I’m not a fan of Dungeons & Dragons. Some friends tried to get me to play it going on 40 years ago, and I just didn’t get it (the FASA Star Trek Starship Combat game, though? I was all about that). So I don’t know the lore, settings, characters, etc. But I *do* know that the majority of fans appear to be males. D&D seems to share a lot of the *feel* of Lord of the Rings, which is also popular more among males. And while the males may tend towards the nerdy, the appreciation is for traditional masculine roles… heroes, barbarians, warriors, wizards. Weaklings are not well appreciated in that sort of world view. Even the supposedly week Hobbits turned out to have endless wells of strength and courage and, when called for, badassery.
And thus my confoundment upon reading:
The Dungeons & Dragons Movie Intentionally Emasculates Its Leading Men
The male characters, once again, apparently take a back seat to the females, and are depicted as weak and ineffectual. D&D is a role playing game. The players adopt roles… roles that they *want* to play. Characters they’d probably like to *be.* How many D&D players – the presumed base for the movie – want to see themselves as incompetent, weak, lazy, cowardly, useless? So… who is this movie supposed to appeal to?
I was unlikely to see this movie before reading this. “Unlikely” has transitioned to “statistically insignificant chance.”
2 responses to “Who the frak is this movie *for?*”
They are trying to establish a new societal “norm” either intentionally or because this is true from their point of view. A consistent theme from our friends on the “left” is the transfer of power of various types, real and perceived, from one group to another. In this case, the idea is to remove males as the “assumed” people in leadership roles.
The goal is to move from what is seen as a “white, male centric patriarchy” to something the perpetrator views as more “equitable” in this sense, the political message is more important than a good story. When the movie flops, literally anything else besides the messaging will be blamed, including the fans who failed to embrace it.
this was intended to bring people who normally wouldn’t play D&D to the game. the problem is they’re pushing the regular players away.
they had this huge plan to basically put D&D online, require memberships to play, and rake in the microtransactions for every single thing you’d do while you play. they were even talking about having AI gamemasters, and suing anyone who made anything compatible with the game that didn’t pay an exorbitant license.
they planned to have a toy line, online games, clothing, shoes, the works to make it a “brand” instead of just a game.
the whole thing when belly up when the existing players basically said “no, I’ll go play something else”
this movie was already in the can when they made the plan public.