On Dec. 8, 2000, dragons finally soared into the skies to deliver the cinematic rendition of the world’s most popular tabletop RPG, Dungeons & Dragons, bringing decades of imagination to life in living color. Or at least, that’s what everyone hoped at the time.

Dungeons & Dragons is an independent movie, born from the unrelenting passion of one man, Courtney Solomon, an avid fan of the game who became a producer and a director just to create this film. Solomon obtained the rights for a D&D movie from then-owner TSR in 1991, but it took almost 10 years for the production to start. TSR is still infamous for its poor business practices, and it was only when Wizards of the Coast obtained the IP that the movie could be shot. Meanwhile, the budget went from $100 million to $35 million. Along the way, Dungeons & Dragons also lost the interest of big studios and important directors.

The result is a poorly-written and directed movie with embarrassing CGI effects, even for the time (The Fellowship of the Ring came out just one year later).

The film follows a pair of thieves, Ridley (Justin Whalin) and Snails (Marlon Wayans), who get entangled in a plot by the evil mage Profion (Jeremy Irons) to dethrone Empress Savina (Thora Birch) of Izmir, a country where mages and non-mages are divided into different classes. Sabina wants to bring an end to the discrimination, backed by the power of her sceptre that allows control over gold dragons. Profion is looking for a similar item that gives........

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