Dragon's Lair: The Movie

[johnnykonami]

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]

As 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.

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...

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]

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 f*cking 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]

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 f*cking 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]

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.