Review of Dungeons & Dragons (movie)

Gaze and marvel, fair reader, for, much as Halley's Comet only comes around once every 76-or-so years, we have been once more been favored with the regular presence of a generic fantasy movie.

Fantasy movies exist in the "flavored" variety, such as Conan the Barbarian, and the "vanilla" sorts, such as this one. Fantasy movies themselves are not known for being fine examples of cinema, but at least the flavored sorts bring more to the table than just magic and swordplay. Dungeons and Dragons was the original fantasy roleplaying game, and thus was intended to fill a rather large niche. It is possible to make almost any kind of fantasy world out of the D&D rules. It would perhaps have been better to call this the "Forgotten Realms" movie, or the "Planescape" movie, since at least the screenwriters would have had a better marketing blueprint to follow. Instead, here we get Generic Fantasyland, peopled with generic thieves with a generic thieves guild, generic dwarves and elves (who generically hate each other), generic dragons who don't even speak their mind in this one, generic spells and magic items ripped straight out of the Dungeonmaster's Guide, and a couple of generic evil types, Jeremy Irons the Level Seven Wizard and oddly blue-lipped Henchman Damadar the Level Five Fighter.

This review is going to pick up speed from here on, so fasten your seatbelts and prepare for lots of ***SPOILERS***.

The story opens with a pretentious voiceover, voicing over a CG pan of a castle that is reprised at least twice later in the movie. Eventually it comes to rest on Jeremy Irons and Damadar. Irons uses a special Dragon Remote Control he's cooked up in his ThingMaker to call a dragon, but its batteries run out so he has to kill it. First Underling Damadar appears to be blessed with Ominous Incidental Music, a feat which I have been so far unable to find in the Player's Handbook, but I'll keep looking. One second, I also need to look something up in the IMDb... ah, it seems Irons' character is named Profion. Remember that guys, Profion. Back to the story, so Irons hams it up telling Damadar to get a scroll with which he can find some orb thing, then Damadar hams it up a bit in return, then he and his gay brigade police force go out and look for it. The Orb is like the Energizer battery of magic power sources, so Irons can use it to control dragons and take over the kingdom. To the specifics of his plan I wasn't paying much attention, something about Amidala and the Senate of the Republic. So Irons must overthrow the Empress, whose special trick is being able to quote the Bill of Rights to impossibly swelly music.

Shift focus to the main population center of Generic Fantasyland, which I hereby name "Town." A couple of thieves in Town, the Foreshadowed One and the Wayans Brother, break into Hogwarts, where, during the search for Chinese linking rings and decks of trick cards, Wayans promptly presses the one "Do Not Press" button in the whole room, which makes a loud noise and summons a young female mage. The look on the face of Foreshadowed Boy the instant he sees her is hilarious. The mage tries to sound all Leia when she meets the Chosen One, but the best she can do is a rather hapless game reference. Around this time Damadar shows up to seize the scroll, forcing the main characters to become comrades in a scene that just screams DM fiat. Something happens here in which a dwarf gets involved, and soon all four, the Dwarf, the Mage, Thief One and Thief Two, are off to the inn for the traditional D&D pre-quest booze-up.

At the inn, Wayans hits on an elf, who rejects him with the ol' "two hundred years older" line. Ha ha. After this we are given a brief, unwanted glimpse into dwarf sexual mechanics. Then Forshadowed Boy reads the scroll, somehow becomes the first person to ever read it right, and gets warped inside the scroll. Level One Mage then reads the map and also gets zapped inside, leaving Wayans and Grumpy to deal with suddenly-appearing Damadar, dragging his soldiers and evil incidental music behind him. Darth Nader fails again, however, and soon our friends are in the woods having alignment conflicts while, unseen in the tree three feet overhead, the elf from the inn soaks up every word. Meanwhile, Irons is busy installing ear tentacles into Damadar. Our hapless heroes offend a Star Trek alien then find the Thieves' Guild. It is there where Foreshadowed Boy must play medieval Double Dare in a moderately challenging Zelda dungeon, complete with spikes, eye symbols and flame throwers, to get the Red Sparkly. After making a lot of successful Dex checks he succeeds in getting the orb-thing, which would have then been yoinked from him if it weren't for That Darn Damadar, who shows up for just long enough to fail again, though he captures Level One Mage in the process.

The party then runs off into the woods, where the elf corners them then joins them, immediately settling into her role as Annoying Party Member. She wears molded metal armor which, amazingly enough, is the closest the movie ever comes to traditional fantasy T&A; even the harem girls in the Thieves' Guild were quite modestly dressed. In the evil fortress, Dammy does the mind-meld with Wizgirl and gets the info he needs. Foreshadow and Wayans run right into Damadarland to rescue L1 Mage and get the scroll back. The elf doesn't help in this, and she stops the dwarf from helping too, by cryptically saying that this is "their test," again proving that elves are basically jerks with pointy ears. Because of Tree Girl's impromptu essay question Wayans, the only remotely interesting character in the whole movie, kicks the celestial d20 at the hands of Damn-It-All-To-Hell-adar. I never thought I would say that I was sorry that a Wayans brother exited the movie early, but I'm saying it now. The Chosen Guy reacts to this turn of events with, and this is a direct quote, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" His exclamation appears to jog Mage Girl's memory a bit, because she suddenly remembers how to cast magic right after Wayans gets ventilated, uses a CG lightning bolt to knock a few HP off of Mr. Clean, then she and Chosen Guy escape.

Back in Town, Amidala, complete with new lopsided Mickey Mouse hairstyle, defies the ruling council by not giving over her scepter despite the fact that the Irons-led council asked her very nicely and had her over for tea. Basically, she says that, despite what the law says, if she were to hand over the scepter to Irons, she would have to be crazy. Meanwhile, The Firehouse Five Minus One visits Ewok Village to meet the ancient ruler of the elves, known to mortals as Dr. Who. Tom Baker says some incomprehensible, preachy thing which makes Chosen Guy thoughtful. The Remaining Thief thinks about his dead friend, then he and the mage kiss while Damadar's evil CG Muppet friend gawks on and chortles. He goes to a cave that "only (he was) meant to pass," finds the secret theme park ride, and gets the staff from a talking skeleton lich with absolutely no magic powers. Then, in an important moment that marks the turning point in his motivation, Foreshadow sees the cover of a Pern novel blown up to fill a wall.

The remainder of the movie is summarized thusly: Chosen Guy emerges to find Damadar and his guys holding his buds. In the time-honored movie hero tradition, he throws over the Staff of Ultimate Power in exchange for their lives, but Damadar just grins and sticks out his tongue at Mr. Foreshadowed, not only telling him "I lied," but also "Kill them slowly." (We learned earlier that Damadar distinguishes between the two, but up until this point he seemed like a basically nice guy who kills his enemies with amazing agony-avoiding speed, a real gentleman murderer.) Damadar steals the now-completed orb-and-staff combo, but Chosen Guy jumps into his Spell of Town Portal before it closes. Back in Town, flying lizards toast some mages. But now that Irons has the staff, he can summon his own dragons to fight the ones on Amidala's team. Somehow, the thief has gained five experience levels during the lengths of the movie, because now he bests Damadar in a straight fight. Unfortunately, Irons is there, and he has memorized an entire book of Spells of Photoshop Effect, with which he handily repels the Chosen Guy's friends who have suddenly turned out to be there. This is the only scene in the movie where the elf character decides that Mr. Foreshadowed has finally passed his finals, because she finally does some fighting... and gets flattened. But at the end, the male lead destroys his staff, then Amidala shows up and, despite the most ineffectual added-in-post-production monster of all time clawing all over her, she manages to tell Irons what a naughty boy he's been then uses the staff to summon a dragon to eat him. Well, okay, full points for style.

Everyone is sad at the end because Wayans had sprung that Damadar-induced leak half a movie earlier and then got tossed off a high wall, but then the Red Sparkly thing glows, and it seems that somewhere Wayans comes back to life. Everyone then touches the stone, and they all get warped off to where he is waiting for them, probably to invite them all to star in Scary Movie II. At the end of this movie, I was fully expecting the trails of sparks that each of the main guys turned into when warping to form a giant TSR or Wizards of the Coast logo.

Hey, look - a Dungeons and Dragons ride!
Wow, neat
Give me a break
I don't like this!
What's happening?
Where are we?
Look out!
Fear not, ranger; barbarian; magician; thief; cavalier; and acrobat!
Who was that?
That was Venger, the force of evil. I am Dungeon Master, your guide in the realm of Dungeons & Dragons!

This was the way the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series exploded into the lives of a generation of Americans on the 17th of September, 1983 and ran for 27 episodes until December, 1985. Created in partnership by Marvel Productions Ltd., D&D Enterprises, and TSR, this three season series was both the first and last attempt to create a televised Dungeons & Dragons universe. Indeed, up until the recent Dungeons & Dragons Film it was the only Dungeons and Dragons filmography that had been created for public consumption. The series was distributed by various companies. From 1983 until 1987 by CBS Television, and later by Fox Television (2000), Genesis Entertainment and Saban Entertainment Inc..

In the style of most Western animation the series was nonlinear. There was no clear plot being followed and most episodes ended up where they had begun, having no bearing on any future episodes in the series. Because of this lack of chronological advancement it would be possible to mix up all the episodes of Dungeons & Dragons and show them to someone who had never watched the series and that person would see no problems. One of the most striking drawbacks in this approach is that new characters introduced in one episode can never reappear. Thus, the group can never count on the aid of old allies in a predicament, which somewhat limits general plot development. Another good example is the episode The Dragon's Graveyard, where the children become so fed up with Venger stopping them getting home that they try to kill him in the legendary Dragon's Graveyard. With Venger beaten and cowering before them on his hands and knees, Hank boldly exclaims "we've beaten you and you know it!" but his words are premature. Only two episodes later, in The Dungeon at the Heart of Dawn, and then again in Citadel of Shadow, Venger returns to tormenting them as though nothing had happened.

Six children get on a Dungeons and Dragons ride in a theme park, only to find themselves on a literal rollercoaster ride into an alternate world known mostly in the series as "the Realm". Immediately upon arrival these youngsters are set upon by the hydra (in the series it is called a dragon, but hydra is more precise for a multi-headed dragon) Tiamat. From some unnoticed corner a little man begins using magic to change the children into a variety of Dungeons and Dragons classes that they use to escape the hydra and the one-horned undead, Venger. The little man introduces himself as the Dungeon Master and so their journey begins. It is interesting to note that all this happens within the beginning sequence, so that this series has even less of an actual start than almost any other Western animation.

The major characters are:

Hank - blond, blue-eyed leader of the group. Dungeon Master changes Hank into a ranger, armed with a magical bow. Hank's bow mainly fires energy bolts, though these don't generally harm his opponents and mostly end up just tying them up. Hank is the only member of the group to consistently call Dungeon Master by the formal title, "The Dungeon Master," and fights with Eric for leadership of the group throughout the series. In the episode Quest of the Skeleton Warrior we learn that Hank's greatest fear is not being a competent leader of the group. Of all the members of the group, it is Hank who seems to owe Dungeon Master the greatest allegiance, after all, before they entered the Realm they were all equals - it was Dungeon Master who made Hank the leader. Hank is voice acted by Willie Aames (who was also on Charles in Charge).

Eric - black-haired, rich and cowardly, Eric represents the comic relief of the group. He is forever tripping over his own feet and running into misfortunes. Changed by Dungeon Master into a cavalier, he wields a magic shield that can deflect any attack. He desperately wishes for control of the group, but has no chance against the confident and serious Hank. Eric's best friend in the group is Presto, who almost always takes sides with him when arguments errupt. As is typical with the comic relief, when Eric falls in love with Queen Zinn in The Prison Without Walls she ends up turning into a hideous monster just as they are about to get married. Eric has a short friendship with Lorn in Odyssey of the 12th Talisman; but this does little to develop his personality as Lorn is gone by the next episode never to return. In the episode Quest of the Skeleton Warrior we learn that Eric's greatest fear is of being laughed at by others. Eric is voice acted by Don Most (Ralph Malph on Happy Days).

Presto - brown haired, bespectacled and nervous, Presto shares the role of comic relief with Eric. Dungeon Master changes Presto into a magician, and gives him a magic hat from which any object can be pulled and any spell cast, but he can't control it. When Presto wishes for one thing out of the hat he is often presented with another. The rest of the group frequently make fun of him on this point which helps to contribute to his perpetual low self-esteem. In The Last Illusion Presto falls in love with Varla, what you might call in AD&D Spells and Powers terms a wild talent - who can cast spells without memorizing them but whose spells take a physical toll with each casting. In Cave of the Fairy Dragons a fairy dragon falls in love with Presto - an unusual case of one species falling in love with a highly dissimilar other. These affairs, which could have been used to develop Presto's personality, are left by the wayside with the end of the episodes. Presto has such a lack of confidence that the rest of the group often have to argue with him before he'll be prepared to cast a spell, so sure is he that it will fail. Presto is voice acted by Adam Rich.

Diana - tall and athletic, it's no surprise when Dungeon Master turns Diana into an acrobat. State champion several years running, this girl, the only black member of the group, can physically outperform any of the others. She frequently shows that she is also far more intelligent than the other children, and one wonders why the scriptwriters couldn't have given her a chance at leading instead of the Aryan male Hank. Diana falls in love twice during the series, with a Nazi airman, Hans Mueller, in The Timelost and some kind of Arabian prince, Khossar, in Child of the Stargazer, but both times ends up heartbroken; regretably these episodes are not used to develop her personality, although in Child of the Stargazer we learn that her father was an astronomer.

Diana is given a extending staff by Dungeon Master that she often uses for more than just extending her jumps. She also has the dubious distinction of wearing the least clothing of any character in the series - one could fairly state that her habiliments consist of nothing more than fur underwear and boots. In Quest of the Skeleton Warrior we learn that Diana's greatest fear is of not being able to defend the other members of the group. Diana is voice acted by Tonia Gayle Smith.

Sheila - orange-haired and terrified of being alone, Sheila is Bobby's older sister. Dungeon Master turns her into a thief, giving her a cloak of invisibility (the only vintage Dungeons and Dragons item any of them have). Her cloak enables her to become invisible and sometimes, almost certainly due to poor animation technique, insubstantial. Sheila seems to have a crush on Hank, but this is never developed. In Prison Without Walls it is a cursed prince, Sir Lars, who falls in love with her after she breaks the spell holding him, but she turns him away and the incident is forgotten. Sheila is voice acted by Katie Leigh.

Bobby - the youngest member of the group, Bobby is also the most aggressive. Sharing Hank's Aryan features (for some reason known only to the character designers) Bobby is turned into a barbarian and given a magic club by Dungeon Master that enables him to sunder the earth and split mountain sides. His main concern is not to be perceived as the smallest, weakest member of the group; and he is helped out in this mainly through the presence of Uni, his pet unicorn. Bobby ranks after Diana in having the least clothing - fur shorts, some sort of open studded hide armor that doesn't look very protective, boots and a steel helmet. Both Bobby and Diana seem to have some sort of unnatural resistance to cold, traversing arctic regions in their skimpy outfits without so much as a shiver. Bobby has a short friendship in The Girl who Dreamed Tommorrow with Terri - a clairvoyant. It is the only chance he has in the Realm to befriend someone his own age, and like so many other opportunities is messed up by the scriptwriters desire to keep the episode plotlines seperate. Despite this, The Girl Who Dreamed Tommorrow remains one of only two episodes that have relevance to further events in the series; when Terri reveals to Bobby a dream that the two of them will meet again in the real world (it should be noted that this does not mean the entire group will certainly make it back - only that Bobby will). In Quest of the Skeleton Warrior Bobby is polymorphed into a helpless infant - wherein lies his greatest fear. Bobby is voice acted by Teddy Field.

Uni - this female baby unicorn is discovered by the group as soon as they enter the Realm. They save it from Tiamat, and Bobby ends up adopting it as his own. Uni can almost speak (in a cute sort of way) with a sort of whiny vocabulary. It has the ability to teleport, though this is seldom used, and has a high intelligence as can be gleaned from the episode P-R-E-S-T-O Spells Disaster, where it manages to cast a spell from Presto's hat. In Valley of the Unicorns Uni finds her own kind, but decides to abandon them to stay with the group. The other unicorns are never seen again in the series - another wasted opportunity. This episode is the only other one to have relevance in the series, as it is here that Uni discovers she has the power to teleport. Uni is voice acted by Frank Welker, who also does a number of additional incidental characters in the series.

Dungeon Master - a stench as of mouldy cheese follows this character who so miraculously appears from nowhere to save the children from Tiamat. It seems fairly probable that Dungeon Master is responsible for bringing the children to the Realm for his own insidious purposes, and even more probable that he has no intention of ever letting them leave. He keeps up their hopes by frequently promising them that they are almost home or that they have "taken the first step home" when in fact their situation hasn't changed. Dungeon Master takes the form of a mischievous little gnome with a habit of giving bits of information in riddles, and disappearing before he can be questioned on the details. In the episode Winds of Darkness, the group meet up with Martha, a woman who tells them her life was ruined several times before by Dungeon Master. Dungeon Master also makes a point of healing Venger when he is injured, both in The Dragon's Graveyard when the group have nearly killed him, and in Dungeon at the Heart of Dawn after Venger has tried to slaughter the group. Clearly, Dungeon Master wants to keep Venger alive for some reason. Probably he sees it as the best way to keep the children occupied remembering that Venger's reason-de-etre is to get hold of the children's weapons and to stop them from getting home.

In the episode In Search of the Dungeon Master, Dungeon Master is captured by Warduke and the children must risk their lives rescuing him. At the end of the episode Sheila implies that there was no way Dungeon Master could have been captured unless he had wanted to be, and is answered with a sly wink - Dungeon Master has deliberately endangered the children's lives to relieve his own boredom. When Eric angrily inquires why Dungeon Master doesn't use his substantial powers to get the children home Dungeon Master says, "The answer does not lie within one's power, it lies within one's self" - in other words, Dungeon Master has the power to send the children home whenever he wants, but chooses not to. Another example is in The Girl Who Dreamed Tommorrow where Dungeon Master tells them about a portal that will take them home, but adds "before you leave you must destroy it!" Hearing this Eric angrily exclaims, "but if we destroy it, it can't get us home - right?" Dungeon Master is voice acted by Sidney Miller.

Venger - this one-horned undead (although I suppose he might be some sort of demon) in a dress follows the children wherever they go. Thousands of years old, Venger desires the children's weapons so that he can finally defeat Tiamat, who is supposedly the only thing keeping him from dominating the Realm. He can fire bolts of energy from his hands, and often spreads his wings menacingly when he gets angry. Venger also has the ability to polymorph himself, although it is not clear whether there is any limitation on this power. In The Dragon's Graveyard Dungeon Master calls Venger his "son", and in The Treasure of Tardos his "mistake." In the episode The Hall of Bones, Venger appears in what may perhaps be his true form - a mischievous gnome who leads the group to the hall...before turning on them. Venger is voice acted by Peter Cullen.

Shadow Demon - Venger's trusted servant. This creature is basically just a shadow that flies around spying on the children and making deals with Venger's allies. It is substantial at least some of the time, as in the episode In Search of the Dungeon Master it collides with Venger's robes while flying through the fortress. It is not possible to know for certain whether it can become insubstantial, and Shadow Demon is never clearly shown passing through a wall. Certainly, though, it can pass through even the smallest cracks. Shadow Demon almost never takes direct action against the children, except in the episode The Box where it tries desperately to hold the lid of an interdimensional box closed to keep the children trapped within. Shadow Demon is voice acted by Bob Holt.

Tiamat - This female hydra (dragon with five heads) is the most powerful creature in the Realm, and the only thing holding back Venger from total domination. The body of the creature is red, and each head has a different attack - fire, ice, electricity, poison gas, and a bone-crushing bite. Tiamat has a tendency to lisp, making her infrequent monologues difficult to understand. While she generally spends her time trying to kill the children, she does occassionally help them, such as in the episode The Dragon's Graveyard.

As the episodes run through the children face a host of challenges. They are sent on a number of quests for valuable items, and often have to fulfil a host of strange conditions such as only opening a chest in a certain location at a certain time. Through all this Dungeon Master keeps promising them they will get home. In several episodes the children do get home, but cannot stay and always have to return to the Realm for some reason or other.

Dungeons & Dragons trivia:

- The children have a knack for always being in the right place at the right time, no matter how improbable it is. They are in Helix exactly a thousand years after Merlin dies saving the town in The Night of no Tommorrow. They meet up with the Stargazer at exactly the point in a thousand years when meeting the Stargazer means anything. They find the Darkling exactly a thousand years after he has taken his first victim. Their weapons run out power on them - something that only happens once every 300 years. And so on.

- As in the case of Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Dungeons & Dragons had an episode that was scripted but never produced. This episode, Reverie, was supposed to end the series but was cancelled for budget reasons. It should be noted that in Reverie the children don't actually make it home, they just end up standing in front of a portal going there. This was to leave room in case the series was budgeted to go on any further - in other words, the plotline truly was aimless.

- The Realm contains an improbably high number of entry points into the real world. Almost every step the children take brings them to another gateway. This further strengthens the idea that Dungeon Master is somehow responsible for saboutaging their attempts to get home.

- The singer for the series' French theme song was Dorothée.

Credits for the series included:
Executive Producers - David H. DePatie, Lee Gunther and Margaret Loesch
Producer - E. Gary Gygax
Original Music by - Johnny Douglas and Robert J. Walsh

The episodes with air dates where possible (those in bold have been noded):

Season One (1983):
Episode 1 - The Night of No Tomorrow - 17th of September, 1983
Episode 2 - Eye of the Beholder
Episode 3 - The Hall of Bones
Episode 4 - Valley of the Unicorns
Episode 5 - In Search of the Dungeon Master
Episode 6 - Beauty and the Bogbeast
Episode 7 - Prison Without Walls
Episode 8 - Servant of Evil
Episode 9 - Quest of the Skeleton Warrior
Episode 10 - The Garden of Zinn
Episode 11 - The Box
Episode 12 - The Lost Children
Episode 13 - P-R-E-S-T-O Spells Disaster

Season Two (1984):
Episode 1 - The Girl Who Dreamed Tommorrow - 15th of September, 1984
Episode 2 - The Treasure of Tardos
Episode 3 - City at the Edge of Midnight
Episode 4 - The Traitor
Episode 5 - Day of the Dungeon Master
Episode 6 - The Last Illusion
Episode 7 - The Dragon's Graveyard
Episode 8 - Child of the Stargazer

Season Three (1985):
Episode 1 - The Dungeon at the Heart of Dawn - 14th of September, 1985
Episode 2 - The Timelost - 21st of September, 1985
Episode 3 - Odyssey of the 12th Talisman - 28th of September, 1985
Episode 4 - Citadel of Shadow - 12th of October, 1985
Episode 5 - Cave of the Fairy Dragons - 9th of November, 1985
Episode 6 - The Winds of Darkness - 7th of December, 1985 (?)

Sources:
Knightstalker's Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon website at http://www.knightstalker.com
Dungeons & Dragons Imdb Page at http://us.imdb.com/Title?0085011
Dungeons & Dragons Titles and Air Dates Guide at http://epguides.com/DungeonsandDragons/