This movie made me so sad in unexpected ways. Went in blind expecting a half-assed cash in and was blown away by how damn good this movie actually was and how much I enjoyed just to be disappointed that it bombed at the box office and we will probably never see another installment.
I think it bombed because there was no marketing… I only heard of it through Reddit DND stuff.
Also probably tightly-related to the OGL 2.0 controversy, which peaked like a month or two before the movie.
Hmm, could be.
The use of the “hither tither” stick, it felt exactly how a player would use it
Also exactly how it would be introduced. Intricate puzzle the DM spent hours designing, fucking it up instantly, then just being like oh shit, lucky we had this staff the DM made during his portal playthrough
The Hither Tither stick, it’s exactly how I expect players to use it
A lot to be said, but I think my favorite little thing was the rust monsters eating scrap for the 1.5 seconds they were on screen. Entirely unnecessary, but showed they put in a good amount of thought to the film.
Oh I missed that! When did that happen?
I believe it is in one of the first Neverwinter scenes, the camera pans down into an alleyway and there are two fighting over something (a pocket watch?) on a rafter. They are mouse-sized, which is a smart tweak.
“Just because your sentence was symmetrical doesn’t mean it’s not nonsense”
“But we approved your pardon!”
Simple, hilarious, and sounds like the DM response rather than the character.
BUT WE APPROVED YOUR PARDON
Probably the bridge. DM crafted such an amazing puzzle and the paladin being a good boy learned it perfectly. Group was like: You know it’d be fun to see what the DM does if I accidentally put my foot on it.
Also the five questions. You could see that coming from MILES away but it was still hilarious.
The bridge scene is even better when you realize the paladin is a DM-insert NPC, there to explain the overcomplicated puzzles, steer the plot, and keep the incompetent party from getting killed. Once they’re back on track with what the DM has prepped, he says his farewell and disappears from the story.
I just loved that it actually felt like D&D
I loved the build up in the beginning, the chains, all the guards looking nervously at this big brute. Then he walks in to the cell and gets absolutely destroyed by Holga.
She clearly rolled a 20 on her kick him in the knees attack, from that point on the encounter is over. Also Edgin calmly discussing the poor choice he made by touching her potato.
I also thought it was very well done, bringing the potato gag back at the end of the movie.
The fat dragon is what really landed the movie for me. That? That was a DM decision, based on the players and the DM being memelords. Straight from the tabletop.
It really just demonstrated that the whole movie is a DnD campaign (agglomerate homebrew) with extremely high production value, and I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT.
The fat dragon made my wife lose it. She just kept saying “He looks just like the cat when he smells chicken.”
The smile that came when they showed a Harper’s pin right before mentioning the Harpers never left my face. Such a subtle little thing, but they fucking nailed it.
There’s so many great scenes, like the Intellect Devourers completely ignore the party, and the fact that all of their classes use intelligence as a dump stat. Or how fantastically shot that entire escape from the tower sequence was. Or how clever the intentionally jumping into the gelatonus cube was…
But my absolute favorite scene was when the paladin was walking away and Edgin said oh no there’s a rock in his way, will he go around? And he walks straight up and over it. It had us dying, we had to pause it because we laughing so hard.
Loved the “fresh cut grass smell” bit. My party was grinning since it reminded them of all the shitty magic tricks I pulled off during our last campaign.
We loved the movie, it really captured the spirit of our games.
The Speak With Dead scene I thought was well done, and the heist and sneaking into the carriage I thought was a very D&D plan…
That’s another scene ( the heist, especially the carriage part) that would make for an analysis of what was going on at the table.
I’m still waiting for the YouTube video which is like a react video except they’re playing the game in the PiP window as it plays out onscreen.
Exactly!
