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D&D General Where is the tv/movie drama about G. Gygax?
- Thread starter DarkCrisis
- Start date
Wolfpack48
Hero
I’d hope for a PG-13 version of that section.
Brett Gelman or David Cross.
BookTenTiger
He / Him
Put Jack Black in the lead role and make it a rock musical!
MGibster
Legend
DeVito is no longer a young man and wouldn't be right for the part of a young Gary Gygax. My list was pretty much a joke. Gygax was born in 1938, so he would have been in his 30s and 40s during his TSR days, so even Giamatti, who is pushing 60 these days, is too old for the role. Assuming such a movie would even be greenlit, it would be years before it actually went into production, so Giamatti and others are only going to be getting older. David Cross is even older that Giamatti.
I mean, wasn't that basically Billions?
As for the topic, I think a well-done story of Gygax and Arneson and the falling out (Game Wizards) would be pretty cool, since it's universal.
Hobbyists start making it big, and then ... stuff happens.
humble minion
Legend
Did anyone else see the World of Darkness documentary, about the rise (and fall) of White Wolf?
It was a bit of a weird watch, because the filmmakers focused so heavily on very deeply-immersed and expensively-costumed Vampire LARPers (who, let's face it, are a very small portion of the player base) over the tabletop game and any of the other old WoD gamelines - Mage, Werewolf etc etc etc all got tossed off in a sentence or two. Not as photogenic as hawt goths in diaphanous black, I guess, but it meant a lot of the history was distorted around what looked good on screen, rather than the actual importance of WW in the history of the hobby, or even in the lives of its players.
It's a bit of an object lesson in the risks of making a film about topic like this though. Let's be real, a drama about the early days of D&D would be a bunch of beardy nerds dressed in late-70s polyester arguing about bits of paper (by mail, sometimes, as I seem to remember Arneson often wasn't in the office). D&Ds best special effects have always been the ones that only take place inside the heads of the players. Which isn't necessarily to say you can't make a compelling character drama about the personalities involved (the Game Wizards approach that @Snarf Zagyg talks about above), but it'd be odd to watch a film about D&D that didn't have any actual D&D visuals. It might as well be a film about a falling-out between partners in a successful accountancy firm.
It was a bit of a weird watch, because the filmmakers focused so heavily on very deeply-immersed and expensively-costumed Vampire LARPers (who, let's face it, are a very small portion of the player base) over the tabletop game and any of the other old WoD gamelines - Mage, Werewolf etc etc etc all got tossed off in a sentence or two. Not as photogenic as hawt goths in diaphanous black, I guess, but it meant a lot of the history was distorted around what looked good on screen, rather than the actual importance of WW in the history of the hobby, or even in the lives of its players.
It's a bit of an object lesson in the risks of making a film about topic like this though. Let's be real, a drama about the early days of D&D would be a bunch of beardy nerds dressed in late-70s polyester arguing about bits of paper (by mail, sometimes, as I seem to remember Arneson often wasn't in the office). D&Ds best special effects have always been the ones that only take place inside the heads of the players. Which isn't necessarily to say you can't make a compelling character drama about the personalities involved (the Game Wizards approach that @Snarf Zagyg talks about above), but it'd be odd to watch a film about D&D that didn't have any actual D&D visuals. It might as well be a film about a falling-out between partners in a successful accountancy firm.
Here: rpghistory.net
MGibster
Legend
I am very often surprised by how a seemingly boring story might actually turn out to be compelling. Many years ago I watched a documentary called The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters which was all about the high stakes world of vintage video game records, and in particular Donkey Kong. The story had an underdog we could root named Steve Wiebe and even a villain named Billy Mitchell. Try telling me with a straight face that Billy Mitchell does not sound like the name of a 1980s villain.
Then there was The Wrestler released in 2008 starring Mickey Rourke as an over-the-hill professional wrestler, Randy the Ram, who keeps on at it because he loves the adoration of the crowd. Even when a doctor tells him he's going to die if he keeps it up, he can't quit. None of that really sounds interesting to me, but the story had plenty of pathos, and even if Randy isn't a great guy himself, it's a situation a lot of us can relate to. Especially as we get older and are unable to do the things we love as well as we could.
So, yeah, a lot of people might not be interested in the story of how D&D came about and the early days of the game, but it's a human story and I think people would be interested in that.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
This needs to be an animated feature length rock opera, with different segments drawn by different animators, like Heavy Metal. And it needs to premiere in Denver, CO. And the theater needs to sell hallucinogenic mushrooms at the door. Then I can die happy. Or at least very, very, high.
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