Making a movie out of a game that is meant to be built by the unique players who enjoy it is a substantial uphill battle. After plenty of time to forget the earlier cinematic efforts, a complete cultural shift in perception, and a series of hostile negotiations, D&D is ready to take its chances again.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was revealed at this year's Comic-Con, where it teased its sense of humor and style of fantasy action. Some found it a fun proof of concept while others see a massive problem with both the premise and the execution.
Looking back at the D&D adaptations of the past, they are plagued with issues that are too numerous to list. On the other hand, adaptations of individual campaigns have seen tremendous success, both in financial returns and fan reception. Making a feature film out of the concept of D&D will run into the same problem every time. There's no central story that Honor Among Thieves intends to adapt, it's just set in the Forgotten Realms world. Its cast of characters feels vaguely like an adventuring party one might see around a table, but, just like the lowest common denominator of D&D groups, it all feels heavily based on other movies. The likely outcome of a D&D movie will always be a generic fantasy film with a ton of references. The studio hopes to send fans home happy after they see a mimic or a gelatinous cube, everything else is secondary. The only major difference between Honor Among Thieves and any other fantasy story is the license that allows them to use fan favorite designs. With that in mind, how can the film overcome its default state?
By its nature, a film can not and should not feel improvisational. This is a massive wound in the premise of making a film out of a collaborative storytelling game like D&D, which shines in the moments of chaotic freedom that improv can provide. Adapting a video game to the screen has been no small task, resulting in far more failures than successes, but, at least a video game is the same basic experience for every player. The fun of D&D is the fact that it can be whatever the group wants it to be. One way to sell the experience through cinema, netting the knowing smile of hardcore fans and enticing newcomers, would be to create an anarchic story in which everything feels possible.
From the brief clips fans have seen of Honor Among Thieves, it appears to be one of the endless generic adventures taking place in the Forgotten Realms setting. The kind of story that would typically come in an R. A. Salvatore novel, of which there are a ton. Those books have their audience, but, in the gradual shift in popularity that tabletop gaming has enjoyed over the past couple of decades, they've fallen out of favor. This may be a deliberate misdirect, but it does seem like the most obvious direction to take this kind of film in. Hasbro is licensing the film to Paramount, they want a trailer for their extremely specific fantasy setting in the hopes that fans will outsource all their creativity to the books available for sale. This is going to reign in the kind of creativity that the filmmakers can wield, but it doesn't have to kill the project.
Honor Among Thieves should take a page from one of the best films ever made out of a global media brand, The Lego Movie. That film spends the majority of its runtime showing off the many unique worlds one could theoretically build with Lego brand products, but it takes a turn near the end. The real-world narrative that appears as a massive twist and massively informs the plot is one of the most inspired choices of the film. Honor Among Thieves could pull off similar playful tricks throughout the feature. The film could depict the actual tabletop experience, depicting the fictional players as well as their fictional characters. This allows the film to do something that the previous works never did, examine the audience's relationship with D&D and explore why fans fell in love with it.
Works like The Legend of Vox Machina or Harmonquest capture what fans love experiencing around their own table. They pull this off by hiring professionals to depict a real game, exploring everything from shoddy speech checks to chaotic combat from the perspective of the characters. Honor Among Thieves isn't based on a beloved campaign played by people who are 100% committed to their characters like those actual-play adaptations are, but it could try to fake it. Sticking to the typical rails of any other fantasy story leaves the audience with a weaker Guardians of the Galaxy with a handful of soulless cameos. This shouldn't come across as a fan film. Putting a displacer beast won't cut it. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves must use the power of the game to make something worthwhile, or risk winding up without inspiration.
