tracer wrote:
I see you’ve got the thieves figured at 3rd or 4th level. Madness! Ridley must be at least tenth level, because he can read scrolls, use magical devices.
As for the spells Profion uses, I think he can cast Minor Fireball and Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Thing On Your Back.
Johnny Angel wrote:
Justin Whalin’s character with the experience level of a Master Thief? Pish-tosh! Why, that would mean he’d have his own castle and be attracting his own gang of thieves by now. (You canNOT tell me that Snails qualifies as a “gang”!)
I contend that the “scroll” he invoked was not a scroll at all, but a magic treasure map that’s activated by a command word. Furthermore, there are plenty of magical devices that don’t require any special skills to use – a jack-in-the-box that projects an illusory image of a miniature dragon skeleton by touching a button doesn’t require any arcane knowledge to operate, f’rinstance.
And don’t forget the “Fail To Enchant An Item” spell he cast at that magic-device-under-construction during the opening credits. Plus, didn’t he make every member of the party EXCEPT for Ridley freeze in their tracks by casting “Otto’s Irresistible Standing Still” on them?
tracer wrote:
I think he blew most of his mana casting Bigby’s Gesticulating Fist. But I think most of the reviewers indexed on Rotten Tomatoes failed to save against his Obscure Plot. But I spent a round disbelieving, and I made my wiz check, so let me tell you the score: In the first scene, what he was really testing was his Gate of Dragon Slaying +5. The rod was a put-on, so that his henchmen wouldn’t crap their breeches when the gate went up. He practically failed to save vs. breach load himself when the gate didn’t close at the proper time, but he put a cork in it in time.
Unfortunately, it turns out that dragon’s blood explodes when it hits water. Thank goodness nobody bothered to find out where it came from. Otherwise, we might have missed hearing Profion shout, “You can rrrrrrrrunnnnnnn, but you can’t hiiiiiiiiiiide-uh!” while people were running toward him.
Hogwash. Then why did Profion yell “READY FIREBALLS” or some such when the dragons were about to attack?
Damn stupid.
Arrgh, I really disliked it. I went in not expecting much and hoping to have a good time, and it was so bad I really couldn’t even enjoy it on a B-movie level.
After watching that, erhem, “Movie” I went out and ate a big pile of DOG SHIT to get the BAD TASTE OUT OF MY MOUTH.
'nuff said
broccoli! (King Dork and sixteen year gamer [yes I know a lot of you have me beat {just more bracketing}])
Dark Lord Davidson wrote:
Um … because the sound in the theater I saw the movie in was so bad (I think only that one “center dialog” speaker behind the screen was working, and the treble must have been turned down) that I couldn’t make out the characters’ lines if they were even slightly mumbled. So I didn’t hear Jeremy Irons say “Ready fireballs!”.
(And, hey, if I’m gonna watch a D&D movie, I wanna be able to memorize the verbal components they utter when they cast their spells! Klaatu Barada Nikto!)
Oh – and considering the presence of ballistae on that upper parapet, perhaps they were actually casting “flame arrow.” (And what’s with those ballista missiles with grappling hooks and tow cables on them? It’s not like they were “reeling in” any of the dragons they harpooned with them.)
They really needed to get a new Dungeon Master for this one. The 1980’s D&D cartoon was better, for Pete’s sake. And what was up with Wayans’s strange ear-covering/hat thingy? I thought at the beginning, “Oh, he’s really a half-elf or an elf, and he’s trying to ‘pass’ as human.” But I guess he really was human…he told the elf woman that he was only 23, after all. So, I guess it was just a silly hat.
Oh, and the Empress…Look, there’s another Child-Like Empress! Oh boy! Her lack of acting has already been covered. And exactly how was she going to make everyone “equal”, anyway? Did I miss something?..the “commoner” populace didn’t look enslaved or anything like that, but that seemed to be what was implied.
My husband thinks that they must have been under a lot of constraints to keep away from any aspect of the game that might possibly be construed as “Satanic” by the fundies out there. But, don’t fundies already think the game is Satanic, anyway? I don’t think this movie will change their minds, at any rate. I wish they had made this movie for the people who were going to see it rather than for the people who weren’t.
Tamex wrote:
Even though the “Cavalier” character in the cartoon wasn’t wearing plate armor? :o
Um … I’d guess she was going to pass the medieval equivalent of the 14th Amendment. Either that, or institute Communism.
Oh, and there’s TWO MORE reasons why the spells those mages cast at the Gold Dragons COULD NOT have been "fireball"s:[ol][li]Fireballs detonate whether or not they hit something, and those flamebolts didn’t detonate at all; and[/li]Everyone knows that gold dragons are immune to fire. (They’re immune to poison gas, too, but those obviously weren’t “cloudkill” spells. And why didn’t the gold dragons ever user their posion-gas breath?)[/ol]
Hey, my sister had a major crush on that character! In fact, she told me that when she had heard that there was going to be a D&D movie, she was thinking about going, until she discovered that there was going to be no “Eric”.
Besides, Eric would have been an even bigger whiner in plate armor. “My armor’s too hot! It’s too heavy! Let’s sit down!” “ERIC!”
“Dungeons and Dragons II: Reconstruction”
I’ve never played D&D but I like fantasy fiction and the like, so I saw this movie the other day. Man, did it suck.
However, I think you guys are missing the boat when you criticize it for being insufficiently accurate wrt hit points, spell levels, character restrictions, etc. etc. This was NOT the game. It was a MOVIE loosely based on the game. You sound like Trekkies decrying the use of an incorrect verb tense in the Klingon word for “to stab” in StarTrek V. Get a grip.
The movie sucked for reasons that had entirely to do with movie making. Specifically, the direction was simply atrocious. The actors may have pulled off even the hideous dialogue they were given, with a little guidance, but they were left floundering. I’m particularly thinking of the silly romance tacked on between the dame and the buckaroo, whatever their names were - I forget now. It must be a union rule or something to have that stupid, tired, “after-initial-tension-they-finally-realize-they-love-each-other” scene in every fucking movie made in Hollywood. Even Jeremey Irons started out okay but got ever more hammy as the thing went on. Personally, I think he’s a good enough, experienced enough actor to realize the project was turning into a turkey and he was trying to carry the thing. Unfortunately he ended up emoting wildly while the rest of the cast muttered and shuffled like a high school drama class.
Except for the Wayans guy who was just plain awful. Even unfamiliar with the game as I am, I can appreciate the need for a professional thief to be subtle and quiet just on the grounds of plausability. This guy might as well have tied a string of tin cans to his ankles. But really, I think the worst part about him was that he just WASN’T FUNNY. He played a kind of a Stan Laurel/Lou Costello/Bob Denver/Three Stooges sad sack, but without all that wit and dignity. He was about as entertaining and humorous as reruns of Scooby Doo. I suppose there are people for whom that appeals, but I’m not one of them. I’ll leave that sort of humor to those who enjoy it, and to you I say, Rotsa Ruck.
That mage character shore do got a purty mouth, but was otherwise lacking in interest. Same for the elf with her boobplate armor. And please, don’t criticize this one appealing aspect of her character! The princess would make a good Lolita, but did not make a good princess (was it empress? Whatever. She seemed too young to be an empress).
The dwarf character was okay, mainly because he didn’t say much.
The bad guy with the blue lipstick was a complete enigma, but not in a good way. (Was he a quasi-transvestite? A punk rocker? Very cold?) He needed more characterization, or perhaps less - either would have been better than the confusions of motivation and/or loyalty we got (or did we? I’m not sure). They ALL needed something (like a director), in place of the frenetic, disconnected “plot”. Generally, plots should develop, not just happen.
To summarize:
Tamex wrote:
Ah, the irresistibly sexy voice of Donny “Ralph Malph” Most. What woman could resist its charms? 
Followed by “Dungeons and Dragons III: What Happens To The Economy When Everybody And His Brother Gets To Play In A Monty Haul Campaign?”
APB9999 wrote:
Fie on thee! If the scriptwriters can’t even check up on their Klingon grammar, what are they doing writing a Trek movie in the first place? Sheesh!
But seriously, folks, my, ahem, “criticisms” of the points at which the movie got the D&D mechanics wrong are essentially sarcasm. There was obviously nothing redeeming about this moive as a movie, so the only way to keep from regurgitating my lunch and clawing out my own eyeballs while I was trapped in the movie theater was to focus my attention on some nice, convenient distraction – such as counting the number of times it violated AD&D rules. Calculating the characters’ Armor Classes, or looking up the spells they were casting in the Player’s Handbook, was far more entertaining than the movie itself was, believe me.
You bet she was too young! You need lots of experience levels and hit points if you’re going to rule an empire! Why, at HER age, I’ll bet she was barely a first-level character! (See how easy it is to sarcastically apply D&D mechanics to the movie? Try it! It’s fun!)
Very funny and well written. You have way too much time on your hands.
I would like to point out, though, that Marlon Wayans is certainly NOT the “7-Up” guy. That would be Orlando Jones who seems to also be having an illustrious movie career.
Anybody happen to know whether “Courtney Solomon,” the director of this atrocity, is male or female? “Courtney” does leave both possibilities open.
It is now just a matter of time before Hollywood pumps out “EverQuest: The Movie,” starring somebody named Chad, Jason or Justin as the lovable thief, somebody named Wayans as the funny black guy, and Halle Berry as the Erudite spellcaster. Movie theatres across the world will be filled with irate EQ addicts screaming, “A 16th level magician can’t proc Chaotic Feedback from a Staff of Writhing!” and wondering if the Iskar are being poorly represented as a race.
I wonder if Spielberg will direct.
LateComer wrote:
D’OH!!!
[redneck mode]
All them thar goofy klutzes all look alike to me!
[/redneck mode]
RickJay wrote:
Nuts to that! The next logical step is Car Wars: The Movie!!
<somebody whispers something into tracer’s ear about Death Race 2000>
D’OH!!
Okay, then, how about Paranoia: The Movie?
Yeah, but who would you trust to make it?
<rimshot>
He’s male. And, indeed, a big D&D fan, apparently.