Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight (2008)

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.

Director:

Will Meugniot

Writers:

Tracy Hickman (novel), George Strayton (screenplay)

Stars:

Michael Rosenbaum, Kiefer Sutherland, Lucy Lawless

Cast

Credited 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 McCain	...	Elistan (voice)

Storyline

After five years apart, searching the world of Krynn for proof of the existence of the true gods, a group of adventurers find their proof in the form of a barbarian woman carrying a miraculous blue crystal staff. Soon they are thrust into war as an army of dragons overtakes their homeland.

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Plot Keywords:

dragon | knight | high fantasy | mystical | actor voicing multiple characters | 

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Taglines:

The heroes of Krynn take a stand against evil!

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Genres:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Fantasy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for fantasy action violence

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA India Germany

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 January 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Tale

Company Credits

Production Co:

Commotion Pictures, Toonz Animation India, Witox

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the mid-1990s, the Jim Henson Company was in talks with TSR, which was the owner of Dungeons and Dragons and also Dragonlance, to produce some type of Dragonlance project. However when TSR was bought out by Wizards of the Coast, the project was dropped.

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Goofs

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

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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.

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Connections

Featured in Troldspejlet: Episode #39.14 (2008)

User Reviews

I can't take it anymore

I'm about halfway through this thing, and it's just too painful to watch anymore.

This film looks like one of the mid to late 1980s after school offerings, where major US toy makers contracted with Japanese or Korean anime studios to crank out cheap fast cartoons to promote their products for market. The kids watch the TV show, then buy the action figure and all of it's related toys in a marketing blitz against young impressionable minds.

It's that bad.

Truth be told the Dragonlance series, that is the novels by Weiss and Hickman, aren't great literature, and are more or less run in the mill pulp fantasy. Even then they aren't fun reads, much less "great reads". They're the kind of books you might like if you're new to the fantasy genre and haven't read anything else.

However, "back in the day" (so to speak), TSR put out some very high quality game modules for their rules that really made Weiss and Hickman's mediocre and so-so books look like great fantasy fare. They were that well put together and presented.

So seeing this thing makes a man furl his brow. I can't help but reflect back on Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" effort from the 1970s. I don't like Bakshi and the cadre of social psychologists that have a lock on Hollywood, and think all of us regular people are closet Nazis waiting to unleash racist havoc on the US (even those of us whose ancestors fought under Washington), but as painful and condescending as some of his stuff was (and is), I'd much rather watch something like "Wizards" or "Fire and Ice" than this junk.

Again, it's that bad.

The truth of the matter is that animation is expensive. And unless you have a ton of cash, you either have to rub elbows with old guard Hollywood, or contract with someone outside the nation.

Again, I don't like the Dragonlance books. I tried reading the first one and found the premise of the whole thing to be ridiculous (I seem to recall that steel is as valuable as gold ... and yet the people of this world fight with it instead of using wooden weapons), and not very well written. But TSR really made it shine, complete with maps, artwork and everything else. And so when this "movie" comes out, one is given to wonder what the heck happened.

Still, I gave it a shot. And Disney it ain't. Which is too bad, because a company like Disney could have really made poor story material like this really stand out and shine, as is Disney's reputation and legacy of exceptional high quality benchmark / gold- standard animated feature films. I mention that because that's what this thing needed in order to sell it.

But again, like I say, the other issue here is that the source material isn't that good in the first place, so it is perhaps fitting that some Korean company took on the project and gave a quality animated film befitting Weiss and Hickman's novel.

The reason my review here is so long is that I just can't help but shake my head as to how this stuff gets made. I'm guessing the authors wanted their work in animated format that much that they were willing to compromise visual quality for the sake of cost effective expediency. Oh well.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Watch at your own risk.