Lost in Translation has covered the various adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons over the years. The big live action movie of 2000, though, was not good. A possible fix was discussed in 2015. It is a rare movie where the direct to video sequels are better, despite the lower budgets. The reasons for the failure of the 2000 D&D movie have been mentioned in depth, but while there was an attempt to capture the feel of the game, the effort fell short of the mark. That’s not to say that there weren’t scenes that were worth watching; the test by the Master of the Thieves’ Guild, played by Richard O’Brien, worked, but it couldn’t sustain the movie.

Paramount is hoping to get audiences to forget the 2000 film with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Theives, due for a March 2023 release. The trailer is impressive, to say the least.

However, trailers are supposed to be impressive. That’s the goal of advertising, make the product look irresistable to the consumer. No one would buy a burger if it didn’t look good in ads. Same goes with movies.

The catch, this time, is that the characters act like they belong to an adventuring party created by a group of friends gaming on the weekends. Accidentally releasing a terrible evil on the world is something a party of player characters can and have done. Fixing that error works as the basis of a campaign, so it should work for the plot of a movie.

Character classes are mostly obvious. The bard and barbarian are easy to spot. Fighters in armour, wizards casting spells from the book, such as shield and fireball. Monsters iconic to the game make appearances; besides the dragon, there is an owlbear, a displacer beast, a gelatinous cube, and a mimic. The mimic is in the classic 10′ x 10′ room, disguised as a treasure chest, acting as a trap for greedy or unwary adventurers.

So why a new D&D movie now? First, it’s been a generation, with the audience now including people who haven’t seen the 2000 film. CGI has improved immensely since 2000, allowing for more iconic monsters from the game. Next, the original game has gone through two editions since the 2000 release. The 2000 movie came out around the same time as the third edition of D&D. The game is now in its fifth edition and is still going strong. The game’s mechanics have evolved over the past twenty-two years, and that can be seen in the trailer.

There is no guarantee that the new D&D movie will be good. However, the trailer is showing more familiarity with not just the game but how the game is played, with the characters recognizable as PCs, either as played personally by the audience or seen played, with an emphasis on the characters instead of the effects.