Dragon's Lair: The Movie

DragonmasterDan · 10/26/2015, 05:52 PM

Don Bluth has put up a kickstarter to begin the process of getting Dragon's Lair: The Movie made.

As I've brought up a few times in other threads, traditional animation especially in the West is basically dead. So it would be really exciting to see this project take off.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/donbluth/dragons-lair-the-movie

blueraven · 10/26/2015, 08:08 PM

Just a $7500 donation to take his 5-day animation class!

That's a semester of tuition. Or a Porsche 944 Turbo. I'd better be able to animate tits when its over.

...but srsly I hope the project happens!

DragonmasterDan · 10/26/2015, 08:21 PM

Quote from: blueraven on 10/26/2015, 08:08 PMJust a $7500 donation to take his 5-day animation class!

That's a semester of tuition. Or a Porsche 944 Turbo. I'd better be able to animate tits when its over.

...but srsly I hope the project happens!

I believe the Master Class is 5000.00. But yeah, still a pricey incentive.

Elder · 10/26/2015, 08:25 PM

I'm one of those who has wanted to see a return to this universe for years, so I hope it happens

NightWolve · 10/26/2015, 08:25 PM

They're awfully certain and ambitious about that $70 million figure need to make a movie... But anyway, I also saw this on Facebook today and shared it. It would be cool to see a movie made from this.

SignOfZeta · 10/26/2015, 09:14 PM

At least half of what I love about classic Bluth is lost to the past never to return. Leaving aside the main game-to-movie issue (i.e. how much will we actually love these characters once they are given lines?) I just don't have a huge amount of interst in fully digital animation. Of course if they still have the sort of tallented artists they had 30 years ago, I'm interested in that, even if it's the smoothed out texture-less plastic bullshit that passes for animation nowadays...but it's really really unlikely. Those people have all retired or died and since the animation industry hasn't needed people like that since Toy Story the culture that nurtured that talent is even more dead. Even Japan has trouble finding good 2D animators now, it will be 100x harder in the western world. We had the best of the best, but never that many of them.

I think I'll just watch DL on DVD in "watch" mode or whatever it is.

DragonmasterDan · 10/26/2015, 09:25 PM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 10/26/2015, 09:14 PMAt least half of what I love about classic Bluth is lost to the past never to return. Leaving aside the main game-to-movie issue (i.e. how much will we actually love these characters once they are given lines?)

He was working on this about 12-13 years ago when Dragon's Lair 3D was in development with the hope that if the game sold well, a studio would pick up the movie rights. At that time the idea was that Dirk could squeal and shriek but had become mute (that's also why he never talks in the games leaving that terrible Ruby Spears Saturday morning cartoon out of the official canon).

QuoteI just don't have a huge amount of interst in fully digital animation. Of course if they still have the sort of tallented artists they had 30 years ago, I'm interested in that, even if it's the smoothed out texture-less plastic bullshit that passes for animation nowadays...but it's really really unlikely. Those people have all retired or died and since the animation industry hasn't needed people like that since Toy Story the culture that nurtured that talent is even more dead. Even Japan has trouble finding good 2D animators now, it will be 100x harder in the western world. We had the best of the best, but never that many of them.

I think I'll just watch DL on DVD in "watch" mode or whatever it is.

You and I seem cut from the same cloth as far as a love for traditional animation and I agree that fully digital animation, even 2D doesn't have the same color and effect of painted animation. With that said I'd rather see something like this succeed and traditional animation live on then die out entirely.

xcrement5x · 10/26/2015, 10:56 PM

Daphne's voice is kind of annoying.

But yeah, if anything I would like to see this succeed. Maybe John Lasseter would take an interest and fund it with his infinite Disney monies now.

crazydean · 10/26/2015, 11:22 PM

While I'm not particularly excited about this, I will certainly watch it if it gets made.

Can someone clear up the $70m? I know animation is very tedious, slow, and expensive. Saturday morning cartoons certainly didn't cost some $20m per episode. They were purposely made very cheaply, but why is this so much different?

Edit: So I looked up half a dozen movies from their kickstarter page, checked their production costs, and used an inflation calculator. Adjusted for 2015 inflation, the earlier movies cost $15m-$30m to produce and made a hefty profit. Thumblina was $45m but only made $17m. Titan A.E. lost over $100m.

It seems that $70m isn't as much as I originally thought, but I still think it's too much for really any animated movie. Lots of people have played Dragon's Lair, and love the game, but video games in general (especially old ones) just aren't mainstream enough to warrant that kind of cash.

NightWolve · 10/26/2015, 11:29 PM

Well, if they can't get that $70 million, then it won't be worth making at all... That figure apparently delineates from straight-to-video piece of crap versus worth-making and watching theater-material... They have high standards and wanna do right by us fans, obviously... ^_^

Worth mentioning for comparison, that new Jem and the Holograms movie which apparently is flopping and being written off had a whopping...$5 million dollar budget.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jem_and_the_Holograms_(film)

I can understand that perhaps they wouldn't wanna sign their name to some cheaply-made garbage and forever embarrass the idea of having gone forward with a movie-adaptation. But, is this really something that was THAT popular to be putting that much of a budget desire forward, right off the bat ??

seieienbu · 10/30/2015, 03:46 AM

Quote from: NightWolve on 10/26/2015, 11:29 PMWell, if they can't get that $70 million, then it won't be worth making at all... That figure apparently delineates from straight-to-video piece of crap versus worth-making and watching theater-material... They have high standards and wanna do right by us fans, obviously... ^_^

Worth mentioning for comparison, that new Jem and the Holograms movie which apparently is flopping and being written off had a whopping...$5 million dollar budget.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jem_and_the_Holograms_(film)

I can understand that perhaps they wouldn't wanna sign their name to some cheaply-made garbage and forever embarrass the idea of having gone forward with a movie-adaptation. But, is this really something that was THAT popular to be putting that much of a budget desire forward, right off the bat ??

$34k opening night? That's pretty miserable...

As for a Dragon's Lair movie? That sounds pretty cool. That being said, I don't see how Dragon's Lair has a giant fanbase of people that would ever recoup a $70M budget. If it's done, I want it done right. If it can't be done right and make a profit then I don't want it done at all.

DragonmasterDan · 10/30/2015, 07:46 AM

Quote from: seieienbu on 10/30/2015, 03:46 AMAs for a Dragon's Lair movie? That sounds pretty cool. That being said, I don't see how Dragon's Lair has a giant fanbase of people that would ever recoup a $70M budget. If it's done, I want it done right. If it can't be done right and make a profit then I don't want it done at all.

I think just having a Western traditional animated movie done with high quality animation past 2010 makes this movie a draw right away. Regardless of whether or not people are fans of the game, I think there's a lot of people who would want to see this.

Don Bluth made a lot of movies, and while a few of them weren't profitable in their theatrical runs, after home video sales, TV rights, etc with exception to Titan AE (which had amassed a huge tab before Bluth ever became involved in the project) all of them recouped their investment.

technozombie · 10/30/2015, 05:19 PM

The 2011 Winnie the Pooh movie was a really great return to form for 2d animation. I brought my kids to see it in the theater. I looked it up and the budget was 30mil and it was about an hour long. 70mil seems a bit excessive to me.

SignOfZeta · 10/30/2015, 06:20 PM

$70M is not a huge amount of money for an animated movie in 2015. As someone who is a life long huge fan of animation, I can promise you this. There are no other $70M 2D animation movies right now so there really isn't anything to compare it to, you'll just have to trust Don Bluth a guy who has worked on dozens of extremely high quality movies (and dozens of terrible ones too).

Comparing it to the 2011 Pooh movie is off base, IMO. That's as nice movie, but the (beautiful) backgrounds are mostly static. There usually aren't more than two characters on screen at once. The settings and stories were mostly completed nearly a century ago. It's also extremely mild. Mild saves money.

If this DL movies gets made (which, I'm not sure I even want it) and it's what it should be (let's hope) you'll have new characters animated on 1s with no digital in-betweens. You'll need to have a lot of new stuff, nobody is going to be happy to see the same 35 year old designs going at it still. The FX animation for fireballs and giant diamonds and freezing winds and lavafalls will eat up 1/3 of the movie. The interior design of the castle will not be a quick thing. You have to have complex action sequences (more than Poohs ass falling out of a tree, that's great, but not really action) and then of course there is the thing that always gets done with big budget animation in the west, pissing away millions on big name voice actors for parts you could do better with scabs.

Inside Out cost $170M and its mostly screaming with a lot of eyes and hair moving. Cars 3 will cost even more, and it will stink. $70M is chump change. To me, the biggest worry is if it's possible at all.

These days people think all you need is a Kickstarter to make thing exist, but Bluth's golden era (which was pretty fucking golden) didn't exist in a vacuum. To be top of his game he needed the worlds entire ecosystem of 2D animation to be on top OF. Thats gone now. Almost every bit of it. He needed a good supply of guys that quit Disney to work for him, for one thing, the excess industrial personal runoff that will come from a company that employs the very best only to hugely limit their creativity and piss them off. Disney doesn't have 2D animators anymore, not many anyway. Most 2D animation in the world today is farmed out to Korea for the lowest possible cost and done with goddamned vector graphics. An episode of Family Guy, which is pretty much just crap, it's over $1M. The Simpsons is more than double that. To make cheap shit they've made a million times before. $70M ain't shit.

CrackTiger · 10/30/2015, 06:52 PM

I assume that cgi will be used to rotoscope fireballs, giant diamonds, etc. It doesn't even need to be advanced cgi, just enough to eliminate the kind of animation that is wasted by drawing by hand.

SignOfZeta · 10/30/2015, 07:47 PM

Oh, it certainly would, but that just makes it even more expensive.

geise · 10/30/2015, 08:56 PM

Actually 3D is pretty cheap depending on what is needed. Cheaper than compositing oldschool fx into a 2d animation like the old days.

I hope this uses no cgi at all. I also wish this was for Space Ace and not Dragon's Lair, but I'm in the minority I'm sure. After all there is only 1 Space Ace game.

elmer · 10/30/2015, 10:54 PM

I mentioned this KickStarter to the guy that programmed the original Dragon's Lair arcade game (I've known him for many years).

Lots of interesting stories came out.

It's fascinating to be in a position to see how "history" gets made and documented ... there's usually a number of different perspectives.

geise · 10/31/2015, 07:29 AM

I would love to hear some of these stories. Been a huge Bluth fan since the 80's.

elmer · 11/01/2015, 01:05 PM

Well, my understanding is that it was Rick Dyer's company that had the idea for the game (as an outshoot of their previous hardware projects), and that it was his staff that designed the game, and the characters, then came up with the individual "scene" ideas and storyboarded them.

Don Bluth then came along and did the animation and created the distinctive "look" that everyone loves.

After the game became popular, there was a very long lawsuit over who-owned-what (apparently Rick Dyer was young and naive and never though to protect his company's ownership of the rights).

*****************

As for the movie ... I'm not seeing anything in Dragon's Lair that's going to provide a story that I'd care to see, nor anything in Bluth and Goldman's previous works that makes me believe that they're going to come up with one.

Don Bluth is a really great animator, I love the "look" of his stuff.

But this project strikes me as coming out of the same "wouldn't it be nice to have people pay me to relive my youth" mindset as Mike Kennedy's RetroVGS.

SignOfZeta · 11/01/2015, 02:13 PM

That's a pretty ridiculous comparison. You might not like All Dogs Go to Heaven IV or A Troll in Central Park (neither do I) but Bluth is an animation master with experience that is probably totally unrivaled on earth at this point. His movies surpassed Disney in animation quality, which is probably the only time that ever happened in going on a century. A lot of it is crap (the direct to video stuff) but An American Tail, Secret of Nimh, and The Land Before Time are legitimate classics. Seriously beautiful movies.

Mike Kenedy hit his head on the toilet and thought he invented the Flux Capacitor. He is a hollow person with nothing but a need to be loved and nothing worth loving. He's never done anything like...directing fifteen features.

BTW, leagilities and such aside, I don't care about Bluth's legal issues with the rest of the Dragon's Lair team. Maybe he did screw those guys, but here is the facts: the ONLY reason people played Dragon's Lair or Space Ace is because of the Bluth animation. The rest is terrible. All of it. If your friend wants to claim ownership of everything BUT the animation in DL...I don't know why he would do that. It's all terrible. Money, I suppose that would motivate. Everyone deserves to be paid for their work, but it's amazing anyone would want credit for the game play (a very kind term) in Dragon's Lair.

elmer · 11/01/2015, 05:10 PM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 11/01/2015, 02:13 PMThat's a pretty ridiculous comparison. ...

Wow ... did the time change cause you to get out of bed on the wrong side?

I'm not comparing to Bluth's accomplishments to Kennedy's ... there is no real comparison.

I'm comparing the mindset of some of us older-folks who want to go back 30+ years and get people to fund their dream of reliving it.

As great as Don Bluth's animation skills are ... that still doesn't make it likely that some large company is going to throw $70M-$170M at a movie-based-on-a-game-with-no-story.

If you want to give him money out of sentiment for his work, or if the KickStarter "rewards" appeal to you ... then fine, go for it.
But it's still just going to be $550,000 that gets spent and almost-certainly leads nowhere.

I won't disagree about the Dragon's Lair game either, the main appeal was Don Bluth's animation.

But if you weren't there at the time ... it was also an amazing piece of technology to see in an arcade back when it came out. There had never been anything to play that was like it.

You wouldn't have even had the opportunity to see that animation if it wasn't for the company that invested their money to pay Don Bluth and to make the game itself, because it wouldn't have existed ... and so it's a bit shitty for you to rag on those folks.

I was asked about stories surrounding Dragon's Lair ... and the legal issues are one of them. Sorry if it's not one that happens to fit your perceptions of Don Bluth.

My friend doesn't claim ownership of any of that stuff ... he was an employee, working part-time while at college and having fun, just like a lot of people back then. He doesn't get royalties, and he doesn't live in the past.

It was Bluth's desire to revisit the past that brought the whole conversation up.

DragonmasterDan · 11/01/2015, 08:03 PM

Last I knew there was a Dragon's Lair LLC that Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and Rick Dyer were a part of that owned the intellectual property to Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. If Rick sold his share to Don and Gary that's between him and them, but otherwise I'd suspect he has some involvement in this.

elmer · 11/01/2015, 08:28 PM

Quote from: DragonmasterDan on 11/01/2015, 08:03 PMLast I knew there was a Dragon's Lair LLC that Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and Rick Dyer were a part of that owned the intellectual property to Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. If Rick sold his share to Don and Gary that's between him and them, but otherwise I'd suspect he has some involvement in this.

"Dragon's Lair, LLC" didn't exist during the creation of Dragon's Lair. You can look at the original 1983 Dragon's Lair poster on Wikipedia and see the companies that were credited.

I'm going to guess that it was probably created as part of the eventual settlement agreement, but I have no way of knowing, nor do I have any idea of what Rick's current involvement either is or isn't.

It's all just old-stories and old-history.

DragonmasterDan · 11/02/2015, 03:22 AM

Quote from: elmer on 11/01/2015, 08:28 PM"Dragon's Lair, LLC" didn't exist during the creation of Dragon's Lair. You can look at the original 1983 Dragon's Lair poster on Wikipedia and see the companies that were credited.

I'm going to guess that it was probably created as part of the eventual settlement agreement, but I have no way of knowing, nor do I have any idea of what Rick's current involvement either is or isn't.

It's all just old-stories and old-history.

I'm not saying they existed then. I was just pointing out last I knew Rick Dyer still had some rights tied to the series.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/company/85946-dragons-lair-llc

Their name was on some other merchandise especially that released around the time of Dragon's Lair 3D.

technozombie · 11/25/2015, 06:14 PM

Saw this just now.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/25/dragons-lair-movie-indiegogo/

elmer · 11/25/2015, 07:42 PM

It'll be interesting to see if they go for the "flexible funding" option so that they can just keep however much money they raise, even when it's lower that what they've said that they need.

This just doesn't look good, no matter how well-meaning they really are.

crazydean · 11/25/2015, 07:58 PM

I would like to know the reasoning behind this. It looks like a cash grab. I agree with the article, though. There's no shame in going for a lower budget production. However, switching to Indiegogo makes me think this will never actually get made.

DragonmasterDan · 11/26/2015, 03:00 AM

Quote from: crazydean on 11/25/2015, 07:58 PMI would like to know the reasoning behind this. It looks like a cash grab. I agree with the article, though. There's no shame in going for a lower budget production. However, switching to Indiegogo makes me think this will never actually get made.

From what they've talked about, the bulk of the 550,000 they wanted was basically to hire a top tier screenwriter to write the revised screenplay, the rest being spent on the kickstarter rewards items, kickstarters cut and actually traveling to pitch the script (and short demo film that Don is doing himself) to studios and investors. It looks like unlike the "reach the goal or give up" kickstarter system they're looking to see how much they can get, and then get the best script they can for the money they raise.

DragonmasterDan · 12/01/2015, 02:14 PM

And this is back up as an IndieGoGo campaign with better rewards and more realistic goals.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dragon-s-lair-returns/x/8648830#/

I'd like to see him at least get the pitch off the ground. High quality traditional animation (especially in the West) is nearly a dead art and this may be a last opportunity for a bunch of old-timers to produce something great and train a new generation of animators in the future.

DragonmasterDan · 12/15/2015, 10:35 AM

Quote from: DragonmasterDan on 12/01/2015, 02:14 PMAnd this is back up as an IndieGoGo campaign with better rewards and more realistic goals.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dragon-s-lair-returns/x/8648830#/

I'd like to see him at least get the pitch off the ground. High quality traditional animation (especially in the West) is nearly a dead art and this may be a last opportunity for a bunch of old-timers to produce something great and train a new generation of animators in the future.

And it passed 100% yesterday

geise · 12/16/2015, 02:20 PM

Thanks for the update Dan. So glad that this reached it's goal!

Enternal · 12/16/2015, 03:48 PM

thinking about it, I'm surprised the original wasn't ported to an NEC device, it was just about on everything else.

I remember hanging out over at a friends house, around 1994 and he wanted to show me Dragon's Lair on his brother old game/computer. And dude busted out a cassette tape

johnnykonami · 12/16/2015, 05:23 PM

Quote from: Enternal on 12/16/2015, 03:48 PMI remember hanging out over at a friends house, around 1994 and he wanted to show me Dragon's Lair on his brother old game/computer. And dude busted out a cassette tape

I had the Commodore 64 version on 5 1/4" floppies when I was a kid! It was barely like the original but had some cool things in it's own right such as original music. I'd love to get the GBC one day as that's supposed to be a nice conversion considering.

SignOfZeta · 12/16/2015, 06:55 PM

I can't imagine fitting anything resembling DL on a cassette. Not just because of the limitations of games on audio cassettes, but because that means it must have been a C64 at *best* and I have no interest in some POS C64 game just because it happens to legally say "Dragon's Lair" on it.

I played the Amiga one back in the day, I think it was 7 3.5" floppies. It was basically the entire game remade using huge rotoscoped sprites. Aside from constant disc swapping and many missing scenes, it was probably the best Dragon's Lair for home until the CD-ROM era. It think each floppy basically held a scene with the finale needing floppies 6 and 7. This was a long time ago, but I think I'm correct. It was the most floppies I had ever seen for something until Windows 98's mail-order-only floppy version which was...I want to say 13+ floppies.

SignOfZeta · 12/16/2015, 07:45 PM

I just checked and apparently there were several cassette based versions of DL, C64 was the fancy machine, the others were Amstrad and Spectrum so...these had to be completely unrelated games like the NES one. I can't imagine how one would even vaguely aproximate FMV on an Amstrad.

wilykat · 12/16/2015, 11:56 PM

Can original DL be done on PCE? Or is steaming video a little too much for the system to handle?

SignOfZeta · 12/17/2015, 12:27 AM

It can barely do it. The videos that do exist are vaguely Sega CD quality. I don't imagine the actual game code is very CPU intensive.

Enternal · 12/17/2015, 02:42 PM

Quote from: SignOfZeta on 12/16/2015, 07:45 PMI just checked and apparently there were several cassette based versions of DL, C64 was the fancy machine, the others were Amstrad and Spectrum so...these had to be completely unrelated games like the NES one. I can't imagine how one would even vaguely aproximate FMV on an Amstrad.

I remember being impressed and it looking similar to the Coleco adam/Commodore versions that I looked up on youtube. Like the NES versions they are not streaming video, but have an impressive "inspired" port.

Could an original DL be on the PCE if the screen was significantly windowed/bordered?

SignOfZeta · 12/17/2015, 02:54 PM

Running the video isn't the problem. The freebie HuVideo disc that comes with the reprint of Yuna 1 runs at about that size. I don't know how much memory and CPU are left over, but I assume you could fit DL code in there.

The real issue would probably be seek times, as that tends to suck on basically any port of DL that isn't solid state.

NecroPhile · 12/17/2015, 05:03 PM

The HuVIDEO on Gulliver Boy is even better than the Yuna vid, but I agree the seek and load times would hinder game play.

Even if only eight people cared, the PC-FX could surely handle a great port. Its hardware is built for switching between videoclips fast.

SignOfZeta · 12/17/2015, 05:10 PM

Yeah, the FX, like the Laseractive, would have kicked ass at this.

Enternal · 12/17/2015, 06:09 PM

Ah, i completely forgot about read times, I don't play a lot of FMV games, though I suppose not a lot of people are playing these games on a regular basis. It's interesting how well Dragon's Lair is received among the genre of FMV games especially with it being first released? (Looks like Astron was shown off earlier but was delayed) Most of the other ones, except for Space Ace and Night Trap are often forgotten.

For those interested

NecroPhile · 12/17/2015, 06:24 PM

Don Bluth quality animation [ -X---------------------- ] cheesy fmv with d-list actors on sets built for $20

geise · 12/17/2015, 08:30 PM

I loved the LD games of this in the arcade. I remember playing Dragon's Lair Time Warp, but it was well after I owned it for the Amiga and ST. The home computer versions before Sega CD and other home console ports weren't FMV. Readysoft redid "some" of the scenes only, but for it's time was great pixel art. I'm sure most of it was rotoscoped. Still it looked nice on the Amiga and ST.

As for the movie did they say how long they were planing to make the movie in length?

johnnykonami · 12/17/2015, 08:46 PM

I got the digital leisure Dragons Lair/DL2/Space Ace DVD box set some time ago and used Daphne to officially "rip" them (I think if memory serves, it just gives you access to a torrent legally). Not sure if I'm going to upgrade to the blu-rays or some other newer set yet as they're pretty good and I haven't looked into any reviews on releases after that. I wish there was a similar setup for Timegal/Road Avenger/Ninja Hayate, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Then there's stuff like Thayer's Quest and Super Don Quixote. I think Thayer has a DVD release, I should put it on my list...

Here's the C64 version I was blessed with in my childhood. Got it for Xmas one year pre-Turbo along with AD&D Pool of Radiance. (which was awesome!) I actually played a lot of Dragon's Lair but watching this I don't think I ever got past the Black Knight scene. There was a side two or another disk with the Lizard King and the moats which is a scene that always stuck out for me when I saw it in the arcades.

DragonmasterDan · 12/18/2015, 02:09 PM

Quote from: geise on 12/17/2015, 08:30 PMAs for the movie did they say how long they were planing to make the movie in length?

Remember, the Indiegogo is only for a sizzle reel/budget to shop the pitch film and script around to studios and investors. It's not for the movie itself. Assuming the movie gets made (which I think has a pretty high likelihood of happening even if it's not at the 70 million dollar budget Bluth was shooting for) I'd imagine it would be around 90 minutes.

Quote from: johnnykonami on 12/17/2015, 08:46 PMI got the digital leisure Dragons Lair/DL2/Space Ace DVD box set some time ago and used Daphne to officially "rip" them (I think if memory serves, it just gives you access to a torrent legally). Not sure if I'm going to upgrade to the blu-rays or some other newer set yet as they're pretty good and I haven't looked into any reviews on releases after that. I wish there was a similar setup for Timegal/Road Avenger/Ninja Hayate, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Then there's stuff like Thayer's Quest and Super Don Quixote. I think Thayer has a DVD release, I should put it on my list...

I have the individual Digital Leisure DVDs and DVD-ROMs as well. Doing the Daphne rip just pulls the video off in a way that allows Daphne to run the video from the DVD rather than via controlling an LD player through the serial port or playing a video captured file from an LD.

As far as the Blu-Rays go, I have the HD-DVD of Dragon's Lair 1 and the Blu-Rays of Dragon's Lair 1 and 2. They have been out of print for a while and often times go for considerably more than their original MSRP. By the fact that the Dragon's Lair 1 Blu-Ray is a indiegogo reward item I'd expect more of at least that disc to be produced in the near future. I'd like to have Space Ace on Blu-Ray but refuse to pay ridiculous reseller prices for it.

There were Japanese DVD-ROMs of Road Blaster and Cobra Command/Thunder Storm which have apparently skyrocketed in price. I tried to buy them years ago at around 30.00 each and Amazon.co.jp wouldn't send them to me in the US

Thayers Quest with different audio was released as Reaches, its sequel of sorts Shadoan is also on DVD. The animation quality is far far far far far far far far far far far far far below Dragon's Lair 1, Dragon's Lair 2 or Space Ace.

wilykat · 12/18/2015, 06:47 PM

I remember playing DL on C64. I knew there would be ugly limitation compared to original arcade version because C64 has fixed 16 colors, can only do 2 ubique color per 8x8 character bitmapped display in hi-res or 4 colors in 4x8 (double width) hi-color mode. 2 of the colors in hi-color mode are same across entire screen.

Plus there's that transfer rate. The cart would be fastest but to get entire video would mean hundred Kb or even MB and that would be fucking expensive back in the 80s. Disk drive has the next fastest trasnfer, and cheaper but anyone who owned C64 knows it's slow as molasses. The disk drive without any speed booster is about 300 bytes per second or the same as the earliest consumer dial up modems. That means a full screen would take around 30 seconds (8k for the bitmapped plus 1k for color data). C64 can not have any long running motion video. This is why most of the video are either a few frames looping, or using PETSCII (Commodore version of ASCII with numerous graphic elements) art for longer looping animation.

Someone mentioned laserdisc, what if there was a LD version of DL that can be played with TG16 or PCE module? Would that allow for full screen motion and very little issue with controller lag?

Where the heck is a LD burner when one needs it to test an elaborate theory???

DragonmasterDan · 12/18/2015, 09:22 PM

Quote from: wilykat on 12/18/2015, 06:47 PMI remember playing DL on C64. I knew there would be ugly limitation compared to original arcade version because C64 has fixed 16 colors, can only do 2 ubique color per 8x8 character bitmapped display in hi-res or 4 colors in 4x8 (double width) hi-color mode. 2 of the colors in hi-color mode are same across entire screen.

Plus there's that transfer rate. The cart would be fastest but to get entire video would mean hundred Kb or even MB and that would be fucking expensive back in the 80s. Disk drive has the next fastest trasnfer, and cheaper but anyone who owned C64 knows it's slow as molasses. The disk drive without any speed booster is about 300 bytes per second or the same as the earliest consumer dial up modems. That means a full screen would take around 30 seconds (8k for the bitmapped plus 1k for color data). C64 can not have any long running motion video. This is why most of the video are either a few frames looping, or using PETSCII (Commodore version of ASCII with numerous graphic elements) art for longer looping animation.

Someone mentioned laserdisc, what if there was a LD version of DL that can be played with TG16 or PCE module? Would that allow for full screen motion and very little issue with controller lag?

Where the heck is a LD burner when one needs it to test an elaborate theory???

If someone programmed the ROM data to control the laser active (ala the Daphne emulator for PC and certain LD-ROM players) I'm sure the game could be played on the laseractive with either module. LA games have lag or pausing depending on how they were written in terms of video. Time Gal for example has slight pauses that aren't present in the arcade version, but these could be avoided to make it close to arcade perfect outside of the reduced resolution from using the LaserActive NEC or Sega PAC.

esteban · 12/18/2015, 11:08 PM

Wow, this topic generated far more interest than I thought it would.

I have only played the arcade version, and that was 30 years ago. I'll be honest, I preferred to watch other people play it. I was too poor to feed quarters into DL.

Luckily, I was able to see some folks come close to beating the game...but I don't think I ever witnessed the actual ending.

All I can say is that The Secret of Nimh is awesome.

And I don't want to see it bastardized by turning it into a video game.

And I don't want to see DL turned into a feature-length movie.

Short films with the DL cast?

Sure, I could see that.

But feature length?

Let me see shorts, first.