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s
creation came on to the scene in the seventies,
Dungeons and Dragons pretty much defined the
role-playing genre as we know it today and
has always exerted an enormous influence over
the nerdy side of western culture.
It’s inspired millions of players, writers
and storytellers.
The amount of games, novels, TV shows and
movies that at least partly owe their existence
to D&D, is… umm…
Well, let’s roll for it.
It’s a lot.
It also earned the wrath of a few pearl-clutching
Evangelicals, but that’s a story for later.
Since I’ve publicly expressed an interest
in D&D, more than a few people suggested I
make a video about it, which is something
I’ve wanted to do for a long time anyway,
but how to make it fit with my channel….?
Oh yeah, there were movies about D&D. And
they weren’t very good.
“You are under arrest!”
I’m not just talking about this one, the
one that’s become notorious for how bad it is.
There were other movies that made use of the
D&D license and were officially approved by
Wizards of the Coast.
So I’m gonna take a look at these movies
in no particular order, and see just how well
they’ve managed to roll on their performance
checks.
Spoiler alert: not very well,
because for the most part, 
they’re worse than a pack of rust monsters.
While I’m at it, I’m also going to cover
Mazes & Monsters, a TV scare movie made at
the height of the moral panic around D&D in
the 80s. Because the fact that that was a
thing, will never not be funny to me.
“I have spells!”
So grab your dice and your characters sheets,
and let’s go on an adventure.
“Now, how does it start again? I’ve never
been good with beginnings…”
”Oh, yes!”
“FIREBALL!”
*Screams*
”By the gods!”
First up is 2008’s Dragonlance: Dragons
of Autumn Twilight, made by Commotion pictures
and distributed by Paramount in association
with Wizards of the Coast.
This was based on the first book in the Dragonlance
Chronicles, set in the D&D campaign setting
of the same name, with authors Magaret Weis
and Tracy Hickman assisting George Strayton
in adapting the screenplay.
Dragons of Autumn Twilight was actually based
on the authors’ own D&D sessions,
in which they played through the first of the official Dragonlance game modules.
I haven’t read these books, or played any
games in the setting, so I had no expectations
going into this, but I do know people who
have, and not a single fan of Dragonlance
I talked to liked this film, and the response
from fans online seems to be mostly negative.
And it’s really not hard to see why.
The most obvious thing that stands out is
the animation quality, so let’s start there.
Even played straight off the DVD, it’s fairly
low-res and blurry.
The animation style is pretty uninspired and
boring, not much better than your average
Saturday morning cartoon, and barely an improvement
over the D&D cartoon that came out 25 years before.
Not only the style, but also the execution is lacking.
Sometimes expressions are way off.
She’s meant to be eagerly awaiting his approval.
But what does that expression look like to you?
And what’s wrong with this image?!
And why does this spit look like… something else?
The frame rate often drops considerably, I
guess so they could save money, but especially
during the fight scenes, it looks horribly clunky.
This is made worse by their attempt to combine
the 2D animation with some 3D CGI, which is
poorly rendered, looks primitive for its time
and doesn’t compliment the traditional animation.
Aside from the gimmick of combining the two
styles, I don’t get what the point of this was.
Especially when they couldn’t do it well.
Comparing this to The Iron Giant, which came
out 9 years earlier and did it far better,
it really is a testament to 
Dragonlance’s low budget.
As are the effects which are occasionally
placed on top of the animation, again with-
eh… “mixed” results.
It seems like most of the budget went towards
the voice acting, because there’s some big
names and decent talent here,
including 24’s Kiefer Sutherland,
Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum,
Eu- *laughs* Eurotrip’s Michelle Trachtenberg,
and Lucy Lawless, most famous for her role
on The Simpsons.
And some other TV show, I dunno.
Most of the voice acting is decent, child
actors not-withstanding.
“Tag, you’re it! Can’t catch me!”
“You’re it!”
”Hey, how come you’re so short?”
Story of my life.
Keifer Sutherland’s underutilised voice
work is probably the highlight of the movie.
“If you have entered this wood with evil
intentions, you will not live to see the moon’s rise!"
But when he reads out the spells, it’s just
hilarious. Like he didn’t take them seriously at all.
*Magic words*
EXCEPT THAT APPARANTLY HE DID! He did a lot
of research into his character and often worried
about the pronunciation of the magic spells,
necessitating multiple takes of their castings.
*More magic words*
“We did 20 takes and that was the best one”
Often the dialogue doesn’t match the mouth
movements, which are already pretty simplistic.
At times, it felt like I was watching an anime.
“Slime?! At least I’m not a half-breed!”
And then there’s the story, which is dripping
with plenty of cheese.
“I offered you a chance to work for the
further glory of my Queen!”
”But you have denied her. And now you will
pay… with your LIVES!”
If it had just been a Saturday morning cartoon,
it might have been decent. But it’s really not.
The film very clearly suffered from having to condense the 450 page novel into a 90 minute movie.
Large amounts of the story had to be
cut out, which meant that the storytelling
is simplistic and dull, and the narrative
seems to take place in fast motion.
Even as the animation stutters at
4 frames per second.
The pacing is awful. The film very often rushes
forward, then grinds to a halt, then rushes
forward again, making for a
very disorienting experience.
And based on what fans of the books have said,
it seems like its characters got butchered
by this adaptation.
The condensed narrative and hurried pace means
that they aren’t given very much room for development,
and what development there *is* is very rushed.
Which means that characters who were kinda
tropey anyway are made even more one-dimensional
and unempathetic.
And at the risk of pissing off a lot of Dragonlance fans,
I have to point out that there’s a lot of 
stereotypes on display here.
The thoughtful but self-doubting party leader
and conflicted half-elf who’s torn between
his human and elven halves, and whose 
surname is literally “half-elven.”
The angry dwarf warrior who’s stubborn as
an ass and complains more than I do.
The halfing rogue who’s always jokey, f**ks
around and steals from party members.
“I didn’t steal anything! I- uh- I mean,
lemme check…”
“Hey! Lorana gave me that ring!”
”This? Oh, you must have dropped it back
at the inn. You’re lucky I picked it up.”
There’s always one, isn’t there?
The gruff, valiant knight who’s always saying
things like “ON MY HONOUR!”
The one woman, who’s also the healer of the party.
Which I’m sure is purely a coincidence.
Her stern, man-of-few-words whiteknight who’s
in love with her, and is also a racist.
The edgy wizard who sacrificed his health
for his magical powers and is clearly an asshole
and will probably turn into a villain.
The old man who tells stories and knows everything
but is always forgetting things, and turns
out to be a powerful wizard, who’s basically
a DMPC who shows up as-and-when needed to
get the players out of sticky situations.
And of course:
Big titty tavern wenches.
"I LIKE BIG BU-"
It definitely feels like it was the authors’
first D&D adventure, when they were still
young and unimaginative.
In fact there are a fair few elements that
have been borrowed heavily from Tolkein and
other fantasy writers, too many to be a coincidence.
Even back in 1984, critics were complaining
about the novel’s derivative nature, its
stock characters and its cliches.
And it does mean that the film doesn’t do
much to endear itself to more modern viewers
less tolerant of these overused tropes, or
those who have no knowledge of the source
material, such as myself.
And it meant I got really bored by the end.
There’s some references to the game that
pulled me out of the movie and reminded me
that I was watching a D&D product.
“No matter how powerful a wizard is, he
is limited to the number of spells
he can cast each day.”
It’s like the movie started metagaming.
But then there's also inconsistencies
with how things work.
For example, Reist says magic words 
when he cast spells:
*Even more magic words"
But when Fizban casts spells,
he just says the name of the spell.
"KNOCK!"
Maybe 1st Edition purists or fans of the books can offer some reason for this difference,
but none is given here, so I’m just going to 
put it down to incompetence.
Ultimately, it’s unclear who the target
audience for this film was. Because if it
*was* the book’s established fanbase, then
it really sh*t the bed just like it sh*t all
over the material.
Noone over the age of 8 would get much enjoyment
out of this, but its PG13 rating and emphasis
on violence and animated T&A means you couldn’t
run it on a Saturday morning.
Which means it’s not in a position to
make anyone happy.
But maybe we can get something out of it.
So let’s take a look.
After a poorly animated intro sequence, in
which we see a bunch of dragons and their
followers raiding and pillaging,
we cut to a village occupied by Goblins.
About which Michelle Trachtenberg’s tavern
wench is remarkably unconcerned.
“With all these goblins around, I’m afraid
this place isn’t as festive as it used to be."
The old wizard tells her a tale, which is
the excuse for “Since the dawn of time”
exposition. In fact that’s literally how
he begins it, like a DM going over their 50-page
setting bible that the players will neither
remember nor care about.
“Since the dawn of time…”
But it sets the basic premise for the 
Dragonlance world of Krynn.
Once upon a time, the evil dragon goddess
Takhisis was defeated by the gods of light,
especially the warrior god Paladyne.
(Yeah, I know, very imaginative)
But then people took the piss and prayed too
many times, so the Gods gave Krynn the exterminatus
it deserved, and abandoned it, taking their
healing magic with them.
And for the next 300 years,
everything went to sh*t.
And now Takhisis has somehow returned.
There’s more blah blah and exposition. Something
about a staff, and some discs.
“I’m sending my greatest warrior to guard the
city. Even if the staff reaches Xak-Tsaroth-”
They just had to focus in on her D20s, didn’t they?
Michael Rosenbaum’s Tanis meets his dwarven
friend Flint Fireforge on the road to a place
called Solace.
Tanis has been looking for proof that the
gods have returned, without success.
He found no healing magic, which would 
have been evidence of this.
“Halt! Noone is allowed to walk within the
limits of Solace after dark!”
But it’s not… it’s not dark …
So then there’s a fight with the goblins,
just like the start of every D&D campaign.
It could only be more stereotypical if they
started in a tavern.
Which is the very next scene! Here they meet
a bunch of other characters: Sturm, Caramon,
and his brother Raist, as well as picking
up the kender Tasslehoff along the way.
The only one who hasn’t showed up is Kitiara,
Caramon’s sister and Tanis’s love interest.
"I thought you boys would be thirsty!"
"Little Tika Weylan! You grew up fast!"
And then they immediately emphasis this 
with some anime physics.
The old man’s story sets off this religious nutter,
so Lucy Lawless’s character - Goldmoon - intervenes.
The fanatic tries to take her staff, but Riverwind
pushes him away and he falls into the fireplace.
In order to put out the flames (or maybe because
he’s a sadist) Tasslehoff knocks him down
with the staff, which miraculously heals him.
Turns out this was the same staff
that was mentioned earlier.
The goblins want the staff, and the people
don’t want them to burn down the town, so
the party end up running away from everyone.
They eventually get away after some more 
laughably bad combat.
Then they escape on a boat, and all the potential
tension and drama this scene could have had
is wasted through its sloppy execution.
“Reistland! Do you have anything
up your sleeve?”
“More than you’ll ever know…”
*Even even more magic words.*
“Good work, brother!”
Why didn’t he do that earlier? What was he waiting for?
Riverwind starts being racist towards Tanis,
so PvP almost breaks out.
But the party decides to put aside their differences
and set out for the village of Hayden
to find out more about the staff.
During a short rest, it’s revealed that
Riverwind and Halfmoon are in love but can’t
be together because they’re from
different social classes,
but after only a few sentences are uttered,
the story moves on its next beat and shifts
in tone again.
As the party are approached by monks, who
turn out to be Draconid warriors.
So after an even worse fight
which shows just how badly
the two animation styles don’t work together,
Sturm lies dying, and noone mentions using
the staff, and it takes about 20 seconds for
Goldmoon to think to use it on him.
WHY?! Are they all suffering from Feeblemind?!
To escape the Draconids, the party runs into
the Darkened Wood, where they eventually run
into spirits of the dead.
Because the DM was feeling guilty about that
near-death, after they mention they have staff,
they get taken to a peaceful glade where they
find a Heroes Feast and The Forestmaster,
who’s a unicorn that speaks like a text-to-speech robot.
“It’s intended for good. To combat injury,
illness and disease.”
“But in these times it will also become
a weapon against the very evil that seeks
to banish it from the world.”
The Forestmaster tells them to go to the city
of Xak Tsaroth, to recover the Disks of Mishakal
- those disks mentioned earlier - which contain
the truth about the gods and will help restore
the people’s faith in them.
“Where are we?” “The plains of Abomasinia.
Our village lies to the eas-”
“NO!”
Wha-, ho- how did you not see that
while you were in the air?!
So yeah, their village has been destroyed
by the Draconids, whose tracks lead to Xak-Tsaroth.
The wizard who-is-definitely-not-evil uses
a ‘friendship’ spell to enslave a passing
dwarf to guide them through the city.
Where they find a horde of treasure 
guarded by a sleeping black dragon,
which sometimes looks blue.
They find the disks as the dragon wakes up.
Goldmoon breaks the staff in order to destroy it
but is herself destroyed in the process.
Riverwind, being a racist, blames Tanis.
And so does Tanis.
But they find Goldmoon in a ruined temple,
having been “reborn” as a proper cleric
after her intense act of faith.
They realise they are unable to decipher the
disks, so they head back to Solace to find
someone who can.
On the way, they get ambushed by the Draconids
and taken prisoner, along with
the other inhabitants of Solace.
“We can’t let them have the discs. If
they realise what they are…”
“It’ll be alright. I have cast a spell upon
our belongings. Any who touch them faces
a hideous death, painfully devoured by the
great worm Caterpillius!”
Yeah, definitely not evil.
In the cage, they meet Tanis’s elven cousin,
Galthanas.
And the old guy from the inn, who reveals
that his name is Fizban and tells them about
the now long-lost dragonlances, weapons with
the power to destroy dragons.
In case you were wondering about the name.
“Mishakal: please, heal this child, if it
is your destiny!”
“Thank you. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Her injuries were too great.”
Well, I guess this god of light hates kids.
George Carlin: “You know what I say:
F**k the Children!”
The caravan gets attacked by elves and the
party breaks free.
Elves hate humans, so they refuse to help them any further, but with a successful persuasion roll
made at advantage with help from Galthanus
-they are lead to an elven city
that’s-definitely-not-Lothlorien
to meet the Elven leader.
Who doesn’t believe them until Fizban makes
a successful intimidation check.
So he tells them that Verminaad is gathering
an army to attack them, and asks the party
to forment a rebellion among Verminaad’s
slaves in order to give the elves time to escape.
Tanis wants to go alone, but the rest of the
party insists on going with him.
As does the old wizard, and the… tavern
wench. Not that she adds anything to the party
meta besides those +2 Jugs.
Tanis rejects his Elven love interest - because of
course that’s a thing - because he thinks
the elves will never accept them.
Galthanas leads them on a secret route to
Verminaad’s stronghold.
Where Goldmoon heals the leader of the slaves,
who tells them that a dragon is keeping their
children hostage, which is why they don’t
dare try to escape.
In order to get past the guards, they adopt disguises
and somehow pass their group deception roll.
The old dragon guarding the children turns
out to be half-blind and insane, giving them
advantage on their deception checks.
They lead the people back to the secret tunnel,
but the draconid have found it.
So Tanis is unsure what to do and starts 
doubting himself again.
“Wasn’t it your faith in each other and
in the Gods of Light that got you this far?”
“Faith is your greatest weapon against Tekesis!
Embrace it, and you’ll become beacons of
light to lead the slaves out of darkness!”
I mean… another fireball wouldn’t go amiss.
But instead they decide the *smart* thing
to do would be to try sneaking out the front
gate, where the entire draconid army has assembled.
They fail their group stealth check and it
very quickly goes tits up.
Verminaad arrives and starts burning people.
So Tanis tricks the old dragon into attacking him.
While Fizban uses a Fireball to open the gate,
proving my point that Fireball is indeed the
cause of and solution to all of life’s problems.
And what’s that massive army doing all this
time? Oh there they are. Finally.
Verminaad starts f*cking them up.
Because he’s quite literally a cartoon villain,
he waits to finish Tanis off, allowing the
half-elf to demonstrate his new found faith,
which summons Paladyne, who was actually
the old man all along, of course.
Who then defeats Tekhesis, causing 
Verminaad to lose all his powers.
“Tekhesis?! Why have you abandoned me?!”
The old dragon grapples the other red dragon
and crashes them both into the mountain.
I feel the need to show that one again.
The rest of the draconid army runs away.
And Fizban is assumed lost after falling down
that hole - just like in that other movie-
*laugh* F*ck’s sake…
The slave leader reveals that he can read
the disks.
Some time later, Goldmoon and Riverwinter
get married and everyone starts getting busy.
Despite their victory, Raist insists that
they need to find the dragonlances.
And in a shocking twist, right at the end
it’s revealed that Kitiara is a high lord
of the dragons!
DUN DUN DUN!
Leaving so, so many things to be resolved
in sequels that are never going to be made.
Because although they were probably trying
to establish a franchise of direct-to-dvd
movies based on the books, the lack of funding,
lack of imagination, and the squandering of
its existing resources and potential means
that what could have been godlike, is instead
an aborted foetus of monumental proportions.
And the mostly negative reception the film
received meant that plans for future instalments
were abandoned.
It seems like the studios didn’t really
care, sourcing the animations to an Indian
company of questionable quality, and giving
the film almost no marketing except for a
single trailer that’s one of the most mid-2000s
trailers I’ve ever seen.
“Now, a handfull of warriors must battle
the forces of darkness...
in a struggle to save all they hold dear!”
There are rumours that another Dragonlance
movie may be in the works, but until then,
this is all the fans have got.
And I honestly feel bad for them.
So yeah, this series is off to a great start.
And it’s only gonna get better.
IYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYIY!
*Sigh* Gonna be finding dice
everywhere for weeks now!
Thanks for watching folks. Once again, I gotta
say a big thank you to all my lovely supporters
on Patreon. You guys are awesome. If you like
what I’m doing here and want to support
my channel more directly, consider becoming
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Subscribe for future content, including more
bad D&D movies, follow my on social media
if you feel like it, and I’ll see you in
the next one.
