D&D: Honor Among Thieves Could be a Great Fantasy Film But a Bad D&D Movie

Warning: this post contains possible spoilers for D&D: Honor Among Thieves for those seeking a pure experience seeing it for the first time after release. I was inspired to weigh in even further on a post I shared on Nerdarchy’s Facebook page after reading the comments. First off a social media post just isn’t enough to articulate my position.

We’re nerds — it’s what we do

Let me start off by stating that from what I’ve seen from the trailer I’m really excited for the D&D movie Honor Among Thieves after having witnessed the travesty of the first D&D movie in the theater. This post over on our Facebook page let me know people are very passionate about the upcoming D&D movie.

The discussion and arguments I see in the comments are all over the place. One consistent comment asked why people are speculating about the movie since it hasn’t come out yet. Well, we’re nerds and it’s what we do. Plus it’s fun to voice what we’d like to see and make guesses at what we might get. In the case of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie it was completely successful in getting the main character redesigned out of a bad design. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: All anyone can do at this point is speculate too. If the film were already released it wouldn’t really be speculation, now would it?]

Why D&D: Honor Among Thieves might be a good fantasy, but not a good D&D, movie

I think we are headed towards a great fantasy movie that pays plenty of fan service to D&D players. The fan service list for D&D players is pretty long just from what’s shown in the trailer, which is just over two minutes long.

Some lists of fan service we are receiving from the D&D Movie that I know of so far.

D&D spells:

• Thunderwave
• Ray of frost
• Dimension door
• Shield
• Misty step

D&D Monsters:

• Displacer Beast
• Mimic
• Three Dragons
• Gelatinous Cube
• Owlbear

D&D Character Classes

• Paladin
• Bard
• Rogue
• Barbarian
• Sorcerer
• Druid

D&D Locations

• Underdark
• Neverwinter
• Revel’s End Prison

What do I want from a D&D movie? I want something that will spread the hobby and get more people playing the game. A good fantasy movie isn’t going to do it even if you slap the D&D ampersand on it. We know this because 20+ successful superhero movies hasn’t done this for comicbook readership.

I’ve seen people online complain it’s fantasy meets Guardians of the Galaxy. I’d be completely fine with this. Those movies did phenomenally well and I enjoyed them. Plus I feel games of Dungeons & Dragons are much closer to Guardians of the Galaxy than they are to Lord of the Rings, at least in own experience of playing the game.

The D&D movie needs something to grab the audience and tell them they could do this with their friends. Do I want a full on Gamers Dorkness Rising, Princess Bride, or Of Dice and Men style movie? No.

A little inspiration from those movies could go a long way. Imagine an opening scene showing a group of friends at a table with the Dungeon Master narrating. A quick swirl of the screen and we go from the gaming table to the world of Dungeons & Dragons. At the very end we go from the world Dungeons and Dragons back to the gaming table with one of the players asking another player what they thought of their first session of D&D.

Something along those lines can remind the audience this is something you could do and enjoy with your friends. I’d even be good with an after credits scene or two tying the movie’s story to the game.

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