list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Dungeons & Dragons on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Dungeons_Dragons/174888/default.aspx Title: Dungeons & Dragons
Year: 2000
Director: Courtney Solomon
Plot: The imaginary world of the world's most popular fantasy role-playing game comes to life in this special-effects laden adventure. In the Empire of Izmer, magic is the key to power in both the supernatural and political realms. The Mages are a sect who know the secrets of magic and use it to hold sway over the masses. The youthful Empress Savina (Thora Birch) wants to use her powers to bring justice and prosperity to all, but Profion (Jeremy Irons) is an evil Mage who wants to use his knowledge of magic to overthrow Savina and establish his own despotic rule. Through deceitful means, Profion wins away the special scepter that allows him to control the nation's Golden Dragons; Savina's only hope to recover the scepter and the rule of Izmer is to obtain the Rod of Savrille, a talisman that will give her powers over the Red Dragons, even more powerful than their golden counterparts. As Savina sets out to gain control of the Red Dragons, she gains a number of unlikely allies, including a pair of thieves, Snails (Marlon Wayans) and Ridely (Justin Whalin); a powerful dwarf, Elwood (Lee Arenberg); and Norda (Kristen Wilson), an elf with a gift for finding lost objects. Dungeons & Dragons also features Zoe McLellan, Bruce Payne, and Richard O'Brien, the latter of whom is best known as the writer and co-star of the perennial cult item The Rocky Horror Picture Show. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 8
Number of Lists: 8
Number of blog posts: 2
SpoutRating: 2
]]>Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:39:48 GMTDungeons & Dragons2000Courtney SolomonThe imaginary world of the world's most popular fantasy role-playing game comes to life in this special-effects laden adventure. In the Empire of Izmer, magic is the key to power in both the supernatural and political realms. The Mages are a sect who know the secrets of magic and use it to hold sway over the masses. The youthful Empress Savina (<a href="/players/P_____6271/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Thora Birch</a>) wants to use her powers to bring justice and prosperity to all, but Profion (<a href="/players/P____34545/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Jeremy Irons</a>) is an evil Mage who wants to use his knowledge of magic to overthrow Savina and establish his own despotic rule. Through deceitful means, Profion wins away the special scepter that allows him to control the nation's Golden Dragons; Savina's only hope to recover the scepter and the rule of Izmer is to obtain the Rod of Savrille, a talisman that will give her powers over the Red Dragons, even more powerful than their golden counterparts. As Savina sets out to gain control of the Red Dragons, she gains a number of unlikely allies, including a pair of thieves, Snails (<a href="/players/P____75078/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Marlon Wayans</a>) and Ridely (Justin Whalin); a powerful dwarf, Elwood (Lee Arenberg); and Norda (Kristen Wilson), an elf with a gift for finding lost objects. Dungeons & Dragons also features <a href="/players/P___277401/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Zoe McLellan</a>, Bruce Payne, and <a href="/players/P____53293/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Richard O'Brien</a>, the latter of whom is best known as the writer and co-star of the perennial cult item <a href=/films/29309/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>The Rocky Horror Picture Show</a>. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide8Taggedy Taggged (6-10)822http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t1122087qn4.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Dungeons_Dragons/174888/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/10/31/36839.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/31/2008 9:01:08 AM
Body: In May 2006, Legendary Pictures announced that they had acquired the rights from Blizzard Entertainment to make a World of Warcraft movie. There was the sound of enormous rejoicing from gamers around the world and then … a great silence. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and were suddenly silenced. Since then, the silence from Legendary and Blizzard has been fairly deafening. Two years later and still no news on the project. Apparently it’s still in development but they haven’t hired the “someone along the lines of a Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan type” they wanted to direct the project. With a planned release date of 2009 impossible to meet at this point, why not just scrap the whole thing? They could save themselves the embarrassment of spending over $100 million dollars on a movie that’ll end up tanking at the box office and become a pack-in freebie with the next expansion set. There’s a growing mountain of reasons not to make this movie; take a look at them after the break. First and foremost, it’s only been eight years since Dungeons & Dragons came out, and gamers are still feeling the sting. This was a big budget (relatively — $45 million dollars wasn’t that small in 2000) movie based on another extremely popular role playing game. However, it tanked at the box office and is generally loathed by both fans of the game and moviegoers alike. Over the top acting from Jeremy Irons, deadpan lines from Thora Birch, and a ridiculous storyline that didn’t pay attention to the years of manuals and expansions didn’t help. They followed that up with a direct to TV sequel in 2005 that tried to right all the wrongs: it included specific items from the games, made reference to many of the expansion sets, and had characters who followed the “rules” of the game. Plans were that it would lead into a series on the Sci Fi Channel, but that possibility faded into forgotten realms. The blurb for the series, which was to appear in 2009, has since been removed from the Sci Fi Channel website. Second reason, as they say on NPR’s Marketplace… “Let’s do the numbers.” At last check, Blizzard had more than 10 million subscribers for WoW. That means if every one of those people bought a $10 ticket, they’d make $100 million dollars on the movie, which is what they’ve said the budget is. However, with prints and advertising often doubling the cost of a movie, that means it woulndn’t even have made a dent in making its money back. Plus, many of those subscribers are no doubt duplicate accounts from the same person, as evidenced by one guy who plays 36 characters at the same time. So if you account for those, and people who tend to not go to the movies, you’re already cutting your installed fanbase down significantly. Third, it’s not The Lord of the Rings, which many people compare the Warcraft storyline to. The problem is that people had been reading the Lord of the Rings for years before that movie came out, so it had a large base to begin with. Even if you hadn’t read it, you were somewhat familiar with the legend of Bilbo and Frodo, either by hearing about it from friends, or seeing the Ralph Bakshi cartoons that were popular in the late 70s. With Warcraft, you’d be hard pressed to get the storyline out of many gamers. Plenty of people jump in, skip past the cutscenes, and just want to start playing the game. The original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was a real time strategy games, pitting orcs against humans. You had to harvest lumber, mine gold, and build different units in an effort to both protect yourself from the enemy, and to eventually try and overrun them. Eventually a storyline and a plot were fleshed out through the four sequels that followed, and expanded even more in the World of Warcraft RPG game. But can the average gamer tell you the plot? I played WoW for nearly nine months, and all I know is that I was a Warlock trying to level up. You had to complete hundreds of mundane quests like “Find this rare ale for me, so I can make my daughter’s wedding perfect!” in order to gain experience, while fighting off different creatures along the way. That’s somewhat of an oversimplification, but I just wasn’t aware of a single overreaching storyline. Don’t get me wrong, the game was still fun, but that was because of the gameplay mechanics and the rich world they’d created… not an ongoing story. A good example of this is Metal Gear Solid 4. Easily one of the highest anticipated games ever released for Sony’s flagship PlayStation 3, it featured over 90 minutes of cutscenes. That’s enough to cobble their own movie together. Some of these were presented to the gamer in extremely long chunks, which led many people to just thumb a button and skip past them. In an battle of short attention spans, the it’s just too easy to press the shiny button to get back into the game. As a result, a lot of people played through MGS4, but weren’t too sure what had just happened. Finally, it’s been over two years since the announcement was made, yet they don’t have anything to show for it except one piece of concept art. No script, no storyline, no director, no attached talent… nothing. The game has powered ahead full steam with the Burning Crusade expansion in January of 2007, and the new Wrath of the Lich King pack coming out on November 13th. So where’s the info on the movie? For all of the gung-ho attitude about it with a 2009 release date, it seemed to vanish overnight. Even at this year’s BlizzCon there was no movie news, except that they’re “working on it.” It would be best if Blizzard shuttered these plans altogether, and instead released a series of DVDs or movies available to download that feature the same amount of animation that goes into the opening cinematics and trailers for many of their games. They look a lot better than they could ever hope the live-action movie would. Save us all and channel that money elsewhere, both gamers and movie lovers will thank you for it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:01:08 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com10/31/2008 9:01:08 AM In May 2006, Legendary Pictures announced that they had acquired the rights from Blizzard Entertainment to make a World of Warcraft movie. There was the sound of enormous rejoicing from gamers around the world and then … a great silence. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and were suddenly silenced. Since then, the silence from Legendary and Blizzard has been fairly deafening. Two years later and still no news on the project. Apparently it’s still in development but they haven’t hired the “someone along the lines of a Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan type” they wanted to direct the project. With a planned release date of 2009 impossible to meet at this point, why not just scrap the whole thing? They could save themselves the embarrassment of spending over $100 million dollars on a movie that’ll end up tanking at the box office and become a pack-in freebie with the next expansion set. There’s a growing mountain of reasons not to make this movie; take a look at them after the break. First and foremost, it’s only been eight years since Dungeons & Dragons came out, and gamers are still feeling the sting. This was a big budget (relatively — $45 million dollars wasn’t that small in 2000) movie based on another extremely popular role playing game. However, it tanked at the box office and is generally loathed by both fans of the game and moviegoers alike. Over the top acting from Jeremy Irons, deadpan lines from Thora Birch, and a ridiculous storyline that didn’t pay attention to the years of manuals and expansions didn’t help. They followed that up with a direct to TV sequel in 2005 that tried to right all the wrongs: it included specific items from the games, made reference to many of the expansion sets, and had characters who followed the “rules” of the game. Plans were that it would lead into a series on the Sci Fi Channel, but that possibility faded into forgotten realms. The blurb for the series, which was to appear in 2009, has since been removed from the Sci Fi Channel website. Second reason, as they say on NPR’s Marketplace… “Let’s do the numbers.” At last check, Blizzard had more than 10 million subscribers for WoW. That means if every one of those people bought a $10 ticket, they’d make $100 million dollars on the movie, which is what they’ve said the budget is. However, with prints and advertising often doubling the cost of a movie, that means it woulndn’t even have made a dent in making its money back. Plus, many of those subscribers are no doubt duplicate accounts from the same person, as evidenced by one guy who plays 36 characters at the same time. So if you account for those, and people who tend to not go to the movies, you’re already cutting your installed fanbase down significantly. Third, it’s not The Lord of the Rings, which many people compare the Warcraft storyline to. The problem is that people had been reading the Lord of the Rings for years before that movie came out, so it had a large base to begin with. Even if you hadn’t read it, you were somewhat familiar with the legend of Bilbo and Frodo, either by hearing about it from friends, or seeing the Ralph Bakshi cartoons that were popular in the late 70s. With Warcraft, you’d be hard pressed to get the storyline out of many gamers. Plenty of people jump in, skip past the cutscenes, and just want to start playing the game. The original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was a real time strategy games, pitting orcs against humans. You had to harvest lumber, mine gold, and build different units in an effort to both protect yourself from the enemy, and to eventually try and overrun them. Eventually a storyline and a plot were fleshed out through the four sequels that followed, and expanded even more in the World of Warcraft RPG game. But can the average gamer tell you the plot? I played WoW for nearly nine months, and all I know is that I was a Warlock trying to level up. You had to complete hundreds of mundane quests like “Find this rare ale for me, so I can make my daughter’s wedding perfect!” in order to gain experience, while fighting off different creatures along the way. That’s somewhat of an oversimplification, but I just wasn’t aware of a single overreaching storyline. Don’t get me wrong, the game was still fun, but that was because of the gameplay mechanics and the rich world they’d created… not an ongoing story. A good example of this is Metal Gear Solid 4. Easily one of the highest anticipated games ever released for Sony’s flagship PlayStation 3, it featured over 90 minutes of cutscenes. That’s enough to cobble their own movie together. Some of these were presented to the gamer in extremely long chunks, which led many people to just thumb a button and skip past them. In an battle of short attention spans, the it’s just too easy to press the shiny button to get back into the game. As a result, a lot of people played through MGS4, but weren’t too sure what had just happened. Finally, it’s been over two years since the announcement was made, yet they don’t have anything to show for it except one piece of concept art. No script, no storyline, no director, no attached talent… nothing. The game has powered ahead full steam with the Burning Crusade expansion in January of 2007, and the new Wrath of the Lich King pack coming out on November 13th. So where’s the info on the movie? For all of the gung-ho attitude about it with a 2009 release date, it seemed to vanish overnight. Even at this year’s BlizzCon there was no movie news, except that they’re “working on it.” It would be best if Blizzard shuttered these plans altogether, and instead released a series of DVDs or movies available to download that feature the same amount of animation that goes into the opening cinematics and trailers for many of their games. They look a lot better than they could ever hope the live-action movie would. Save us all and channel that money elsewhere, both gamers and movie lovers will thank you for it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/7/8/32292.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/8/2008 3:01:14 PM
Body: (photo: La Jetée, Hellboy II: The Golden Army) Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army hits theaters this Friday. Del Toro is a rare filmmaker who, despite his unique vision, often works on projects based on material from an outside source (Pan’s Labyrinth being a notable exception). Assuming all the legal issues get ironed out,  he’ll next direct a two part film adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the most prestigious property to date to get the del Toro treatment. Here are seven either failed or unjustly obscure movies ripe for being remade by Hellboy’s father. 1. Spawn - Todd McFarlane’s comic about a Hell-trotting anti-hero indebted to the Devil opened my young eyes to genuinely dark storytelling. While the 90s were a simpler time in terms of comic to movie adaptations, I was already dreaming about a big screen adaptation after reading the first issue. Unfortunately, my dream came true in 1997, when Mark A.Z. Dippé’s god-awful Spawn slumped into theaters. 2. The Never Ending Story - If you were to describe Pan’s Labyrinth as a story about a little girl with a cruel stepfather who escapes into a fantasy world with fairies and magical pan, it could sound like many tame children’s movies of the ’80s. The Never Ending Story del Toro style: the gnome is evil (or a least a little sadistic), the giant flying dog thing eats at least one sentient being, and the kid dies in the end. 3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - This 1920 German Expressionist classic is one of the first horror films, and maybe the first ever movie with a twist ending. A black and white sound version was made by David Lee Fisher in 2006, where green screen was used to incorporate the original backgrounds. I picture del Toro’s version in color, with a few added plot flourishes. Who knows, maybe it could be the genesis of a new genre: Mexican Neo-Expressionism. 4. Jim Henson’s The Storyteller (watch the video, sorry it won’t embed)- While compiling this list, Adam Forrest started telling me about an episode of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller called The Heartless Giant. It felt like he was describing nightmares I had when I was seven (turns out the nightmare was actually a memory I had of watching this very episode). While still slightly goofy at times, it’s Henson at his creepiest, and I’d love to see del Toro pick up where the puppet master left off. Other freaky Henson classics like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth (keeping David Bowie in the cast, of course) would also be great, but I picked The Storyteller because del Toro could really kill in this semi-episodic TV format. 5. La Jetée (entire 27 minute film is embedded above)- This 1962 French short film consists only of a series of black and white photos accompanied by narration. It’s a stunning post-apocalyptic downer and an absolute must-see. Terry Gilliam already remade it as Twelve Monkeys, where he added a lot of story content in addition to quadrupling the original run time. I’d like to see del Toro build something different, but equally good, using La Jetée’s bare-bones structure. 6. Dungeons & Dragons - In 2000, the undisputed king of tabletop role playing games became the undisputed king of shitty movie adaptations. There are inherent problems in adapting a game like D&D to the screen, for one thing, the game is really just a rules system, the players provide the story. That being said, there have been countless supplemental “campaign settings” published which describe immensely imaginative worlds. I would particularly like to see what del Toro would do with Keith Baker’s fantasy-noir Eberron. 7. The Wizard of Oz - It would be pretty ballsy of del Toro to take this one on. In 1985 Walter Murch, known mostly for his stellar editing work, directed the wonderfully dark Return to Oz. While not a perfect film, it exploited the more disturbing dimensions of the Oz story, namely a lost girl in a strange world targeted by a supernatural evil. If all goes well with del Torro’s take on The Hobbit, I think the world will be ready to go back to an Oz where munchkins hanging themselves would no longer be confined to shadowy backgrounds. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:01:14 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/8/2008 3:01:14 PM (photo: La Jetée, Hellboy II: The Golden Army) Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army hits theaters this Friday. Del Toro is a rare filmmaker who, despite his unique vision, often works on projects based on material from an outside source (Pan’s Labyrinth being a notable exception). Assuming all the legal issues get ironed out,  he’ll next direct a two part film adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the most prestigious property to date to get the del Toro treatment. Here are seven either failed or unjustly obscure movies ripe for being remade by Hellboy’s father. 1. Spawn - Todd McFarlane’s comic about a Hell-trotting anti-hero indebted to the Devil opened my young eyes to genuinely dark storytelling. While the 90s were a simpler time in terms of comic to movie adaptations, I was already dreaming about a big screen adaptation after reading the first issue. Unfortunately, my dream came true in 1997, when Mark A.Z. Dippé’s god-awful Spawn slumped into theaters. 2. The Never Ending Story - If you were to describe Pan’s Labyrinth as a story about a little girl with a cruel stepfather who escapes into a fantasy world with fairies and magical pan, it could sound like many tame children’s movies of the ’80s. The Never Ending Story del Toro style: the gnome is evil (or a least a little sadistic), the giant flying dog thing eats at least one sentient being, and the kid dies in the end. 3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - This 1920 German Expressionist classic is one of the first horror films, and maybe the first ever movie with a twist ending. A black and white sound version was made by David Lee Fisher in 2006, where green screen was used to incorporate the original backgrounds. I picture del Toro’s version in color, with a few added plot flourishes. Who knows, maybe it could be the genesis of a new genre: Mexican Neo-Expressionism. 4. Jim Henson’s The Storyteller (watch the video, sorry it won’t embed)- While compiling this list, Adam Forrest started telling me about an episode of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller called The Heartless Giant. It felt like he was describing nightmares I had when I was seven (turns out the nightmare was actually a memory I had of watching this very episode). While still slightly goofy at times, it’s Henson at his creepiest, and I’d love to see del Toro pick up where the puppet master left off. Other freaky Henson classics like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth (keeping David Bowie in the cast, of course) would also be great, but I picked The Storyteller because del Toro could really kill in this semi-episodic TV format. 5. La Jetée (entire 27 minute film is embedded above)- This 1962 French short film consists only of a series of black and white photos accompanied by narration. It’s a stunning post-apocalyptic downer and an absolute must-see. Terry Gilliam already remade it as Twelve Monkeys, where he added a lot of story content in addition to quadrupling the original run time. I’d like to see del Toro build something different, but equally good, using La Jetée’s bare-bones structure. 6. Dungeons & Dragons - In 2000, the undisputed king of tabletop role playing games became the undisputed king of shitty movie adaptations. There are inherent problems in adapting a game like D&D to the screen, for one thing, the game is really just a rules system, the players provide the story. That being said, there have been countless supplemental “campaign settings” published which describe immensely imaginative worlds. I would particularly like to see what del Toro would do with Keith Baker’s fantasy-noir Eberron. 7. The Wizard of Oz - It would be pretty ballsy of del Toro to take this one on. In 1985 Walter Murch, known mostly for his stellar editing work, directed the wonderfully dark Return to Oz. While not a perfect film, it exploited the more disturbing dimensions of the Oz story, namely a lost girl in a strange world targeted by a supernatural evil. If all goes well with del Torro’s take on The Hobbit, I think the world will be ready to go back to an Oz where munchkins hanging themselves would no longer be confined to shadowy backgrounds. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/fantasy/MemberTagFilms.aspxfantasy
Number of films tagged: 1044

Number of people who tagged: 128

Number of times used: 480

]]>Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:54:25 GMT1044128480Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/magic/MemberTagFilms.aspxmagic
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]]>Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:01:49 GMT14322Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/0th-level-director/MemberTagFilms.aspx0th-level-director
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]]>Sat, 09 Jun 2007 07:22:46 GMT111Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/talisman/MemberTagFilms.aspxtalisman
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