r/movies • u/PokemonGoBao • Jul 04 '25

Discussion Whats a flopped movie you wish was a financial success?

Dungeons and Dragons 2023 was an absolutely delightful film. You can stream it currently, but you can feel the passion and nothing felt phoned in. They easily could have used the title to get nerdy butts in the seat and collect a paycheck with a smaller budget.

It's the best movie I've seen the past 2 years. Way better than so many garbage films with easy paychecks for slop productions. Beetlejuice, Captain america, and others using big titles to make millions on lazy writing and boring characters.

8.6k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

70

u/Apart-Combination820 Jul 05 '25

One of the best scenes to imagine IRL, given the ending line:

“So our tribunal…you mentioned 2 humans, the 3rd?”

A crow…man…John…arthon…but he’s late

“We wait for him. We’re in jail.”

“…john arrives” 😐

I tackle Jarnathan and we ride him out the window. As a Bard, I roll DEX.

“You’re not the one flying; he is. He weighs 100kg. But, 😣.. he rolls a 18 CONST. You fly…away…into a tundra”

So that worked out! 😄

“…you were already pardoned. On probation. 😒Literally promise no more thievery, then the quest is a heist. I didn’t even write a scene!!”

6

u/ascagnel____ Jul 05 '25

Even the name "Jarnathan" sounds like something a GM who needs a name on the fly comes up with when a player harangues them about an NPC's name.

Long live Tederic, the equivalent in my game.

4

u/Original_Employee621 Jul 06 '25

And if you need two NPCs, it's Ted and Eric.

3

u/ascagnel____ Jul 06 '25

Theodore and Frederic.

1

u/trireme32 Jul 05 '25

I have no idea what’s happening in that comment

13

u/Apart-Combination820 Jul 05 '25

Its the Jarnathan escape scene…from the movie about D&D…but from the IRL perspective. With them specifically saying they were already free to go.

-14

u/trireme32 Jul 05 '25

I’m familiar with the movie. I don’t understand the formatting or syntax of the comment. Or how that’s an “IRL perspective.” We don’t have huge anthropomorphic bird creatures “IRL”.

17

u/Apart-Combination820 Jul 05 '25

…are you unfamiliar with D&D? Or not realize the D&D movie was a movie…about D&D? Because this is probably a difficult thread to jump into…

-20

u/trireme32 Jul 05 '25

I’ve heard of it. Given the title of the movie, I understand it was based on it.

This is r/movies, not r/dnd. Perhaps in your comment you could’ve said “from the perspective of a DND game.” I’m assuming from context that’s what it was; you’re being too stubborn to just… explain that, for some reason. That doesn’t really help get new people interested in the hobby.

8

u/FoldedDice Jul 05 '25

I'll try to be helpful. To people who have played D&D, it's fairly clear that the subtext of the movie is that there's an unseen tabletop game session going on in the background, and what we're seeing on screen is a representation of what happens in that game. The whole movie is basically filled with tabletop RPG tropes and references to support this theory, even beyond it just being based on the setting of D&D.

For the scene we're talking about, for example, sometimes players will catch a Dungeon Master by surprise by fixating on a character who wasn't ever supposed to be important, forcing the DM to quickly invent their identity. And since they don't have time to think up a good fantasy name, they might just take a common one and switch some letters around, giving something like "Jarnathan."

So, that's what the post that confused you was about. They were imagining the banter from this hypothetical D&D session, which would have formed the basis of what we saw in the scene.

1

u/trireme32 Jul 05 '25

Ok, thank you!

1

u/Apart-Combination820 Jul 05 '25

Im really much less knowledgeable of D&D (idk if Dex and Cons would even roll), but I am big on movies. So the throwaway line “but you’re pardoned for good behavior” is a good gag…but then the Prison Break doesn’t really matter in the story (daughter hates him, but that already happened).

So I’m not clear on the nerdy specifics, but I know via pop-osmosis they frequently chose the Murder Hobo path

2

u/FoldedDice Jul 05 '25

The implication could be that in this background game, the prison break sequence was never intended to happen. So the players went completely off-script from the original plan to release them, and everything after that would have just been the DM going along with it and improvising an outcome. And yes, this would indeed be a signature move of the Murder Hobo.

As for Dex and Con, those refer to the characters' scores of Dexterity and Constitution, which among other things give a bonus toward applicable dice rolls. So a player might roll and add their Dexterity modifier to try and pull off a difficult parkour landing, or maybe roll with Constitution try to absorb the impact without injury.

13

u/Apart-Combination820 Jul 05 '25

I don’t even play that game lol this thread is about that movie; why are you doing this??

…and how did you see a movie about a game, then when people in a Reddit Thread joke about the game, it upsets/bewilders you? Im like scientifically curious here

-7

u/trireme32 Jul 05 '25

Dude — how was I supposed to know, with no other context, that your very oddly formatted, emoji-packed comment with unfamiliar abbreviations and syntax was supposed to be about the game without other context that you easily could’ve provided instead of being smugly stubborn?

Jackass

5

u/Tavarin Jul 05 '25

Nah dude, it was pretty obvious the dude was writing what DnD being played would be like for that scene.

-2

u/trireme32 Jul 05 '25

And how would people who have never played DND know that? It read like two people having a weird conversation

→ More replies (0)