Café de Nuit

The Dragonlance movie is out now. After having bought & watched it once, I have to say that while it is not as gawd-awful as some might have supposed, it certainly is disappointing. I have been a Dragonlance fan from the moment the very first novel & game module was released back in the early 80's, so I may have high expectations for the setting's first movie. I will state that I did like most of the voice talent, Michael Rosenbaum was excellent as Tanis Half-Elven, and Lucy Lawless did well as Goldmoon. I would have liked Kiefer Sutherland's Raistlin better if he had been given more dialog. The script made some noticable departures from the original novel, while the basic storyline was complete, I just kept finding myself puzzled by what was omitted or changed. As for the graphics quality, I expected better. I was hoping for an updated comparison to the old Rankin-Bass 'Hobbit', instead it seemed more to me as if Hank, Eric, Bobby, and Uni gained CGI dragons & draconians while continuously posing hair-waving-in-the-breeze anime-style.
It's not my favorite style of animation, I don't think the overall Dragonlance theme was presented at it's best (I know that I would not have had any further interest if this had been my first exposure to the setting), but it cost less than $20 USD, it was still better than the first D&D movie, and perhaps I may enjoy it more on a second viewing.
One thing I noticed in the credits; Cindi Rice, former TSR Ravenloft insider, is listed as part of the production team.

I thought for a direct-to-DVD it was decent. The animation is similar in quallity to the animated Marvel movies (Ultimate Avengers, Dr. Strange, Invincible Iron Man). It moved very fast, and they had a lot of story to cram into 90 minutes but I think they hit all the important plot lines. Hopefully they make enough money to complete the series, and even put a little bit more money into the animation or extend the run time.

Scede wrote:I thought for a direct-to-DVD it was decent. The animation is similar in quallity to the animated Marvel movies (Ultimate Avengers, Dr. Strange, Invincible Iron Man).

No, it really didn't.
The character designs were similar in detail and appearance but the Marvel movies had much, much, much smoother animation. This was like watching a '80s television cartoon in terms of continuity and smoothness.

The CG didn't mesh at all and was similar to live-action films with stop-motion, having the two interact, even when done well, never looked right.

And it was just bad. Poorly paced and rushed wrapping-up in a too-short 90minutes in a time when most adaptations aim for a reasonable 120, especially when this was supposed to be a tad more adult.