Cool, Finally a Dragonlance Movie
 

Of course, there is some caution flags here, this is due out in Autumn 2007 as the first of a trilogy, and I'm not sure about some of the names they've signed.. but.. still.. interesting.

•Title: Dragons of Autumn Twilight
•Director: Will Meugniot (The X-Men, The Real Ghostbusters)

•Writer: George Strayton (Hercules The Legendary Journeys, Xena Warrior Princess, Cleopatra 2525)
•Produced by: Toonz Animation, Commotion Pictures and Epic Level Entertainment, with conceptual artwork from Kunoichi and others. Paramount Pictures will be looking after worldwide distribution.

•Listed Cast:
-Tanis Half-Elven: Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville, Justice League)
-Goldmoon: Lucy Lawless (Xena Warrior Princess, Battlestar Galactica)
-Tasslehoff Burrfoot: Jason Marsden (Star Trek the Next Generation, Full House)

Somehow I'm not surprised Lucy Lawless found her way to this project.

Good lord, as Goldmoon? She seems (looks, sounds, etc) like Kitiara to me.

Well, Goldmoon is a Plainsman, (so she's not a svelte elfy type and I can see that, yeah, she'd fit Kitiara better, but she doesn't have much to do in the first movie anyway.

And also, it's animated, remember :)

Yeah, really that's the part I missed ;)

It's also less the svelte elfy as it is age... there's probably canon out there that proves me wrong (I've only really read Chronicles), but she seems like she's in the 18-20-ish range based on certain early actions and status.

Actually, she's Mid 20's to 30.. it's stated in one of the compilations that Riverwind won the tribe's competitions to court Goldmoon, but because he and his family were believers in the old gods, the Chieftan (Goldmoon's father) required him to go out and prove the old gods were real before allowing Goldmoon to marry him.

This took several years and when he returned to the tribe with the Blue Crystal Staff, it set off the events in the Chronicles.

That part I recall... I always figured she was around 16 when Riverwood began courting (I mean, really... Chieftain's daughter not being a bargaining chip for marriage until 25?), then a few years before he got back.

Damn! Now you got me checking Wiki..

Ok.. born February 5, 322 A.C (After Cataclysm)

The War of the Lance starts in 348 AC

Hmph. 26. Lucky guess :)

Wow... I suddenly feel like I'm not a true dork anymore.

Me too. Not sure how I feel about the movie...the books were some of my favorites growing up, but I can't see them pulling it off very well in movie format.

I don't see this being to great if it is Animated.

One thing Peter Jackson proved, is you can do Fantasy awesome in real life, animation isn't needed.

These books as far as adventure and epic, would be awesome as a real life movie, with the CGI worked into it.

Oh well......We will see...

I still haven't forgotten about the horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible D&D movie with Marlon Wayans.

Dragonlance is one o the most movie friendly works out there, imho.

-Anxiety

Agreed- it's just the right pace and scope to make big epic movies out of where you don't have to worry about cutting out too much backstory and can still tell the entire story.

That said, I still think fantasy movies have a decent chance of being like the D&D movies much more than LotR. It's not like every epic fantasy movie is going to be great- it just happened that we finally had one that didn't suck.

SI

Considering who the writer is, I think the chance of it being like the D&D movie rather than LotR is about 100-1. I actually liked the Hercules series for awhile, but it was definately "comedic fantasy". I don't see the Chronicles series as fitting that at all, with the exception of Tasselhoff and Fizban. If the writer can stick all of his comedic impulses to just those characters and their interactions, then fine. I'm not optimistic, though.

*switching into nerd mode*

1. This will probably end up working out like the LOTR animated movie did about 20 years ago. In other words, mediocre. It won't be *as* bad because they're not shoving all 3 books into 2 hours like they tried then.

2. Personally, I think the Legends trilogy where Raistlin attempts to become a god would actually work better for a movie.

*nerd mode deactivated*

This was my favorite series growing up, and I've read every book in it, including the new ones. If they mess this up, I will be find them and take a wrecking ball to their studio.

I'm looking forward to this, though I think a live-action version would have been better.

I loved this series as a kid. Young H_B shed some tears when his boy Sturm Brightblade died. I'm interested to see what they do and agree live action would be the way to go. Given what's I read about the group putting this thing together, I don't have very high expectations at all.

Wow. These were the only Dragonlance books I read! Hah. Weird.

I want to see them make movies out of the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Anyone ever play the modules that were made from these books? It seems lie there were ten of them for the first books. Fun times.

If one wanted to start reading the series, what book would be first?

I know you don't care (and you shouldn't), but the game world and module plotlines actually were done before the novels were written. Hickman DMed a lot of the material that went into the modules/trilogy before it was polished and published. In fact, Terry Phillips (Hickman's buddy and an editor for TSR) created the voice and cynicism of Raistlin during one of those sessions. There are some cool interviews floating around somewhere on the Net where Weis says that the TSR artists painted Raistlin with golden skin and hourglass eyes "because they thought it would look cool" and then she and Hickman had to come up with a backstory for his peculiar condition. Fascinating stuff...well at least to a super dork like me. :)

Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

I do remember that is where the stories came from now. It has been too long.

I did not know this. I always thought the books had come first in this case.

I just can't see how this would be feasible unless it were some on-going HBO-type series. It's just too long and intricate to come across well on-screen. I fear it would be a disaster, especially given how many of the main characters are children.

Yep. Plus, an American production that allows so many main characters to be killed off? I doubt its success.

Interesting.. just announced the other voices.. I thought Kiefer Sutherland would want too much.

Pre-production on the animated Dragonlance film is continuing apace, and the voice casting for the Companions has been completed. Kiefer Sutherland will be headlining as the voice of Raistlin Majere. Other case members will include Michael Rosenbaum (Justice League's Flash) as Tanis Half-Elven, Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon, Michelle Trachtenberg at Tika Waylan, and Jason Marsden as Tasslehoff Burrfoot. From the site: "The film is based on the first book in the Chronicles series, "Dragons of Autumn Twilight". The director is comics and TV animation veteran, Will Meugniot, and the screenplay has been adapted by George Strayton with plenty of involvement from Margaret and Tracy."

That raspy voice will be great for Raistlin.

I still don't quite get Michael Rosenbaum for Tanis. Don't get me wrong- I think he's great in what little I've seen of Smallville (a lot of the older stuff- haven't really seen anything of late) as Luthor but his voice acting usually comes off as too high pitched (for instance, the Flash in JLA) for what I'd envision Tanis.

SI

Same here. It was the first book or series of books I read where one of the heroes actually died. It made the book sso much more suspenseful to me because you really never know what is going to happen.

I tried to reread them a few years back and was appalled by how poorly edited one of the books was (I think it was the second one). Did anybody else notice all of the typos and misspellings in it? I have never before or since seen anything published like that.

But I did really enjoy the books as a kid. I'll be interested to see what direction they go with the film.

When I was younger I tried to pretend that I wasn't dorky enough to actually play D&D. So I missed out on that fun. But I loved the Champions of Krynn gold box D&D games on the pc. Not the same characters of course, but it was set in the same universe. I'd love to go back and replay those again someday.

Beginning to sound somewhat promising.

I almost think I would like this with real characters though, not animated.

Either way, it will still be cool to see how close my imagination was with all the books. I love this series and will be eagerly awaiting the movie.

Rosenbaum has done a lot of voicework for cartoons, he should be fine. Sutherland should be a great choice for Raistlin. Generally I don't think you have to pay actors too much for their voices, just because there is so much less time and work involved.

Regarding the OP, when was Marsden in ST:TNG? It certainly wasn't for more than one episode.

And I just saw that Keifer is going to be the voice of Raistlin and that rocks...don't think I could think of a more perfect voice for him.

great series growing up. I can't wait to share this with my kids.

I actually downloaded the Krynn 3 pack from an abandonware site. I'm not letting those three games disappear on me ;)

(Ok, Champions of Krynn was great, Dark Knight was pretty good.. can someone explain to me Dark Queen of Krynn? WTF?)

Those were great games. If I recall correctly the final battle in "Champions of Krynn" involved a couple of red dragons. I think I lost half my party during that fight. Good, heroic deaths all of them.