Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(2023)

Yes, there is another Dungeons & Dragons movie that came out in 2005. I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard it’s terrible. Personally, I can’t wait to see that one. I’m sure it deserves its own analysis and I don’t want to combine it with this one because this one deserves its own analysis too. Not because it’s awful, rather because it’s amazing.

The Dungeons & Dragons game is meant to be a fun time with friends making up semi-silly situations and creative solutions to conundrums while passing the candy and pop-corn around. This film embodies that idea perfectly. It’s fun. It’s funny. The characters are colorful, complex, and varied.

I don’t want to go into too much detail but if you’re a surrogate parent in any way, this film will grip your heartstrings. Such a beautiful thing happens. I wasn’t crying. You’re crying! Well, if you haven’t seen it, I guess it wouldn’t make sense for you to cry yet… but you will!

If you’re not into D&D, try to look past that. Just tell yourself this is a beautiful story about a single dad and a surrogate mother who are learning how to be there for their estranged daughter in a world that just happens to have Tiefling Druids, Barbarians, Paladins, Red Wizards of Thay, half-elf sorcerers, overweight dragons, and treasure chests that turn into multi-toothed monsters. You see? It may as well be a Hallmark movie!

Optional Tangent:

I understand not everyone is into sitting down and playing a table-top book-based role-playing game for days on end, or even just a few hours. Heck, I know plenty who can’t hold still for ten minutes. Many bow out of D&D when they realize they have to use an imagination they’ve never before fostered. That’s why there’s sports and courtroom dramas. It’s comforting to have a predetermined set of rules to which you and teammates can adhere such as in football or lawsuits.

It’s when people begin to apply these rules to others who are not even playing that game or when we start insisting anyone who refuses to play our game deserves death and hatred, do we see society crumble.

I can’t count how many times some official has blowed their whistle at me and yelled “Penalty! Illegal forward pass!” when all I was doing was walking down the street, eating a bag of chips. I hate it when someone hands me a community chest card and expects me to pay $40 per house for street repairs and I’m not even playing monopoly.

Or when someone comes up to me and says “Hey! You’re not allowed to eat rattlesnake! The game I’m playing doesn’t allow that!” Um, sorry, but I’m not playing the “Don’t Eat Rattlesnake” game.

So if Dungeons & Dragons, or Football, or Communism or Voo Doo is not your bag, you’ll get no guff from me. Not to say I’m into any of those things, per sé. I just liked this movie.

I’d like to be into D&D type stuff. I’ve purchased Avilon Hill’s remake of Hero Quest and all of their expansions. Now all I need is some friends, particularly friends with no life who are also into RPGs. Also, I need less of a life too. I’ve pulled this game out and actually played it a total of one time. My daughter and adult nephew and I managed to get through one turn cycle before it got too late to continue. We walked into a room and found it full of baddies which we deftly dispatched. The end.

We’ve talked about recommencing. It’s been months.

In the meantime we haven’t accidentally summoned any demons or inadvertently un-alived anyone in real life. But we’ve only played one turn. Who knows what the future holds.

My parents were friends with a couple whose adult son actually did un-alive someone back in the 80’s. It was a very sad ordeal. We visited the family after that affair. Their son (who of course was not present) was an exceptional artist. I remember his drawings vividly. Some I was not allowed to see. I imagine they featured nudity or something horrific. He was clearly into fantasy art.

The news sensationalized the ordeal. What did they blame? Was it his history of drug-induced violent behavior? Nope. It was that one night he played Dungeons & Dragons with his chums. Probably had too much sody-pop and pizza pie too.

I don’t mean to make light of a truly tragic and dire situation but shame on “the news” for exploiting some non-issue while the loss of actual precious life was the subject.

Just as the 1936 film “Reefer Madness” grossly misrepresented the effects of marajuana (I’m surprised they could even pronounce it back then) in the 80’s we had films like “Mazes & Monsters” featuring an extremely young Tom Hanks. This and others were cautionary tales warning against the playing of D&D, citing instances where kids have supposedly committed all manner of heinous acts in real life all because the situations in the game supposedly dictated such atrocities as a necessity.

It scared me straight. I threw my D&D books into the fire and immediately switched to hard drugs and violence as God intended. Also I bought the Hero Quest game. The news only mentioned D&D as the problem so I figured I was safe.

I’m not even advocating on behalf of D&D games, really. If you’re a parent and you’d rather your kids entertain themselves with something else, I respect that. I’m fully aware of some nasty horrific games out there that are definitely NOT for kids, but it’s not all like that. I have an RPG that features My Little Pony. I’m just saying, please do your research from non-subjective non-biased reliable resources, and make an educated decision about things. By all means, filter according to age appropriateness and sensibil… OH CRAP! BAPHOMET IS MANIFESTING THROUGH A MAGICAL PORTAL IN MY LIVING ROOM!!!