DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES | "Justice For Jarnathan!" | OLD LADY MOVIE REACTION 

As a 30+ year player of D&D I have to admit I was worried about this movie. I was pleasantly surprised.

This movie was such a great representation of a bunch of friends, goofing around while playing a game together. It captured the fun-loving energy that many have experienced playing D&D. Easter eggs aside, this movie was, at it's core, just an absolute blast. Glad you enjoyed it

As a player and DM I can see the actual conversations happening at the table between the players as the events of the film are happening. Or when the DM starts improvising when the players mess up. The coin scene for instance was the players screwing up and the DM has to make like 6 new dead NPC’s for them to interrogate. Or the bridge and the staff is someone failing a perception check for where the bridge starts and a failed dexterity save to avoid stepping on the wrong stone followed by an improvised Arcana check to find the “totally a magical item this whole time” staff. I’m also really happy when Holga needed comforting about her husband that they let them have that moment and didn’t play it for laughs. The two of them have known each other for years so he plays her favorite song to cheer her up a bit.

I think the main reason people were surprised/begrudging in their love of the film has alot to do with low expectations set by both film adaptations of other games, as well as the god awful D&D movie from the year 2000 (as well as its direct to DVD sequels).

"It's so ridiculous, but also kinda cool" that's D&D for ya :P

The fat dragon, Themberchaud, actually has a pretty interesting backstory. His previous den was a dwarven smithy where he'd keep the furnaces lit in exchange for easy and steady supply of food. This deal ended when he found out what happened to the previous red dragons that said dwarves made such bargains with...

The three things people need to understand the film. 1. It captured the feel of playing the game. The players planning for long times between action scenes, and the Classes doing what makes them unique. This movie feels like they played a game focusing on rule of cool over rules as written, followed by adaptations to make it a better movie. 2. When a player wants to do something, they must roll a 20-sided die. Whether it’s Athletics (break your execution bindings), Persuasion, or Stealth. When rolling for an attack, like _that potato,_ a Natural 20 on the 20-sided die bypasses any Armor Class and doubles the damage dealt. 3. DMPC, a hated character type. Every player has a Player Character, and the Dungeon Master is in charge of the story, world, and NPCs. But when the Dungeon Master makes their PC, one that is so great and perfect, many levels above the Party, diverting the party from the overall story into a quest dedicated to showing off how great the DM’s PC is… That is a DMPC, like the Paladin. There is a ton more you don’t need to know. Like how Druids aren’t proficient in Heavy Armor, and Doric having a strength of 12- while wearing heavy armor reduced her movement speed by 10’ and allowed the real guard to catch up easily. 16:17 Remember what I said about the feel of the classes? Bards are the singing, social type. He cast the spell Calm Emotions on her through his playing. 20:01 Voldemort’s Horcruxes and Saruman’s One Ring have the same concept as a Lich’s Phylactery. As long as the soul vessel is intact, the body can’t die. 23:16 Themberchaud has a long history in D&D Adventures across multiple editions. There is a city of Dark Elves that steal a Red Dragon Egg, pamper and feed it in return for it keeping their forges lit, then kill and replace the dragon when its evil tyrant instincts kick in and it becomes too big to control. When the players meet him in an edition, the replacement egg was stolen; you could interfere in behalf of the Dark Elves, the thieves, or Themberchaud by doing nothing. In a later edition, one where the party did nothing, Themberchaud is trapped underground in the city he conquered, unable to burrow without caving himself in.

The reason the villains resemble Voldemort is because they're liches: powerful wizards who became undead by transferring their souls into a special object. So their body is a corpse while their soul is safely hidden away, making them very hard to kill off for good as if the body is destroyed it'll either form a new one or possess a nearby corpse and use that. Voldemort is basically a rip off of the concept with a snake theme tacked on.

The first dragon spews acid

Great reaction to a gem of a film. It's nice to see you don't need to understand Dungeons and Dragons to like the film. The dragon was breathing acid.

This movie was just a great big ball of fun.

I agree with your comments about sophina and the red wizards. Her backstory is one of the few places where the movie leans on knowing the lore of dungeons and dragons. Every place else its so good and explaining things to the audience 😊

I was one of the many people surprised how much I enjoyed this film, lol. The surprise you're seeing across the board probably has a lot to do with the LAST DnD movie attempt in 2000. It didn't so much set the bar as bury it, you'd need a shovel and a Speak with Dead spell. This film managed to put enough DnD stuff in it to make me very happy as a long-time player, but none of it is necessary to know to watch the film, they're just little Easter eggs that will make players laugh, without taking away from the story for everyone else. Things like the Speak with Dead spell having 5 questions, and the silver thread that's part of the Alarm spell on the tablet in the flashback, and Simon accidentally ruining the complicated bridge puzzle before the explanation is even finished, forcing the world to materialize a "convenient" new way across so the whole story doesn't grind to a halt. (Dungeon Masters can plan all they like, players are pure chaos and will find the shortcut 😂) The joy of DnD (and other tabletop rpgs) that they've managed to capture pretty well here imo, is that at any moment you can be catapulted from serious, high stakes combat, into a wheezing giggle fit because the terrifying enemy has an accidentally funny name. Or roleplay of lighthearted campfire stories between characters will get deep and kick you right in the feels. Just like life, genre boundaries are a little fuzzy at a DnD table :) Another bit of unnecessary info: Doric is a tiefling, which means that she has demonic blood somewhere in her ancestry, hence the tail and horns :) The costumes are GREAT! I love how much sense they make, and all the details, while still being very "fantasy". Also, COLOUR in the costumes AND in the sets! And LIGHT! everything is bright and easy to watch. So much "fantasy" film and TV recently has just been shades of mud, not that you can really tell when the scenes are only lit by eyeshine and "artistic vision". [/rant] Heh, sorry, it's a peeve. Point is, this was s a really enjoyable film to just... look at. Everything is interesting. If you'd enjoy something else based on DnD, you might enjoy the animated series "The Legend of Vox Machina" Their story (taken from hundreds of hours of live gameplay, condensed into animated form) is lifted directly from Critical Role's first DnD campaign, and it's voiced by the same people who played those characters for over 2 years, so it's made with a lot of love and passion. Anyway, it's a lot of fun, full of heart, music, and humor, plus a good dose of darkness, and a helping of DnD-typical violence and dirty jokes, but you don't need to know DnD to enjoy it! [/unsolicited show suggestion] This got long, apologies! I enjoyed your reaction!

"Shockingly good" is how I describe it to friends lol

10:46 He is a half-elf, half human, half elf.

That isn't just Bradley Cooper. It is a Mini-Cooper.

Rakor the black dragon that was fighting the barbarians was breathing Acid.

23:15 I can tell you exactly why. Themburchaud here is actually housed and raised by a clan of underdark dwarves called duergar, with the purpose of using his dragon fire to keep their weapon forges lit at all times. In return they feed him seemingly endless amounts of food to hold his hunger at bay and keep him so damn chonk that he can’t even leave, let alone pose a threat to the duergar if he were to get tired of them.

Skullduggery is a another way of saying trickery And the dragon in the flashback is s black dragon they spit a stream of acid.

not much to say about this one so mostly commenting to help the algorithm but, really liked this movie but just for fun, watched it for a chilled Friday with friends and drinks. Really loved you pointing out things you thought were cool, and although as this movie financially underperformed (as has been the pattern for a few of your recent reactions), it didn't deserve the relatively low box office. Thanks again for your reaction, always appreciate it and thank you

Hi Michelle, I am glad you liked this movie! There were so many ways this could go wrong (they tried a series of D&D movies years ago that were just awful). The way they made this movie work was having fun with the story and making the adventure completely accessible to anyone, even if they didn't know jack about the game. You clearly had no problem following the story or relating to the characters. Story came first. Visuals were stunning. Character development, acting and writing were all on point. Game mechanics were there in the background for us super nerds but it didn't change any of the previous points. Yes, there were TONS of things in the film that made sense to players. Every spell, every monster comes directly from the game. I could fill a page with all the details, but what would be the point? You don't know the game so explaining why the name drop of Mordenkainen was interesting wouldn't improve your enjoyment of it at all. (It was his spell that sealed the vault, and our reaction should be just like the nobles when she said it. Oh, ok, that sounds like its supposed to be impressive, moving right along...) Personally I have never been much of a Chris Pine fan but he did pretty good here. My favorite was Sophia Lillis as the shape-changing druid. Wow, in love. hahaha. She was the star of a short lived TV series you can find on Netflix called "I Am Not Okay With This". Sadly it only lasted for one season of seven episodes then Covid arrived and they never made any more. But seriously, knowing a bit about you I think you would enjoy it. Here is the trailer, have a laugh! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LQVQHLEPZQM.html This is why I recommended you to watch the Amazon Prime animated series "The Legend of Vox Machina". You don't need to understand the game to have fun with the show. They now have 2 seasons out, with up to 3 more seaons in the works. Plus they are starting another series from the same team based on a different campaign. This is a GREAT time to get into it, or maybe wait until about a month or two before S3 comes out, then binge watch the first two seasons so you can pump up an audience for your reaction to S3. Now that you have seen how accessible D&D stories are, maybe something to think about? Up to you of course.

Good reaction

"A mini Cooper! I don't know why I find that so funny." Probably because it _is_ funny! And I'm kind of kicking myself for not making that connection myself. It's totally the sort of thing I would say. "She's not interested". No. Besides the lips, he's much too tall for her.

The reason it was underrated was the original D&D movie from about 2000. That one Sucked, majorly. (Despite having Jeremy Irons as the bad guy!) and the Direct to video sequels were worse!!

Hey, if you didn't like the religious overtones of The Lord of the Rings (which was mostly the fictional religion of the Elves, though Tolkien was a religious scholar) I wonder what you would think of the Narnia movies, which are straight out Catholic Propoganda...