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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves took inspiration from a very surprising HBO series. The film presents an original story and characters but is set in the wide world of the tabletop fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which was originally released in 1974. It follows a crew of adventurers including a bard (Chris Pine), a barbarian (Michelle Rodriguez), a sorcerer (Justice Smith), and a tiefling druid (Sophia Lillis) who team up to take down the duplicitous Lord of Neverwinter (Hugh Grant).
This week The Hollywood Reporter sat down with Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the co-writer-directors of Honor Among Thieves. When they were asked about how they approached writing dialogue for the Dungeons & Dragons cast that stayed true to the wide universe of the game without alienating newcomers, they revealed a surprising HBO series inspiration: The Wire. Daley said they took inspiration from that show’s habit of having the characters use the terminology they already know without stopping to explain it, making audience members catch up using context clues and “inadvertently learn the language.” Read his full quote below:
I’ve used this very bizarre example because it is so different tonally, but what was so incredible about The Wire was that these characters would talk shop and you had absolutely no idea what they were saying. But you understood the intention behind it, and after a while, you’d start to inadvertently learn the language. And so that was a fun way to inundate audiences without alienating them.
Dungeons & Dragons Terminology is More Widely Familiar Nowadays
Honor Among Thieves doesn’t require in-depth knowledge of the games to parse its story. Much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are plenty of Easter eggs for the initiated, but the core of the film isn’t out of reach. However, one thing that did help Daley and Goldstein achieve this was the fact that Dungeons & Dragons species, classes, and terminology have begun to seep into the mainstream in the last decade.
Originally, the game was thought of as a niche or “nerdy” activity. Now, the rise of nerd culture into the mainstream that kicked off with the current cinematic superhero boom has reversed that idea. While this is the first theatrical film since 2000 to attempt to center the Dungeons & Dragons universe since 2000, the game has featured prominently in other mainstream media.
The most important cultural touchstone that changed the current public perception of Dungeons & Dragons was Netflix’s Stranger Things. In that series, the young protagonists use terms from the game to explain the world around them including naming the monster the Demogorgon, leading to a surge in interest in the game that has also resulted in the popularity of actual-play podcasts and video streams like The Adventure Zone and Critical Role. Because of this, now was the perfect time for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves to be released, in-depth references or not.
Source: THR
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