Dragonlance

[cowsmanaut]

Tracy Hickman created the world and he owns rights to at the very least the stories if not much of the world, as far as I know you need to clear things abotu what you're writing within Krynn with him before it can be published.. Margret weis was allowing a lot of what they (the movie company) were doing as she's the main story editor for much of the TSR works before she joined forces with Tracy and his fancy ideas about co-writing. She was praising them for bringing these books to life and talking about how they didn't have the budget for all 3, but would love to see the other two done... and was not opposed to anyone who had the cash to front even a live action version..

[cowsmanaut]

"WarCry: You two did not directly write the script, but as the authors of the original works can you talk a bit about how it turned out and why you believe it is a good representation of your work?

Tracy Hickman: Adaptation of a novel into a screenplay is a tough act especially when you're dealing with fans of a well-know work. It isn't a question of simply portraying scenes from the novel - as I think most people assume - but rather of capturing the emotional core of the original work and being able to portray that in a new medium. Both Margaret and I were granted an unprecedented level of input on the script but in the end it was hardly needed: George Strayton's magnificent screenplay captured the essence of our vision beautifully realized in a new medium."

barf..

[Ameena]

Tracey is male?

[beowuuf]

Lol, yes he is.

Here's a cool interview with him, minute 19.43 for his thoughts on Dragonlance. Kinda hinting at some odd rights issue somewhere.

http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/1777

The whole interview is interesting for his current move to owned IP - something lots of webcomics have known for a while!

[Gambit37]

Tracy is a pretty common name for men in America. I used to work with a guy called Tracy -- whose brother was called Beverley! That reminds me, I must follow up on an email I sent Hickman 10 years ago asking about his writing of "The Secrets of Dungeon Mastery."....

Lone Wolf was based on RPG campaigns Joe Dever created before he committed it to gamebook wasn't it? So I guess that's similar to how Krynn and Dragonlance evolved?

[beowuuf]

Indeed!

[cowsmanaut]

I would beg to differ that Tracy is NOT a common boys name. As I too thought female as soon as I read the name the first time, there are those who push a name which is more traditionally female as trying to be gender neutral.. however they are usually instead teased by children at school. It get's tough for french kids called Micheal as they pronounce it as michelle so they often end up with two names. Some names which are traditionally gender neutral here are Alex, Sam, and other shortened but less common names like Jay, ky etc. only because they have longer versions in both male and female ie Samantha and samuel. Alexandra and alexander, Jaylene & Jayson, kyle & kyla, etc

There are a few well known people who are male but have traditionally female names. Kelsey Grammer, Leslie Nielsen, and obviously Tracy Hickman.. I suspect they are victims of a parental stubborness.. where they thought they would have a girl, focused only on girls names and then refused to give up the name once the child was born a male.

Anyway, I'm always horrible disheartened when people can look at their creation taken and essentially destroyed and yet can not see it.. like stepping your new shoes in a pile of cow poo and somehow missing it? seriously? it's a shame..

[beowuuf]

Well, the two Tracy Hickman quotes from the interview that might support what the 'urgh' of the film are a) he felt the film really needed to be two films, but the studio wanted one film, so the screen writer did the best job he could with that, and b) it's the best radio play ever produced (showing he obviously doens't rate the animation at all)

Given that though, he highly rated the vioce actors, the music, and seems to have had a pleasant time dealing with the people producing it. So perhaps he felt that everyone did what they could with the constraints?

I still haven't watched it yet - I would be tempted to get it at some point when it is cheap and just listen to it

[oh_brother]

Plenty of clips and trailers on Youtube if you want to try before you buy! All with pretty bad reviews and comments.

Maybe go with low expectations and it will be tolerable.