Dragonlance

[ceevee]

for all you RPG fans out there and i know there's a few, here's Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

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its animation, and it looks poor, but c'mon its Raistlin & Co. huzzah

[Mochan]

What is this exactly? I'm at work so whatever you linked to, I can't access.

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

What is this exactly? I'm at work so whatever you linked to, I can't access.

Oh god you don't know what Dragonlance is????

Go read the first 3 books and "The Saga of the Twins"(I think that's the name) trilogy. Dragonlance is what really got me into fantasy. Some people think it's fantasy lite and a D&D rip off but I love it.

[ceevee]

page-turners every one. books may have been poorly written but my God, the books were high adventure. weren't the first books written to flesh out a D&D game that the author was playing?

i'm gonna get a lot of hate for what i'm gonna say but Dragonlance>>>>LotR

[Mochan]

Er... I know what Dragonlance is. I meant what is that thing ceevee linked to, is it a new Dragon Lance game, is it a cartoon, movie, an old game, what?

And Dragonlance is 1000x better than that overrated LOTR crap.

weren't the first books written to flesh out a D&D game that the author was playing?

Not quite. The Chronicles (first trilogy of novels in the Dragonlance setting) were written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman based on modules created by the TSR Dragonlance committee. Basically they were given a general plot, setting and characters and had to write the novels around those. Margaret Weis goes on record saying she didn't quite enjoy writing Chronicles as much because of the restrictions.

On the other hand we have the Legends trilogy which DTM calls "The Saga of the Twins." Weis had a lot more creative freedom in writing this story -- Raistlin was her favorite character, that's why she opted to write the next trilogy about the twins. The structure and style of the Legends trilogy is very different from Chronicles -- it feels less like a high-fantasy adventure and more like a character-driven narrative. Chronicles was okay but Legends is what really got Dragonlance cooking.

BTW DTM, Dragonlance *IS* D&D. It's not a D&D ripoff by any means -- it's set in Krynn which is an AD&D world -- the three major game settings for early Dungeons and Dragons were Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms (whcih is what most gamers today are familiar with) -- in about that order.

[ceevee]

Mochan, the clip is a trailer to the new animated dvd out soon. what i want is some red hot dragon action, preferably similar to the CGI heavy LotR films. imagine the dragons!! imagine!!

drooooooooooooooools

oh.. and so much for the hate LoL

[Mochan]

Animated DVD of Dragonlance? News to me, I didn't know people still wanted to make Dragonlance products in this day and age. We need a new Dragonlance game, the old Goldbox games don't cut it anymore hehe.

As for the hate... hehe I've painted a big red target on my ass so I think I got you covered.

[T.Tashi]

News to me too! But that cartoon is new? You sure it's not re-mastered or something? If I didn't know better I'd swear it's from the 70s or 80s. It just has that "hurry up and finish drawing it" look of a Saturday morning cartoon from back in the day. There is a wealth of old school D&D stuff nobody touches. I even have an old TSR fiend portfolio. I had a TSR Gods and Demigods book too but I let someone borrow it and never saw it again.

Oh and I still give credit to Robert E. Howard for pretty much inventing contemporary fantasy, or sword and sorcery if you will.

[Dancer O_o]

I've read a stack of DL books (freak'n war and peace sized novels too), oddly the actually Dragon Lances are rarely talked about or even used very much in the series, although they are uber powerful and special to each rider. I always liked their version of hobbit like people over Tolkiens that DL has...their curiosity has lead to many inadvertent deaths and much suffering. The animation is substandard to me. I liked the story about the twins, one's a big loveable slow to make decisions type, and the the other is an asinine health poor wizard, good stuff.

[trebor]

While I think saying "Dragonlance >>> LotR" is a bit of stretch, I loved reading those books when I was younger.

But damn, couldn't they have spent a little money on this? It looks like an early 80's cartoon. Terrible.

[Mochan]

I even have an old TSR fiend portfolio

Tashi, you mean the Fiend Folio, right? Yeah I got that as well plus some Monster Manuals and a bunch of other stuff. The book I lent out to someone and never saw again was Oriental Adventures, man I loved that book it even had a diagram for all sorts of cool exotic weapons.

As for the dragonlances, yeah they are rarely used. Dragons are rarely seen in the series for that matter. The big wars were dragons were all about happened back a few centuries during the Legend of Huma and that's were dragon lances were spammed left and right. In the time when the Chronicles took place that was all ancient lost history and dragons and dragonlances are a whole lot less common.

As for LOTR vs. Dragonlance seriously I don't see any way that LOTR is the superior series. Dragonlance is a lot better. The only thing LOTR has on Dragonlance is seniority. Oh and it actually has a good movie adaptation.

[ceevee]

From the Dragon's Mouth (http://www.dragonlance-movie.com/news/show_news.asp?id=20)

Director: Will Meugniot "Stargate: Infinity" "The Real Ghostbusters"
Writer: George Strayton "Cleopatria 2525", "Xena: Warrior Princess" and "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys"

so far so awful.. but then:

Tanis: Michael Rosenbaum (that bald bloke in Smallville
Raistlin Majere: Kiefer Sutherland ---> hell yeah
Goldmoon: Lucy Lawless.. err.. Xena Warrior Princess

so its definitely 21st century technology lol. its gonna be poo :(

oh and here's the IMDb link (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0825245/)

[Mochan]

Xena as Goldmoon. Great. Just great.

Don't you wish they could at least hire Larry Elmore as the character designer?

I'm a bit sad because it looks like a trainwreck, I want it to be successful I've been waiting for a Dragonlance film adaptation for decades. Well, just two decades actually. A flop here means no Dragons of Winter Night.

[T.Tashi]

Tashi, you mean the Fiend Folio, right? Yeah I got that as well plus some Monster Manuals and a bunch of other stuff. The book I lent out to someone and never saw again was Oriental Adventures, man I loved that book it even had a diagram for all sorts of cool exotic weapons.

Holy Sh!t! Yeah, that's it. :) It even has the panangalang, which is like the Malaysian or Indonesian (I forget which) version of a vampire. The head detaches from the body and flies around. So there's real folklore connections. Well it's cool to know where there's another one of those floating around since they are totally out of print.

Cleopatra 2525 was the worse show I ever saw, that I could never stop watching. :D I mean yeah it was garbage but I just didn't care. I tuned in faithfully. I thought it was a cool concept tho. They just took it in a completely cheesy direction.

[Mochan]

The Penanggalang/Panangalang or however you spell it is Malaysian. It's like the Mannanggal of the Philippines more than the Western concept of vampire. TSR always did good research in writing its sourcebooks that's one of the reasons why I got into D&D in the first place.

You can get PDFs of all the sourcebooks online from torrent sites actually. I downloaded a bunch of them for posterity even though I don't play anymore. I just felt the need to preserve a part of my childhood in the absence of the actual books being on hand. I lost most of my stuff when I moved.

[slade]

That looked totally bad, like the books were.

Personally, I would have rather Cartoon Network or somebody funded a weekly cartoon which covered the books rather then a straight to DVD movie. Also, they should have dropped Dragonlance and done either Steven Erikson's Malazan books or Guy Kay's Fionavar or Sarantium books or failing that, delve into some of the other shallower stuff from David Eddings or Raymond Feist. Hell, I'd even put up with Robert Jordan's (god rest his soul) Wheel of Time if they cut away the filler he usually stuffed up his books with.

Also, get some better animators that actually know how the medium works without stuffing it full of CG.

[Mochan]

No David Eddings please.

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

And Dragonlance is 1000x better than that overrated LOTR crap.

Book Wise yes. Personally I could not get through the LOTR books. I enjoyed the movies though.


[QUOTE=Mochan]

BTW DTM, Dragonlance *IS* D&D. It's not a D&D ripoff by any means -- it's set in Krynn which is an AD&D world -- the three major game settings for early Dungeons and Dragons were Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms (whcih is what most gamers today are familiar with) -- in about that order.

Oh Sh!t I didn't know that.

[slade]

No David Eddings please.

What? You don't like cutesy jokes and playful banter repeated ad nauseum for over 1000 pages.

[Mochan]

Pretty much, yeah. I don't like how there is just about no sense of urgency whatsoever in David Edding's stories.

DTM, I found the LOTR movies were great, I enjoyed them, they were well-done -- but this owes more to cinematography and directorial flair rather than the merits of the source material. The books were crap. That's why, all those years ago, before the movies came, Dragonlance > LOTR.

[slade]

Pretty much, yeah. I don't like how there is just about no sense of urgency whatsoever in David Edding's stories.

Yeah, Eddings' book's are probably the only fantasy title where the bad guy is at a disadvantage.

[Cuddly Knife]

I want to see a CG movie of one of the Redwall books. And not one that is kiddie-fied. I want the blood and guts and murder and betrayal.

[slade]

They did a Redwall cartoon series but I'd wager it was kiddified:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwall_(TV_series)

[Mochan]

Yeah, Eddings' book's are probably the only fantasy title where the bad guy is at a disadvantage.

That's an understatement. I mean in the Belgariad series of books you basically had the 2 strongest wizards in the entire world in your party all the time.

In that second series of series he made (Tamuli and the other one) Sparhawk had a freaking goddess for a daughter and she pretty much made the point that she was all-powerful.

All the books had the feel that the protagonist party was just going out having a picnic instead of actually going out to save the world. The only time anyone died I remember it was some useless guy that wasn't really in the "in group" I even forgot his name he died in that prophecy part -- i.e. you didn't freaking care he died.

[Mochan]

Holy crap I finally looked at that Dragonlance trailer and it really is crap. I'm sticking to my anime thank you, my standards are way too high to watch crap like that even if it's in a setting I love.