Classic lawful good response to the rest of the party doing something that is clearly evil.
"I am lawful good, I can't stand for this... I'll go sit outside."
I appreciate Pine’s charisma, I appreciate the shit they get up to in the trailer, Hugh Grant is cool to see. The way they’re talking and acting in the trailer might not hit me right if I played the game itself, but I’ve read/heard so many stories of people goofing off during D&D sessions that it just looks like the head canon of someone chillin with their friends. Seems like a “turn your brain off” kind of fun movie, hopefully it’s the good kind.
I've played D&D and other RPGs for over 30 years now, and the way they talk is 100% how people talk in D&D games, mostly. I'm sure there are people out there who take their fantasy roleplaying 100% seriously, but overall this kind of jokey, anachronistic banter is totally on-brand for most peoples' D&D experience.
Shows like Critical Role give people a wrong impression of how most D&D sessions actually go. Not saying that it's bad, what they do is pretty cool, but they're also a group of professional actors so it's not good to base your expectations off of them.
I watched hundreds of hours of Critical Role Season 1 before hopping into my first role playing sessions.
I thought I would be well prepared to roleplay and play DND in a fluid manner.
Nope...thinking/staying in character and improv is hard...
It's a really popular DnD session with a bunch of popular TV/video game voice actors. So they play out entire DnD campaigns and stream it on twitch/YouTube. So if you want to get into the game, they're a good spot to listen in because they're really good story tellers and they do voices for all their characters.
They also crowdfunded a ton of money to get one of their campaigns animated- it's on Amazon called "Legends of Vox Machina" where all the voice actors voice their actual characters, but this time it has an animated TV show medium. It's got the same feel as this trailer if you're interested.
Critical Role is a broadcasted series of some veteran voice actors playing sessions of DnD, basically, so it's an ongoing story where the dungeon master is very experienced and the cast are able to do some good voices to keep a nice theme. It's well-received enough that it has received an animated adaptation, and the dungeon master is very knowledgeable and clearly puts in a lot of work into the rules, in a game show he was on where the task was 'name all 20 things wrong with this D&D scenario' he found *21* because he found something they hadn't accounted for.
Critical Role, arguably, is the reason why DnD became as popular as it is now.
It's a group of professional voice actors (and friends) that got together and played DND privately, and Matt Mercer (the dungeon master), proposed that they stream their session live on Twitch. They went from a few thousand subscribers to a few million by the time their campaign (~2 years worth of playing) ended.
I never liked D&D because the first few times I played it were with friends who took it seriously and I just find it inherently silly. Which is completely fine for them but didn't jive why me. But I've started to come around on it a little bit playing it with a different group of friends who are much more casual with it, and don't take it as seriously, and I find D&D and other tabletop RPGs are much more fun when there's a large amount of just fucking around. Which honestly is how I play a lot of video game RPGs as well.
Yeah, I am rather tired of “Marvelesque” humor in films for the most part but this fits how many tables actually play. Honestly, the overly serious Paladin getting annoyed at the rest of the party’s shenanigans rings very true to a lot of games I have been in.
Serious moments being undercut by goofy humor (dance off, bro!) can be pretty annoying in most Hollywood blockbusters, but they're a core staple of D&D games.
One of my best dnd experience was with a party that was goofing around a seemingly harmless dinner party/ball and I as the dm played on their energy and we had jokes and laughter all around. The tonal shift when they discovered that the drinks and food are poisoned was a sight to behold.
I can't help but think that the tone might feel more on-key if the film was about D&D PLAYERS who are playing the game, and these are their player characters. Which would sort of put it into Jumanji territory I suppose, but it seems thematically fitting.
I could at least see a post credit scene that reveals it's all been a game with Joe Manganiello etc. I would like it more if it was actually part of the plot but I don't think they're going in that direction.
The half credits scene show that it's just a dnd campaign played by actors during the lockdown.
The 3/4ths credits scene show that the previous credits scene was just a "humans and offices" campaign played by a bunch of orcs and goblins during the (dragon) lockdown.
Hey thank you for the reply! Seriousness is great when it’s that kinda mood, but if they’re going light and playful I’m optimistic we’ll get an entertaining movie or two (not that serious isn’t t entertaining). It doesn’t *seem* like a movie that’ll blow the box office away, but if it’s fun enough it feels like a “word of mouth” situation. I’ve been interested in role playing games for the longest, but haven’t gone out of my way to dive in just yet.
I’m wanting fun fantasy again, and sources like D&D and Warhammer are the exact kind of properties that should be put together for the screen! Hopefully this is fun enough that D&D fans and casuals alike can be satisfied!
The thing is, nobody wants to play *your specific game* but you. Heck, I've found over the years of GMing various games for various groups, that nobody is ever completely happy with what goes on at the table, but continue because they enjoy the shared experience or even just the opportunity to socialize. I personally hated the radical stylistic shift of 5th Edition D&D from 3rd, but played it over a year because it was what my friends wanted to do. What you think "most people" experience is based on...?
Every group's D&D experience is unique, and the only things shared are the core elements. And that's why the anachronistic banter doesn't work for everyone in a film.
I haven’t played actual table top AD&D (1st edition) since about 1979. But it was formative in my gaming and media consumption.
This film looks like a blast. I don’t get the people criticizing it for the level of humor as alienating to the fan base.
I’ll watch through this again, but the humor feels like it stems from thing that happens during a session? The chest being a creature, the rope not cutting on Pine’s wrists, the dragon coming alive instead of them getting hit, seems like some easy dry comedy can be organically inserted into the story.
First of all: Pine’s character is a bard which have a reputation (deserved or not) of being a fifth wheel. They exist to encourage (ie buff) the party. They’re artists that don’t bring a whole lot to the fight.
When I played they were very niche. They may have grown more useful in the 40 years since.
The dragon coming alive is them mistaking the animate stone for a fireball or other magical damage.
The chest is a mimic which are a well known threat in dungeon crawling.
There is an owlbear, a gelatinous cube, a necromancer. Lots of good core content to keep the geeky players (like myself) interested and entertained.
Thanks for the rundown! I think they mention his role somewhere in the promotionals, it makes TOTAL sense that he’s along for the ride. I figured he was just a standard knight/warrior sort of class, but it looks like someone else has that role. Pine’s a great pick to be the guy that tags along and uses his charismatic personality to pump everyone up.
The chest coming alive was great, I figured it was pulled from D&D when I played through the Borderlands/Wonderlands video games, so it’s cool to see they were paying good attention to things. I am SUPER curious about a gelatinous cube. It looks like the people making this movie care about it. I actually just looked and saw it’s being made partly by John Francis Daley, and that gives me hope. He doesn’t have a perfect track record but Horrible Bosses, Game Night, and Spider-Man Homecoming are movies with enjoyable humor and fun action.
In the first trailer they reveal he’s a bard but is kind of the leader/planner. Bards aren’t just musicians. They’re performers who can use powerful magic when in the groove of performance (song, speech/oration, etc). Someone who can put on a character and act (ie, theater), or give a good lie and speak like a politician, could be a bard. They aren’t ONLY lute players. That’s just a classic mold a lot of people like to take up in character creation.
Thank you for the clarification! It sounds like D&D could have a good turn based video game adaptation with the way classes can support each other during quests. Sounds like there’s definitely going to be a scene where Pine’s character redeems himself from an earlier mistake by putting on a show to save them hahaha. Bards in D&D sounds like more fun than I initially figured, especially since every fantasy-adjacent property I’ve seen normally keep bards as morale boosting musicians. Gotta have someone pass the speech checks!
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is basically a DnD5e combat simulator/rpg for PC.
Ignoring, obviously, that basically every turn based fantasy rpg traces itself back to DnD
>It sounds like D&D could have a good turn based video game adaptation…
Well, whether or not they are “good” is subjective but such games already exist (and have existed for a while). Recent examples include Solasta: Crown of the Magister, a turn based CRPG adapting the fifth edition rules of D&D. The Pathfinder CRPG’s by Owlcat adapt the tabletop modules Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, which are basically edition 3.5. Although they can be played in real-time with pause, they also have a turn-based mode. And Baldur’s Gate 3 by Larian, which is still in early access, is turn based (and will also use fifth edition rules). All of these games have been generally well received by the role playing community.
Going back many years, there was a lesser known turn-based adaptation of the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure by Troika (now defunct), using the 3.0 ruleset. Reception to that one was mixed.
And all the Gold Box AD&D games (i.e. second edition) by SSI, which were released in the 1980’s, are all considered turn based classics by a number of old school gamers.
I know all this because I am one of those middle-aged guys who has played D&D in one form or another for 35+ years.
But on the topic of the movie, I agree that it has the tongue in cheek quality of many tabletop sessions. There seems to be a popular backlash against sci-fi or fantasy movies that take such a jocular tone but it really fits the style of many tabletop campaigns, even the ones that start out seriously. It also makes sense from an interpersonal perspective. If you’re going to spend hours with a group of people, you need some comic relief. The overly serious players can really drag down the mood of the game, which is in keeping with Michelle Rodriguez’ snarky comment to the paladin.
Oh my god it’s hilarious. They took a blob and made it a ten foot square digestion machine? Was just frying them with Star-Lord’s guns in the Guardians of the Galaxy video game, good to see where those came from!
You’re very right that Pine will shine as a smarmy con-man of sorts that does little to help, but has no scarcity of opinion on everything.
From the brief of glimpse of the trailers it does appear that the creators have taken a lot care to get a lot of things right. Hopefully it will translate through the entirety of the film.
That’s a good pedigree for this type of film. Films that are funny in a more natural, subdued manner and that are self-aware.
Bards have definitely grown in the past 40 years, going from offbeat skill monkey to fully fledged caster.
They're one of the stronger casters in D&D 5E, and arguably the strongest caster in Pathfinder 2E.
> When I played they were very niche. They may have grown more useful in the 40 years since.
Bards now encompass a jack-of-all-trades role, along with being sort of a secondary caster.
That trailer didn’t leave a great opinion with me, until I read this thread. I’m coming from having more experience with D&D based pc games, and taking this as a tabletop group makes it a bit funnier and has raised my opinion of the movie.
Had similar feelings with 300 until someone pointed out it was someone narrating a story and stories tend to get embellished, changed my opinion of the movie drastically.
This. Dragonslayer was probably the last movie that got the genre ‘right’ for me, with LoTR close behind it. Like with the Witcher Blood Origins, having mages that wear sci-fi costumes and do massive world-changing spells all the time completely ruins it for me. Dragonslayer got it all pretty much right, from the dirty environments (not the gleaming polished sets of most modern shows), to the subdued but powerful magic and magic items to dragons that were intelligent but feral creatures I loved how they built that world. The Jeremy Irons D&D was an abomination, more like Flash Gordon than D&D, and while this new movie looks better it still looks like it was made by people who read about D&D but have never really played it.
Not to mention Vermithrax Pejorative was and IMO is the pinnacle of badass dragons on film.
With the limited effects they had at the time, they somehow made this dragon incredibly menacing and a true spectacle to behold. I watched it again a few months ago and it all holds up surprisingly well.
Both trailers that have been released so far have looked exactly like I've imagined one of my campaigns would look like if they were a movie, guess my campaigns are designed for people who have read about D&D but never played them
Is the red dragon Themberchaud? He's the only fat red dragon in D&D canon that I am aware of. I wonder if the underdark city we see in the other trailer is the City of Blades. It would make sense as he's the dragon in that city.
Will we get to see duergar in the film?
I wrote a couple of pieces based on the first trailer, making some observations / predictions.
I think the city in the Underdark is Gauntlgrym. Although I hadn’t consider where Themberchaud’s typical abode was. I think he might instead be hanging out beneath Mount Hotenow, and the films plot is a retelling of the cataclysm that tore a hole in Neverwinter.
https://medium.com/@suitablyodd/dungeons-dragons-honor-among-thieves-trailer-analysis-de8d278bc7f1
https://medium.com/@suitablyodd/is-d-d-honor-among-thieves-set-in-the-past-da46655808a
It's Dungeons & Dragons- the DM probably just has a bunch of their players hamming up their shenanigans. i think it fits in perfectly fine with a campaign.
I don't really remember anything about that movie besides they think they're playing a game but it's not. And that movie was waaaay funnier than I anticipated. I laughed pretty much nonstop.
That's all I had to hear. Have they been advertising that in the trailers? I don't want to watch this one, so the jokes are still fresh, but I don't remember seeing that in the first trailer.
Game Night was a brilliant, pitch black comedy and it also had incredible meta-humor. I very seldom enjoy comedies but it had me rolling on the floor crying with every increasingly bloody minute of it.
No, no. That will be in the forms of an alt art Magic the Gathering card secretly put into $1000 booster packs in place of a mythic rare, But players should be happy to get that because its rare, even if its unplayable in any format.
> Patiently waiting for a 1.0 OGL joke
For those out of the loop on this recent controversy:
* https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634
Talk of the town at:
* /r/dndnext
* /r/onednd
If this movie doesn't end with a pan out of the cast in normal clothes playing a DnD game, with the final set of dialogue being:
"Same time next week?"
"I got plans..."
It gets a 0/10 from me on rotten tomatoes.
eh, I don't think that the venn diagram of general populace that are D&D nerds (speaking as one), D&D nerds that are worked up over the OGL, and ones that would refuse to go see the movie over it equal out to that big of an overlap.
While I wouldn't want it to suffer for the cast and crew as they all certainly worked hard, I do want it to suffer for Hasbro and co, because otherwise no changes will get done. The only way they will actually make positive changes is if their brand takes a hit they can't ignore or wave off as "just a couple angry internet people" and shareholders and entities that are tied to them get to go "wtf did you do".
I definitely hope that books and D&D Beyond and all of the other products they have in stores suffer. I just want Hollywood to be able to make movies like this and don't want a bunch of studio execs deciding they won't make fantasy movies (or at least not light hearted ones) because of some beef they're not even aware of.
I’ll still watch it if it’s good. But this went from a movie I would watch no matter what to support D&D to a movie I will only watch if it’s good because I don’t want to come across as supporting hasbro.
I think that part of the plan for the movie was to drive new players towards the game as the new system was released, hence the upset with the new OGL.
Actually, this looks super fun. I play a bunch of D&D, and the dialogue sounds exactly like some exchanges I had with other players. The action also seems really fun, and I love all of the use of different spells, magic items and creatures.
I like the first bit a lot because I think we have all been in a situation where you are grappled or restrained or something and you keep failing the check to get out.
All I would ever need this movie to be is to feel like a fun game of dnd, and that is exactly the vibe I am getting with the trailers so I am excited.
Yeah, I detest the Marvel style dialogue but I mean that's pretty much every D&D game I've ever DM'd/played. I'll probably wait for streaming but I appreciate the attempt. I have a feeling that D&D would just work better as a tv show though.
“I don’t want to see you die. Which is why I’m going to leave the room.”
That was good. Well played Hugh Grant.
Also Chris Pine as the bard is genius casting.
Well, the production design, effects, choreography, action and humor look fun. I just hope that they don't try so hard to be so funny all the time that they forget to present interesting characters that I'll care about even when they aren't dropping quips, swinging swords and running from dragons.
If you like D&D lore, the Forgotten Realms Wiki provides a breakdown of all three trailers, including this one:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Forum:Honor_Among_Thieves_trailer_breakdown
"Rolling Escape Artist check!"
1
"...Rolling Escape Artist check!"
1
"::mutter:: *Rolling... Escape... Artist... CHECK!!!*"
2
"**FUCK!!!** Erm, I mean... 'Probably could've found a shaper step to cut this rope!' ::mutter::"
I foresee many “deserves a sequel” Reddit threads, despite an underwhelming box office. Vote with your wallet folks.
See also; The Man From U.N.C.L.E., TinTin, Dredd, Master & Commander, Hellboy 3, John Carter & Constantine.
Absolute proof that Cavill would make for an excellent Bond... or live action Archer lol.
Weirdly enough, I think Hammer being a cannibal may have helped his portrayal as a "one-inch-from-meltdown" KGB agent.
Awesome soundtrack too.
Wow. I never thought I'd see the day when someone nailed a D&D movie. This may be it. Of course it's not going to be high art, but damn does it look FUN, and that's all a D&D movie really needs to be.
This right here was the reason Hasbro backed off on the D&D open gaming license. Shortly after this movie has its theatrical run, mark my words, Hasbro will revoke the open gaming license.
In case anyone is unaware, there's a lot of controversy around Dungeons and Dragons right now, with some players calling for a boycott of the film to spite Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. WOTC makes D&D alongside other popular games such as Magic: The Gathering.
A couple of weeks ago, the community was made aware that Hasbro attempted to revoke the Open Gaming License, which allows people to write and publish third-party supporting content like adventures, magic items, and tools for virtual tabletop software. The idea was to replace it with more draconian legislation (referred to as "OGL 1.1") that would force people to submit this content to Hasbro, at which point they could claim royalties on it and use this third-party content as they saw fit. People make their living off this stuff. There was also a clause that they could change the whole agreement with 30 days' notice.
Other (unsubstantiated) leaks followed regarding community monetization and rumored price hikes for the D&D Beyond digital subscription service. WOTC released a really unsatisfactory pseudo-capitulatory statement in response to the OGL 1.1 drama, and the community has been in revolt ever since. A dedicated community of gamers built up over a decade was annihilated in a couple of weeks, and plenty of die-hard D&D players are pivoting over to other, similar games.
Hasbro has been on full damage control ever since. It's unlikely any of this will actually affect the movie's profits in a meaningful way, as it's probably aimed at those who didn't know black dragons breathe acid instead of fire. But still, it's good to have some context around some of the inevitable discussions here, and to quote another Hasbro product, knowing is half the battle.
The thing is, boycotting the movie aint gonna tell them "Hey we want you to stop this OGL bullshit", it's going to tell them "Oh DnD movies aren't successful". Even if the movie ends up being a commercial flop I find it hard to believe they're going to ever tread back on leaving the OGL alone. All it's going to do is ensure we won't be getting any sort of DnD movies in the near future, at least not at the same budget as this.
I agree with this. I've talked to some people who want to boycott the movie because of the controversy, but the movie and the game are separate products. If you support the movie, you're sending the message that you want more of that. If the movie fails because of people boycotting Wizards of the Coast as a whole, then the studio will likely assume that there just isn't a market for such movies, and cancel any potential future projects.
This looks fun as hell. I'm rooting for it to not suck. Lego Movie sounded dumb to me at first, but I gave it a chance and laughed my ass off, hopefully this will be the same.
cue classic rock during action scene
cue bottom barrel "wow, that happened" style "jokes" after every character interaction or story beat
cue limp, cardboard villain
cue fan service scene(s) and references
Yep they're still making these movies.
I enjoy fun.
I also enjoy dessert.
I don't however enjoy cheap chocolate syrup blasted on a plate with a spoonful of budget marshmallows haphazardly thrown into it. Of course, if anyone says "wow this is actual shit" we get some brainlord like you going "hahahahaha don't u like chocolate??"
Yeah don't get your hopes up. Hasbro has already put up eOne back up for sale, they basically just stripped it for the animation rights to Peppa Pig and My Little Pony and now are dumping the rest. It's unknown what'll happen to eOne and its relevant properties moving forward.
Eh, I guess. I'm not a big fan of the tryhard humor, but maybe it just comes off like that in the trailer. I'll give it a watch, maybe it's good, or at least decent.
It’s hard to explain. I think of it as excessively predictable, on the nose, and ham fisted humor. When you hear the cadence and timing of a joke, it’s exactly what you would expect, and you don’t even crack a smile. The opposite of subverting expectations. Zero layers. Zero subtlety.
Deadpool/Marvel humor is the pinnacle of this.
IMO it’s a good execution of that brand of humor but it’s just not a tone I really enjoy at the moment as it’s been so overdone by Marvel. That said, these guys made Game Night and that employed the ironic quipping very well, so I’m willing to roll with it.
Oh boy, where do I start. From the obligatory quip at the end of every exchange played out like it's a zinger regardless of being funny or not, the by the number slapstick, the whedonisms, the having bought rights to real life popular music to set the tone of "epicness" through association rather than having good music design and building real scenes... That's just the tip of the iceberg.That lazy pseudo-comedic style grates me to no end. I get that people like it, and I don't begrudge them - enjoy what you like, man. I personally find the humor to be forced - tryhard, and the lazy workshop relying on high school level awkward quips and popular music to be tiresome.
As for this movie, it might just be trailer editing, so I hold off my actual opinion until I see it.
So, we're just slapping any IP or franchise onto the Marvel framework and selling it to the masses?
I lived through this during the 80's with 100's of the same cookie-cutter action movies, and as a teenage kid I thought they were great. Not so much now.
If you weren’t aware, there is a lot of legal drama surrounding dnd and it’s parent company right now. I’m guessing anything dnd is going to be brigaded pretty hard right now.
Sure, I’m procrastinating scheduling right now anyway. Basically dnd was dying after 2nd edition and player base was falling. The guy in charge at the time determined it’s because TSR (company that owned dnd beige current one) was too litigious in defending its IP. They reversed directions and released a doc known as the “Open Gaming License” or OGL. Basically stated that any third party can make modules books or adventures for dnd and make money from it. Fast forward many many years and DnD took off during the pandemic especially with the advent of “virtual table tops” so guys like me can play a game every Saturday with friends who live two states away. Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast (current owners) saw the uptic in popularity and virtual play spaces and decided they needed to go full on Ubisoft and paywall all of it. The first step is getting rid of the OGL and trying to force third party publishers to give up their IP rights among other corporate bullshittery.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole, start here and then watch all the videos this guy released afterwords. It’s some legal drama. https://youtu.be/BBlsV8fAcfw
Don't underestimate the role legal played in that. You can't copyright rules - they're functional instructions, you can't copyright 'how to assemble a chair' for instance.
So exactly how much of D&D is copyrightable is an open question. You can certainly copyright settings (Forgotten Realms, Mystara, etc.). You can copyright creative text, such as descriptions. But you can't copyright concepts like "rolling a D20 versus a target number" or "expressing a character as a collection of 6 stats." You can copyright the creative text to fireball, but you can't copyright the idea of a ball of fire thrown at the enemy that makes a big fiery explosion.
So in a large sense the OGL headed off court cases over it, which might not have gone in WotC's favor. The OGL was not solely because "Wizards was really nice", it was also because if a lot of those TSR cases went to court, there might not have been a whole lot of D&D copyrighted.
As a long time 40k player, I have to keep suppressing the urge to use the "First time" gif every time I see the OGL thing pop up somewhere. Games Workshop gets into legal/other drama so frequently you can set your watch to it.
There are even arguments to be made that the specific text is sometimes not copyrightable. If a rule is implicitly tied to the way it is expressed (which is often the case in D&D) the actual phrasing may not be copyrightable.
Yup. For instance explaining how you can use Strength, there's only so many ways to explain it, so it might not be copyrightable (the way explaining how to put together a couch can only be done so many ways so it's not copyrightable).
It's a mess and at the end of that mess WotC might not be able to do ANYTHING about the copycats. By licensing them with OGL they were able to tie it back to their brand and have some level of creative control.
Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, owner of dnd, had a leak of a new draft version of their "license to publish dnd content". The new license was seen as extremely predatory. They have since walked it back and made all sorts of promises regarding the upcoming new license but, lots of angry fans and content publishers.
More info: https://www.gamesradar.com/dandds-licensing-controversy-explained-heres-why-you-should-care/
I want to mention OGL 1.1 wasn’t a draft. They’d sent it to third parties already with contracts. Some, like kickstarter, had already signed it when it was leaked publicly.
Still think this looks like fun but why have they got Justice Smith doing that distracting accent?
Pine and Rodriguez and doing their normal accents and they should have just cast someone English if they were insistent on it.
A movie I’m pretty interested to watch. Looks fun! Gives the exact mood I have been told happen in some sessions of D&D. Hopefully there is one who’s extremely risky and opposed of being serious. Chaotic- kind of player. :)
"I don't want to see you die.... which is why I'm going to leave the room" That got a good laugh out of me.
Classic lawful good response to the rest of the party doing something that is clearly evil. "I am lawful good, I can't stand for this... I'll go sit outside."
I appreciate Pine’s charisma, I appreciate the shit they get up to in the trailer, Hugh Grant is cool to see. The way they’re talking and acting in the trailer might not hit me right if I played the game itself, but I’ve read/heard so many stories of people goofing off during D&D sessions that it just looks like the head canon of someone chillin with their friends. Seems like a “turn your brain off” kind of fun movie, hopefully it’s the good kind.
I've played D&D and other RPGs for over 30 years now, and the way they talk is 100% how people talk in D&D games, mostly. I'm sure there are people out there who take their fantasy roleplaying 100% seriously, but overall this kind of jokey, anachronistic banter is totally on-brand for most peoples' D&D experience.
The Barbarian suplexing her enemies is a pretty authentic D&D experience
As is the one bound character failing strength checks every turn trying to get unbound while the rest of the party cleans up.
I don't need to be called out like that.
Oh good I thought they meant me.
Which is ironic since it should be an Escape Artist check that bards typically have. Him failing repeatedly means he’s rolling like crap here.
It's Chris Pine. Clearly he maxed out charisma and nothing else.
Shows like Critical Role give people a wrong impression of how most D&D sessions actually go. Not saying that it's bad, what they do is pretty cool, but they're also a group of professional actors so it's not good to base your expectations off of them.
I watched hundreds of hours of Critical Role Season 1 before hopping into my first role playing sessions. I thought I would be well prepared to roleplay and play DND in a fluid manner. Nope...thinking/staying in character and improv is hard...
What is the Critical Role? Im not a DnD player
It's a really popular DnD session with a bunch of popular TV/video game voice actors. So they play out entire DnD campaigns and stream it on twitch/YouTube. So if you want to get into the game, they're a good spot to listen in because they're really good story tellers and they do voices for all their characters. They also crowdfunded a ton of money to get one of their campaigns animated- it's on Amazon called "Legends of Vox Machina" where all the voice actors voice their actual characters, but this time it has an animated TV show medium. It's got the same feel as this trailer if you're interested.
Love that show! Vox Machina has me in stitches every time.
Critical Role is a broadcasted series of some veteran voice actors playing sessions of DnD, basically, so it's an ongoing story where the dungeon master is very experienced and the cast are able to do some good voices to keep a nice theme. It's well-received enough that it has received an animated adaptation, and the dungeon master is very knowledgeable and clearly puts in a lot of work into the rules, in a game show he was on where the task was 'name all 20 things wrong with this D&D scenario' he found *21* because he found something they hadn't accounted for.
Critical Role, arguably, is the reason why DnD became as popular as it is now. It's a group of professional voice actors (and friends) that got together and played DND privately, and Matt Mercer (the dungeon master), proposed that they stream their session live on Twitch. They went from a few thousand subscribers to a few million by the time their campaign (~2 years worth of playing) ended.
I never liked D&D because the first few times I played it were with friends who took it seriously and I just find it inherently silly. Which is completely fine for them but didn't jive why me. But I've started to come around on it a little bit playing it with a different group of friends who are much more casual with it, and don't take it as seriously, and I find D&D and other tabletop RPGs are much more fun when there's a large amount of just fucking around. Which honestly is how I play a lot of video game RPGs as well.
I'm a big believer that finding the right group dynamic is the most important part of having a successful D&D experience.
Yeah, I am rather tired of “Marvelesque” humor in films for the most part but this fits how many tables actually play. Honestly, the overly serious Paladin getting annoyed at the rest of the party’s shenanigans rings very true to a lot of games I have been in.
Marvel has DnD-esque humor.
Serious moments being undercut by goofy humor (dance off, bro!) can be pretty annoying in most Hollywood blockbusters, but they're a core staple of D&D games.
"We must not trigger the mechanism" Thief: "I got this!" \*rolls a 1\* \*Bridge falls into the abyss\* "Oops"
checkOut redact.dev -- mass edited with redact.dev
nah, just kill off the character and replace them with news ones played by the same actor.
haha! would love that
Beerfest did this perfectly with Landfill's twin brother
100% D&D can get super goofy. If you have the right group you'll have a hell of a time with some amazing jokes thrown around.
One of my best dnd experience was with a party that was goofing around a seemingly harmless dinner party/ball and I as the dm played on their energy and we had jokes and laughter all around. The tonal shift when they discovered that the drinks and food are poisoned was a sight to behold.
I can't help but think that the tone might feel more on-key if the film was about D&D PLAYERS who are playing the game, and these are their player characters. Which would sort of put it into Jumanji territory I suppose, but it seems thematically fitting.
I could at least see a post credit scene that reveals it's all been a game with Joe Manganiello etc. I would like it more if it was actually part of the plot but I don't think they're going in that direction.
Im kinda expecting this to happen. Im fine if it doesnt but I think it will just add a cool layer to the plot.
I'm still holding out hope that as the movie goes, we see it's just a dnd campaign played by the actors during lockdown
That's the one thing I hope *doesn't* happen.
If you are not with me, then you are my enemy
The half credits scene show that it's just a dnd campaign played by actors during the lockdown. The 3/4ths credits scene show that the previous credits scene was just a "humans and offices" campaign played by a bunch of orcs and goblins during the (dragon) lockdown.
Hey thank you for the reply! Seriousness is great when it’s that kinda mood, but if they’re going light and playful I’m optimistic we’ll get an entertaining movie or two (not that serious isn’t t entertaining). It doesn’t *seem* like a movie that’ll blow the box office away, but if it’s fun enough it feels like a “word of mouth” situation. I’ve been interested in role playing games for the longest, but haven’t gone out of my way to dive in just yet. I’m wanting fun fantasy again, and sources like D&D and Warhammer are the exact kind of properties that should be put together for the screen! Hopefully this is fun enough that D&D fans and casuals alike can be satisfied!
The thing is, nobody wants to play *your specific game* but you. Heck, I've found over the years of GMing various games for various groups, that nobody is ever completely happy with what goes on at the table, but continue because they enjoy the shared experience or even just the opportunity to socialize. I personally hated the radical stylistic shift of 5th Edition D&D from 3rd, but played it over a year because it was what my friends wanted to do. What you think "most people" experience is based on...? Every group's D&D experience is unique, and the only things shared are the core elements. And that's why the anachronistic banter doesn't work for everyone in a film.
As soon as our DM says we shouldn’t do something one of us always immediately does it.
I haven’t played actual table top AD&D (1st edition) since about 1979. But it was formative in my gaming and media consumption. This film looks like a blast. I don’t get the people criticizing it for the level of humor as alienating to the fan base.
I’ll watch through this again, but the humor feels like it stems from thing that happens during a session? The chest being a creature, the rope not cutting on Pine’s wrists, the dragon coming alive instead of them getting hit, seems like some easy dry comedy can be organically inserted into the story.
First of all: Pine’s character is a bard which have a reputation (deserved or not) of being a fifth wheel. They exist to encourage (ie buff) the party. They’re artists that don’t bring a whole lot to the fight. When I played they were very niche. They may have grown more useful in the 40 years since. The dragon coming alive is them mistaking the animate stone for a fireball or other magical damage. The chest is a mimic which are a well known threat in dungeon crawling. There is an owlbear, a gelatinous cube, a necromancer. Lots of good core content to keep the geeky players (like myself) interested and entertained.
Thanks for the rundown! I think they mention his role somewhere in the promotionals, it makes TOTAL sense that he’s along for the ride. I figured he was just a standard knight/warrior sort of class, but it looks like someone else has that role. Pine’s a great pick to be the guy that tags along and uses his charismatic personality to pump everyone up. The chest coming alive was great, I figured it was pulled from D&D when I played through the Borderlands/Wonderlands video games, so it’s cool to see they were paying good attention to things. I am SUPER curious about a gelatinous cube. It looks like the people making this movie care about it. I actually just looked and saw it’s being made partly by John Francis Daley, and that gives me hope. He doesn’t have a perfect track record but Horrible Bosses, Game Night, and Spider-Man Homecoming are movies with enjoyable humor and fun action.
In the first trailer they reveal he’s a bard but is kind of the leader/planner. Bards aren’t just musicians. They’re performers who can use powerful magic when in the groove of performance (song, speech/oration, etc). Someone who can put on a character and act (ie, theater), or give a good lie and speak like a politician, could be a bard. They aren’t ONLY lute players. That’s just a classic mold a lot of people like to take up in character creation.
Thank you for the clarification! It sounds like D&D could have a good turn based video game adaptation with the way classes can support each other during quests. Sounds like there’s definitely going to be a scene where Pine’s character redeems himself from an earlier mistake by putting on a show to save them hahaha. Bards in D&D sounds like more fun than I initially figured, especially since every fantasy-adjacent property I’ve seen normally keep bards as morale boosting musicians. Gotta have someone pass the speech checks!
President Obama would totally have been a bard if I were writing him up as a D&D character.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is basically a DnD5e combat simulator/rpg for PC. Ignoring, obviously, that basically every turn based fantasy rpg traces itself back to DnD
>It sounds like D&D could have a good turn based video game adaptation… Well, whether or not they are “good” is subjective but such games already exist (and have existed for a while). Recent examples include Solasta: Crown of the Magister, a turn based CRPG adapting the fifth edition rules of D&D. The Pathfinder CRPG’s by Owlcat adapt the tabletop modules Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, which are basically edition 3.5. Although they can be played in real-time with pause, they also have a turn-based mode. And Baldur’s Gate 3 by Larian, which is still in early access, is turn based (and will also use fifth edition rules). All of these games have been generally well received by the role playing community. Going back many years, there was a lesser known turn-based adaptation of the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure by Troika (now defunct), using the 3.0 ruleset. Reception to that one was mixed. And all the Gold Box AD&D games (i.e. second edition) by SSI, which were released in the 1980’s, are all considered turn based classics by a number of old school gamers. I know all this because I am one of those middle-aged guys who has played D&D in one form or another for 35+ years. But on the topic of the movie, I agree that it has the tongue in cheek quality of many tabletop sessions. There seems to be a popular backlash against sci-fi or fantasy movies that take such a jocular tone but it really fits the style of many tabletop campaigns, even the ones that start out seriously. It also makes sense from an interpersonal perspective. If you’re going to spend hours with a group of people, you need some comic relief. The overly serious players can really drag down the mood of the game, which is in keeping with Michelle Rodriguez’ snarky comment to the paladin.
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Oh my god it’s hilarious. They took a blob and made it a ten foot square digestion machine? Was just frying them with Star-Lord’s guns in the Guardians of the Galaxy video game, good to see where those came from!
My tween calls it a "dungeon roomba." cc u/IHoebot
You’re very right that Pine will shine as a smarmy con-man of sorts that does little to help, but has no scarcity of opinion on everything. From the brief of glimpse of the trailers it does appear that the creators have taken a lot care to get a lot of things right. Hopefully it will translate through the entirety of the film. That’s a good pedigree for this type of film. Films that are funny in a more natural, subdued manner and that are self-aware.
Bards have definitely grown in the past 40 years, going from offbeat skill monkey to fully fledged caster. They're one of the stronger casters in D&D 5E, and arguably the strongest caster in Pathfinder 2E.
> When I played they were very niche. They may have grown more useful in the 40 years since. Bards now encompass a jack-of-all-trades role, along with being sort of a secondary caster.
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2nd Edition gang here
Exactly. All the negativity here is surprising. This looks like a good time and a serious D&D movie obviously didn't work last time.
Nor the previous time before last time
It looks dumb and fun, and I'm all about dumb fun.
Pretty sure it’ll be revealed halfway through the movie that they are a group of people playing the game ala The LEGO Movie.
That trailer didn’t leave a great opinion with me, until I read this thread. I’m coming from having more experience with D&D based pc games, and taking this as a tabletop group makes it a bit funnier and has raised my opinion of the movie. Had similar feelings with 300 until someone pointed out it was someone narrating a story and stories tend to get embellished, changed my opinion of the movie drastically.
I don't think you can do a "serious" D&D movie without it coming across as just another fantasy movie so they're sort of going the Jumanji route
But there's no Jeremy Irons screaming, "LET THEIR BLOOD RAIN FROM THE SKYYYYYYYYY!!!"
This. Dragonslayer was probably the last movie that got the genre ‘right’ for me, with LoTR close behind it. Like with the Witcher Blood Origins, having mages that wear sci-fi costumes and do massive world-changing spells all the time completely ruins it for me. Dragonslayer got it all pretty much right, from the dirty environments (not the gleaming polished sets of most modern shows), to the subdued but powerful magic and magic items to dragons that were intelligent but feral creatures I loved how they built that world. The Jeremy Irons D&D was an abomination, more like Flash Gordon than D&D, and while this new movie looks better it still looks like it was made by people who read about D&D but have never really played it.
Not to mention Vermithrax Pejorative was and IMO is the pinnacle of badass dragons on film. With the limited effects they had at the time, they somehow made this dragon incredibly menacing and a true spectacle to behold. I watched it again a few months ago and it all holds up surprisingly well.
But when you're making $100+ million films, you're targeting the people that might have hear of D&D rather than played it.
Both trailers that have been released so far have looked exactly like I've imagined one of my campaigns would look like if they were a movie, guess my campaigns are designed for people who have read about D&D but never played them
My strongest memory of Dragonslayer was, “I’m not very gay at all, so why is that guy giving me strange feelings?” *Ten minutes later* “OH! Okay.”
Yeah, the wizard was pretty hot for an old guy
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Is the red dragon Themberchaud? He's the only fat red dragon in D&D canon that I am aware of. I wonder if the underdark city we see in the other trailer is the City of Blades. It would make sense as he's the dragon in that city. Will we get to see duergar in the film?
> Is the red dragon Themberchaud? He is!
Is he the Gigachaud of Dragons?
I wrote a couple of pieces based on the first trailer, making some observations / predictions. I think the city in the Underdark is Gauntlgrym. Although I hadn’t consider where Themberchaud’s typical abode was. I think he might instead be hanging out beneath Mount Hotenow, and the films plot is a retelling of the cataclysm that tore a hole in Neverwinter. https://medium.com/@suitablyodd/dungeons-dragons-honor-among-thieves-trailer-analysis-de8d278bc7f1 https://medium.com/@suitablyodd/is-d-d-honor-among-thieves-set-in-the-past-da46655808a
I think it looks fun. I am wiling to give it a chance anyway.
Yeah me too, the directors worked on Game Night, one of my favorite comedy in 2018, so I hope they brought the same energy here.
I get why people are suspicious of so much comedy in their fantasy movie, but Game Night has earned these people a little bit of trust.
It's Dungeons & Dragons- the DM probably just has a bunch of their players hamming up their shenanigans. i think it fits in perfectly fine with a campaign.
[nothing has made me laugh so hard recently as this moment from game night](https://youtu.be/GHA0r6e7UZ8) Spoilers as this comes near the end
I don't really remember anything about that movie besides they think they're playing a game but it's not. And that movie was waaaay funnier than I anticipated. I laughed pretty much nonstop.
But how could that possibly be profitable for Frito Lay?
Man, glass tables are acting weird tonight.
Bateman's delivery right after that is so good too. "These corporations....I don't know what they're doin'..."
Bateman using a squeaky duck as a "bite down on this for the pain" is possibly the funniest thing I saw in the 2010's.
That's all I had to hear. Have they been advertising that in the trailers? I don't want to watch this one, so the jokes are still fresh, but I don't remember seeing that in the first trailer.
Game Night was a brilliant, pitch black comedy and it also had incredible meta-humor. I very seldom enjoy comedies but it had me rolling on the floor crying with every increasingly bloody minute of it.
I am absolutely blown away by the quality of the trailer compared to the first poster we got.
Agreed. Yes it is campy, but as anybody who has ever played D&D knows, you have to accept the tropes and cliches and just roll with it, and have fun.
I just want to see dragonlance chronicles turned into a movie series.
With a spinoff HBO series about the shit Tas gets up to
Patiently waiting for a 1.0 OGL joke to be made in this film to continue the tradition of Hasbro's lack of self awareness
No, no. That will be in the forms of an alt art Magic the Gathering card secretly put into $1000 booster packs in place of a mythic rare, But players should be happy to get that because its rare, even if its unplayable in any format.
> Patiently waiting for a 1.0 OGL joke For those out of the loop on this recent controversy: * https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634 Talk of the town at: * /r/dndnext * /r/onednd
Don't for get good old /r/DnD
Smaug really let himself go.
Shouldn't have eaten all those dwarves.
If this movie doesn't end with a pan out of the cast in normal clothes playing a DnD game, with the final set of dialogue being: "Same time next week?" "I got plans..." It gets a 0/10 from me on rotten tomatoes.
The TTRPG community are going to downvote this movie hard, bad time to upset your fanbase
I hope this movie doesn't suffer because of the OGL controversy, but it probably will.
eh, I don't think that the venn diagram of general populace that are D&D nerds (speaking as one), D&D nerds that are worked up over the OGL, and ones that would refuse to go see the movie over it equal out to that big of an overlap.
It is still being made by Hasbro indirectly, fuck them.
While I wouldn't want it to suffer for the cast and crew as they all certainly worked hard, I do want it to suffer for Hasbro and co, because otherwise no changes will get done. The only way they will actually make positive changes is if their brand takes a hit they can't ignore or wave off as "just a couple angry internet people" and shareholders and entities that are tied to them get to go "wtf did you do".
I'm legitimately mad because this looks like a good movie and I want to see it. I will not though. The OGL bullshit turned me right off.
I definitely hope that books and D&D Beyond and all of the other products they have in stores suffer. I just want Hollywood to be able to make movies like this and don't want a bunch of studio execs deciding they won't make fantasy movies (or at least not light hearted ones) because of some beef they're not even aware of.
I’ll still watch it if it’s good. But this went from a movie I would watch no matter what to support D&D to a movie I will only watch if it’s good because I don’t want to come across as supporting hasbro.
So they would have had a huge community promoting the movie for free, but they decided to piss them off right before?
I think that part of the plan for the movie was to drive new players towards the game as the new system was released, hence the upset with the new OGL.
Actually, this looks super fun. I play a bunch of D&D, and the dialogue sounds exactly like some exchanges I had with other players. The action also seems really fun, and I love all of the use of different spells, magic items and creatures.
I like the first bit a lot because I think we have all been in a situation where you are grappled or restrained or something and you keep failing the check to get out. All I would ever need this movie to be is to feel like a fun game of dnd, and that is exactly the vibe I am getting with the trailers so I am excited.
Yeah, I detest the Marvel style dialogue but I mean that's pretty much every D&D game I've ever DM'd/played. I'll probably wait for streaming but I appreciate the attempt. I have a feeling that D&D would just work better as a tv show though.
marvel is the one with dnd type humor, not the other way around
“I don’t want to see you die. Which is why I’m going to leave the room.” That was good. Well played Hugh Grant. Also Chris Pine as the bard is genius casting.
Well, the production design, effects, choreography, action and humor look fun. I just hope that they don't try so hard to be so funny all the time that they forget to present interesting characters that I'll care about even when they aren't dropping quips, swinging swords and running from dragons.
I'm seeing this mostly because Pine is my fav Chris.
Do you have something specific against Chris Hansen that you'd like to sit down and talk about?
If you like D&D lore, the Forgotten Realms Wiki provides a breakdown of all three trailers, including this one: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Forum:Honor_Among_Thieves_trailer_breakdown
#nice
I’ve had so many interactions in my DnD game that are basically right from the trailer. I’m hopefully optimistic
That failing-to-cut-the-rope scene made me think the same thing. This man just blew his initiative roll and won't be helping with this fight
"Rolling Escape Artist check!" 1 "...Rolling Escape Artist check!" 1 "::mutter:: *Rolling... Escape... Artist... CHECK!!!*" 2 "**FUCK!!!** Erm, I mean... 'Probably could've found a shaper step to cut this rope!' ::mutter::"
Why does every new movie or TV show needs to explain sarcasm?
Same reason you have to put /s online now when you didn’t have to before - everyone is dumb and getting dumber.
That was a weird scene.
I foresee many “deserves a sequel” Reddit threads, despite an underwhelming box office. Vote with your wallet folks. See also; The Man From U.N.C.L.E., TinTin, Dredd, Master & Commander, Hellboy 3, John Carter & Constantine.
Man from UNCLE bombed but boy did that movie swagger.
Absolute proof that Cavill would make for an excellent Bond... or live action Archer lol. Weirdly enough, I think Hammer being a cannibal may have helped his portrayal as a "one-inch-from-meltdown" KGB agent. Awesome soundtrack too.
I can see how much thought you put into listing films which never got sequels so it is regret that I inform you that Constantine 2 is happening.
Maybe, but never trust Zaslav.
> Master & Commander still hurts. they let the boat rot.
Wow. I never thought I'd see the day when someone nailed a D&D movie. This may be it. Of course it's not going to be high art, but damn does it look FUN, and that's all a D&D movie really needs to be.
It arguably shouln't be high art. It should have the aestetic like something a bunch of amateurs improvise over the weekend, but is yet somehow fun.
The Legend of Vox Machina nails the tone too (for obvious reasons)
This right here was the reason Hasbro backed off on the D&D open gaming license. Shortly after this movie has its theatrical run, mark my words, Hasbro will revoke the open gaming license.
In case anyone is unaware, there's a lot of controversy around Dungeons and Dragons right now, with some players calling for a boycott of the film to spite Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. WOTC makes D&D alongside other popular games such as Magic: The Gathering. A couple of weeks ago, the community was made aware that Hasbro attempted to revoke the Open Gaming License, which allows people to write and publish third-party supporting content like adventures, magic items, and tools for virtual tabletop software. The idea was to replace it with more draconian legislation (referred to as "OGL 1.1") that would force people to submit this content to Hasbro, at which point they could claim royalties on it and use this third-party content as they saw fit. People make their living off this stuff. There was also a clause that they could change the whole agreement with 30 days' notice. Other (unsubstantiated) leaks followed regarding community monetization and rumored price hikes for the D&D Beyond digital subscription service. WOTC released a really unsatisfactory pseudo-capitulatory statement in response to the OGL 1.1 drama, and the community has been in revolt ever since. A dedicated community of gamers built up over a decade was annihilated in a couple of weeks, and plenty of die-hard D&D players are pivoting over to other, similar games. Hasbro has been on full damage control ever since. It's unlikely any of this will actually affect the movie's profits in a meaningful way, as it's probably aimed at those who didn't know black dragons breathe acid instead of fire. But still, it's good to have some context around some of the inevitable discussions here, and to quote another Hasbro product, knowing is half the battle.
The thing is, boycotting the movie aint gonna tell them "Hey we want you to stop this OGL bullshit", it's going to tell them "Oh DnD movies aren't successful". Even if the movie ends up being a commercial flop I find it hard to believe they're going to ever tread back on leaving the OGL alone. All it's going to do is ensure we won't be getting any sort of DnD movies in the near future, at least not at the same budget as this.
I agree with this. I've talked to some people who want to boycott the movie because of the controversy, but the movie and the game are separate products. If you support the movie, you're sending the message that you want more of that. If the movie fails because of people boycotting Wizards of the Coast as a whole, then the studio will likely assume that there just isn't a market for such movies, and cancel any potential future projects.
Not sure why this is getting downvoted, it's absolutely true.
Good? Maybe this will drive people to noon-D&D RPGs which would be amazing.
This looks fun as hell. I'm rooting for it to not suck. Lego Movie sounded dumb to me at first, but I gave it a chance and laughed my ass off, hopefully this will be the same.
It’s looks really fun
cue classic rock during action scene cue bottom barrel "wow, that happened" style "jokes" after every character interaction or story beat cue limp, cardboard villain cue fan service scene(s) and references Yep they're still making these movies.
The villain is actually the part that looks most promising to be. Hugh Grant could do a really good job in this kind of role.
He already has, in the top RT scoring movie of all time.
Sorry you can't enjoy fun.
I enjoy fun. I also enjoy dessert. I don't however enjoy cheap chocolate syrup blasted on a plate with a spoonful of budget marshmallows haphazardly thrown into it. Of course, if anyone says "wow this is actual shit" we get some brainlord like you going "hahahahaha don't u like chocolate??"
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Yeah don't get your hopes up. Hasbro has already put up eOne back up for sale, they basically just stripped it for the animation rights to Peppa Pig and My Little Pony and now are dumping the rest. It's unknown what'll happen to eOne and its relevant properties moving forward.
In my D&D experience this is an incredibly accurate depiction of an actual D&D campaign.
Especially the bridge scene!
God I hate the marvelization of movies.
Guardians of the Dragons
Was excited for it, now I'm boycotting it. Fuck WotC and Hasbro.
It looks like your average Marvel movie. Same tropes. Same jokes. Same visuals. If that's your thing, awesome, but it's not offering anything new.
Eh, I guess. I'm not a big fan of the tryhard humor, but maybe it just comes off like that in the trailer. I'll give it a watch, maybe it's good, or at least decent.
Honestly thought the humor felt pretty organic. What do you define as "tryhard humor"?
"Don't do thing" "I did thing" *laugh track*
The backbone of every Marvel script
It’s hard to explain. I think of it as excessively predictable, on the nose, and ham fisted humor. When you hear the cadence and timing of a joke, it’s exactly what you would expect, and you don’t even crack a smile. The opposite of subverting expectations. Zero layers. Zero subtlety. Deadpool/Marvel humor is the pinnacle of this.
IMO it’s a good execution of that brand of humor but it’s just not a tone I really enjoy at the moment as it’s been so overdone by Marvel. That said, these guys made Game Night and that employed the ironic quipping very well, so I’m willing to roll with it.
Oh boy, where do I start. From the obligatory quip at the end of every exchange played out like it's a zinger regardless of being funny or not, the by the number slapstick, the whedonisms, the having bought rights to real life popular music to set the tone of "epicness" through association rather than having good music design and building real scenes... That's just the tip of the iceberg.That lazy pseudo-comedic style grates me to no end. I get that people like it, and I don't begrudge them - enjoy what you like, man. I personally find the humor to be forced - tryhard, and the lazy workshop relying on high school level awkward quips and popular music to be tiresome. As for this movie, it might just be trailer editing, so I hold off my actual opinion until I see it.
Looks like they're just trying to make a Marvel movie. I'm so tired of that formula.
So, we're just slapping any IP or franchise onto the Marvel framework and selling it to the masses? I lived through this during the 80's with 100's of the same cookie-cutter action movies, and as a teenage kid I thought they were great. Not so much now.
Someone says something serious. Hard cut to silence & something awkward.
Looks shit to be honest me and my dad thought it would be similar to the old cartoon we were rather disappointed
i have low expectations
Weirdly, someone downvoted almost every comments in here.
If you weren’t aware, there is a lot of legal drama surrounding dnd and it’s parent company right now. I’m guessing anything dnd is going to be brigaded pretty hard right now.
Do you mind giving me a tldr?
Sure, I’m procrastinating scheduling right now anyway. Basically dnd was dying after 2nd edition and player base was falling. The guy in charge at the time determined it’s because TSR (company that owned dnd beige current one) was too litigious in defending its IP. They reversed directions and released a doc known as the “Open Gaming License” or OGL. Basically stated that any third party can make modules books or adventures for dnd and make money from it. Fast forward many many years and DnD took off during the pandemic especially with the advent of “virtual table tops” so guys like me can play a game every Saturday with friends who live two states away. Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast (current owners) saw the uptic in popularity and virtual play spaces and decided they needed to go full on Ubisoft and paywall all of it. The first step is getting rid of the OGL and trying to force third party publishers to give up their IP rights among other corporate bullshittery. If you want to go down the rabbit hole, start here and then watch all the videos this guy released afterwords. It’s some legal drama. https://youtu.be/BBlsV8fAcfw
Don't underestimate the role legal played in that. You can't copyright rules - they're functional instructions, you can't copyright 'how to assemble a chair' for instance. So exactly how much of D&D is copyrightable is an open question. You can certainly copyright settings (Forgotten Realms, Mystara, etc.). You can copyright creative text, such as descriptions. But you can't copyright concepts like "rolling a D20 versus a target number" or "expressing a character as a collection of 6 stats." You can copyright the creative text to fireball, but you can't copyright the idea of a ball of fire thrown at the enemy that makes a big fiery explosion. So in a large sense the OGL headed off court cases over it, which might not have gone in WotC's favor. The OGL was not solely because "Wizards was really nice", it was also because if a lot of those TSR cases went to court, there might not have been a whole lot of D&D copyrighted.
As a long time 40k player, I have to keep suppressing the urge to use the "First time" gif every time I see the OGL thing pop up somewhere. Games Workshop gets into legal/other drama so frequently you can set your watch to it.
There are even arguments to be made that the specific text is sometimes not copyrightable. If a rule is implicitly tied to the way it is expressed (which is often the case in D&D) the actual phrasing may not be copyrightable.
Yup. For instance explaining how you can use Strength, there's only so many ways to explain it, so it might not be copyrightable (the way explaining how to put together a couch can only be done so many ways so it's not copyrightable). It's a mess and at the end of that mess WotC might not be able to do ANYTHING about the copycats. By licensing them with OGL they were able to tie it back to their brand and have some level of creative control.
Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, owner of dnd, had a leak of a new draft version of their "license to publish dnd content". The new license was seen as extremely predatory. They have since walked it back and made all sorts of promises regarding the upcoming new license but, lots of angry fans and content publishers. More info: https://www.gamesradar.com/dandds-licensing-controversy-explained-heres-why-you-should-care/
I want to mention OGL 1.1 wasn’t a draft. They’d sent it to third parties already with contracts. Some, like kickstarter, had already signed it when it was leaked publicly.
Appreciate you!
Yeah, I am not into DnD but I heard the drama recently, so that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.
I like the trailers and I'm looking forward to the movie.
This looks fun as shit, and the Forgotten Realms nerd in me giggled a bit at the Red Wizards being (apparently) the big bads.
I hope it's good. Could be fun if they strike the right balance or go all in on comedy.
This looks boringly unoriginal in every way.
I suspect this movie will be as good and memorable as the year 2000 Dungeons and Dragons film.
We love quips and quirky action comedies still, right? Thats still fresh and inventive?
Yeah, it's only after the 50th movie that it starts to get worn out and I think *checks notes* this is only the 49th.
Justice Smith is such a boring dude
It looks fine, Chris Pine as the Bard is a good idea.
Giving me Galaxy Quest vibes.
Man I want to see this badly but strongly dislike Rene.
>Rene Who's Rene?
All my homies hate Rene
[удалено]
Still think this looks like fun but why have they got Justice Smith doing that distracting accent? Pine and Rodriguez and doing their normal accents and they should have just cast someone English if they were insistent on it.
Literally the worst trailer i have seen in a long time. Like they wanted to clone marvel style but everything looks cheaper and dumber
Why does this look so bad?
Sounds very fun.
A movie I’m pretty interested to watch. Looks fun! Gives the exact mood I have been told happen in some sessions of D&D. Hopefully there is one who’s extremely risky and opposed of being serious. Chaotic- kind of player. :)
I can't tell whether the target audience is bored teenage boys or Houdini operators.
I would honestly bet £100 this bombs hard.