Originally posted by McBane:
<STRONG>It has to be better than the Dungeons and Dragons film, right??</STRONG>
C'mon now! Why don't bash
D&D because it was bad; it wasn't.
It was horrible.
Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The key to enjoying a movie like
Dungeons & Dragons is to go in with low expectations. It's the kind of movie you won't admit to your friends that you paid money to see, but like a "Godzilla vs." movie was fun for its sheer badness.
D&D fanatics hated it because it didn't have any of their favourite characters/plots (ie-Drizzt Do'Urden, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Gord the Rogue, etc.), but given its budget, what did you expect?
Lord of the Rings is light-years ahead of the D&D movie for a couple of reasons: 1) It has a real movie budget and the backing of a major studio. 2) It has an existing story which on its own is compelling and time-tested. 3) Its producers are dedicated to staying true to the LOTR books and have taken to heart the responsibility of putting it on the big screen.
Dungeons & Dragons used recycled
Dragonheart animation, second and third-rate actors, and F/X that were often just plain bad. It had the feel of a poor independent film with a couple of dragon shots slipped in for good measure. Everything about the LOTR movie looks first-rate, from the costumes to the CGI animation. That extra $100 million sure helped out.
For the D&D movie, the writers chose not to pick up an existing story and make a movie out of it, but instead wrote their own mythology going in. That was a mistake. They should have picked up a Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or Forgotten Realms story and made a movie out of it. The LOTR movies have the backing and existing fan base of tens of thousands of folks who will happily dress up as Gandalf, Bilbo or Frodo for the movie.
A guy downstairs has told me that he is putting his Bilbo costume together to go to the premiere and he says from what he has seen in the trailers, the LOTR producers incorporated minor touches that no one but die-hard fans will notice (I can't cite specific examples; it's been some time since I've read the books myself). It's that level of detail that the producers have committed themselves to.
The D&D filmmakers were on a shoe-string budget and simply
could not do some of the things D&D fans wanted them to do. For instance, they teased us with beholders, but did you see anyone get the anti-magic ray, the finger of death ray, or the disentigration ray? No. And what were beholders doing serving humans? That's simply absurd.
There are a lot of legitimate reasons to bash
Dungeons & Dragons. But there are also a few (but not many!) reasons to like it as well. Besides, who didn't like seeing Richard O'Brien getting work in a part other than Riff-Raff ("It's just a jump to the left . . .")?
The LOTR movies look simply fantastic, but with high expectations come the chance for big disappointments.
