Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight (2008) (V)

Director:

Will Meugniot

Writers:

George Strayton (screenplay)
Tracy Hickman (novel)
(more)

Release Date:

15 January 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Fantasy

Tagline:

The heroes of Krynn take a stand against evil!

Plot:

A barbarian woman with a miraculous healing staff gains the help of a group of to-be heroes as an army of dragons invades the land.

Plot Keywords:

Dragon | Knight | Wizard | Cult Film | Goblin

Cast

Michael Rosenbaum	...	Tanthalas 'Tanis' Half-Elven (voice)
Kiefer Sutherland	...	Raistlin Majere (voice)
Lucy Lawless	...	Goldmoon (voice)
Fred Tatasciore	...	Flint Fireforge / Fewmaster Toede (voice)
Michelle Trachtenberg	...	Tika (voice)
Rino Romano	...	Caramon Majere (voice)
Jason Marsden	...	Tasslehoff Burrfoot (voice)
Neil Ross	...	Fizban The Fabulous (voice)
Marc Worden	...	Sturm Brightblade (voice)
Phil LaMarr	...	Riverwind / Gilthanas (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Dee Bradley Baker	...	Pyros (voice)
Juliette Cohen	...	Onyx (voice)
Nika Futterman	...	Takhisis (voice)
Caroline Gelabert	...	Laurana (voice)
Ben L. McCain	...	Elistan (voice)
Jentle Phoenix	...	Bupu (voice)
Susan Silo	...	Flamestrike (voice)
David Sobolov	...	Verminaard
Mari Weiss	...	The Forestmaster (voice)

Directed by
Will Meugniot

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Tracy Hickman		novel
George Strayton		screenplay
Margaret Weis		novel

Produced by
Christian Arnold-Beutel	....	executive producer
Arthur Cohen	....	producer
Baiju Gopinathan	....	co-producer
P. Jayakumar	....	executive producer
Barr B. Potter	....	co-executive producer
Cindi Rice	....	co-executive producer
John Frank Rosenblum	....	co-executive producer
Judy Sharinger	....	associate producer
Steven Stabler	....	producer
Hari Varma	....	co-producer

Original Music by
Karl Preusser

Casting by
Collette Sunderman

Art Department
Shannon Denton	....	storyboard artist
Arthur Nichols	....	senior storyboard artist

Sound Department
Jake Allston	....	sound designer
Roy Braverman	....	dialogue editor
Roy Braverman	....	foley recordist

Visual Effects by
Sreejith Venugopalan	....	visual effects artist (as S.V. Sreeijth)

Animation Department
Mike Bundlie	....	character designer
Sharon Burian	....	animatic editor
T.C. Harrison	....	animatic editor
Boyd Kirkland	....	character designer
Harinarayan Rajeev	....	animator

Editorial Department
Ken Cravens	....	additional editor
Aeolan Kelly	....	additional editor
George Rizkallah	....	supervising editor
Ian Truitner	....	additional editor
Robert Walz	....	assistant editor (as Rob Walz)

Music Department
Sean Fernald	....	music coordinator
Vitek Kral	....	score engineer
Michael Stern	....	music scoring mixer

Other crew
Gero Brugmann	....	legal advisor: financing
Ben Doggett	....	pre-production assistant
Saul Dudley	....	pre-production assistant
Mitchel Dumlao	....	pre-production assistant
Tracy Hickman	....	creative consultant
John Petrovitz	....	director of production
Margaret Weis	....	creative consultant

Production Companies

• Commotion Pictures
• Toonz Animation India
• Witox

Distributors

• Paramount Home Entertainment Finland (2008) (Finland) (DVD)
• Paramount Home Entertainment (2008) (USA) (DVD)

Also Known As:

"A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Tale" - USA (subtitle)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for fantasy action violence

Runtime:

USA:90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | Finland:K-11 | Australia:PG

Company:

Commotion Pictures

Trivia:

The novel "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" is the first book in the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy. The Chronicles are the first trilogy in the series of Dragonlance novels and anthologies that now number close to 150 books, several of which were on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: In the credits, Michael Rosenbaum's name is misspelled as "Michael Rosenbaun."

Quotes:

Tasslehoff Burrfoot:Hey! She cast that spell without using those funny words! Why can't you do that, all powerful mage?
Raistlin Majere:She's channeling the power of a god, you dolt. I'm wresting arcane energies from the very fabric of the universe - it's completely different.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Troldspejlet: Episode #39.14" (2008)

Convoluted, lacking characterisation, but contains some charm for fans of the books.

I remembered these books fondly from reading them as a child several years ago, and couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the film version, and it was for me a mixed bag. Whilst the film does remain very faithful to the story and the events within, its severely limited by its 90 minute run-time, the characterisation other than Tanis is lacking, the story simplified and compressed to the degree where the characters hurtle from one event to another, without the breathing space and reflection of the book it becomes very convoluted.

Furthermore the film makers decided to use a mixture of 2d and 3d animation , with the dragons and draconians represented by a dated 3d animation, that makes the fighting sequences look very poor and overall the 3d sections look very plastic. The 2d animation is not much better, moving often jerkily, though some of the characters are drawn quite nicely.

Overall i wasn't very impressed, but since its only 90 minutes its hardly as though its a massive chunk of my life has been lost to it. Id recommend to fans of the books, for a little nostalgia trip and for Kiefer Sutherlands (underused) performance as Raistlin.