#✧ he also plays the lute. ( holga )

[jinxedshapeshifter]

So I decided to look at the character sheets for Honor Among Thieves because a lot of people complain about Edgin not using bard magic.

BARDIC MAGIC IS SO SUBTLE IN PRACTICE.

It's not like a sorcerer's magic where you're announcing that you're using a spell. Bardic magic is basically enchantment subtly snuck into casual conversation or into a bard's music, especially with the specific spells Edgin knows:

IT IS NOT OBVIOUS WHEN A BARD USES MAGIC LMAO.

Yeah, during a campaign you're obviously going to know when the party's bard(s) use bardic magic because it requires you to announce it and make rolls, but in universe? NO. What bard is going to announce that they're casting spells meant to charm someone?? NO BARD WITH A DECENT INTELLIGENCE SCORE IS YOUR ANSWER.

Edgin VERY MUCH SO uses bardic magic, but bardic magic is so fucking subtle outside of the meta stuff that YOU WILL NOT REALIZE THE BARD IS USING MAGIC because THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT.

Edgin consistently encouraging the other members of the party? Bardic inspiration (and it FUCKING WORKS by the way).

Edgin noticing Holga's upset after she comes back from grabbing some stuff from her ex and proceeding to play his lute and sing a little song? I've seen some people suggest that he could've been using Calm Emotions there.

Xenk hearing what Edgin was telling Holga despite the distance Edgin was behind him and how quiet he was being? Not sure how likely it is, but according to the player handbook Message doesn't require concentration so maybe he was accidentally casting Message there (which would be really funny and also make Xenk's smug smile after Edgin says "I hate you" even funnier).

It's so subtle that he could've ABSOLUTELY used Charm Person or Suggestion at some point and WE WOULDN'T KNOW because of how those specific spells work.

The entire point of bardic magic is to be SUBTLE. Honor Among Thieves NAILS THIS. Not just in the sense that it would make Edgin an incredibly effective spy, but also because HE LITERALLY DOES USE MAGIC DURING THE MOVIE ASJGDFGDSFKJADSGFKJAS

[thevalleyisjolly]

Just watched the D&D movie and I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed watching a movie so much!  All the characters are great and you can tell the actors are having a blast, the plot is well paced and cohesively written, and the humour is genuinely funny - I haven’t laughed so hard in years.  It strikes a fantastic balance between a fantasy adventure movie and a D&D game - there were so many moments where it’s clear that “Oh, she just rolled a Nat 1″ or “He failed that Insight check and is now perpetually suspicious of the NPC” or “Yeah, no D&D party has ever come up with a plan that actually works, time to improvise.”

Spoiler-y part of the review under the cut:

I love the setting - the world feels lived in and real, and I’m always a sucker for travel montages where you see the characters tiny against the vast landscape.  The cinematography is great and does really creative things that don’t feel out of place or over the top, and the practical effects are really impressive.  My biggest dislike is the fat dragon, it was completely unnecessary to make him a fat joke.  I also think there are elements of the red wizards plotline that maybe got left on the cutting room floor because there were a couple of unexplained things - what’s the horn? who spoke to Sofina from the shadows? did Forge know she was a red wizard all along? 

I loved Holga being divorced, more characters in media should be mutually but a little painfully divorced, and I love that her and Edgin explicitly have a sibling-like co-parenting relationship.  Xenk is my autistic love and he played that Aragorn-eavesdropping moment beautifully (as he plays every moment beautifully).  I don’t care about how many Wildshapes she got, Doric’s confidence in herself and seamless comfort with her own abilities was a really refreshing subversion of the naive young woman trope.  I also like the subversion of the trope that elves are really haughty for no apparent reason, where elves were actually the ones to welcome and accept her when humans wouldn’t.  I like how Simon’s story presented a different angle on sorcerers, where it’s not about mastering uncontrollable powers or going full-on glass cannon mage, but rather growing into his magic by developing his self-confidence as a person.  Edgin’s character journey was really well thought out, and I love how he never once used a spell in combat and just went around hitting people with his lute.  And of course, Hugh Grant is a delight, I’m loving his camp villain era.

Also, this is how you have people of colour in fantasy.  Not just a couple token individuals (or one non-human, usually monstrous, race played entirely by POC), but actors of colours as elves and half-elves and halflings and humans.  There were actors of colour in the main cast and there were actors of colours in the background.  They were never singled out for a “diversity” moment, but they were always there.  It wasn’t perfect, but it’s a good step in the right direction.

So much more I could say about this movie, but a strong 8.5/10 for me.  A great movie if you don’t know anything about D&D, a fantastic movie if you do.

[moviemunchies]

With Dungeons & Dragons becoming more mainstream in the last few years, through things like Critical Role and that one episode of Community, it was only a matter of time before they tried to make a mainstream movie adaptation. And so we got this: Honor Among Thieves.

Good times.

Our story’s main characters are Edgin and Holga, a bard and barbarian warrior trapped in jail after their last attempted burglary went wrong and the rest of their crew escaped. When they escape, they find out their former companion Forge set them up to be captured, became lord of Neverwinter, and turned Edgin’s daughter against him. Oh no! So they get a crew together to steal all of Forge’s shiny new treasure and get Edgin’s daughter back.

So it’s a heist movie! Except in a fantasy setting. Which is quite fitting for a DnD film, because so many of those quests are team efforts for treasure or to stop a villain. I don’t know precisely how well this film maps onto the expectations of what a DnD sessions tend to go, but I imagine they’re often unpredictable (for the players) and fun adventures, much as this story turns out to be.

What I enjoy about this story is how out there it is? It embraces the fantastical. There are plenty of nonhumans who are just there in the population (often with practical effects!) without anyone questioning it or sitting and explaining it to you. You don’t have the rules of magic explained, but they’re alluded to and they clearly exist. Any asides of “Hey, what IS that?” is for the audience to understand what’s going on. And even then, there are some things which the movie doesn’t tell you, just reveals through context–that panther thing in the maze comes to mind. It’s not a fantasy epic like Lord of the Rings but it is a unabashedly fantasy film that revels in its genre.

Our emotional centers for the movie are Edgin and Holga, the bard and the barbarian, played by Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez. Yes, there are other group members and they have development, but these two are very much our leads. Edgin because he’s a fallen hero and he’s trying to get back to his daughter, and Holga who feels she has to prove herself. Their relationship is fantastic, because it’s NOT romantic. They’re best friends! And that’s okay with the story. Their relationship is obvious from their first scene together and it only gets more fun to watch from there.

[The bard doesn’t actually show many bard abilities in the movie other than singing and playing the lute though. Don’t know if that will bother you.]

I was going to happily say that this is a fantasy film without any sort of romance arc, but that’s not quite true, is it? Simon, the group’s sorcerer, previously tried dating the druid, Doric, and he would desperately like to try doing that again. I don’t know if the story really needed this angle, as it really adds very little to the story. But with that in mind, it’s not intrusive–it’s not as if the Plot derails to try to make this into an all-consuming love story. Still, it also barely matters to the characters or their quest, it’s only a way to introduce Doric to the group because Simon already knows her. I appreciate it doesn’t overtake the film, but it makes me wonder if it had to be in the movie at all.

Doric is kind of underdeveloped, and that’s a shame. TV Tropes tells me that supplementary materials gives her much more backstory. I suppose it makes sense that in a movie with this much going on, some material’s going to end up on the cutting room floor. I still think that it should have ended up in the movie–after all, most audience members might not know what a tiefling even is!

Also, I only noticed that Doric had a tail towards the end of the film. Was it always there? Did I just miss it? I need to rewatch.

I had fun watching this film! I’m very happy to be watching a movie that’s not a reboot, remake, or revival of another movie. I suppose there already has been a Dungeons & Dragons movie and television series, and being based off of the game it’s not a completely original film, but it’s still fresh and new. The makers of the film even admitted that they didn’t plan to build a franchise around the movie (though they’re open to making sequels), so it’s nice to see a self-contained story without the expectation of getting invested in a series.

It’s good. See it if you can.

[Though it’s worth noting the paladin isn’t in as much of the book as you’d guess from the advertising campaign.]