Dragonlance: the movie
Filed under Reviews on February 21, 2008
Keywords: Dragonlance, Dungeons and Dragons, movies
What is it with Dungeons & Dragons movies?
The animated adaptation of Dragons of Autumn Twilight was a disappointment. While the movie stayed fairly faithful to the novel, its execution was horrible. The animation was choppy, the dialog awkward, the pacing stilted and the CGI stuck out like a sore thumb.
The character designs were influenced by Elmore’s covers, making the cast fairly recognizable. They strayed the most on Tasslehoff, making him sandy-haired and taller than I expected. Laurana resembled the typical waif-like elf maiden rather than her depiction on the cover of Dragons of Winter Night. The worst thing about the character designs, however, was the choice to make all dragons and draconians computer-generated, rather than drawn like everything else in the movie. It just didn’t fit.
Nothing really flowed in this movie. The camera jumped from scene to scene. Transitions were jarring, which threw the timing of character reactions off. It created an atmosphere of artificiality to every interaction, from Tanis’s personal struggle of faith to Raistlin’s poor health. I felt no connection or empathy for any of the characters’ plights. The fact that they told me about their conflicts through dialog rather than show me didn’t help.
In the end, I was left wondering why Wizards threw money after a couple big name voice actors (Kiefer Sutherland as Raistlan and Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon) rather than hiring an animation studio/director that could deliver a quality visual product.
Update
After researching Harley’s question in the comments, it appears Wizards had no hand in producing this movie. According to the official movie website, Toonz Animation and Epic Level Entertainment are listed as co-producers. This raises the question as to whether it is time for there to be a WotC Studios, a la Marvel Studios, responsible for all movie/tv projects. Creating a separate entity to oversee such productions went a long way toward rescuing Marvel’s IPs from the poor treatments they were receiving, and transforming them into the blockbusters we’ve seen in recent years. It would be nice to see Dungeons & Dragons get this same level of respect and attention.
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February 21st, 2008 at 9:14 am
I hadn’t gotten around to seeing this one yet. Your review had just about convinced me to skip it, until ….
Jack Bauer. As Raistin.
“DROP THE SWORD!!! DROP IT!!!”
I may now have to watch this simply for the unintentional comedy.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I can’t really condemn it, because I WANT people to keep trying with D&D movies (animated or not), but it’s true that it didn’t live up to the series’s fame.
I posted my thoughts on it over on the Worlds of DnD boards:
http://worldsofdnd.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=1324&start=45
February 21st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I’m in the same boat as you, Jeff. I really wanted to like this movie (even after reading the horrible reviews on Netflix), and I want there to be more D&D movies. I liked the second, direct-to-DVD D&D movie.
There needs to be some sort of change to how Wizards handles this process, though. I’m not sure why the results end up as garbage more often than not. Is it budget? Is it poor oversight?
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:02 am
[...] new friend Kam (I can call him that, he even said so!) has a review of the Dragonlance movie. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but Kam’s review suggests that it is not surprising, [...]
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:24 am
Was this one actually a Wizards production, or just a license? I couldn’t track down producer info, and even the Wizards site doesn’t turn anything up when you search “dragonlance movie”.
//H
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:41 am
There is a brief mention of it in their Appreciate a Dragon Day 2008 news article. Toonz Animation and Epic Level Entertainment are the two companies listed as co-producers on the official movie site, so I’ll assume it was probably just a license deal. Perhaps that’s the issue that needs to be re-examined. Did these two companies really have the budget to do it right? Should Wizards get into the production business? Create a division just to handle movies/tv, a la Marvel Studios?
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I think your assessment is dead on, Kam. Given the wide range of Hasbro’s IP, it just doesn’t make sense (to an outsider) to not have a devision dedicated to maintaining the integrity of those properties on screen.
//H
February 25th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Ugh, it’s like bad 80’s animation. D&D the cartoon series type animation. This is terrible.
DL really needs a live action movie, LOTR style (and similar budget) to really do it any justice.
Then again, LOTR was an animated cartoon too. Maybe DL will follow in the footsteps…
February 25th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Heh, I actually thought the old D&D cartoon was better animation than the DL movie.