but no-one, however talented, can make a decent movie out of a bad screenplay.
And here we strongly disagree. Nuff said.
Hollywood execs take your position, that the screenplay doesn't matter. That's why they don't pay writers properly, and we get so many dumb movies. Hollywood execs are idiots.
It doesn't take much research to see that on most good movies the director also has a writing credit.
I never said that screenplays don't matter. Please don't misinterpret my words.
I said that a good director (good acting, good production, etc...) can turn a bad screen play into something eminently worth watching. These are NOT the same as what you were saying.
And yes, with leading and non objective research, anyone can prove anything they have a mind to prove. I just don't have the time, nor the desire to get into another off topic back and forth with you.
I never said that screenplays don't matter. Please don't misinterpret my words.
I said that a good director (good acting, good production, etc...) can turn a bad screen play into something eminently worth watching. These are NOT the same as what you were saying.
And yes, with leading and non objective research, anyone can prove anything they have a mind to prove. I just don't have the time, nor the desire to get into another off topic back and forth with you.
Normally, a good director wouldn't even touch a bad screenplay. Sometimes a good director will REWRITE a mediocre screenplay that has potential.
As for objectivity, I deliberately didn't cite examples. You need to think of a move YOU think is good, then go and look at the writing credits on IMDB. That seems pretty objective to me.
I have extremely low expectations as you may have noticed by my previous comment. I just feel it will be extremely difficult for Hollywood to pull this off frankly. It needs to have great writing without going to far into cheesy stupid, good acting without falling into cliche to much, a good mix of characters that are convincing, believable and interact in a way that is entertaining and makes sense, not cheesy and stupid. A decent story that people can follow without necessarily being massive D&D or 'nerd' fans. There are a lot of variables that can go wrong with a fantasy film and when fantasy films fail they tend to do it spectacularly.
I would really like one, just ONE outstanding D&D film. Hell I'll settle for a decent one, a passable one. One without bloody blue metallic lipstick and acting/writing that is so cliche it's insulting to the audiences intelligence.
I have extremely low expectations as you may have noticed by my previous comment. I just feel it will be extremely difficult for Hollywood to pull this off frankly. It needs to have great writing without going to far into cheesy stupid, good acting without falling into cliche to much, a good mix of characters that are convincing, believable and interact in a way that is entertaining and makes sense, not cheesy and stupid. A decent story that people can follow without necessarily being massive D&D or 'nerd' fans. There are a lot of variables that can go wrong with a fantasy film and when fantasy films fail they tend to do it spectacularly.
I would really like one, just ONE outstanding D&D film. Hell I'll settle for a decent one, a passable one. One without bloody blue metallic lipstick and acting/writing that is so cliche it's insulting to the audiences intelligence.
I remember when I first saw first Hobbit film in theaters when my friends and I left I had an immediate urge to play a D&D game whether PnP or CRPG. If the movie can invoke that sort of feeling then it's a success in my book.
I remeber ''Azure Bonds'' had a woman fighter as the main character.
Yes, that was Alias, who looked human, but was a constructed being that required two Archmages (one a lich- Cassana and Zrie Praxis, respectively), A Demon Lord (Phalse), an epic-level Bard (Nameless, aka Finder Wyvernspur), a Dead God (Moander) and an entire guild of Thieves (The Fire Knives) to make. And Phalse made many copies of her with different appearances which disappeared after he was killed, but as it turned out, Akabar Bel Akash, the Turmish Mage who was a companion to Alias, ended up marrying one of her "sisters" in Turmish.
Dragonbait (a Finhead Saurial) was intended to be sacrificed to bring her to life, as she needed to have a "Pure Soul" transplanted into her. But she awoke without one. She is also a created construct with "true life" as is immortal (Zrie Praxis gave her immortality at her creation).
Don't forget Liriel Baenre, Elaine Cunningham's her other female lead. A drow elf who isn't quite as good as ol' Drizzt. Also, not quite as popular, sadly.
Nothing good will come from this. D&D is for rpg, video games, and a few good books. You'll need to be a genius to make a good movie. I don't know what scares me the most, that they'll try to be faithful to the game/setting or simply ignore it. There are only two ways I can think this could work:
1)The setting is ambiguous. The setting is generic and the interest is in the characters and the adventure. In other words, little lore, no introduction, just good old-fashioned hack-and-slash dungeon plundering with fun, moderate violence and a few one-liners. There will be a few D&D references (a Drizzt reference? A Beholder, Illithids? Etc.) Example: a bunch of greedy (that's important) adventurers are plundering forgotten ruins and they awake something nasty (An illithid lich, a nasty heart-eating wizard?). Hilarity and bloodshed ensue. It should be a mixture between Army of Darkness, The Princes Bride and Big Trouble in Little China. The movie should not be overtly comical, but it shouldn't take itself seriously in a 'look how grimdark and deep we are; I assure you we are for adults now' kind of way.
2)The setting matters, but it's crazyland. I'm thinking TES Morrowind and Planescape Torment, something so alien that you just can't stop watching. That means: No elf-nonsense (you know, long-haired androgynous elf archers), no European medieval setting, no shiny knights (perhaps in behavior, but not in equipement) and a lot of weird David Lynch, John Blanche insanity or H. R. Giger nightmares. That's risky, but at least you'll do something crazy and aesthetically pleasing.
or...
Just remake the old D&D cartoon TV series. Kids and adults liked them.
PS: I don't want to see any she-fu bullshit. If there is a female warrior, she should be strong, with arms like trunks and brutal, like any male warrior. I don't want to see anorexic actresses kicking 300lb orcs.
Rather than have the writer and director try to figure out what D&D is about by reading all the millions of sourcebooks and stories, they should just listen to the IWD soundtrack for two weeks non stop.
Those ugly things sometimes seem to pop up in Youtube videos are from a real TV show? I thought it was an LSD-induced animation project. Actually, It seems interesting, I'll check it ou.
I'd like to be more optimistic for anything D&D related, but I can't knowing Hollywood and how they have a habit of disappointing time after time trying to make a quick buck with something popular. Maybe if they had someone more reputable with fantasy writing I'd be more intrigued, but I don't expect them to wow us like Heath Ledger did with The Joker when no one expected it at all.
The worst thing that'll probably happen though is that you can only fit so much cohesive material into a 2 hour movie. Baldur's Gate 1 on a first playthrough would take hours and hours to go through exploring everything and covering the main quest. Something like Forgotten Realms would need 2-3 films or a television series format to really give us something that could do well, otherwise it would probably be trying to crunch too many things into one film and resorting to cliched ways to resolve stuff in the plot.
Those ugly things sometimes seem to pop up in Youtube videos are from a real TV show? I thought it was an LSD-induced animation project. Actually, It seems interesting, I'll check it ou.
Don't let the art style fool you. Its awesome. They even mention the alignments.
Normally, a good director wouldn't even touch a bad screenplay. Sometimes a good director will REWRITE a mediocre screenplay that has potential.
As for objectivity, I deliberately didn't cite examples. You need to think of a move YOU think is good, then go and look at the writing credits on IMDB. That seems pretty objective to me.
And a lot of times a director or producers will REWRITE otherwise excellent scripts and make them bad. And sometimes directors, like actors, will produce anything at all merely for the exposure.
A writer will write a script, either an original idea, or they will be commissioned to write something given certain parameters. Once written, the script is then run past any number of people including the Director and the producers who will require changes be made. Sometimes these changes are small and sometimes not. Sometimes they add to the script and sometimes they "Alter" it. In most cases this involves a number of "re-writes". Sometimes the writer isn't even involved in the rewrites.
Then, once everything is as agreed upon, production of the product will begin. During the course of production, a script can go through yet more rewrites based on what shoots well, what costs too much and feedback from actors, directors and producers etc... Even focus groups will be brought in to test market certain concepts. I can't tell you how many times I get offered 'Free' screenings of 'Early release' films here in LA. The feedback from which will often times facilitate changes to the scripts and the finished product will often be very different.
Sometime if you are curious, check out some of the 'Alternate' endings for movies such as Return of the Jedi or Fatal attraction or Terminator 2 or Seven or Jurassic Park or any of literally hundreds of others. You will get what I am saying when I indicate that what shows up on the screen has at least as much to do with who the director or the producers are as it does with who the writers are, more so. Often times a LOT more so.
It is very easy to point a finger at one person and call them 'The bad guy'. Unless you know all of the factors involved, you run the risk of convicting the wrong person.
There is even a credit for writing, "Alan Smithee", which means that the original writer does not want his name credited to the work. It usually means that they feel their original script was turned into trash by editorial/Directorial/ Producer/whatever meddling.
It started out as a Director credit, but is no longer allowed, as of 2000.
There is even a credit for writing, "Alan Smithee", which means that the original writer does not want his name credited to the work. It usually means that they feel their original script was turned into trash by editorial/Directorial/ Producer/whatever meddling.
It started out as a Director credit, but is no longer allowed, as of 2000.
It is difficult to open the eyes of someone who keeps them shut by choice.
As far as it goes, David Leslie Johnson keeps on getting work. So that in and of itself suggests that he has some talent. Given all of the writers that are in Hollywood they certainly don't need to go to bad writers. So if he was that terrible, why keep on going back to him? Add to that the fact that he wrote two episodes of the walking dead across two years (he was actually asked back) further supports that assumption that he has some talent. As a fan of the show, I can't say that the two episodes stood out particularly but they didn't stink. And since people are lining up around the block to write for that block buster, again why go back to someone who sucks at writing as has been suggested?
But I am not here to defend anyone, merely to point out that the easiest solution, i.e. to point a finger at someone without knowing all of the facts, isn't always the best solution.
What if it was like the princess bride? I think that same feel would work well. If they started with a tabletop group(like the grandpa reading the kid the book) and only very rarely cut back to it, and still treated it seriously, instead of just using it for comic relief. Like The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, but not so much a comedy. That could be real good.
I feel like the D&D brand just has so much "nerd" vibes associated with it it's going to be hard for Hollywood to give it any respect. And that's what the issue is. LotR was a good movie cause it's respected as a literary work. D&D is much more the butt of every nerd joke than something like LotR, or above mentioned, Snow White(which I have not seen but have on good intelligence that it is an ok movie.)
There was a book series back in the 80s. I wish I could remember the name but the premise was this group of tabletop gamers who somehow mystically got themselves transported in the world of their characters. They then had to come to grips with the powers and abilities that their characters had and somehow find a way back home. While this sounds an awful lot like the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, it can actually be done in a more tasteful manner. And given it is not exactly an uncommon idea, I think it could be done well.
Another direction would be to go the Thomas Covenant path. Or something like what Michael Moorcock did with Elric in the (much) later books, where a modern day character (ish) dreamed of the world of fantasy and high sorcery. Given the reputation of both of those authors, I think that a lot of credence could be put behind such an idea.
@the_spyder I know of at least two series like that. More if you include single novels.
Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series. A group of college-age D&D players are sent into the world their DM has created, which turns out to be real. Some of the stand-out moments including the one where the party's two thieves decide to pickpocket a lord in a tavern and are brutally slain when they fluff their roll (so to speak). The female cleric is a sex abuse survivor, and the main character, Karl Cullinane's girlfriend, who has just joined the group rolls a female mage with an 18 charisma, and then becomes one in-world. There is also a guy in a wheelchair who plays a Dwarf, and while the rest of them want to go home, he does not (because now he has a body that works). I believe the cleric also doesn't want to go back because she doesn't want to face her past in the real world.
The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay is about a group of Medical and Law students drawn into the world of Fionavar (The First World). There five of them, and I don't remember as much about the story. They, too, are drawn into the world by a Wizard named Loren Silvercloak. I do remember one of the men becomes the lover of a goddess and passes from the world of men.
Then there is Quag Keep by Andre Norton. This is a stand-alone novel. In the book, a group of gamers gets a package from a company that makes gaming supplies. Included are a bunch of miniatures. The viewpoint character (who is identified only by first name) is oohing and aching with the others over how detailed the miniatures (Which appear to be already painted) are. He takes one, of a male warrior in chain mail and with a shield, and declares it to be his. The next thing we see is that warrior in an inn. His name is Milo. He is garbed the same as the miniature, and on one wrist, he wears a bracelet with a bunch of dice on it, suspended on a wire that cannot be broken that allows the dice to spin freely (and the bracelet cannot be removed). There are a number of other people in the inn all wearing the same bracelet, including a Were-boar shapeshifter, a Lizard Man, an Elf with a Pseudo-Dragon companion/familiar, a shield maiden, a cleric and a bard. A wizard tells them he has summoned them to this world to save it from an outside force seeking to take over it (Essentially a geas), and he promises that at the end, they will be able to return to their world. This came out in 1978, and it was literally the first D&D novel, as it references Greyhawk (and apparently takes place in that world).
There was another- I don't remember the name of it, but it involved playing a D&D-like game with a map that was composed of painted tiles on a board. The DM was tired of the game world, and wanted to scrap it and start over, and the players wanted to save it. Part of the book was in the game world, and part of it was in the real world. I recall at one point one of the players used this "Elemental Sphere/Crystal of Water" to defeat some threat and it created a new river that (I think) washed the monsters away. And somehow, the painted map magically changed to show this new river and the GM wanted to know how they'd made the map change, but they didn't know how it happened, either. (Let's be honest, I've read a TON of D&D-esque Fiction books…)
Those are the ones I remember from the 80's and Near 80's….
@LadyRhian - you nailed it in one. The 'Guardians of the Flame' was the series I was thinking about.
But it is a common enough concept. Again, Stephen R Donaldson's 'The Thomas Covenant Trilogy' comes to mind. Barbara Hambly wrote at least one series on the topic as well. And I want to say that Orson Scott Card did as well, though I might be confusing that with something else.
Heck, it is a variation on Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (sort of).
I think that something like that would allow non-gamers to more identify with the characters. The movie would start out with people in normal, every day life and then would get displaced. That would allow the main characters to use conventional colloquialisms and apply conventional morality to situations where they would otherwise be anachronistic in the settings. Further it would allow a narrative and plot exposition for the audience to follow along 'As the characters acclimatized', thus further facilitating the lack of necessary background information.
Ed Greenwood has said that his original version of the Forgotten Realms included portals to just about everywhere, including our Earth. So, the movie could take a page from Terry Brooks' Landover series (and many others as well) and have someone from our world stumble through an unknown portal while hiking in the woods. And, they just happen to be packing a shotgun with extra shells. "Say hello to my boomstick!"
Comments
It doesn't take much research to see that on most good movies the director also has a writing credit.
I said that a good director (good acting, good production, etc...) can turn a bad screen play into something eminently worth watching. These are NOT the same as what you were saying.
And yes, with leading and non objective research, anyone can prove anything they have a mind to prove. I just don't have the time, nor the desire to get into another off topic back and forth with you.
As for objectivity, I deliberately didn't cite examples. You need to think of a move YOU think is good, then go and look at the writing credits on IMDB. That seems pretty objective to me.
I would really like one, just ONE outstanding D&D film. Hell I'll settle for a decent one, a passable one. One without bloody blue metallic lipstick and acting/writing that is so cliche it's insulting to the audiences intelligence.
Dragonbait (a Finhead Saurial) was intended to be sacrificed to bring her to life, as she needed to have a "Pure Soul" transplanted into her. But she awoke without one. She is also a created construct with "true life" as is immortal (Zrie Praxis gave her immortality at her creation).
1)The setting is ambiguous. The setting is generic and the interest is in the characters and the adventure. In other words, little lore, no introduction, just good old-fashioned hack-and-slash dungeon plundering with fun, moderate violence and a few one-liners. There will be a few D&D references (a Drizzt reference? A Beholder, Illithids? Etc.) Example: a bunch of greedy (that's important) adventurers are plundering forgotten ruins and they awake something nasty (An illithid lich, a nasty heart-eating wizard?). Hilarity and bloodshed ensue. It should be a mixture between Army of Darkness, The Princes Bride and Big Trouble in Little China. The movie should not be overtly comical, but it shouldn't take itself seriously in a 'look how grimdark and deep we are; I assure you we are for adults now' kind of way.
2)The setting matters, but it's crazyland. I'm thinking TES Morrowind and Planescape Torment, something so alien that you just can't stop watching. That means: No elf-nonsense (you know, long-haired androgynous elf archers), no European medieval setting, no shiny knights (perhaps in behavior, but not in equipement) and a lot of weird David Lynch, John Blanche insanity or H. R. Giger nightmares. That's risky, but at least you'll do something crazy and aesthetically pleasing.
or...
Just remake the old D&D cartoon TV series. Kids and adults liked them.
PS: I don't want to see any she-fu bullshit. If there is a female warrior, she should be strong, with arms like trunks and brutal, like any male warrior. I don't want to see anorexic actresses kicking 300lb orcs.
Dungeons and Dragons: Snow White and the Huntsman
Dungeons and Dragons: Season of the Witch (when I watched the climactic battle I thought "this is straight out of D&D")
Dark Sun: John Carter of Mars
Dungeons and Dragons: The Desolation of Smaug (too obvious)
Etc
The worst thing that'll probably happen though is that you can only fit so much cohesive material into a 2 hour movie. Baldur's Gate 1 on a first playthrough would take hours and hours to go through exploring everything and covering the main quest. Something like Forgotten Realms would need 2-3 films or a television series format to really give us something that could do well, otherwise it would probably be trying to crunch too many things into one film and resorting to cliched ways to resolve stuff in the plot.
A writer will write a script, either an original idea, or they will be commissioned to write something given certain parameters. Once written, the script is then run past any number of people including the Director and the producers who will require changes be made. Sometimes these changes are small and sometimes not. Sometimes they add to the script and sometimes they "Alter" it. In most cases this involves a number of "re-writes". Sometimes the writer isn't even involved in the rewrites.
Then, once everything is as agreed upon, production of the product will begin. During the course of production, a script can go through yet more rewrites based on what shoots well, what costs too much and feedback from actors, directors and producers etc... Even focus groups will be brought in to test market certain concepts. I can't tell you how many times I get offered 'Free' screenings of 'Early release' films here in LA. The feedback from which will often times facilitate changes to the scripts and the finished product will often be very different.
Sometime if you are curious, check out some of the 'Alternate' endings for movies such as Return of the Jedi or Fatal attraction or Terminator 2 or Seven or Jurassic Park or any of literally hundreds of others. You will get what I am saying when I indicate that what shows up on the screen has at least as much to do with who the director or the producers are as it does with who the writers are, more so. Often times a LOT more so.
It is very easy to point a finger at one person and call them 'The bad guy'. Unless you know all of the factors involved, you run the risk of convicting the wrong person.
It started out as a Director credit, but is no longer allowed, as of 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smithee
As far as it goes, David Leslie Johnson keeps on getting work. So that in and of itself suggests that he has some talent. Given all of the writers that are in Hollywood they certainly don't need to go to bad writers. So if he was that terrible, why keep on going back to him? Add to that the fact that he wrote two episodes of the walking dead across two years (he was actually asked back) further supports that assumption that he has some talent. As a fan of the show, I can't say that the two episodes stood out particularly but they didn't stink. And since people are lining up around the block to write for that block buster, again why go back to someone who sucks at writing as has been suggested?
But I am not here to defend anyone, merely to point out that the easiest solution, i.e. to point a finger at someone without knowing all of the facts, isn't always the best solution.
Nuff said.
I feel like the D&D brand just has so much "nerd" vibes associated with it it's going to be hard for Hollywood to give it any respect. And that's what the issue is. LotR was a good movie cause it's respected as a literary work. D&D is much more the butt of every nerd joke than something like LotR, or above mentioned, Snow White(which I have not seen but have on good intelligence that it is an ok movie.)
Another direction would be to go the Thomas Covenant path. Or something like what Michael Moorcock did with Elric in the (much) later books, where a modern day character (ish) dreamed of the world of fantasy and high sorcery. Given the reputation of both of those authors, I think that a lot of credence could be put behind such an idea.
Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series. A group of college-age D&D players are sent into the world their DM has created, which turns out to be real. Some of the stand-out moments including the one where the party's two thieves decide to pickpocket a lord in a tavern and are brutally slain when they fluff their roll (so to speak). The female cleric is a sex abuse survivor, and the main character, Karl Cullinane's girlfriend, who has just joined the group rolls a female mage with an 18 charisma, and then becomes one in-world. There is also a guy in a wheelchair who plays a Dwarf, and while the rest of them want to go home, he does not (because now he has a body that works). I believe the cleric also doesn't want to go back because she doesn't want to face her past in the real world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Flame
The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay is about a group of Medical and Law students drawn into the world of Fionavar (The First World). There five of them, and I don't remember as much about the story. They, too, are drawn into the world by a Wizard named Loren Silvercloak. I do remember one of the men becomes the lover of a goddess and passes from the world of men.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fionavar_Tapestry
Then there is Quag Keep by Andre Norton. This is a stand-alone novel. In the book, a group of gamers gets a package from a company that makes gaming supplies. Included are a bunch of miniatures. The viewpoint character (who is identified only by first name) is oohing and aching with the others over how detailed the miniatures (Which appear to be already painted) are. He takes one, of a male warrior in chain mail and with a shield, and declares it to be his. The next thing we see is that warrior in an inn. His name is Milo. He is garbed the same as the miniature, and on one wrist, he wears a bracelet with a bunch of dice on it, suspended on a wire that cannot be broken that allows the dice to spin freely (and the bracelet cannot be removed). There are a number of other people in the inn all wearing the same bracelet, including a Were-boar shapeshifter, a Lizard Man, an Elf with a Pseudo-Dragon companion/familiar, a shield maiden, a cleric and a bard. A wizard tells them he has summoned them to this world to save it from an outside force seeking to take over it (Essentially a geas), and he promises that at the end, they will be able to return to their world. This came out in 1978, and it was literally the first D&D novel, as it references Greyhawk (and apparently takes place in that world).
There was another- I don't remember the name of it, but it involved playing a D&D-like game with a map that was composed of painted tiles on a board. The DM was tired of the game world, and wanted to scrap it and start over, and the players wanted to save it. Part of the book was in the game world, and part of it was in the real world. I recall at one point one of the players used this "Elemental Sphere/Crystal of Water" to defeat some threat and it created a new river that (I think) washed the monsters away. And somehow, the painted map magically changed to show this new river and the GM wanted to know how they'd made the map change, but they didn't know how it happened, either. (Let's be honest, I've read a TON of D&D-esque Fiction books…)
Those are the ones I remember from the 80's and Near 80's….
But it is a common enough concept. Again, Stephen R Donaldson's 'The Thomas Covenant Trilogy' comes to mind. Barbara Hambly wrote at least one series on the topic as well. And I want to say that Orson Scott Card did as well, though I might be confusing that with something else.
Heck, it is a variation on Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (sort of).
I think that something like that would allow non-gamers to more identify with the characters. The movie would start out with people in normal, every day life and then would get displaced. That would allow the main characters to use conventional colloquialisms and apply conventional morality to situations where they would otherwise be anachronistic in the settings. Further it would allow a narrative and plot exposition for the audience to follow along 'As the characters acclimatized', thus further facilitating the lack of necessary background information.
Just some musings on my part.