# Dragonlance trailer at Youtube at last!



## Dm_from_Brazil (Oct 23, 2007)

Ok, so this is no 4th Ed news...but still is great news. 

The trailer for the Dragonlance upcoming animated movie - presented at GenCon and DragonCon -  is now (finally) for evebody to see at Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHrOfJ8_D0o

It´s made from pre-production scenes, and brings a not-much-pleasant surprise at the end: a "Soon in DVD" label. Looks like we are not going to see DL in the big screen...


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## AnonymousOne (Oct 23, 2007)

Dm_from_Brazil said:
			
		

> Looks like we are not going to see DL in the big screen...



Given the niche market, I don't see why you're surprised.


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## takasi (Oct 23, 2007)

Link wasn't working for me, but I found it through YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHrOfJ8_D0o


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## KingCrab (Oct 23, 2007)

The animation did not look very impressive, but maybe it's just a grainy YouTube video.

I grew up on the dragonlance novels and used to read them once a year when I was a kid.  It would be great if they did an impressive job with this, but I'm not getting my hopes up.


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## Kaodi (Oct 23, 2007)

Have I really been mispronouncing " Takhisis " since I was like, ten?


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## broghammerj (Oct 23, 2007)

AnonymousOne said:
			
		

> Given the niche market, I don't see why you're surprised.




I always thought Dragonlance should have been the "real" DnD movie.  If the timing had been well coordinated with the release of LotR, it may have been able to ride a few coattails.

That being said I am not sure I like the combination of animated art with computer art.  It brings back scary memories of the original LotR cartoon.  You have to go one way or the other.  The combo never seems to mess well.


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## Dave Turner (Oct 23, 2007)

I am underwhelmed by the quality of the animation.  It reminds me of a low-budget Saturday morning cartoon.  From what I could tell, the computer animation was also low-quality.  Both types of animation didn't seem to blend well.


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## Pale (Oct 23, 2007)

I'm coming away from that trailer feeling like I've just seen the animators from He-Man and Transformers: Beast Wars got together to make a Dragonlance cartoon.

It really does look like Saturday morning cartoon offerings.


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## Kunimatyu (Oct 23, 2007)

Terrible.

But, then again, the original wasn't exactly great literature to begin with.


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## Wormwood (Oct 23, 2007)

Dave Turner said:
			
		

> I am underwhelmed by the quality of the animation.  It reminds me of a low-budget Saturday morning cartoon.  From what I could tell, the computer animation was also low-quality.  Both types of animation didn't seem to blend well.




Yeah, that really bugged me as well. I can accept cheap animation, and I don't mind poor CGI. But poor CGI mixed with cheap animation? That's *worse *than the sum of its parts.

Looks like this will be fairly low on my Netflix cue.


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## Wormwood (Oct 23, 2007)

Pale said:
			
		

> I'm coming away from that trailer feeling like I've just seen the animators from He-Man and Transformers: Beast Wars got together to make a Dragonlance cartoon.





We should be so lucky.


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## Grimstaff (Oct 23, 2007)

Pale said:
			
		

> I'm coming away from that trailer feeling like I've just seen the animators from He-Man and Transformers: Beast Wars got together to make a Dragonlance cartoon.
> 
> It really does look like Saturday morning cartoon offerings.



My thought exactly.
It looks like they painted new costumes over some old GI Joe cartoons, and added in some computer animations from 15 years ago. 

Was this a serious production? Cause it looks like a class project.  

Seriously, though, I suspect this must be a "fan-made" trailer and not the real thing.


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## broghammerj (Oct 23, 2007)

Grimstaff said:
			
		

> My thought exactly.
> It looks like they painted new costumes over some old GI Joe cartoons, and added in some computer animations from 15 years ago.




Go Joe!


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## Merlin the Tuna (Oct 23, 2007)

Pale said:
			
		

> I'm coming away from that trailer feeling like I've just seen the animators from He-Man and Transformers: Beast Wars got together to make a Dragonlance cartoon.
> 
> It really does look like Saturday morning cartoon offerings.



Beast Wars (as well as Reboot, by the same studio) was pretty much rock-solid in terms of CG animation for its time.  This?  Not so much.

And I've seen animated and computer art blend well, but only from Asian studios.  Strange.


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## Grimstaff (Oct 23, 2007)

ROtFL!

I watched it again ('cause I'm stupid like that) and noticed the 1500 computer-generated draconians all moving perfectly in unison!     

I just laughed beer out my nose!

No way that is real...


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## Merlin the Tuna (Oct 23, 2007)

Grimstaff said:
			
		

> Seriously, though, I suspect this must be a "fan-made" trailer and not the real thing.



I don't think so.  They do mention that it's a "rough cut," for whatever that's worth.


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## the_myth (Oct 23, 2007)

Maybe they should have hired nobodies to do the voices and put more money in the animation budget.


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## MoogleEmpMog (Oct 23, 2007)

_Astonishingly_ weak.

Considering that they assembled what has to be at least reasonably expensive voice talent, the wealth of Dragonlance artwork in multiple styles to draw upon, and the average quality of animation these days, I simply cannot believe the animation for this project could be this terrible.

As bad as the drawn art is in several scenes - especially in terms of looking almost nothing like previous illustrations of the characters - the blatantly C&P'd draconians in that one scene take the cake.  That kind of same-pose same-model duplication hasn't been acceptable in real-time strategy games since Warcraft 1; it certainly shouldn't be in a movie-length animation produced in 2007, much less one attached to a New York Times bestselling novel.

I had really been looking forward to this, but now...

Ouch.

I can only pray this is a fan-made trailer, not actual footage from the movie.

The voiceover was terrible, too.  Rather than sounding like 'that guy who does the dramatic movie trailers,' it sounded like someone trying way too hard to be that guy.  Painfully.


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## Grimstaff (Oct 23, 2007)

Merlin the Tuna said:
			
		

> I don't think so.  They do mention that it's a "rough cut," for whatever that's worth.



I hope by "rough cut" they mean, "here's the crappy story boards the assistant DP put together on his laptop to help us cut a real trailer from the new, 21st century animation we did for this film".


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## WayneLigon (Oct 23, 2007)

The animation looks OK; the CGI looks fairly bad but since it's a rough cut, that's to be expected; normally rough cuts like that don't do all the rendering passes. CGI and 2D animation can be cut together quite well, or pretty poorly. Remains to be seen which this is.


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## Fifth Element (Oct 23, 2007)

Kaodi said:
			
		

> Have I really been mispronouncing " Takhisis " since I was like, ten?



How have you been pronouncing it?


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## WayneLigon (Oct 23, 2007)

MoogleEmpMog said:
			
		

> I can only pray this is a fan-made trailer, not actual footage from the movie.




It's on their site, so I think we can very safely assume it's not a 'fan made' trailer. However, it's not THE trailer.

From Paramount:

"Dragonlance fans -- We’re sorry that it has taken this long to get a trailer out. We had been waiting in hopes that we could show you the final trailer but unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances (i.e. key talent issues etc) we have not been able to cut the final trailer together and get 100% approval. Ever since we showed this piece at GenCon and DragonCon there has been a huge demand to see the trailer so we figured it’d be best to show you the rough version instead of having everyone wait even longer. We appreciate your patience. Enjoy!"

Interestingly, it's a PG-13 movie.


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## Merlin the Tuna (Oct 23, 2007)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Interestingly, it's a PG-13 movie.



That's not _completely_ surprising -- there's some pretty extensive gore a few spots in the book.  (These, naturally, coincidentally happen right after the healing staff gets its mojo working.  For half the book, they get minor scrapes and cuts.  Then they get a healing staff and suddenly faces start getting melted and arms get ripped off.  _Reeeeal_ subtle there, guys.)


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## Mad Mac (Oct 23, 2007)

> And I've seen animated and computer art blend well, but only from Asian studios. Strange.




  Disney could blend in CGI stuff pretty well, at least before they scuttled their feature film department. 

  Good animation is like anything else. You get what you pay for. I understand this a relatively low-budget film and this is apparently a rough cut, but it still looks really terrible.


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## Cbas_10 (Oct 23, 2007)

Animation quality....eh...so, it's not all that amazing.  As someone said, you get what you pay for...and they knew they were not going to get a huge return from a project like this.  What DOES irritate me, however is that a few details were way off.  As anal as Hasbro-WotC is about licensing their stuff.....

Why didn't someone catch the fact that (not only once, but repeatedly in just the trailer) Tiamat/Takhisis was breathing fire from all five heads?  She is sorta iconic...you know?


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## Dire Bare (Oct 23, 2007)

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> How have you been pronouncing it?




I pronounce it TAK - HEH - SISS . . .

I don't like the way I heard it in that trailer, TAH - KEY - SIS, but it's probably "correct"

Ouch, the animation in that trailer was bad for Saturday morning, much less feature-length film.

My hopes for a great animated Dragonlance film just evaporated completely.

Why is such an amazing property like Dungeons and Dragons so seemingly impossible to license a quality movie from!?!?!?!  They've been trying since the 80s, you'd think at some point somebody competent could pull it together . . . .


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## Irda Ranger (Oct 23, 2007)

I'm pretty sure GI Joe had better production values that that p.o.s.  I'm a die hard DL fan, and have read Dragons of Autumn Twilight close to a dozen times, and I can't see myself even getting this from Netflix ... because if they couldn't spend more than $20 on the animation, you know they didn't pay Lucy Lawless to do a second take of anything.  We'll be lucky if their lips are even close to sync.




			
				Wormwood said:
			
		

> Looks like this will be fairly low on my Netflix cue.



A 'cue' is a hint or something you play pool with.  A 'queue' is a line you wait on.  Just fyi.


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## Darth Shoju (Oct 23, 2007)

I'm hoping that is a very rough cut. The two styles don't go together well at all -- in fact, I think the traditional animation wouldn't have looked so rough without the computer-generated parts and vice versa. There aren't too many movies or TV shows that go for such an obvious blending of the different styles. Skyland is an example that combines the two, but it works very nicely there. 

Not holding my breath for this flick to turn out well, at any rate.


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## Aldarc (Oct 23, 2007)

The computer graphics are horrendous. I think that it would have been better if they had just used the same animation as the rest of the characters.


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## Kunimatyu (Oct 23, 2007)

Raistlin looked more like He-Man than a weak sickly mage. Sigh.


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## The Grackle (Oct 23, 2007)

Maybe Saturday morning cartoons from like twenty years ago; they wouldn't show that on TV nowadays...


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## Pale (Oct 23, 2007)

The Grackle said:
			
		

> Maybe Saturday morning cartoons from like twenty years ago; they wouldn't show that on TV nowadays...




Well, 20 years ago was when I watched Saturday Morning cartoons. heheh.


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## blargney the second (Oct 23, 2007)

I actually enjoyed it.  It reminded me of the original D&D cartoon - so campy that it's fun.
-blarg


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## Baby Samurai (Oct 23, 2007)

broghammerj said:
			
		

> That being said I am not sure I like the combination of animated art with computer art.  It brings back scary memories of the original LotR cartoon.




Ralph Bakshi did not use computer anything when animating the original LotR film.

He often would often (_Wizards_, _Fritz the Cat_ etc) paint over film (cells).


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## Geron Raveneye (Oct 23, 2007)

He-Man and Skeletor were on Krynn? Who knew?  

Man, I'm underwhelmed by what I've seen. And honestly, if something like _Eragon_ can get a feature movie like it did, and can be hyped to be such a success, why can't they make something reasonably good from Dragonlance? The trailer starts "From a NYT bestseller", and it goes on like a weekend-morning Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

I'm not sure I'll buy this on DVD, even on a discount.  :\


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## Klaus (Oct 23, 2007)

Wormwood said:
			
		

> We should be so lucky.



 Agreed.

The animation looked on par with Conan The Adventurer or that Rambo cartoon from decades ago.

The way animation is done, the 2D animation is final. If there's room for anything to improve now, it's the CGI, which is also fairly weak.


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## RPG_Tweaker (Oct 23, 2007)

Ha, ha, ha... OMFG that was horrible. 

Weak CGI grafted into an embarassingly bad 80s-quality cartoon. It looks barely worth even direct-to-video distribution... unless they bundle it with the book.


I'll wager by rough cut, they were refering to the choppy mish-mash of action scenes; that trailer had no cohesion whatsoever.

Because honestly, unless they're going to completely redraw the artwork and rebuild/re-render the CGI, what you saw is pretty much what you're gonna to get.

So be prepared for yet another craptacular D&D film experience.




			
				Dire Bare said:
			
		

> Why is such an amazing property like Dungeons and Dragons so seemingly impossible to license a quality movie from!?!?!?!  They've been trying since the 80s, you'd think at some point somebody competent could pull it together . . . .




Because they don't have a smart producer like Avi Arad working for them.

Remember every single Marvel-related movie or TV series sucked in various degrees until Avi started producing the animated X-Men in '93. Thereafter Marvel has released some pretty reliable entertainment (though Ghost Rider was laughable hack).

Fantasy still lags behind most of the other genres, and D&D has no strong iconic figures compared to literature or comics, so I seriously doubt you'll see anything resembling a Peter Jackson-quality D&D-flavor film any time soon.

I really wish they'd partner-up with the Japanese or even the Koreans. Maybe we'd finally get a high-quality animated movie with some solid western-style pacing and story-telling without their hard-to digest moé iconography.


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## Henrix (Oct 23, 2007)

It seems they go for a retro cartoon style   


That was actually really bad - I wonder if it'll even be better than the first D&D movie.


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## Baby Samurai (Oct 23, 2007)

Henrix said:
			
		

> I wonder if it'll even be better than the first D&D movie.




Considering "Howard the Duck" and "Ishtar" were, I certainly hope so.


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## JDJblatherings (Oct 23, 2007)

painful...I'd rather the studio that does Southpark  did the Dragonlance movie.


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## Baby Samurai (Oct 23, 2007)

JDJblatherings said:
			
		

> painful...I'd rather the studio that does Southpark  did the Dragonlance movie.




Going down to Ansalon, gonna have me a good ol' time!


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## Anthtriel (Oct 23, 2007)

Hopefully, they didn't try to make a decent movie. Why?

Well, the one and only way to make a D&D movie enjoyable is to make sure it is so horrificaly bad, it is actually good again. Try to hard, and you merely land at terribly bad.


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## sidonunspa (Oct 23, 2007)

You would think that after LOTR they would have made dragonlance a live action movie...

Instead;  we get animation which reminds me of the old school D&D cartoon coupled with cheap computer animation.

I’ll be skipping this DVD and reading the books again, thank you.


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## Grimstaff (Oct 23, 2007)

What kind of budget could they have had? 50 bucks?

Look at Princess Mononoke, that was done 10 years ago on a modest budget. Its a beautifully rendered film, and timeless. 

This is simply...disrespectful? Lazy?


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## Baby Samurai (Oct 23, 2007)

sidonunspa said:
			
		

> I’ll be skipping this DVD and reading the books again, thank you.




When was the last time you read them?


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## Fraisala (Oct 23, 2007)

deleted


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## Wormwood (Oct 23, 2007)

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> A 'cue' is a hint or something you play pool with.  A 'queue' is a line you wait on.  Just fyi.




 How embarrassing! I don't know who I could have made such a simple mistake. 

My hypothesis is that exposure to the trailer resulted in short-term brain damage.


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## JVisgaitis (Oct 23, 2007)

Animation is okay, but blended with that CGI it looks awful. I'll probably buy it anyway, but I am bummed. Hopefully the Conan Red Nails movie will be better. Just from looking at the website it looks head and shoulders above Dragonlance and there is no cheesy CGI that I can see...


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## Sundragon2012 (Oct 23, 2007)

I've been a DL fan fro decades though honestly IMO the only DL worth reading were the Weis and Hickman books. I long ago realized that DL is never getting the treatment it deserved in a movie and this confirmed it. The thing is, DL isn't just a good D&D story, its a good fantasy story. If I remember correctly, Weis and Hickman wanted to write DL in a real literary style but the idea was shot down by TSR who felt that it wouldn't attract the kiddies if it read like a novel actually written for literate adults.


[rant] I won't buy this movie because I won't support such crap. DL began with Dragons of Autumn Twilight and the Twins series of novels. Hated Summer Flame (_I think that Weis and Hickman were trying to save the setting by destroying it in that book_). I like War of Souls, but the setting was dead for me by that point. With the death of *Tahk-Hiss-iss * (that is how I pronounce it) and Paladine losing his divinity DL has lost much of of its essense. So much damage had been done via the SAGA system era that all Weis and Hickman could do was try to patch things back up by using a war to wipe out all vestiges of that period. Unfortuntely, that period damaged so much of Krynn that they basically transformed it into another setting in order to fix it.


[/end rant].


Sundragon


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## Dragonblade (Oct 23, 2007)

The Dragonlance series is juvenile and has always been so. Chronicles is mediocre, Legends is a little better. The rest of the series? Meh...with one exception...

Back in the 80's, Raistlin was the original Drizzt. All the fanboys wanted to play dark brooding mages at the game table.

One of my friends is a hardcore fan and he loves the setting, but the only Dragonlance novel I ever truly enjoyed reading was The Legend of Huma. However, I read it years ago so nostalgia may be tainting my perceptions. Its really the only book I recommend to people interested in the setting.

I also think that it would make the best movie out of all the other novels.


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## Matrix Sorcica (Oct 23, 2007)

Aw!

This looks like a stitched together remake of the D&D cartoon, using discarded effects from _Plan 9 from Outer Space_


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## lukelightning (Oct 23, 2007)

KingCrab said:
			
		

> The animation did not look very impressive, but maybe it's just a grainy YouTube video.




Don't you know? It's part of the 4e "back to basics" philosophy. They are trying to emulate the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.  



			
				Dragonblade said:
			
		

> The Dragonlance series is juvenile and has always been so.



I've long suspected the authors of secretly plotting to destroy D&D by introducing the Kender. Nothing will tear a gaming group apart like one of those little %#@!%s.


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## Bullgrit (Oct 23, 2007)

Why am I getting this message at YouTube?







> Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player.



I have the latest Flash player (I confirmed it), and JavaScript is turned on (I confirmed it). I've watched YouTube videos many times, even as lately as a couple days ago. But now I can't see any YouTube videos.

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit


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## Daniel D. Fox (Oct 23, 2007)

This movie looks like total . What the heck? Surely, animation studios can produce better-quality animation - I mean, Saturday morning cartoons look better than this crap.


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## Enkhidu (Oct 23, 2007)

JDJblatherings said:
			
		

> painful...I'd rather the studio that does Southpark  did the Dragonlance movie.




"You killed, Sturm!"

"You bastards!"


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## Wormwood (Oct 23, 2007)

Moniker said:
			
		

> This movie looks like total . What the heck? Surely, animation studios can produce better-quality animation - I mean, Saturday morning cartoons look better than this crap.




I guess the folks who do Justice League, Airbender or even freakin' Venture Brothers were too expensive.

This really is sad.

edit: Wow! It feels kinda good to hate something again!


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## olshanski (Oct 23, 2007)

Woe


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## Black_Swan (Oct 23, 2007)

Cry...

If this is not a joke then I'll wait two weeks, after the release, for it to fall into the bargain bin and buy it for 1.99.  Might as well have just animated the entire thing and run it as a saturday morning cartoon.

It's absolutely laughable.  Who thought this was a good idea?  

At first I was mad..now I can't stop laughing.  

Seriously..why?  Why even release that?


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## Odhanan (Oct 23, 2007)

Ok... this was bad.


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## hexgrid (Oct 23, 2007)

I don't know, I kind of like the 80's-afternoon-cartoon look it has. It seems to fit the story, somehow.


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## Loincloth of Armour (Oct 23, 2007)

As an anime fan who knows exactly how *good* well-done animation _can_ look, this is a total embarrassment.

For the love of all that is unholy, if you're going to do animation, get the Japanese, or the Koreans... people who actually _care_ it if looks good.

Do not hire a hack-job studio so you can spend more on 'name' actor for voices.  I can forgive bad-voice acting far more readily than I can ignore crap-tastic animation.

To whomever green-lighted this thing: I'm coming to get my childhood memories back.  And I'm bringing a heavy mace with me.


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## Mad Mac (Oct 23, 2007)

> As an anime fan who knows exactly how good well-done animation can look, this is a total embarrassment.
> 
> For the love of all that is unholy, if you're going to do animation, get the Japanese, or the Koreans... people who actually care it if looks good.
> 
> Do not hire a hack-job studio so you can spend more on 'name' actor for voices. I can forgive bad-voice acting far more readily than I can ignore crap-tastic animation.




  You can get good american animation, it's just really pricey. Still, there's a reason so much animation is done in Korea now. Offers the best balance between quality and cost, apparently. I remember when the movie was first announced, they said they were going with an Indian animation company I'd never heard of...and the quality of their sample work was quite bad. 

  Still, I agree. You can hire the Saturday morning cartoon voice actors and do just fine, but you can't skimp on the animation for an animated movie and expect to get anywhere with it. There's been higher quality animation in kids cartoons for at least a decade now, which makes this trailer all the more embaressing.


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## DandD (Oct 23, 2007)

JVisgaitis said:
			
		

> Animation is okay, but blended with that CGI it looks awful. I'll probably buy it anyway, but I am bummed. Hopefully the Conan Red Nails movie will be better. Just from looking at the website it looks head and shoulders above Dragonlance and there is no cheesy CGI that I can see...



Whoa, that conan animated-movie looks simply marvelous. Thanks for the link.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Oct 23, 2007)

um...wow...that was really disappointing.  I was kind of looking forward to this once upon a time.  Now, not so much.


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## GoodKingJayIII (Oct 23, 2007)

Wow, that was terrible.


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## Yalius (Oct 23, 2007)

Bullgrit said:
			
		

> Why am I getting this message at YouTube?I have the latest Flash player (I confirmed it), and JavaScript is turned on (I confirmed it). I've watched YouTube videos many times, even as lately as a couple days ago. But now I can't see any YouTube videos.
> 
> Bullgrit
> Total Bullgrit




By chance using Firefox with Noscript?


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## YourSwordIsMine (Oct 23, 2007)

wow... 

That was really bad...

It looks like they have taken what animation they had already done 15-20 years ago and then filled in the holes with badly done CGI, squashed it together and called it complete... 

I'm curious though when it does come out just how many copies will actually sell and how much of a loss Paramount is going to take on it...


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## Dragonblade (Oct 23, 2007)

The best "American" (animation studio is Korean) animated series on TV right now is Avatar The Last Airbender. Nickelodeon spends about $1 million per 20 minute episode according to a recent interview. But that could even be discounted by volume because Nick orders episodes in batches.

Animated movies should be a cut above TV animation. To make a 90 minute movie they should be prepared to spend at least $10 million but probably closer to $15 or $20 million to make a "good" film. And that is still probably much less than what Disney spends on an animated film.

Either this film was woefully underbudgeted, or their animation studio seriously sucks. Or they spent too much of their budget on voice talent instead of on animation (which is more important).


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## WhatGravitas (Oct 23, 2007)

Grimstaff said:
			
		

> What kind of budget could they have had? 50 bucks?
> 
> Look at Princess Mononoke, that was done 10 years ago on a modest budget. Its a beautifully rendered film, and timeless.
> 
> This is simply...disrespectful? Lazy?



Perhaps they should get a Japanese animation studio... for single films, they have a higher consistency in quality, not that shoddy CGI-80s-mix.

Meh. While I'm not a hardcore Dragonlance fan, I hoped for some D&Dish entertainment. Now it looks, as even the _Earthsea_-miniseries was good. Double-meh.

Cheers, LT.


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## Mad Mac (Oct 23, 2007)

Probably both, but I'm leaning towards the suck option. This is the primary animation studio for the movie.

http://www.toonzanimationindia.com/toonz.htm

  Just for laughs, look at the "Dream Witch" clip. If that's typical, I'm officially scared of Aussies now.


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## Piratecat (Oct 23, 2007)

A great Lucy Lawless quote, from her site:

"I just did the voice of an animated cartoon for Paramount, called Dragonlance. Obviously it's a fantasy story, with gods and monsters -- (no lesbian subtext). I never felt I nailed animated performance before, so wanted to get a handle on it.

I played a character called "Goldmoon," a Native American. We played around with accents awhile. I didn't know she was Native A till I got there and so didn't have time to research the accent (not many of those where I come from). More staccato! More commanding! More warm! Less disjointed! . . . Ummm, do you just want me to do Xena? Ahh, yes! That's it, do Xena! The voice is perfect! So warm, so commanding, so . . . yeah, yeah, let's get on with it.

It was actually really fun. At last I have done something my friends can actually watch. My son is gratified that I am not playing a bad guy. He can't stand me going to BSG every day to be mean to humans."


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## Loincloth of Armour (Oct 23, 2007)

Dragonblade said:
			
		

> The best "American" (animation studio is Korean) animated series on TV right now is Avatar The Last Airbender. Nickelodeon spends about $1 million per 20 minute episode according to a recent interview.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Either this film was woefully underbudgeted, or their animation studio seriously sucks. Or they spent too much of their budget on voice talent instead of on animation (which is more important).





QF extreme T

One thing people who green-light projects don't seem to realize (no matter how many times it comes back to bite them), is that fantasy and science fantasy-type science fiction _must not look cheap_.  

They're already hoaky in many ways, but fantasy and pulp sf are primarily visual things.  It's trying to tap into our imagination.  We *want* to see sword fights, we *want* to see magic duels between wizards just as much as we *want* to see starships throwing laser barrages at each other.  

If you are not willing to spend the money necessary to make fantasy look good, then don't try.  All you will do is embarrass yourself and make the fans more jaded and angry.

Peter Jackson understood this.  The people who create Avatar: the Last Airbender understand this.  Good storytelling will keep people coming back, but when you're creating a fantasy world for us to visit, it must look good.

I know some people don't like anime-style.  No one is saying the movie should have been big eyes, small mouth... but at least Korean and Japanese studios have the experience with motion of characters, colour plattes, integration of backgrounds and other technical expertise to make animated movies look good.  The best CGI/animated mix I've seen has been from a Korean movie.  

In the end, it appears the holders of the Dragonlance license were faced with 3 choices: 1) produce a movie for a limited budget and use that budget to get 'name' voice actors, 2) risk a larger investment and get better visuals, 3) or not produce a movie at all.

As a genre, fantasy has had far too many people choose the first option.


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## mearlus (Oct 23, 2007)

Man...  This depresses me.  I had high hopes (foolishly) for this.  I know it's a rough cut but still...  If the real deal is much better than this, they shouldn't have released this trailer.  They should have just made everyone wait longer.

*sigh*


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## Umbran (Oct 23, 2007)

That was thoroughly disappointing.


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## Zaruthustran (Oct 23, 2007)

Piratecat, that Lucy quote is just... awesome. 

That trailer? Less awesome. The blend of CGI and cheap, blocky, wooden early-80's animation just doesn't work.

They shouldn't have bothered with "name" voice actors.


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## Steel_Wind (Oct 23, 2007)

Well - I had seen much of this before at Gencon - so it was not a surprise.

The stills posted on the DragonLance movie site promised this level of quality for the past 9 months. People kept saying "those are just production stills".

Yeah well - I know a *lot* about CGI and a reasonable amount about 2D anim.  Those stills were looking bad from the get go.

Look - you get what you pay for, more often than not.  This was farmed out to an Indain animation company on the cheap and we got an on-the-cheap animated movie. 

It may be that it's actually decent when viewed as a whole. And....then again,  it probably won't be. I'm a huge DL fan of course, so I'll buy it just the same, either way.

The thing which bothers me the most though is that DragonLance is WotC's #1 potential film property. You would think that if they are going to bother to get something RIGHT, they would have got THIS something right. Better - FAR better to not do it at all then get it wrong.

And who knows - it might still turn out ok - but I have been underwhelmed to date and continue to be.  The music, however, appears to be remarkably good for a feature of this quality and budget - so there is some hope for it.


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## Pyrex (Oct 23, 2007)

Dave Turner said:
			
		

> From what I could tell, the computer animation was also low-quality.  Both types of animation didn't seem to blend well.




I actually liked the style of the hand-drawn bits, but the rendered bits were just awful.


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## Klaus (Oct 23, 2007)

Question:

Why isn't Kiefer Sutherland (the biggest name in the cast) mentioned, whereas Lucy Lawless and Michael Rosembaun are? Did he bail out?


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## The_Warlock (Oct 23, 2007)

I...

But...

What the...

BLEAH!

That was terrrrrrrrrible. Not with the standard 10' pole would I touch that.


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## clone0139 (Oct 23, 2007)

*NOT Dragonlance*

Uggh!   That's NOT the Dragonlance that you're looking for!

As an actor, would you even what to associate your name with that?!

I gonna need to drink heavily now to get that ugly sight out of my mind lol.


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## Relique du Madde (Oct 23, 2007)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> A great Lucy Lawless quote, from her site:
> 
> I played a character called "Goldmoon," a Native American. We played around with accents awhile. I didn't know she was Native A till I got there and so didn't have time to research the accent (not many of those where I come from). More staccato! More commanding! More warm! Less disjointed! . . . Ummm, do you just want me to do Xena? Ahh, yes! That's it, do Xena! The voice is perfect! So warm, so commanding, so . . . yeah, yeah, let's get on with it.




HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!


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## WhatGravitas (Oct 23, 2007)

Mad Mac said:
			
		

> Probably both, but I'm leaning towards the suck option. This is the primary animation studio for the movie.
> 
> http://www.toonzanimationindia.com/toonz.htm
> 
> Just for laughs, look at the "Dream Witch" clip. If that's typical, I'm officially scared of Aussies now.



*blinks* Well, the website, however, looked quite nice (despite being oooooverloaded with fidgety stuff), at least compared to their vids. And "Dream Witch"? W.T.F.?

Cheers, LT.


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## BlackMoria (Oct 23, 2007)

Disgraceful.

The executive producer should be offered a sword and his choice of 'second' and do the honorable thing.


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## Oldtimer (Oct 23, 2007)

Mad Mac said:
			
		

> This is the primary animation studio for the movie.
> 
> http://www.toonzanimationindia.com/toonz.htm



India, that figures.   

Yes, I work in the IT sector developing business applications. I've seen outsourcing to India first hand. It's dirt cheap and they deliver on time. That's about it. Check in your expectations at the door...


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## megamania (Oct 23, 2007)

The death of Dragon and Dungeon

and now this......


DnD will never be the same again.........


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## Bullgrit (Oct 23, 2007)

Yalius said:
			
		

> By chance using Firefox with Noscript?



Firefox, yes. Noscript? What's that, and how would I adjust it? And would it just turn on for no reason?

Like I said, I've looked at YouTube videos many times, even recently. I didn't do anything to change my Firefox.

Just checked: also can't see it in Netscape (wife's browser).

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit


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## BlackMoria (Oct 23, 2007)

> India, that figures.
> 
> Yes, I work in the IT sector developing business applications. I've seen outsourcing to India first hand. It's dirt cheap and they deliver on time. That's about it. Check in your expectations at the door...




Yes.  Look at the credit lines.  It is all for kiddies. These people would have done the original D&D cartoon years ago if they were a company back then.

Don't expect Final Fantasy quality or top Japanese studio stuff.

Just another in a long line of disappointments. When did the demographics for D&D ever indicate that it was 8 to 12 yr olds that dominated the hobby or read the Dragonlance books, because that seems the age bracket the animation is targeted at.


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## TwinBahamut (Oct 23, 2007)

I really don't like the animation. 99% of the time, mixing hand-drawn 2D animation and CG 3D animation doesn't work, and this case is just one more failure of that.

The only thing I can say about the trailer is that they pronounce Takhisis the same way I do, which is probably the first time ever my own pronounciation of a D&Dism matches the official one.


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## Mad Mac (Oct 23, 2007)

> Yes. Look at the credit lines. It is all for kiddies. These people would have done the original D&D cartoon years ago if they were a company back then.




  It's worse than that. It's short runs of really obviously low budget, weak looking kid shows. If that is the best stuff they have to show on their website...

  They should have taken it to a Korean studio. Avatar, Teen Titans, Justice League, and Kim Possible were all animated in Korea as I recall. If they couldn't match the budget of a modern cartoon show, they shouldn't have bothered making the movie.



> Just another in a long line of disappointments. When did the demographics for D&D ever indicate that it was 8 to 12 yr olds that dominated the hobby or read the Dragonlance books, because that seems the age bracket the animation is targeted at.




 Meh. Kids shows get better animation than this. Animaniacs came out in 1994 and looks better. (Granted, that show had a better budget than most. but that was 13 years ago.)


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## Zaukrie (Oct 23, 2007)

Wow, no wonder the D&D brand is not as broad as it could be. First,the embarrassing D&D movie, then this? That was brutal. So bad that even their hard core fans might not buy it. Lame, lame, lame. You get what you pay for, I guess. Seriously, I couldn't believe how bad that was. I'm not sure I could be more dissappointed right now. My 11 year old was sooooo looking forward to this....


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## Truth Seeker (Oct 23, 2007)

One of the producer/director had stated, it was not in the budget to advertise the ainme film, for the BS (Big Screen) market. At the  Gen Con presentation.




			
				Dm_from_Brazil said:
			
		

> Ok, so this is no 4th Ed news...but still is great news.
> 
> The trailer for the Dragonlance upcoming animated movie - presented at GenCon and DragonCon -  is now (finally) for evebody to see at Youtube:
> 
> ...


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## Truth Seeker (Oct 24, 2007)

Keith finished all his segments. for his scenes. As far as I know.




			
				Klaus said:
			
		

> Question:Why isn't Kiefer Sutherland (the biggest name in the cast) mentioned, whereas Lucy Lawless and Michael Rosembaun are? Did he bail out?


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## Truth Seeker (Oct 24, 2007)

I  wonder, if that is the rough draft trailer shown at GC '07. If it is...maybe next month, we might see the 'official' trailer.


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## Steel_Wind (Oct 24, 2007)

The trailer was released as "rough cut", meaning not everyone approved it.

Keifer was not able to approve it I gather - given that he was closeted up with some lawyers of another flavor lately.  

That's why his name is not on it.

As for the rest of this _apologia _for "rough cut" animation...guys...this product is DONE. It's in the can - off to the duplicator and will hit shelves within 3-4 weeks.

That's Thanksgiving and you don't miss Christmas ship with a direct to video release like this. Ever.

What we see here is what we're going to get. Editing and story continuity aside - what you see in the trailer is the movie that we will be able to buy.  Pretending there are some "spidery words of magic" which is going to transform this so that it will end up looking like _Final Fantasy: Spirit Within_ or _Princess Monoke_ - or hell - even _Ninja Scroll_ at the last moment is just plain _nutty_. 

It may look better in higher res and it may flow well as a finished movie. I'm not hopeful - but it's possible. I'll buy it, to be sure.

But pretending that the finished product is going to look significantly different than this "rough cut" is naivete in the extreme.

(And yes Carl, this is essentially the same trailer as was shown at MWP's booth on a Mac at Gencon).


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## WayneLigon (Oct 24, 2007)

Zaukrie said:
			
		

> Seriously, I couldn't believe how bad that was. I'm not sure I could be more dissappointed right now. My 11 year old was sooooo looking forward to this....




I have to admit, I'm surprised WoTC would let it _be _ released. Even if the CGI is smoother in the final product, it still looks, well, cheap.


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## replicant2 (Oct 24, 2007)

Zaukrie said:
			
		

> Wow, no wonder the D&D brand is not as broad as it could be. First,the embarrassing D&D movie, then this? That was brutal. So bad that even their hard core fans might not buy it. Lame, lame, lame. You get what you pay for, I guess. Seriously, I couldn't believe how bad that was. I'm not sure I could be more dissappointed right now. My 11 year old was sooooo looking forward to this....




Agreed. From all appearances, this "movie" will do more harm than good to the hobby. The D&D movie was a laughingstock and I was hoping for something a little better from Dragonlance. Looks like we aren't getting it.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Oct 24, 2007)

Dave Turner said:
			
		

> I am underwhelmed by the quality of the animation.  It reminds me of a low-budget Saturday morning cartoon.  From what I could tell, the computer animation was also low-quality.  Both types of animation didn't seem to blend well.




Yep.

But like the original Saul Zentz animated Hobbit, perhaps it will inspire Peter Jackson to make a suitable live-action version ...


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## Grimstaff (Oct 24, 2007)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> A great Lucy Lawless quote, from her site:
> I played a character called "Goldmoon," a Native American.



WTF!?

Looks like the animators weren't the only folks hired on the cheap. They must have pulled some guy off the street corner to do the voice direction. A Native American? 

Did they tell Keifer Raistlin was Korean?


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## Relique du Madde (Oct 24, 2007)

Grimstaff said:
			
		

> Did they tell Keifer Raistlin was Korean?




That would be a better suggestion then explaining it was Downs Syndrome (as an old friend of mine once said after a Gm mangled Raistlin's description).


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## Krug (Oct 24, 2007)

...

meh.

...


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## Baby Samurai (Oct 24, 2007)

I'm wondering if people wanted a more Asian/anime style, or maybe something along the lines of the animated _Clone Wars_ series?


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## Relique du Madde (Oct 24, 2007)

I'm willing to bet most people would say a Dragon Lance Anime would be sacrilege.  If they had the budget, I'd say they should have gone photo-realistic cgi.


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## Klaus (Oct 24, 2007)

Relique du Madde said:
			
		

> I'm willing to bet most people would say a Dragon Lance Anime would be sacrilege.  If they had the budget, I'd say they should have gone photo-realistic cgi.


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## Najo (Oct 24, 2007)

*Dragonlance Movie*

I have been really surprised that something from D&D's IPs cannot get the proper funding and talent to be done right. All this sort of work does is make gaming and D&D look bad. Dragonlance deserves something better. Those stories could be D&D's lord of the rings if done right. Someone get Weta and Peter Jackson to take over and start from scratch.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHrOfJ8_D0o


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## Arashi Ravenblade (Oct 24, 2007)

Very few movies have done CGI so it doesnt look like garbage. 
Dragonlance is not one of those movies. Im sure the movie will be good, but seriously mixing CG and 2d animation looks like crap.

A real life movie would have been expensive and I doubt Peter Jackson wants to get stuck being the fantasy movie guru for the rest of his life. So your gonna have to get someone else.


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## Wombat (Oct 24, 2007)

From what I hear, Peter Jackson has optioned Naomi Novik's _Temeraire_ novels (and both of them are very excited over the prospects), so he might be willing to deal with more fantasy after all -- just a matter of what catches his interest at that point.


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## Kesh (Oct 24, 2007)

It does say that this is *not* a finalized trailer, so I'm hoping the CGI is a placeholder. That said, the traditional animation is very low-budget.


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## BlackMoria (Oct 24, 2007)

Sheesh....I don't know if that is supposed to be the 5 heads of Tiamat / Tarkasis in tha shot or 5 colored dragons but where is the blue dragon part?  And what's with the green dragon?  It looks like some sort of .... bug, with those appendages sticking out of its head.


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## BlackMoria (Oct 24, 2007)

It is saturday morning cartoon faire.  And no, it isn't going to look prettier than that.

Low budget = low production values

Disappointing...


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## Festivus (Oct 24, 2007)

Disappointing?  I'll hold judgement until I actually SEE the film.  So it's animated, big deal... it's also rated PG13, so it's not going to be any Saturday morning cartoon I would let my kids watch.  I don't think it's target audience is kids, it's people who grew up reading the Dragonlance novels that will enjoy this film.


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## Morrus (Oct 24, 2007)

Heh - it's a hell of a lot better than this one: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFZnfzVjsY&NR=1


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## Clueless (Oct 24, 2007)

In it's favor - the folks working on it have cartoon credits such as the Real Ghostbusters... so for being cartoon, it's the right people to work on a cartoon in terms of writing and development...

edit after seeing trailer: Oh for. *sigh* I'm not sure who made the artistic decision to try to mix 3d and 2d - but they need to be shot. At least with the 3d go with cel-shading or *something*. The difference in surface texture between the two mediums is jarring.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Oct 24, 2007)

I know part of the reason I'm disappointed is that on the official movie website, they posted a few images in the gallery back in June.  The images posted were pretty decent 3D computer generated shots of the dragons and draconians.  The background images also seemed to be decent CG shots.  They only had concept artwork of the main characters, so I had an expectation that it would be a similar style for them as well.  

I looked at the website again today, they have not updated any of the images in the gallery, so nobody had anything more to go by (although now looking closer at Paladine in one image, I can see he was drawn in the 2D animation style).  

Also, it appears that YouTube is the official distribution method for the "rough cut" trailer, since that is what they have on the official website.  Would have been nice if they had a better quality download available there, but maybe we are better off not having it and hoping it will look better in higher res...


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## ShadowDenizen (Oct 24, 2007)

Granted, this is only the first trailer (and hopefully a placeholder), and a very short one at that.

That said, count me in as someone who found the mix of 2D and CGI animations to be very jarring.

Personally, I wish they would have gone with traditional 2D animation styles (Note to TPTB; NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE CGI TO CAPTIVATE PEOPLE!!), as well as the more "Iconic" Elmore interpretations of the character.  The close-up of Raistlin and the hourglass pupils? Was not impressive to me at all.

That said, I'll still see it, as I've been a DL fan since the line debuted in the early-80's.


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## Wormwood (Oct 24, 2007)

Baby Samurai said:
			
		

> I'm wondering if people wanted a more Asian/anime style, or maybe something along the lines of the animated _Clone Wars_ series?




I would sacrifice a sentient being to have had Genndy Tartakovsky in charge of this project.

A man talented enough to make Lucas's Prequel Trilogy interesting? Just imagine what he could do with Krynn!


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## krissbeth (Oct 24, 2007)

No amount of rendering can make that not look like an 80s television reject.

/actual professional opinion.


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## Eridanis (Oct 24, 2007)

Merged a thread from General into this one.


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## crazy_cat (Oct 24, 2007)

Looks absolutely terrible. 

I'm thinking the 1st D&D movie could be facing a new challenge for the dubious honour of most awful and poorly made  D&D related movie ever.


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## Relique du Madde (Oct 24, 2007)

Klaus said:
			
		

>




I'm aware of Lodoss Wars.. but my point is that all those "Don't get anime in my DND" gonards out there would cry foul if Dragon Lance was anime. I however, don't mind as long as the quality of the animation and  script is good.


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## Vocenoctum (Oct 25, 2007)

Najo said:
			
		

> I have been really surprised that something from D&D's IPs cannot get the proper funding and talent to be done right. All this sort of work does is make gaming and D&D look bad. Dragonlance deserves something better. Those stories could be D&D's lord of the rings if done right. Someone get Weta and Peter Jackson to take over and start from scratch.





It's odd to me I suppose, that the things which I think would make good movies, can't get the budget to be made right. Halo is another example.


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## Wereserpent (Oct 25, 2007)

I am a big Dragonlance fan and I am dissapointed at the use of the CGI, it looks awful.  I do not mind the 2D animation so much, even if it does look dated.  I just wish that they could have ditche the CGI and went full traditional animation.


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## Dragonblade (Oct 25, 2007)

Klaus said:
			
		

>




This is a still from Record of Lodoss War. A Japanese anime series that must be around 20 years old now and is still light years ahead of the crappy Dragonlance movie coming out.

Seriously, they should burn the film and never show this to anyone.


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## Kaodi (Oct 25, 2007)

Hmmm... Tawk-iss-iss?


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## Decado (Oct 25, 2007)

Animation was not as good as I had hoped but I will still watch it. I have been a big DL fan since I was a kid. I have not watched alot of anime but Record of Lodoss War is one of my favorites. I need to get it on dvd, now that I no longer have a vhs player.


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## Hypersmurf (Oct 25, 2007)

Morrus said:
			
		

> Heh - it's a hell of a lot better than this one:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFZnfzVjsY&NR=1




[giggle]  I went looking for that, but the original Trailer Project URL has gone... it never occurs to me to check YouTube for these things.

So many things about those clips make me laugh...

- the brunette Laurana.  (Guess it's hard to find blondes in Turkey!)
- Flint with a mop on his face
- ugliest Riverwind EVAR
- and that last scene with them all ambling across the field.  I can just picture the director yelling "No, slower!  Walk slower!  _SLOWER_!"

-Hyp.


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## Bullgrit (Oct 26, 2007)

Now, suddenly, I can see videos on YouTube. I've changed nothing since I tried before. Just, magic.

And this trailer is worse than I expected, even after reading all the comments here.

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit


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