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Mazes And Monsters - Old D&d Movie


Komag

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I just watched it today; it's unbelievable this crap could ever get made!

 

It's about a small group of college kids who get all caught up in the game "Mazes and Monsters" (obviously "Dungeons & Dragons") and one of kids (Tom Hanks) goes off the deep end and can't separate fantasy and reality, beleiving he's the character off on some crazy quest to join the Great Hall.

 

It's based on a book by Rona Jaffe, who bullcrapped his way through the stupid fake incident of some supposed boy genius who committed suicide in the steam tunnels of some university while playing D&D. That never happened, AT ALL, but the media back then jumped on the story and moms all over the country suddenly banned their kids from playing D&D. I remember being a kid and hearing about this evil new game, blah blah blah. All pure bullcrap of course, and to this day there isn't a SINGLE proven incident of D&D directly causing any bad thing to happen, ever.

 

So anyway, the whole movie is a take on that story, and a bad one at that. Being from 1982 it reeks of old crappiness throughout, such as a scene where the girl suddenly puts two and two together and is trying to remember more details about something, so one of the guys gets all anxious in her face with "C'mon, THINK! TRY TO REMEMBER! WHAT DID HE SAY?!?!" and the other guy also yells at her "Yeah, WHAT WAS IT??? C'MON, TELL USSSS!!!!!!!!!!" all stupidly dramatic like 6 year olds would act it out in their first grade play.

 

Oh well, it's neither here nor there. I just needed to vent I guess. :)

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Yeah I remember the D&D scare phase. Me and my brothers got into it for a little while (not real far) but my parents didn't want us playing it, and I asked Dad why, and he said vacantly "Because... there's a high... incidence of suicide... rates from it, in the US." And I then asked Mum "how does he know?" and she just said firmly "Your Dad knows a lot."

 

Of course there was no way for them to police our playing of it, and we played it regardless :) Eventually Mum even sat in on a game and discovered it was just a harmless board and dice game, just with lots of rules. And I got the chance to relay their silly justifications of why it was bad to them, and make them feel silly.

 

I like to think humans get less stupid like that, as we evolve.

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I personally think '80s movies rock; they're always so stupid ... like the one about the journalism girl that dresses like a guy for a story and another girl gets a crush on her and she gets a crush on a guy; the guy that sells his telescope for one freaking date with the popular girl (Can't Buy me Love?); the Last Starfighter ... man, they are all pretty dumb like your post, but in a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 way you can laugh at.

 

And D&D we had good times with, because it was one game that was all about personal interaction, uh, sort of anyway. Where it goes overboard is those people in Society for Creative Anachronism, which literally dress up in chainmail, get nurf-swords, meet on a field and different factions go to war with each other.

 

By the way, I did something like renaissance faires as an actor in college; we put on an annual dinner theatre and I was always the dashing young prince - never the villian (not that I didn't try; I was just so type-cast with my blonde hair and baby blue eyes.) So I sort of have the whole D&D mindset in my blood.

Edited by demagogue

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Although I despise the majority of 80s pop films, at the very least they were able to poke fun at themselves a little and not take themselves for something they were not, i.e. great artistic accomplishments. Movies today really get under my skin for a number of reasons, besides the fact that the majority are trash they all claim to be **the greatest fucking movie in the universe, to date!**

 

Time and time again I see the trailers on TV and then the critics, all of whom work for subsidiary companies of the parent company that made the film, come on to say that THIS is the most stunning achievement of so and so's career, or that THIS is the "must-see, grand slam, no holds barred cinematic feat of the century." But the vast, vast, vast majority of these movies are simply repeats of the same fecal matter that got shat out last year. And two months later the same director/actor/producer is again turning out the "must-see, grand-slam, no holds barred...." wonder that blows away their last effort.

 

How many variations of Adam Sandler are we supposed to countenance? How many "geek meets dream -mate, struggles to win his/her heart, is burnt but then dream mate realizes life is too short and that love is all that matters and runs to his/her arms" style movies must we suffer through? How many bad clones of good movies, i.e. Dark Waters, Solaris, must we bear in silence? How many sugary sweet parables about the sports team that thought it was doomed but with pluck and luck and a bit of faith managed to win the championship? Jesus, so many movies are made today with gaping holes in the plots, conspicuous product placement, stereotypical characterization, utterly illogical storylines, whatever, to the point that the average movie watcher I know, when asked "How was movie X?" cannot simply say "Oh, great flick, I loved it!" Most will say something along the lines: "Oh, the special effects were great....Oh, I liked this part, or the beginning, or the end...." I've seen this time and time over, you have to "pick out" the parts of the movies that didnt totally suck to justify the four dollars you spent at the video store and the two hours of your life that you wasted.

 

BTW Komag I did see that movie, I remember when it came out and how much I hated the pricks who made it. Good old fearmongering will always find a market here, Im afraid. I remember hearing similar complaints about paintball when I played, that paintball would lend itself to creating violent youth and glorifying bloodshed. Of course, you can simply turn on your TV set and see literally hours upon hours of exactly those things, but that never occured to any of the idiots I heard criticising the game. There are none so blind.......

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The worst thing that I see in many current movies, adn especially the kids movies, are that they are mostly done in the fashion that the US way of life is the best one, which really gets at my nerves. Especially the Disney's ones. I'm always happy when I see a movie from Europe or somewhere else, because they are quite different and not always try to push their moral. It seems to me as if movies are more and more used for veiled propaganda instead of entertainment.

Gerhard

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It seems to me as if movies are more and more used for veiled propaganda instead of entertainment.

 

Not intentionally, mind. It's just ideology on a global scale. We (everyone) either take it for granted and thereby reproduce it, or call its bluff.

Edited by Skol
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The worst thing that I see in many current movies, adn especially the kids movies, are that they are mostly done in the fashion that the US way of life is the best one, which really gets at my nerves. Especially the Disney's ones. I'm always happy when I see a movie from Europe or somewhere else, because they are quite different and not always try to push their moral. It seems to me as if movies are more and more used for veiled propaganda instead of entertainment.

 

 

Yes, I agree completely. Not only is it insulting to other cultures, it is in no way a reflection of life over here, I can tell you. I would like to nuke Disney headquarters personally.

 

And skol, dont think that none of these movies are straight out propaganda, some literally are that. The Pentagon opened a new office a few years ago which has liasons with the movie industry. In exchange for using military hardware and personnel in movies, the Pentagon gets a say in how the military is represented in those movies. I cannot remember what the name of this office is, Ill look for a link to the newshow I heard it on. But I agree that the majority of movies are not propaganda in the strict sense, they are a kind of "soft propaganda", a constant barrage of images and messages that promote a particular way of life, a particular set of perspectives. Remember, almost all the "big house" movies are created by a very small group of individuals, maybe a few hundred at best, who all share common economic, ethnic, and cultural bonds. Theres a good book I read in school a few years back called "Celluloid Mirrors" which discusses the representation of American culture through the eyes of Hollywood, Ill have to dig it out sometime and reread it.

 

BTW has anyone here every watched "Children of Paradise?" Its a French flick from '45, holy god is it a good movie. Im watching it again for the tenth time, every time it gets better.

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And skol, dont think that none of these movies are straight out propaganda, some literally are that. The Pentagon opened a new office a few years ago which has liasons with the movie industry. In exchange for using military hardware and personnel in movies, the Pentagon gets a say in how the military is represented in those movies. I cannot remember what the name of this office is, Ill look for a link to the newshow I heard it on. But I agree that the majority of movies are not propaganda in the strict sense, they are a kind of "soft propaganda", a constant barrage of images and messages that promote a particular way of life, a particular set of perspectives. Remember, almost all the "big house" movies are created by a very small group of individuals, maybe a few hundred at best, who all share common economic, ethnic, and cultural bonds. Theres a good book I read in school a few years back called "Celluloid Mirrors" which discusses the representation of American culture through the eyes of Hollywood, Ill have to dig it out sometime and reread it.

 

"soft propaganda" is how all media works, though, and, I reckon, how much of communication works. Big House movies ARE controlled by a very small group of individuals, the rich and powerful. That's the start point of cultural hegemony.

And I agree on the propaganda from the Pentagon, et al, but that's nothing new, just more overt (or covert, if you can't tell the difference. Can you say Bruckheimer?).

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