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Downloads and Dragons: Look what they've done to Fantasy, ma

© Michael Martinez

I spent the day trying to download the "Dungeons and Dragons" trailer. After many hours and several restarts and reboots, I finally got my 28 megabytes worth of preview. It was worth not doing anything else I needed to do on the Internet, and the wait. "Dungeons and Dragons" is a movie I've long waited for, not so much because I've played it, but because I first heard about it long before many other people did. I heard about the wizards with the fireballs and the armies of dragons, and I wanted to see them. I still want to see them, because I like what was shown in the trailer. There are people, of course, who are snickering in the corners and shadows, trying to spread poison about what promises to be one of the best fantasy movies released until now. Why? I can't imagine why. Some people just don't get it. I've read the story, I've followed the spy reports, I've seen pre-production artwork, photos, and illicit previews on the Net. I haven't seen anything to turn me off of these movies. And it's not like gaming is a big part of my life. I haven't rolled dice in years. It's just something I got away from. Besides, I always like Rolemaster better. So, what does "Dungeons and Dragons" have to do with Tolkien? Not a whole lot. And everything. Naturally, we're looking forward to the release of the DnD movie with great anticipation because it's going to be one of the movies that carries the LOTR trailer. People will line up to see that trailer alone. New stuff is supposed to show up there, after all (at least, that's the fannish theory). If I may be permitted a little cornball tripe for a paragraph, as we get ready to enter the new millennium (which, being purely arbitrary, means nothing in any real sense), we're about to enter a new age of Fantasy entertainment. A few years ago Kevin Sorbo and Renaissance Pictures showed the world that fantasy could be made to look real on television, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys ended up being syndicated in 140 countries around the world before Kevin finally turned in his leather trousers to go seeking new adventures in worlds beyond pseudo-Greek fantasy. The movie "Dragonheart", which had its weak points (mostly in the evil prince/king), proved that CGI could be used persuasively in a major-budget motion picture. "Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace" proved that entire worlds could be created with enough imagination and innuendo (and there is a lot of innuendo in the movie, although many people were too busy looking for non-existent problems to notice what I'm talking about). CGI is the modern successor to the ancient Greeks' masks and choruses. With a few props and uttered cadences, Greek dramatists invoked worlds of imagination in their audiences. People saw gods and monsters, not men on a stage. But they had to look into their hearts to see these gods and monsters.

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