As many of you probably know, this last weekend was San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC). Amongst panels revealing Marvel’s upcoming projects, which include Wakanda Forever and a new Fantastic 4 film, and what’s coming to Disney+ in the coming year, something else big was announced.

Paramount unveiled their trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023). For some people, this might not be all that exciting, but for myself and my fellow members of the D&D community, this is a big deal.

So today I will review the trailer for this upcoming movie and talk about what expectations the D&D community and I have for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Honor Among Thieves Understands The Power Of Dungeons & Dragons

Let’s start with the monsters; Throughout the trailer, we see a lot of different monsters. Some we were expecting, like the mimic and gelatinous cube, as they are staples of D&D, and some of the most well-known monsters from the game. Unexpected was seeing displacer beasts and an owlbear, more uncommon than other monsters it was a nice surprise to see them over more common or stereotypical monsters. But I think the most surprising aspect of the entire trailer was the dragons.

I know, I know, how is seeing dragons in a D&D movie trailer surprising?

Well, because we can see three different types of dragons, including the typical fire-breathing red dragon. Then we see the less common black dragon that is shown to be spewing acid, which indicates that the writers are either huge D&D fans or have done their research into the game to know such a small detail. The third dragon is being discussed amongst fans as being either a bronze or brass dragon.

Seeing such a variety of dragons is interesting, it would be all too easy to just stick with the fire-breathing dragons that everyone knows. So to include others shows promise to the D&D community that this movie won’t be a knock-off fantasy movie using the D&D name, but a movie that is including lore from the game.

As for character races, I think we were all expecting Humans, Elves, and Dwarfs to make an appearance, which they do, but we also see Yuan-ti, a serpent-like race that is immune to poisons, and one of the main characters appears to be a Tiefling, a humanoid creature with infernal (demon) heritage. While most people who play Tiefling characters choose to make their skin a vibrant blue, red or purple, in D&D lore it is actually more common for them to have human skin tones, as we see in the trailer.

This caused a slight concern to some players of D&D because colorful-skinned Tieflings are seen more in campaigns, they automatically assumed that their skin was supposed to be one of those vibrant colors, but other members of the community were quick to inform them that it makes far more sense to have Tiefling with a human skin tone.

I am apprehensively excited to see this movie, which seems to be the main feeling of the community too. If suspicions are correct and the writers have done their research, this could be the beginning of the next big fantasy movie franchise. But if done incorrectly, it’ll leave fans severely disappointed, and for myself, confirms that D&D is not transmittable to screen in the same way that other media is.

The cast looks promising, with only Sophia Lillis recently starting to play D&D, while the rest of the cast have stated to playing with family or having played throughout childhood. This reassures me that the cast will immerse themselves into these roles and give outstanding performances, as well as adding small titbits from their character classes and races.