Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is available now on Digital, as well as in theaters. Fans can now view the movie in their preferred setting, leisurely at home or with the spectacle of the big screen, and if one thing has been clear since its release, it's not a disappointment for Dungeons and Dragons fans. The movie reflects a typical tabletop campaign accurately and gives some much-needed screentime to beloved D&D spells, creatures like Owlbears, and more. The core party and villain also represent one important part of Dungeons and Dragons' identity: its classes.
Throughout the movie, fans can see the Bard as the true face of his party, a Barbarian who excels at smashing, a Paladin whose righteousness knows no bounds, a Sorcerer who struggles with their magic (because of low charisma), a Tiefling Druid and her ability to Wild Shape, a dastardly rogue who betrays the party for coin, and of course, the evil Red Wizard of Thay. During a recent interview, The Best War Games asked Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein what their favorite D&D classes were and how they impacted the movie.
For Goldstein, it's Dungeons and Dragons' Bard class because it's not a warrior. It can be an overlooked class by newcomers, but its utility and support are important to any party, despite that perhaps not being clear from the get-go. It further speaks to Goldstein "as a filmmaker and storyteller," but he'd also explain that,
It's not someone you expect to bring much to an adventuring party, but in fact, they're the glue that ties it all together. He's the motivation, the coach of the bad news bears as I think Chris Pine put it, so it's just a really fascinating class.
With the emphasis on the Bard's ability to be the "glue" of a Dungeons and Dragons party, as well as how Chris Pine plays the Bard character of Edgin Darvis, it's clear just how important a Bard is in a party and in the movie. Daley's favorite class, on the other hand, is the Druid—specifically the ability to Wild Shape. This ability and its visualizations were important in the movie because Wild Shape, Daley describes, is something really cool to see but "also very difficult to pull off." It was important that their depiction of the Druid Doric's Wild Shape ability didn't take her into uncanny valley territory, where players would see her mid-transformation from human to animal, something Delay described as looking "like a terrible Animorphs book cover."
As a result, the film would hide her human-to-animal transformations throughout the film, but the flip side of that is it was important to give Doric a "hero moment" with Wild Shape. Luckily, there is one area where this was easier, with Delay adding that
"[W]e also definitely wanted to have a hero moment where we actually see her go from one animal to the next, which is easier to pull off when going from one CG asset to another."
Without delving too far into spoiler territory, it's worth mentioning that there's a chase scene in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves that shows off Doric's abilities to their fullest. This is one of many beautiful set moments throughout the entire movie, but on its own, perhaps one of the best chase scenes in any recent movie as a whole. That comes from understanding and respecting not only Dungeons and Dragons' classes, but also paying homage to a world filled with its own lore, history, and more.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is on Digital now and on 4K Ultra HD SteelBook, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on May 30.