Review of Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Average Overall Rating:  7.6

Brian: Technical Rating:  7.0

Gut Rating:  7.0

C. E. Dorsett: Technical Rating:  7.4

Gut Rating:  9.0

I love DragonLance, this picture is not all of the books that I have read but all of the books that I still have. I must say that I kind of like the movie. I will end up owning it because it is one of those types of movies that will grow on you over time. I would recommend renting it first just because there are some problems with the animation and for some of you out there that is a deal breaker in owning a movie. I did find the movie fun to watch they really hit some of the main points that I was looking for in this and that is how are the dragons, Draconians and how did they do with Rastlin all of which they nailed. As far as how it compared to the books... well read the books, also by the way if you are a fan of the book then before you watch this film I should warn you they stick to the main plot and that is it.

Likes

1. It was fun and campy: they did a great job at capturing the table top roleplaying feel epically with the jiggling boobies and focus on Kittera's trunk junk which for you table top players know that has come up during a gamming session.

2. The Voice Talent was very well done

3. Cool Dragons: they looked good and represented well, in other words the red dragons breathed fire and the black dragon spit acid!

4. cool Draconians: they looked nice and when slain they turned to stone trapping some weapons in them when they changed

5. Rastlin was well done: his golden hourglass eyes looked cool and they did a nice job portraying him as a haunted person with a dark cloud over him. They did not portray him as an evil character which he is not and I was very pleased to see.

Concerns / Dislikes

1. Animation that was 20 years too late: The animation style was western but lacked all of the lesions and techniques learned over the last 20 years. It was jarring and looked terrible.

2. The show felt hollow: They rushed, and missed a lot of notes that exist within the story that would not have taken any time to put into the movie so that I feel that if I had not had all of my previous exposure to the Dragonlance setting I may have had a harder time following the story or found it very one dimensional.

3. The fight scenes looked weak: they were terribly animated and in many instances I found myself thinking 'hey he is off balance wouldn't he just fall over'

4. Lacked good tension and conflict: I got bored at several points throughout the film which is very sad considering how much I love the setting, story, and characters.

5. Many of the characters came across as flat and lacking depth: take for instance Tanis all the film tells you about him is that he is 1/2 Elven and lacks faith, that is it. Many of the characters had that problem that they were just there, once again I was able to just fill in all of the missing information because of my familiarity but a film should not require that background knowledge.

This is the animated tale based on the first book in the DragonLance Series, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, by Margaret Weis. The courageous heroes, Tanis, Flint, Tasslehoff, Rastlin, Caramon, and Sturm are meeting in solace as they have pledged years earlier. They are discussing the goblin encounters that they met on their way into Solace when trouble is stirred up. It turns out that the Dark queen Takhisis has risen and with her cleric Verminaard are hunting for the missing staff of light. During the confrontation a man is accidentally knocked into the fire and set alight. That is when we get to meet two new characters the cleric of light Goldmoon and her companion Riverwind. She heals the man with her staff and they all have to flee from the goblins that are attracted to the scene.