Toon Zone Talkback - "Dragonlance" Is Just a Drag of a DVD

R

rjbehrman

New member
This is the talkback thread for "Dragonlance" Is Just a Drag of a DVD.

splash-dragonlancelg.jpg


If you'd like something bustier, Ed also made this alternate splash for your delectation:

splash-dlsexsellslg.jpg


Either way, alas, the DVD gets a thumbs down from Ed.
 
Only if the movie you really wanted isn't there and there's nothing else you want to watch. Really, the whole thing is kind of a train wreck and the only redeeming thing about it is that you can say, "Well, they did that in the book a lot better."

Not that the book is one of the great works of world literature, but it's entertaining enough.

-- Ed
 
I saw it, and I didn't think it was too bad. Once you get used to it, the animation isn't very distracting. They did cut a little bit out (I was looking forward to Riverwind getting his acid bath), but besides that, I thought they did fairly well. The characters were pretty true to themselves, and I liked getting to see a new version of them.
 
I finally sat down and watched this. It wasn't TOO bad. The horrid animation is fine once you learn to ignore it, and the story was nice. I'd never read the books, so I had no idea what was left out or done wrong. The voice acting was decent, although many lines sounded like they had just read them for the first time and just took the first take and slapped it in the movie. As I said, I liked the characters and the story, and I was pretty entertained by the flick.

The directing was just atrocious. We see a shot where a guy's nose starts to bleed a little, cut to his friends being sad, then cut right back to the SAME shot of his nose starting to bleed. Ugh.
 
I agree that this is a pretty much a letdown. Lets go through the motions, shall we?

Animation:
Ed describes the mixture of CG and 2D 'go together here like oil and water.' He's actually being extremely kind. It's like two different styles of movies were mixed together in a bladeless blender and poured into the dvd. Both elements screamed low-budget and no faith from the producers. The framerate was very poor in some scenes (especially when the camera pans across the screen) and decent in others. Also some characters would be decently shaded while other minimal within the same frame.

dlance03.jpg

Example of the bad meshing of 2D and 3D.

They storyboarding was pretty weak for the most part. For example conversations would take place in a single frame instead of switching between the characters talking for better drama. The action scenes were very huge letdowns.
I can appreciate the amount of time that went into the animation, but even so I can only give it 1.5 Twinkies out of five.

dlance02.jpg

Here's a scene where the focus is supposed to be on the shocked reactions of the prisoners, so why is the focus instead on the female's breasts? I know they wanted an adult feel but geez it's not needed for the emotional impact of the scene.

Character Design:
Definitely one of the stronger elements of the production. Will Meugiot's design influence the characters is strong here. They work but more love seem to go to the elven costumes and the Kender while some of the others are sort of generic.
3.5 out of 5 Twinkies.

dlance01.jpg

One of the better designs of the show, and yet she only had this form for maybe 20-30 seconds.

Plot:
When you get to the end of the movie, it's reveals that it's the beginning of a series of movies. As we all know, this is based on a book, which is very clear after watching this (even if you never read it!). The story feels disjointed to me and the pacing just didn't flow well. Plus it felt as if we were missing large chunks of it as the characters continued their journey.
2 out of 5 Twinkies.

Sound:
The voice work was good, not on par with say a Pixar film, but better than most anime dubs. However, I enjoyed the music. There were some nice themes being played and it worked hard to make us feel emotion for the scenes when the animation couldn't.
3.5 out of 5 Twinkies.

Overall:
While there were a few elements I liked, they weren't enough to justify purchasing it (thank the maker for Netflix!). This was trying to be a serious adult animated film but even with the little blood it just didn't make it. If I could use one word to describe this movie it would be 'bland'.
2 out of 5 Twinkies.
 
dlance02.jpg


Whoa! What was the rating on this? Funny thing is, the guys look dirty and scrawny while the chick has the looks and body of a stripper.:D

Anyway despite the negative reviews, I still might give this a shot. I've been craving a good sword & sorcery adventure story for awhile. BTW, how were the action/fight scenes?
 
I don't see what everyone is so shocked about. All I see is frightened village-folk, of course they're going to have tattered clothing.
 
The design may be nice in a boob-a-licious way, but it totally undermines the fact that she's supposed to be a nasty black dragon. She's not frightening at all -- she's cute, which is almost exactly not what they were aiming for. Since that's our first introduction to the character, it kind of makes it harder to take her seriously later. The same thing happens with Takhisis (up in that other boob-a-licious splash I created).



Pretty sure it was PG-13. Not for this, though.

The thing I love about this scene is that it's pan-imation of character sheets (they took spme character sheets, spliced them together over a background, and then panned a camera over it to get the reaction shot they needed). It looks visibly different from all the shots around it, kind of like the scenes where you can tell they're using a cardboard cutout of Bruce Lee in Game of Death. More evidence that they totally ran out of money before they could finish the movie properly, or that they didn't have a whole lot to begin with.

As I said in the review, the action sequences are AWFUL. If you want good action sequences without firearms, I'd suggest waiting a week for Turok: Son of Stone. It's not very good, either, but at least it has decent animation and fight sequences that are genuinely exciting (EDIT: after sitting through Turok again, I think I'm revising my opinion up a bit -- it's not as awesome as Hellboy Animated, but it's pretty good, and compared to Dragonlance, it's a masterwork). Or you could just read the Dragons of Autumn Twilight book.

Also, someone really needed to smack the kender upside his head and say, "No, trying to escape with dozens of tired slaves by walking out in the open in broad daylight behind all the draconians in the world to get out the front gate of the fortress is a TERRIBLE idea." In the immortal words of John Crichton, "Wile E. Coyote could come up with a better plan than that!"

-- Ed
 
Back
Top