On DVD: Fellowship of the Dice

Directed By John Landis

Starring George Wendt

There are a ton of fandom documentaries out there, the best of which is Fans and Freaks: The Culture of Comics and Conventions, and there are plenty of narrative films based in the world of fandom, but how many hybrid documentary/narrative films out there based in the word of fandom?  I don't really know the answer to that question but I have seen one, The Fellowship of the Dice.

The Movie

Honestly there's not much plot to this film, a trouble making girl on house arrest skips out of her job one day and ends up in a gaming shop where she is invited by a geeky guy to meet his friends and play a dice based role playing game similar to Dungeons and dragons.  Feeling beat by her situation and desperate for something to do she agrees.  This girl isn't the typical kind of girl that you might see playing a game like this but the rest of the players are stereotypes.  There are two guys that are on the verge of being together, one of them has a wife who's so nervous she barely speaks (her reactions, or non-reactions to situations often provide some great laughs), an overzealous "rivet counter", and another guy who's completely out of it but good hearted. 

I should probably explain the term rivet counter as it is integral to fandom, especially gaming fandom.  These types of games are created with a rule set meant to be interpreted and tweaked by the game master and his group of players to have fun but there are some players that must know every rule and every nuance to the game and they expect the game master to be the same way and to follow every rule to the letter.  These people can't see the beauty of the architecture of a building for counting the rivets in the seams, get it.  These gamers are also called rules lawyers.

Anyway, once the new girl is in the game the bulk of the movie is about the game and the way the various people play it and interact with each other.  Besides that the film is bookended by visits to the girl's parole officer.  There is a very progaming message in the film that imbues that if you aren't a gamer you should give it a try because you might have more fun than you think.  Mixed in with the story is documentary footage taken at various gaming conventions.  What's interesting to me is how the documentary footage, which amounts to Q&A's with real gamers at these various conventions, ties into the story of the film.  When common things happen in the film such as the group getting food or fights between the game master and a player, or players are kicked from the game all of this is discussed in the documentary footage with many players sharing their own stories of the same situation.

The film is well acted by bit players and well written but the plot is so thin even with the clever addition of the documentary footage that the film is really only going to appeal to gamers and those curios about gaming.  But people in those groups are going to find this film hilarious, I did.  The character interactions and the game itself are all hilarious and maybe even hit a little close to home for some of my friends who are hardcore RPG players.  So, for those people this film is a recommended purchase.

7/10

The Video

This is a fairly low budget shot on video affair so as you might expect there is some grain and colors have that typical washed out look.  With the source material considered the transfer looks pretty good though with no major compression artifacts to speak of.

6/10

The Audio

Again the audio is a fairly basic presentation that's front loaded in the surround environment but dialogue is always clean and easy to hear as is the score.

6/10

Packaging and Bonus Features

I can apply points for the packaging as the screener we received came in a sleeve.  I can say that there are no bonus features, which is a real travesty for this film.  I'm sure more documentary footage was shot during the making of the film and if the filmmakers were smart they shot some footage of the conventions including costumes and merchandise.  So where is it?

0/10

A fun movie for the right crowd but the DVD is extremely lacking.

Overall (Not an Average) 5.5/10

The Movie 7/10

The Video 6/10

The Audio 6/10

The Packaging and Bonus Features 0/10

Overall (Not an Average) 5.5/10

-Stephen Lackey