MovieChat Forums > The Gamers: Hands of Fate (2013) Discussion > I'm pretty disappointed even though it w...

I'm pretty disappointed even though it was a good movie (spoilers)

posted 11 years ago by cybermastah
7 replies | jump to latest

Here's the thing:

This movie had a great story, some mild humor (let's be honest, it was primarily a drama), awesome acting and lots of creativity but the fact that it wasn't a movie about DnD is primarily what killed it for me.

First off, I was not happy with the direction the story took. When they mentioned the card game I thought it would be in passing, next thing I know they're still working on that 'side story' for another half hour and suddenly I realize it IS the focus of the story. DnD gets relegated to nothing more than perhaps 15 minutes of content AT BEST of a 2 hour (2:40 for the extended version) movie. As far as being a drama, it's perhaps one of the few things in the drama genre that I'd be willing to watch but even then I watched it over the course of 3 days (the movie just didn't feel funny OR relevant (I play DnD, I DON'T play card games so I can't relate at all to this and yes I know they tried to bring up that concept in the movie but I still can't relate)).

What was truly shocking about this movie is that you have to wonder how they wasted all that money they got from the kickstarter, the backdrops for the fictional setting were atrocious, as was the costume designs. How does gamers 2's fictional settings and costume designs look far better than 3's?

I think the fact that they kept the 'real people' in gamers 2 a small number while the 'fictional people' was larger was something that really impressed me. When I play DnD, I play with a small number of people but the folks they encounter in the fictional setting is impressively varied and many. I'm a sucker more for fictional settings and people rather than a large cast of real folks (for instance, even though demon hunters 2 had a large cast, I was absolutely fine with that because it was WITHIN its fictional setting).

I'm more interested in the characters as DNDERS, not as people in their normal daily lives NOR as card game players.

Who exactly CAN relate to this movie by the way? DnDers by pure virtue of being DnDers wouldn't be able to relate, Magic the gathering players (or indeed ANY other card game players) can't relate because they made it clear that this is NOT like Magic the gathering and instead it's supposed to be a large living world that can be influenced permanently, so who CAN relate? As a DnDer, perhaps I can be persuaded because technically DnD works that way, but it actually doesn't because a stranger that's at another table from me can't affect my game world neither for the better or worse and I DON'T play with a massive number of people, I play with a close circle of friends.

Also, the misogyny(spelling?) angle, I hate misogyny like anyone else and I feel it takes away from a session of ANYTHING I play, but making a small mention of it to show solidarity against it is admirable, making it a primary theme detracts from the purpose of the movie. Making the primary 'villains' misogynists was completely unnecessary and felt like a heavy handed way of saying: 'these guys are creeps' and made it hard for me to see the villain in a positive light when he tells Cass something about him having fun playing that session at the end (it WAS a nice touch, it DOES show that it's good to have fun together even in competition, but him being a misogynist just made me think 'yeah get lost you immature brat').

I also feel I have to say this, did anybody else get a 'Christopher Walken' vibe from the guy who beats Cass in the middle of the movie then joins forces with him in the end (not voice wise, but appearance wise)? I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all, I'm just saying I was thinking 'wow that guy looks like Christopher Walken'.

The teletubbies ripoff character story arc felt weird and unnecessary, I'm reading people saying that it felt disturbing but since I now see so much bizarre stuff in my choice of entertainment it didn't register on my 'disturb-o-meter' and just instead felt REALLY unnecessary. It wasn't really that funny and just felt forced....the fact that they took so long to explain WHY the guy had issues with him also made me just not care for the majority of the shenanigans.

You might be thinking: If you thought it was a good movie, then what are you complaining about?

It's because I waited years to see a DnD movie.

[–] smcbee27 11 years ago

I agree with most of what you say. To me the 1st was the best. I prefer the movie to be about a group not centering around Cass or anyone for that matter. This movie had no where the humor of the original either.

The rip of Pokemon vs Power Rangers (as hubs & I saw them) was indeed too disturbing to be funny especially once they got to the kidnapping and preparing to burn him alive! We thought in the closing of that storyline we'd find out the guys behind him where from mental hospital. Which is where he clearly needed to be. Though our biggest laugh did come from that scene with the small reference to Firefly.

To me it was simply a movie about rude people being difficult to even ruder people. (My polite way of not calling names.) I had no connection to the girl gamer and really wanted them all to either enjoy themselves or go home. (I agree the nice card was played too late for Legacy player to look good .) Thankfully the con we go to locally doesn't have this kind of nonsense. It wouldn't be enjoyable if it where!
Just my opinion. Everyone should watch it to decide for themselves.

[–] smcbee27 11 years ago

Does anyone know how much money was raised through Kickstarter? I certainly couldn't complain about sets, etc without knowing what they had to work with.
Just out of curiosity how can you say this is a good movie when you clearly disliked it overall? A lot of your points rang true with me so I'd like to understand why you would call a movie that disappointed you "good". Was it strictly based on being a D&D player? I'm not sure it's relatable to many gamers and certainly not non- gamers leaving me to conclude it was an average movie at best. What do you think?

[–] cybermastah 11 years ago

They wanted to raise $320,000 and ended up raising $405,000 instead (it got REALLY close there in the end, they hit the necessary mark and exceeded it in the last 5 hours if I remember correctly).

Honestly, the reason I think it was a good movie is that FOR ITS TYPE, it was done pretty well. Take star wars IV, I personally wasn't a fan of it (I'm not a fan of the SW movies (well, maybe V) but they have great video games), but it had amazing acting, an awesome script, a great story and great sets. Star wars is a good movie series (at least the original trilogy, I really thought very little of the new I-III movies) even though I don't like them myself, for fans of this genre it's pretty much exactly what they're looking for (well, that or Star trek).

But wow, this movie felt like it was mainly a side story and a promotion campaign for the card game. DnDers who loved the first two movies (even though I really liked the second one....the first one just had so much charm to it and I honestly loved, laughed and felt I could relate to the whole 'the villain wants to have his monologue! NO YOU CAN'T SHOOT HIM!') are NOT going to get their fix with this third movie, it leaves you thinking 'nice story, but now where's my DnD epic adventure?'. We've waited years and if I wanted to paint a picture of how I feel, it would look like:

Us DnDers are all gathered together there after jumping at the opportunity that they presented for us to be there with them, having waited ages for the guys to come back to us, but rather than talk to us, they're talking to a company and the small fanbase it has and ignoring their loyal fans. I'm a bit embarassed ACTUALLY putting a picture to how I feel, but this right here is how it looks to me. The end product feels like they're just giving a shout out to us by some feeble footage of DnD at play while they're engaging in a different project they'd been more interested in working on.

[–] smcbee27 11 years ago

Thanks for explaining all of that to me, I appreciate your time. I don't know how much movie $400,000. I would imagine anyone who donates money would have a more critical eye, and rightly so. I didn't mind the drawing for backgrounds, my complaints were completely storyline based. To me they disenfranchised the very people that gave them the opportunity to make another movie. This should've not been considered as part of this trilogy. It wasn't similar. Had it come out under a different branding I would've been less critical. This doesn't compare to The Gamers my hubs and son put on repeat.

[–] jasace50 11 years ago

This is the first low budget movie I think I've ever enjoyed. $400,000 really doesn't go very far in the movie world, I would have thought it cost much more than that. At first I really didn't know what to think of the stylised backdrops and cheap visual effects but then the whole thing seemed to just gel, and draw me in. For the record, I hate playing those collectible card games. I'm not really a d&d fan either. Maybe that helps with enjoying the movie.
I did find Some of the actors to be a bit amateur but overall pretty good I thought.

[–] moviewarriorpex 10 years ago

Your crazy, the movie appeals to gamers; not just players of a single game-type. I loved it ... gave some depth to the characters and not just their DnD personas.

[–] jfgibson73 8 years ago

At least one guy who plays neither games enjoyed it.