Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

I rented this movie today and was looking forward to watching it ... big disappointment. It really is sad, too, because the story was decent enough but the rest of the production was dreadful.

Not only was the animation stiff and "cheap," but the voices were, also, with no emotion or enthusiasm. It was as if the voices were just reading their lines deadpan. Then again, due to the stiffness of the arted characters' animation, even if the voices had more spunk in them it would not have helped.

It would be nice to see someone put some dollars into re-doing this movie as was spent on the artwork for the DVD jacket cover. The jacket cover is about the only good thing I can say about this movie.

Avoid renting or buying this one .. truly one of the worst animations I have seen in years, if not THE worst.

Alright, a down and dirty(hopefully not bitter) review of Dragonlance DoAT.

Let's start with the Pro's. The story was actually good. I keep hearing faithful thrown around, but what novel did these people read. I did like how they did change it though. Cutting such a rich story down to 90 minutes could not have been easy. If you had not read the books you would not know that 2/3 the book was gutted. That's actually a compliment. Everything made sense with just enough exposition. I also liked the acting. This would have made one heck of an audio book(even better if it were straight from the novel). Tanis didn't seem as haggard as I imagined but I got used to it. I have heard enough of Michael Rosenbaum's work to know this wasn't all his fault. He still does a good job with the voice he uses. The score was also well done. I don't think I would have been nearly as excited in some scenes without the musical uplift. It reminded me a little of Farscape, one of my favorite series, so I may be biased.

Now for the Con's. I feel for the technicians who worked on this. As a props person for the stage I know that these people often toil away thanklessly. They probably worked 70 hour weeks during the SLOW times. This movie was made with blood, sweat, and tears. Unfortunately, it is a soggy mess. The animation is BAD, across the board. I have seen better 2D in TV shows. Consistently jerky or over zoomed. Looks like they filmed some scenes at only 10 frames per second. The 3D was also dated. Someone mentioned Reboot(1994) but I disagree. Reboot was better. Even the few times it did look good(not great), it only served to make the 2D look worse than it already was. Furthermore, some of the blocking(acting term) just didn't match the voice. Some scenes were like watching a high school play, again, stiff and jerky. Also, for a film released solely on DVD, they should have done a better job on the encode. At least the copy I watched had problems with interlacing. And just when you think I am being overly harsh the ultimate example of shoddy workmanship arrives. In the end credits when the characters are shown, THEY MISSPELL ROSENBAUM. Rosenbaun. Who screwed that up?!? They got it right in the scrolling credits but come on, have a little pride in your work.

One final note on the PG-13 rating. Both a Pro and a Con. They took a grown up view of death and violence. Nothing gratuitous and yet nothing spared. Innocents were killed, something not always seen. Refreshing. They did, however, squander the PG-13 rating on the sexual front. Aside from a site-gag with Tika in the beginning, sexual innuendo was curbed big time. Sexual situations were constrained to kissing that got no further than a grade school level. Not that the book had anything way out there but it coincides with my next point to show immaturity. As someone who enjoys anime women, I was disappointed by the flagrant, gratuitous semi-nudity of the female prisoners with tattered clothing. Come on guys. Just put up a sign reading "shameless attempt to woo adolescent boys".

Conclusion: For all my bluster, I still recommend this film. They got the important parts right. Story and voice acting. The rest is just window dressing. How many visually stunning blockbusters have been real stinkers because of a hack story and ham acting. Is it as good as the book? No, but what movie is? Ever? I will fan boy nit pick on the message boards but this was the closest I could come to an objective review.

I have been a DragonLance fan since the Chronicles Trilogy was released (I know it's a quadrilogy now). At one time I owned over 30 DragonLance novels and other books. I also went to school for animation and digital creation.

The animation is reminiscent of an early 1980's cartoon mixed with cheap CGI. The plot is lacking. They skipped and/or cut out many parts of the story and then rewrote it to fill in the gaps (poor job at that too). I cannot believe this was released as is. The scope of the original Chronicles is massive enough where they could have gotten away with making it a live action movie along the lines of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A big waste of money, it could have been so much better.

I give it a 3/10 only because of some excellent voice acting. The rest is garbage.

Coming on the tail-end of 2007 and the start of 2008, one would expect a decent amount of increase in quality in animated movies, especially considering the detail and flow of Anime that comes from across the pond, in Japan.

The first 10 seconds had me cringing and praying that the opening Dragonflight was just a basic crappy title-scene. Unfortunately, it was a horrid foreshadowing of what was to be a 90 minute flashback to TV's 1994 "animated" series, "Reboot".

The animation itself was choppy and poorly drawn. It made me believe that we haven't improved anything since the days of Thundercats and He-Man. And then someone had the bright idea to include poorly done CGI into this cesspool of Technicolor Regurgitation! What brain-child thought THIS idea would be cool, nifty, and grand is completely beyond me.

Well, at least I could fall back on the stellar voice acting of Kiefer Sutherland, Michael Rosenbaum, Lucy Lawless, and Michelle Trachtenberg, right? I mean, stars from such shows as 24, Smallville, Xena, and Buffy!! Apparently, these actors must not be able to get into character unless they can actually physically fill the roles of the character they are portraying. The voice acting was lackluster at best. The fight scenes and heated arguments were strained, as if they were trying to yell at themselves in a mirror, and just as equally unbelievable.

The story itself, if you can suffer your eyes and mental capacity long enough to watch it, remains somewhat true to form to the book. Though, if Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman were to actually see this, I'm sure they'd want to be buried so they could start rolling over.

All-in-all, I'd recommend sticking to the book and avoiding this "movie", else you run the risk of ruining a great story you once held in your mind. Pretty much the same way that Lost Boys was totally and completely awesome when I was 13, but watching it 2 weeks ago opened my eyes to how campy and crappy it really is. What a way to ruin my remembrance of two completely awesome titles.

Anyways, I'd have had more enjoyment if someone locked me into a circular room and told me to find a corner to pee in.

There's so much to say, I'm not sure where to begin. I wont bore you by stating the obvious as I know most Dragonlance fans are going to see it anyway. AND I think Wizards of the Coast knows that too. Actually, my great hope is that this is just the setting stage for a feature film that knows it's audience.

I implore wizards of the coast to stop making things that suck for the sake of money. Creating things of quality will expand your customer base so you wont need to bleed us faithful fans who came over from TSR with little kicking and screaming. So, stop f*cking with sh*t. I'm beginning to question your alignment.

Oh, and as for the review, I will say that I believe that it was directed by Fewmaster Toede, manned by a crew of gully dwarfs, and written by otyughs.