MovieChat Forums > The Gamers: Hands of Fate (2013) Discussion > So I'm not the only one dispointed with ...

So I'm not the only one dispointed with this?

posted 11 years ago by fakeslashdash6
10 replies | jump to latest

I thought the first 2 movies were great, but this one was boring as heck.
In fact, I'm guessing this movie would have scored around 4 if it wasn't for the brand it came from.

Seriously, if I hadn't seen the previous movies, I'd have guessed that this movie was written by people who never gamed in their life and just try to mock something.

This one has all the dumb cliches about gaming movies, including stupid sexist jokes, idiotic "all nerds are virgins", random idiots shouting about their game lore, obsession with pokemon-like stuff etc.

I'm not even going into how absurd the entire premise of that ccg is so stupid. The company is afraid that the storyline would be ruined? Player controlled naratives actually exist in real life and the company making them can easily control them if they wanted to.
Heck, if a gaming mechanic would fail (as questing did in the movie) the company would only need to take out another booster to enhance it.
Seriously, the whole point of card games is that the company takes out whatever cards it wants whenever it wants.

Also I'm willing to give them some slack as an indie movie, but some of the shots were so awful... For example, in one scene you see a guy running and a storm trooper (another dumb cliche) wave his arm and drops him to the ground.
Except that his arm is reaching out a long time before he tackles into it.
Seriously, I worked with student projects that were better cordinated.

Huge letdown

[–] youngatheart362 10 years ago

As a lifelong gamer - almost 30 years of experience - I thought the first 2 movies were right on the mark depicting the roleplaying experience. Several times during those movies, I found myself thinking "wow! that's actually happened during one of my sessions!"
I've played CCG's before, and still have a few collections laying around somewhere. This movie fairly accurately depicts the intense emotions some players have about their particular game.
That said, as a "The Gamers" movie, this film was very disappointing! We had very little interaction between the gamers and their "ingame" personalities, and what little we saw was unfunny and boring. What made the first two movies so entertaining is completely missing in this film. If they were to make this an independant film, without the title "The Gamers", it would be a decent film to watch.
I have to agree with you on this one.....huge letdown!

[–] ThereCanBonly1 9 years ago

NoOoOoOoOooooooo!!

Loud disappointed weeping heard....

The first movie was good, but I LOVED the second movie! Watched it over and over again, it captured everything about D&D gaming so perfectly and also so many moments that I recognised exactly too. And it was bloody hilarious too.

Had a girl join one campaign, back 20+ years ago when that was incredibly rare, apparently girls actually play today. Even the DM writing down another bigger campaign to turn it into a module, and had his name sorted out for his company and everything!

Only just discovering this sequel, yeah I know, and said that it wasn't much like Dorkness, but reading these two reviews makes me very sad :(

[–] rain_robinson 10 years ago

The 3rd film is very different. But there were parts that I still enjoyed. But, Gary's rivalry with the mascot almost ruined for me. Still have some hope for the special edition to watch it again all the way through. Right now you can view it in parts on youtube. But, I don't think it is complete yet.

Later on I heard that one of their short films Humans and Households is a bit closer to the feel of the first two films. Hopefully they will have that complete and out by December.

I always thought nobodies were doomed to fade into darkness...

[–] brunnicles 10 years ago

I've got to agree; while overall I would say I enjoyed it, there were several long stretches that were frankly boring and Gary's subplot took my whole group out of the movie every time he showed up on screen pretty much. Also, while I didn't necessarily want a carbon copy of the first two movies, I would have preferred they stayed focused on rpgs at least - every time the group returned to the rpg table we were excited to see what happened next (sadly very little as it turned out).

I'm not sorry I backed the kickstarter (any new Gamers is better than no new Gamers) but for my group it's the weakest of the three movies. We're constantly quoting lines from the first two movies around the gaming table; right now I can't think of a single quote from this one and we only watched it yesterday.

[–] brunnicles 10 years ago

[–] arkayenether 10 years ago

No, you weren't the only one. If I had donated to the Kickstarter, I would have been extremely irritated when they finally released this movie. The whole movie teased me with the stuff I wanted to see, and only at the very very very end did I get anything. I've never heard of an RPG card game (how does that even work), and the whole movie, I kept wishing the "good guys" would lose so we can get back to the D&D. I give this movie a 1/10

[–] sol20051 10 years ago

Yeah, I was hoping for more of Cass, Leo and Lodge...instead they're hardly there. Sure they're there, but not the way I would have wanted.

I will say that card games were a good idea, but poorly executed. Maybe next time they can play with LARP or something.

[–] shadracht 10 years ago

Legend of the five rings is what the in movie game is based on. The branches the plot line takes are decided by the winners of certain tournaments (or by which side wins across a number of smaller tournaments).

[–] cdjole 10 years ago

I agree. If I had donated I would have been disappointed. This would be a good movie if it was a movie in a different series or a standalone film. But it just doesn't feel like a Gamers movie. Some messages are rammed down your throat (most of them are good messages, but still ...). It feels kinda preachy, if you know what I mean? It moves away from the dynamic of the group to try and tell a larger story and the Gamers never were about that, and I believe that no one wants the whole movie about that. The same messages can be sent within the format of the first two movies. I'm not against change. But this was a change in the wrong direction. I was also SEVERELY disappointed by the absence of Lodge, as he's my favorite character.

And I do feel like people were somewhat misled by the first teaser, as it didn't correctly represent the movie. It felt very much like the first two movies. Even though I love the creators to death, I feel like they messed up a bit.

[–] rain_robinson 9 years ago

For what it is worth Humans and Households is a good short film. Some of my gaming friends like Hands of Fate which is fine. When i watch it it will just be the special edition version. Slightly more gen con things with Leo, Lodge, Joanna in it.

I always thought nobodies were doomed to fade into darkness...