For most role-players, there are only two passive outlets for their creative, gaming-oriented imaginations: books and film. Whether the genre is fantasy or sci-fi, whether the narrative is fiction or non-fiction, whether the tale is action packed or subtly inspiring, gamers love a good story.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the long awaited feature film, Dungeons and Dragons, is an instantly tempting draw for D&D fans of all ages and tenure. I recall, as early as 1983, shortly after playing the now venerable D&D module, Keep on the Borderlands, that a D&D movie would be awesome. I wanted to see the monsters, the sword-swinging, the castles, the caverns, the treasure; in short, I wanted to watch D&D adventures.
Like most active gamers of the ’80s and ’90s, I combed the video store racks for fantasy films. In time, titles with which many of you will be familiar found their way into my parent’s VCR: Krull (1983), Excalibur (1981), The Dark Crystal (1982), Beastmaster (1982), Conan the Barbarian (1981), Ladyhawke (1985), and even the laughable Ator the Blade Master (1984).
But none of these were “D&D” so much as I could relate the action in the film to the mechanics of the game. I’m not exactly sure just what was missing. Maybe my dissatisfaction was that fantasy film differed too much from my D&D-inspired expectations: magic-users didn’t have to re-memorise spells; hulking, armourless barbarians (with ostensibly poor armour class ratings) were never hit in combat; castle guards could be taken out with a single, well placed arrow to the throat; no one ever worried about encumbrance; wizards and clerics wielded swords with abandon; and magic items were almost always of artefact status. There was always some glaring problem that ruined my complete enjoyment. Like a favourite character on The Simpsons says when disappointed over the supposedly latest and greatest story on TV, film, or in print, I would come to say, “worst episode ever,” about much of the fantasy films I watched.
But despite such perceived shortcomings, the films were a source of entertainment—they at least held my attention and activated my imagination. And while the limited selection of fantasy film titles was (and still is) disappointing, each served a greater role as a contributor to my D&D campaigns. Some films offered little more than a glimpse of what could be—a cool NPC or monster race, a nasty trap, an interesting dungeon layout—while others offered inspiration in heaps. Excalibur prompted me to inject knightly orders into my game; Conan gave me inspiration for a serpent-worshipping cult; Beastmaster gave my campaign a new character class.
It was with this sort of open-minded ideal that I went to see Dungeons and Dragons with my friends Matt and Dan. Now, before going any further, I’ll confess right now that I had read the reviews of Dungeons and Dragons, and I wasn’t expecting much in the way of good cinema—most reviews blasted the film; the few kind reviews that could be found were vague on the particulars and lacked the credibility of a discerning reviewer.
But I had been waiting for 17 years (gasp!) to see a film all about D&D. Reviews be damned—I was going to see it for myself. At the very least, it might give me an idea or two for my (non-D&D) campaign.
It is with some concern then, that I report my inability to even begin explaining how ridiculously bad this movie is.
But I’ll give it a shot anyway, spoilers and all.
The Plot
In a nutshell, the adventure plot is best described as something I would be embarrassed to set before my playing group. Not that the story idea itself is bad (after all, saving a kingdom from the machinations of an evil mage has roots going all the way back to Tolkien). The problem is the plot’s inconsistencies and the questions it raises but never answers.
For example, what binds the adventuring party together? I’m willing to concede that the two rogues, Ridley (Justin Whalin) and Snails (Marlon Wayans) might get together with the wizardess Marina (Zoe McLellan, who announces her character to be a “low-level mage”). But I cannot understand what keeps the dwarf, Elwood (Lee Arenberg), around (though, for no apparent reason, he admits that he has “no choice” but to risk his life and join the quest). And the elf tracker, Norda (Kristen Wilson), starts out an enemy of our heroes, but then commits herself, and her majesty’s soldiers, to the quest, becoming, in the process, mysteriously cryptic and oh-so-elf-like to her short-lived companions.
The evil mage, Profion (Jeremy Irons), is about as two-dimensional as a business-sized envelope—ever-ready to be filled but remaining flat and unsealed throughout. His majordomo, Damodar (Bruce Payne), is a serious bad-ass, but for his designer armour and blue-tinted lips (which prompted me to crack jokes about eating rasberry freeze-pops throughout the film). Why the baddies neglect to kill the heroes during any one of the 45 opportunities they have during the movie is beyond me, but then again, that they chose not to was the only reason the plot could move forward.
Overacting abounds—everyone’s guilty of it—from Whalin’s clever smirks and high-fives with Wayans to the 5-minute “I’m-About-to-Die-but-Hear-My-Dreadful-Words” rant delivered by (award-winning Shakespearean actor) Irons. Of course, with dialogue as poorly written and predictable as witnessed in Dungeons and Dragons, over-the-top performances may have been the only inspiration to keep the actors from drinking themselves silly during the shooting, or from placing raging phone calls to New Line Cinema with promises to stalk, kill, and eat their agents.
Silly conventions riddle the story. Payne’s evil character, Damodar, brings at least three people to their knees with promises to slay them quickly if they co-operate; when each refuses to co-operate, he deftly snaps their neck or slides his Wolverine-claw-appendages into their latissimus dorsi, killing them instantly and painlessly. Entering a cave, the party bangs into some sort of invisible wall of force while Ridley moves easily into the cavern; when Marina, the party magic-user, voices her dumbfounded amazement, Norda, the Elf of Secrets and erstwhile obstacle to the quest, knowingly states, “It is only for [Ridley] to go.” Thanks, Turncoat Spock.
This segment is just after the token “Visit-to-the-Sylvan-Metropolis-for-Healing-and-Knowledge” required in any fantasy film including elves. In the city (or oak stump, as it may have been), an elf who reminded me vaguely of Andy Griffith heals Ridley’s shoulder, into which Damodar had absentmindedly buried his sword, successfully not killing him. After his healing, Ridley is told by the Griffith-elf that his quest, if achieved, will shatter utterly the delicate balance of the universe and (at some point in the process) cause the elf race to die out. The dire warning must be an elvish pun, however, because a few scenes later, we see Ridley and company leaving the elven city to complete their quest with the blessing of two (what I assume to be) elves who have taken to donning half-skulls on the sides of their heads as masks (though I think one of them was wearing a Members Only jacket).
We also learn a valuable tit-bit about the elven peoples: while they have spells to heal wounds, they lack washcloths or soap: Marina’s face, crusted with soot and detritus, isn’t cleansed of grime until she shows up at the final battle (where, clearly, everyone must look their best).
Then there are the super-powerful magic items/artefacts/objects de quest. First is a gem, the ominous Eye of the Dragon, which lies in the heart of a trap-laden dungeon-maze crafted by the Guildmaster of Thieves in some city with an appropriately fantasy-sounding name. After Ridley overcomes the deadly traps and retrieves the stone, the guildmaster calmly demands its return, for the bauble belongs to him and has been unobtainable inside the death-maze. Huh? Shouldn’t he have thought of getting his gem before building the death-maze around it?
The best artefact, though, is the Rod of Red Dragon Control, which looks like a piece of spiky, curvy, red plastic (Matt thinks it said Lobsterfest on it, and to me, the device will ever be known as the Rod of All-You-Can-Eat). Still, the Rod is powerful, and while it won’t peel shrimp for the wielder, it does allow him to control, amazingly enough, red dragons. Just be aware that there is a dire curse on whosoever uses it: they will be doomed to some unknown, unstated, but nonetheless very bad, fate.
It should come as no surprise, then, that when Profion the Mean gets his grubby wizard paws on it, he’s sealed a nasty end for himself (but we all know that, as the bad guy, he was going to die anyway). This works out well for our heroes, though: Profion’s use of the Rod seems to suck away the curse so that when Ridley uses it soon after to turn back a fleet of angry red dragons, he does so without a hint of tainted cursedom.
Later (much, much later), at the end of the flick, when all is well and good in the world once more, Ridley (who’s to be knighted by what most be the most irresponsible and clueless noble in the realm), deliberately leaves the mysterious Eye of the Dragon on Snail’s grave marker (yeah, he dies; boo-hoo), because, as Ridley states, “You deserve this, old friend.” What he must be thinking, though, is, “I’ll just leave this priceless artefact here on the ground so that everyone who sees it will know that it really belongs to the corpse lying in the grave over which I’ve placed it.” But then something miraculous happens: the stone glows, the Quiz-master Elf speaks to Ridley, “Your friend awaits,” and the whole party shakes hands and turns into pixies, flying away as the triumphant end music heralds the coming of the credits.
The end.
The Outcome
Now, despite my tone above, there are two very serious and disturbing implications to be gleaned from this exercise in squandered time. Both point to how and to whom Wizards of the Coast (WotC) plans to sell the D&D product line.
Aside from late 20-something losers like me in the movie audience, there were an abundance of young males, most of whom were probably between 12 and 15—the exact age when I first yearned for a D&D movie because I loved the game—and the enjoyment it brought to me—so much. For lack of industry offerings, I had to satisfy my desire with a limited selection of mere “fantasy genre” pictures, which, while useful and entertaining, were not what I really wanted.
Today’s D&D following has the “real deal,” though—an actual feature length film about D&D, for D&D players, called Dungeons and Dragons. That the film should be an embarrassment to Wizards of the Coast is a disservice to the current crowd of gamers. Fact is, The Dark Crystal was a better D&D movie than Dungeons and Dragons. What will the current gamers have to watch in order to get inspiration for their campaigns? More cinematic drivel from WotC? More bad films offering weak story lines, inconsistent plots, stock characters, predictable hooks, and painfully trite dialogue? Wizards of the Coast could have taken hand-written DM’s notes from any one of probably a hundred actual D&D game sessions and used them to come up with a better story, better characters, and a better end result with which to reward the patience of gamers who’ve waited more than 20 years for this film.
And that leads me to the second problem: maybe Wizards of the Coast isn’t interested in the quality of their material at all. Maybe (perish the thought) they’re interested in nothing more than the dollars in the pockets of 12- to 15-year-old boys who, as they did 17 years ago, form the majority market share of D&D product consumers. If true, this statement is quite revealing: it tells me that WotC isn’t really shifting the scope of the game or its popularity anywhere other than where it’s always been. It tells me that a quick influx of cash from this quarter’s movie revenue is more attractive than the staying power of a quality product over time, and that’s generally bad business practice. If I’m permitted an analogy (and as economic types will agree), it’s much better for a company to sell a man three affordable cars over 15 years than it is to sell him one expensive automobile and never see him again.
Finally, it tells me that the future of D&D is changing, and that the change is not good. We’ve used this space to laud change as a necessary thing, and that remains true, whether for good or ill. But good change is still better than bad. If one has the power to control inevitable change, or, like WotC, to control the destiny of the world’s most popular role-playing game, one has a responsibility to carefully guide the form and substance that a product assumes over time.
Wizards of the Coast do not impress me as being terribly thoughtful about the future. They do not impress me as being careful with the message they’re sending to the public about what it delivers to the consumer. And, most significantly, WotC do not impress me as particularly concerned about the ability of their constituents to discern quality from tripe. And that’s a slap in the face.
In 1995, I predicted the downfall of TSR. I was only partially correct, because Wizards of the Coast swooped in at the 11th hour to save TSR from abject bankruptcy. I renew my prediction: Wizards of the Coast will batter D&D so brutally that it will be unrecognisable from its foundational form within five years (mark me: the D20 System is the beginning of the end). If D&D is even playable in other than name form only by 2006, I’ll be amazed.
So, by all means, take a few friends to see Dungeons and Dragons. You may enjoy it, and God knows, WotC need the money. But don’t be surprised if, while returning to your car after the film, you find yourself thinking that it represented, without question, the “worst episode ever.”