Against the Odds We Watch the Dragonlance Movie

D&Daniel: D&Daniel here, reminding you that sometimes it’s easier to act out than admit your feelings. Thanks to Hedwig, Carlo, and new friend Emma. Enjoy the show

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Pencil Hello, and…words are in your ears. Hello, and welcome to The Probably Bad Podcast, a podcast that is definitely bad. I’m Mod Pencil

Nick And I’m producer Nick. And today the probably bad RPG idea is watching and then talking about the Dragonlance film, Dragonlance colon Dragons of Autumn Twilight, or is it Dragonlance Colondragons of Autumn Twilight? I never know where to put the emphasis on these sorts of films

Pencil Yes, it sure is a D&D movie. If you just handed a bunch of actors a piece of paper with the phrase “D&D Movie” on it as a script, they would act this out. I genuinely find it hard to think of things to talk about, because it is just…it’s just a D&D movie

Nick It sure is. It technically accomplishes that very narrow task

(crosstalk)

Pencil And were asked to make a D&D movie, you would make this movie

Nick Yeah. It’s, yeah, wikipedia describes it as “a 2008 American animated film, the first to be based on the Dragonlance campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.” As of, yeah, that’s gonna remain first and only, I think, for a good while

Pencil Mmm

Nick ‘Cause of…I haven’t experienced much Dragonlance stuff, have you?

Pencil Not really

Nick That’s saying something, because you have experienced all the games

Pencil I have experienced all of the games. Sadly this one of the games I have not experienced

Nick So it doesn’t count

Pencil I’m afraid yeah. I’m afraid we can’t judge whether or not it was a good Dragonlance movie

Nick Yeah, that’s nerd shit

Pencil Yeah, we are cool jocks, you see, is the issue

Nick Yeah. Now, I thought I’d kick things off by, you know, giving people a bit of a, a bit of background for this episode, talk about what actually happens in the film, I’ve got the synopsis in front of me. So spoilers for an incredibly down-the-middle, mediocre animated film from 2008. “The film begins with the return of a group of friends consisting of Tanis  sHalf-Elven, Sturm Brightblade, Caramon Majere, Raistlin Majere, Flint Fireforge, and Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Kitiara Uth Matar, the half-sister of the twins Caramon and Raistlin, was supposed to be there as well, but for reasons unexplained at the time could only send a mysterious note.” It was F sharp. “The Companions had separated five years previously to pursue their own quests. On the eve of their reunion, the Companions discover that Solace, the village where many of them made their home, is very different from the peaceful village they had left five years previous. Solace has been taken over by a religious order called the Seekers. They are collaborating with the Dragon Highlords who are preparing for the conquest of the continent of Ansalon. Solace is now an armed camp as hobgoblin soldiers patrol the once peaceful village. Tanis, Flint, and” (sighs) “Tasslehoff meet up outside of Solace, and as they enter the village, they are accosted by Fewmaaster Toede” I’m just gonna spell that out for you. F-E-W-M-A-A-S-T-E-R

Pencil Yeah, I apologise to any Dragonlance fans, by the way, who are like “oh my gosh, Fewmaaster Toede finally made it to the big screen!” We don’t know these people, so feel free to leave angry comments in our email telling us about these people

Nick Yeah, this does remind me of that tweet about Star Wars. I’m gonna try and get that up, ‘cause it definitely rings true here. Tumblr user, yeah it wasn’t a tweet, it was tumblr user gomjabbar said “every time a new star wars movie”, sorry, “every time a new star war movie or show is announced, all the fans are like OMG glup shitto is back”. I’m definitely getting that feeling as a Dragonlance outsider of just, some of these people I am supposed to care about, because in this wikipedia article they’ve got blue names, and there’s a whole wall of text when I go through to their pages

Pencil Yeah, it’s very possible we’re not the target audience for this movie, but when has that stopped the internet from…(silence) It stopped me from talking, certainly

Nick I dunno, I feel like we’re mostly the target audience. We play a lot of role-playing games

Pencil Hmm

Nick We’ve definitely watched and enjoyed some fantasy films. I didn’t know anything about Lord of the Rings when I watched Fellowship of the Ring when it came out, but I was just like “yeah, I’m open to it, I wanna see it”, but I went in with the same sort of hopeful, optimistic attitude…”

Pencil I think the possibility is that perhaps, because Dragonlance is one of the big settings in D&D

Nick Mmm

Pencil It comes off as very generic, more because other D&D has copied it, which is very possible, but also it just…anyway

Nick Yeah. Yeah you could be right there, that is a very good point

Pencil See we are being fair. Please do not send the Dragonlance writing team to beat us up

Nick Yeah, definitely not. So, back to (exaggerated pronunciation) Fewmaaster Toade, “a hobgoblin commander” he is, “and some of his minions. Forced to fight, the threesome kill Toede's minions”. Please, if you’re writing a non-fictional article, and you refer to a group of people, don’t say threesome. Please. It makes me think of bad things. I don’t want to think of Tasslehoff Burrfoot getting it on

Pencil I do, so there’s a dissenting opinion

Nick Ok, well, I’m hitting the kinkshame button and I’m hitting it hard. They “continue to the Inn of the Last Home to meet up with their friends, and, as circumstance would have it, two barbarians, Riverwind and Goldmoon”, which, you know, at least they’re spelled normally. “Kitiara Uth Matar is absent, having sent a letter to Tanis saying that her new lord is keeping her busy”, which is, I really found myself struggling with that particular story arc of this person I don’t know anything about is important, but we’re just getting bits of paper from her

Pencil Mmm

Nick That’s it. I should care about Kitiara Uth Matar, it’s definitely a sign it’s a film for the fans

Pencil Yeah

Nick “The Companions soon discover that the Seekers are searching for a Blue Crystal Staff. When Hederick, a Seeker, is accidentally burnt when Riverwind pushes him into the fireplace, Goldmoon heals him with her Blue Crystal Staff, a holy artefact of the goddess Mishakal which possesses healing powers. Upon seeing Goldmoon with the item he had been searching for, Hederick calls for the guards, causing the Companions to flee Solace. Unknown to them at the time, this pulls the Companions into a great struggle against the goddess Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness and leader of the enemy forces.” I’m gonna stop there, it’s a long-ass synopsis, I just…do you have any thoughts about that? That’s probably about the first third or half of the film

Pencil Yeah. So it’s (stammering) So it’s, to be clear, it’s not a bad movie. It certainly is, you know, you certainly are going to go and fight an evil dragon goddess

Nick Yeah

Pencil Who I’m informed is from the stories. And it does have the bizarrely hilarious choice of all dragons are CGI, and only dragons are CGI

Nick Oh yeah. Yeah, that was weird

Pencil Which, I don’t know if it was meant to make them seem unreal or ethereal, or if it was just they’d got a very specifically earmarked CGI budget

Nick Yeah, possible. I feel like with that I can definitely see what they were going for, that’s a very interesting idea

Pencil Yeah

Nick Using a different medium for the big mysterious creatures

Pencil Yeah

Nick But I feel like it just did not work at all

Pencil Yeah, I feel like it would work better if it was demons or spirits or something

Nick Mmm

Pencil It did have the weirdly cool thing that, at some point, dragon, dragonborn? I don’t know if that’s the word that we’d be using here, disguise themselves as normal people, but they’re still in CGI, so you could relatively easily tell who’s a secret dragon, ‘cause they’re the one who’s CGI

Nick God, that was the worst bit, I swear to god. The fun thing was, the animation is ok, it feels like an 80s cartoon

Pencil Yeah, it’s pretty solid animation

Nick Yeah, fairly cheap, but not the worst, but then the CG things come in, and they make everything around it look worse

Pencil Mmm, it’s

Nick And then the 2D stuff makes the 3D look bad

Pencil Yeah, ‘cause everything in the cartoon, in the animation looks, like Nick said, looks like a somewhat cheap, but perfectly serviceable, cartoon, (clattering noises) and the CGI, allow me to just drop everything I own. The CGI looks, I mean it also looks like early 90s CGI, I guess

Nick Yep

Pencil But everything has that weirdly polished look that bad CGI has

Nick Oh yeah, I get what you mean

Pencil It looks shiny, and, again, maybe would have worked if it has been demons or ghosts or something else that’s meant to look slightly unreal and slightly unnatural, but for a dragon it just comes off as all the dragons are uncomfortably moist

Nick Yeah, it’s weird. I’ve really been struggling with some of the names in this, as well. Everything is conspiring to bring you out of the story

Pencil Yeah. I dunno, maybe, ok, so they do say “we’re going to go to” (trips over words) They do say “we’re going to need to go find some dragonlances” and things like that, which I assume would be meaningful has I read the thing, but I dunno, so I guess you could argue this is our fault for going into something for a franchise that we don’t really know, but there does seem to be a lot of things that are only really explained if you do know Dragonlance

Nick Yeah, that’s the problem. Even things that ostensibly exist for the fans, they need to do a job of explaining what’s happening, they need to be coherent in themselves

Pencil But yeah, there’s also a dragon who adopts a bunch of kids, which is weird, and is under the impression they’re baby dragons

Nick Wasn’t that in an episode we did a while back

Pencil It was. We will be suing. But yes, it’s under the impression they are baby dragons, and goes to fight the evil dragon, on the grounds that the evil dragon is trying to eat her babies

Nick Well yeah, it’s an evil dragon, what do you expect?

Pencil Also the villain is…ok, so one scene I did like is the hero going “and the lord of light, the gods of light will stand by us”, and then is just knocked unconscious with a mace, which I feel should happen in more heroic things

Nick That worked ok. I think some of the jokes, when it’s

Pencil Yeah it had some good jokes

Nick When it’s not super-generic “I’m a dwarf, when are we gonna get money so I can get some ale?”, when it’s not shit like that, it’s actually ok. My favourite line is probably one of the more sorcerer-types doing some impressive magic, and a rogue turning to a wizard with a book says like “oh look, she can cast spells without moving her lips, what do you think of that, huh?” and he’s like “I’m doing a ritual, she’s pulling magic from the ether itself, it’s not the same thing!”. I really enjoyed that

Pencil It is a good film, it’s just

Nick Also very bad

Pencil It’s also very…it just runs into the problem that, basically, if you just filmed your D&D campaign, you’d probably get something close to this

Nick Yeah

Pencil There’s an elf and a dwarf and a wizard and a cleric and, again, I don’t…it might be that it’s because other things are based on them, but they don’t seem to have anything to distinguish them from anyone else

Nick Yeah. I’m gonna read through a bit more synopsis, because it is, it just has some beautiful names in it, that I’m gonna really struggle with. “The companions cross a nearby lake by boat in their escape, and Raistlin notes that the constellations known as "The Valiant Warrior" and "The Queen of Darkness" (representations of the True Gods Paladine and Takhisis) are absent from the sky, which he claims means that the two gods, the heads of good and evil, respectively, have come to Krynn. The next day, the group is attacked by Draconians.” That’s at least self-explanatory. “These creatures are numerous among the Dark Queen's armies, and often serve as foot soldiers.” Could be a sort of parenthetical remark, wikipedia editor. “The Companions are driven into the woods known as "Darken Wood"” Not The Dark Wood, Darken. “where they encounter undead warriors who, upon seeing the staff, make them go to the Forestmaster. The Forestmaster charges the group to go to the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth to retrieve the Disks of Mishakal, containing the teaching of the True Gods and instrumental for the restoration of the faith in the True Gods.” Xak Tsaroth is spelt X-A-K T-S-A-R-O-T-H, so your mouth goes in all directions when you try and say it

Pencil Hmm

Nick “After a trip on the backs of pegasi, the companions enter Xak Tsaroth and eventually meet some guilty dwarves”. No, not guilty dwarves, gully dwarves. “Diminutive and stupid creatures”. Wow, that’s just harsh

Pencil Yeah, it does seem very mean to a lot of creatures

Nick Yeah. “One of the dwarves, Bupu” spelled B-U-P-U “leads them to the dragon Onyx, who is killed by the holy power of the Blue Crystal Staff. When this happens, Goldmoon is consumed by its flame and presumed dead. However, they find her later resting at the foot of a statue of Mishakal, which now bears the Blue Crystal Staff, having blessed Goldmoon with true clerical powers. The Companions leave with the Disks of Mishakal, and Bupu also gives an ancient spellbook formerly belonging to the archmage” give me a second, Fistandantilus “Fistandantilus, archmage, o Raistlin and then returns home to her fellow gully dwarves. After returning to Solace to look for someone who might be able to read the Disks, and finding it occupied, the Companions are captured by the evil armies and, along with an elf named Gilthanas, the son of the leader of the elven nation of Qualinesti, are captured and chained in a slave caravan”. Just gonna point out, this is very late into the film, probably 70 minute mark

Pencil As you may have noticed, from how much synopsis we’ve read out

Nick Yeah, bring in a new character with a long name. Yeah. “En route to the fortress and mining site of Pax Tharkas, the group is freed by Gilthanas's brother Porthios. They escape to Qualinesti and decide to incite a rebellion in Pax Tharkas and free the slaves of Dragon Highlord Verminaard's control.” Verminaard is the big bad, by the way, in this story. Obviously working with the Queen of Darkness, yada yada, but Verminaard is, yeah, major bad guy. “The Companions journey through a secret passage underground to Pax Tharkas and devise a plan to free the slaves. They also heal Elistan, a dying Seeker, and the leader of the slaves.” That’s a great job, that is, leader of the slaves. “Trying to sneak women and children away from Pax Tharkas, the Companions are attacked by the Dragonlord Verminaard and his dragon. However, his dragon is killed by another insane dragon. After his dark goddess Takhisis turns away from him in order to battle with Paladine, Verminaard is killed by Tanis and Sturm. Elistan is able to read the Disks, and Goldmoon and Riverwind are married.” The End. They had planned a sequel, I think, ‘cause this is a very cut-down version of the book it’s adapted from

Pencil Yeah

Nick Where, I believe Kitiara Uth Matar is supposed to have a lot to do

Pencil Yeah, it does…a lot of the plot points feel very abrupt

Nick Yeah

Pencil I’ve not read the book, as I’ve said a few times, in case you haven’t noticed, but it does sort of have the feeling of, you know when you’re watching an adaptation that is essentially trying to hit the beats

Nick Yeah

Pencil And the thing shows up and it’s like “see, this is the thing from the story”

Nick Mmm

Pencil And it has to gloss past that. It does have that feeling a bit

Nick So it has an 80s Dune problem, essentially

Pencil Yeah

Nick Yeah, I think you’re right there. It is very truncated, and the sheer amount of information you have to remember is really difficult. The thing is, after watching it, I just could not remember pretty much anything aside from the joke and that some of them had silly names and there were dragons and a staff. A staff and disks, just all the MacGuffins, really

Pencil Yeah. I assume one of the MacGuffins was a dragonlance?

Nick Possibly? I’m not sure if there was a dragonlance involved. They may have talked about a dragonlance at some point, as maybe building up to a sequel, but

Pencil Hmm

Nick Yeah, it was really just a whole lot of disks, and the staff, and spellbooks and things

Pencil Yeah, so part of the conceit, which I’m informed is an important part of Dragonlance lore, is that the gods of good have left the world behind and are now returning which, again, it just feels kind of, I dunno, it has the feeling of it’s meant to be a triumphant moment, but it’s just, yeah, one of the companions is apparently one of the gods in disguise, this is apparently in one of the books too, and I dunno, it just feels like it should be a triumphant moment, but it just comes off as slightly hollow, I feel, which, like I said, it’s not bad, it’s just there’s a reason I’ve been letting Nick Blake read off the synopsis, there’s just very little to say about it

Nick Yeah, the most damning things I could say is just reading off all the names of characters and the things they do

Pencil It is a Dragonlance movie, and if you want to see the Dragonlance characters go on a little adventure it is a movie about that

Nick Yeah

Pencil But, yeah. I can’t say it’s bad. I just can’t say much about it, which is ideal for this bonus episode

Nick It’s not a bonus, this is going out on the main feed

Pencil Well shit, I guess it was fun having a podcast, guys

Nick Yeah. I just wanna reiterate one of the names that really stood out to me: Archmage Fistandantilus. Just, it bears repeating

Pencil Hmm. It did have some good names

Nick Really?

Pencil I like the names

Nick Ok, some of them I will give to them, you know

Pencil They very much felt like names a D&D party would come up with

Nick Yeah. I think that some were alright, but I just cannot swallow Tasslehoff Burrfoot

Pencil Yeah, the villain was somewhat generically evil

Nick Oh yeah, Verminaard

Pencil Mmm. I think he might have been…apparently he’s slightly more fleshed-out in the books, but here he’s just an evil man who wants to do evil things

Nick Yeah. I’m impressed at some of the cast. They’ve got, yeah, they’ve got some mainstay voice acting people like Dee Bradley Baker, Fred Tatasciore, Phil LaMarr, but also Keifer Sutherland and Lucy Lawless

Pencil Yeah. The acting was good

Nick Yeah, they put some real money there, and I respect that, it’s definitely…I’d say they put in a medium amount of effort, and that does show

Pencil Yeah, like I say, it’s definitely something that people didn’t just crank out in an afternoon

Nick Yeah, the problem was they cared but they expected everyone to automatically care as well

Pencil And who knows, maybe they did if they weren’t us. If you’re a big Dragonlance fan, feel free to send us angry emails

Nick Yes. I especially don’t care, because I’m not the one that checks the inbox

Pencil I mean, I’m not the one that checks the inbox. Mod Paper is the one that checks the inbox, so feel free to yell at Mod Paper, they’re not here to disagree with us

Nick Feel mean now

Pencil Please don’t yell at Mod Paper

Nick Yeah, don’t do that

Pencil They’re ill

Nick Ok, I just looked up the guy who directed the thingummy, Dragonlance, the thing we’ve just spent half an hour talking about, he did some storyboard stuff on Batman: The Animated Series

Pencil Hmm. Would have been greatly improved if The Joker was inexplicably CGI

Nick (laughs) That would be amazing. Joker’s trick

Pencil Mmm

Nick I just think having that on your CV is automatically a sign that, oh yeah, you’re a proper animation person, ‘cause that absolutely ruled

Pencil Yeah, it certainly wasn’t badly made

Nick Yeah

Pencil I maybe recommend it if you’re a big Dragonlance fan

Nick Yeah. Although if you’re a big Dragonlance fan you might be annoyed a 500 or whatever page novel is reduced to a 90 minute film

Pencil If you’re a big dragonlance fan you’ve probably stopped listening already, actually, so

Nick Yeah

Pencil Dragonlance fans can get fucked

Nick Yeah. If you’re a Dragonlance hater, then watch the film and delight in how bad they have used the source material, but also, take a look at yourself, if you’re that invested. Now, for our next special milestone episode that we’ve been doing the past, for the past couple years, we’ll be looking at Dungeons and Dragons the animated series, I believe, because the next Dungeons and Dragons film isn’t out until next year, I believe

Pencil Yeah there is a new one coming out

Nick Yeah, which I am excited for, ‘cause that’s got some fun people. I believe it’s got Chris Pine, who is one of my preferred Chrises

Pencil Yeah, I do notice that it doesn’t have Chris Pratt voicing anyone, which is an improvement over a lot of films this days

Nick It is very much an improvement, which, if you’ve seen him in Into the Woods, he does a very fun, camp turn performing Agony, which is just a ridiculous number. I think just that alone, if you want to look it up on youtube or something, that’s a good sign that he might approach that kind of fantasy thing with a nice wry take

Pencil Hmm

Nick ‘Cause we all know that it’s a little bit silly

Pencil Yeah

Nick The hobby, the genre, and everything. It’s very very good, and it’s very very fun, but you can’t be as po-faced as some bits of Dragonlance lore, for example, is. So I’ve got my fingers crossed for that

Pencil I think a D&D movie does have to be somewhat jokey

Nick Yeah. I hope it’s literally just Chris Pine and a couple of other actors, in a room, playing D&D

Pencil Mmm. They’re not allowed to leave until the game is over

Nick Yeah. Bring in Vin Diesel and Judy Dench. I will not elaborate. Anyway, that is all either of us can think of to say about Dragonlance, we hope you enjoyed this episode

Pencil It certainly is a film

Nick This is a quasi-live episode because we’re having to record it on the day it goes up. So

Pencil We can see you

Nick Enjoy. It’s just like our live stuff, except you can’t ask us any questions, or drop bits in the chat, and it’s still pre-recorded, but apart from that it’s just like our live stuff

Pencil Yeah

Nick So subscribe to our patreon, which is probably bad rpg ideas, email us at probablybadpodcast @ gmail.com for any questions or suggestions, watch a better fantasy film than Dragonlance unless you’re getting some kind of clout or remuneration for it

Both: And remember to have a probably bad day

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