Tom plays a man whose belief in his character, a 9th level cleric named Pardue, takes him through a psychotic episode. This movie damages the reputation of Dungeons and Dragons as good, clean fun without liquor or unprotected sex. It instead portrays the game as the first step into complete self-destruction.
Made in 1982, the evidence is overwhelming that D&D does nothing more than provide entertainment to law-abiding, well-rounded, mentally stable citizens who tend to be college educated with high-income jobs. Nearly thirty years later, it is high time that Tom Hanks apologized for his role in this slanderous film. Go to the wiki and sign the petition today. Tom Hanks must tell the world he regrets insulting their intelligence, as well as their wisdom, charisma, strength, dexterity, and constitution.
Sign the petition on the wiki in this Community Group: community.wizards.com/tom_hanks
Did you suffer persecution and ignorance because of this movie? Feel free to share your experiences with Mazes and Monsters. Together, we can get a public acknowledgement from Tom Hanks that this movie was biased, unfair, and damaging in its portrayal.
B) what about Steven Stern, the director? why aren't petitioning him for making the movie?
C) the other actors? again, why only Tom Hanks?
as for "suffering", well i was born in '85, 3 years after the movie was made, and raised in a small rural french community of about 2500 people in Prince Edward Island. our school was from K-12 and had about 450 students. people knew of D&D but usually didn't care, or if they know did it's usually because they played it before themselves.
i suffered more in my pre-teen and teen years for being a bit overweight and a huge nerd then being a D&D player. i never even heard of mazes & monsters other then a vague blurb on the web and stayed disinterested. i highly doubt the guys who would tease me would have watched M&M anyways. note that the suffering was quite minor once my potential tormentors realized that i had 20-40 lbs on them when i was a kid and not afraid to knock out a few teeth should the need arise.
once the awkward years were mostly over, i got a rep as "that big jolly guy who's playing cards in the corner with those other guys who'll fix your computer problems and lift heavy things for you if you ask politely".
i never had a problem at the workplace since i was always a tech guy: most of the people i know at work are either Comic Book Geeks, Video Game Geeks, Computer Geeks or RPG Geeks (and a good healthy mix of the different categories). when i wasn't working at a tech job, it was physical labor and it just kept you occupied, so D&D never came up.
as for family issues brought upon by the movie: my mom was worried when she heard of it from my aunt... for about the hour it took her to read the basic concepts of the books and watch us play. at best she was amused to see teenagers playing pretend by rolling dice, at worst annoyed that we were taking up the dinner table and she was expecting company so she couldn't put out the good dishes and table cloth.
then again, this is the same lady who bought me an NES once i was old enough to imput the Contra Code, had me raised on Ghostbusters, Spiderman & the TMNT and thought that me running around in the yard swinging swords & sheilds made of old wood and rusty nails while playing in my dad's lobster fishing gear years before i learned of LARPing and that they had a safer NERF-based alternative for faux-medival weaponry was a good idea.
all the guys i grew up with and played D&D with had similar experiences: no sneaking around behind their parents to roll the demonic dice... just a bunch of kids playing pretend in the living room where they can be watched instead doing Gord knows what and where. the movie wasn't even a blip on our radar growing up.
i still haven't watched it and i honestly don't plan to.
As far as blaming Tom Hanks for the slight (however real or imagined it is), it was ten years ago. Get over it.
It's called a movie. It's to provide entertainment. That would be like me getting angry at the show Metalocalypse for many of the bassist jokes that are now common in the musician's society. People who actaully take these kinds of things seriously and judge others based off of that are IGNORANT. What you do is make them realize how foolish they are making themselves look, and then point and laugh. Loudly. I'm sure others will soon follow.
no need to get riled up, just play a few mind games with 'em, and they'll STFU.
As many of you already know, Rona Jaffe's hurried and slanderous book "Mazes and Monsters" depicts Dungeons and Dragons as a game that will turn players into pyschotics. CBS has turned this awful book into a movie, starring none other that worldwide superstar Tom Hanks in the lead role.
Actually, instead of not taking the movie seriously, I found the movie to show a message contrary to the writer's intent: that the main characters mental breakdown was the root of his release through fantasy role-play, not the fantasy role-play being the root of his mental breakdown.
I believe that the author was saying that playing fantasy role playing games was a symptom of psychological problems, rather than playing fantasy role playing games causes psychological problems.
If you see the movie, pay attention to the reporters soliloquy on the game, and it will be spelled out directly. Also at the end of the movie, while the former group is in the car, the girl will speak of a book she is writing about how playing the game helped them through their problems.
Links: Mazes and Monsters and Mazes and Monsters (novel)
For those of you who didn't experience it, the early eighties and "Satanic panic" was an issue, one whose stink still lingers today like the mold in my basement. Many people were convinced D&D was going to cause you become a Satan worshiper, commit suicide, or both. "Mazes and Monsters' was a major contributer to this perception. Many of us had to deal with a variety of indignities. Some were lectured, forbidden to play, punished, some had their books burned (and forced to burn them personally), or worse. To this day, the perception remains. I had my job threatened a few years ago by it (more later, long story), and many people cling to the belief (one of my players was told by a co-worker that "mushrooms would grow out of his ears". What does that MEAN?)
I got the idea during the recent prison case in which some prisoners were forbidden to play D&D. The case submitted all the cases in which D&D was used as a "twinkie defense", even those none of those defenses were successful, just by the negative association of "D&D makes you go crazy." Ironically, a penitentiary filled with prisoners playing D&D would probably be pretty peaceful, IMO.
I think it's time to hit this problem 21st century style, with an internet meme. A campaign to win an apology from one of Hollywood's kings. Picture people in costumes with signs that read "Elves are people too", "Crazy 4 D&D, D&D (does not equal sign) Crazy", and "Tom Hanks stole my twelve-sided die". T-shirt with Tom in his Pardue outfit with "Apologize" on them.
It's a perfect storm really:
- Tom Hanks is widely recognized, this was one of his first performances.
- He has an excellent sense of humor by all reports, and is very likely to go along with the joke
- As someone pointed out early, this is really old (nearly 30 years, not 10) so there isn't any momentum on the other side of this discussion. Just the acknowledgement that the idea D&D makes you crazy is just plain silly. There's no real reason NOT to give an apology.
There's no reason to target anyone else with this, no one else is famous or alive. Further, with any campaign, you always focus on one person (I spent three years as President of our local teacher's union. Focusing on one person works. We can smear Jack Chick later.)
From this reaction so far, I'm not getting much hope up. But if you want to sign up, go to the group link. Instead of telling me what NOT to do, do something yourself.
There's no reason to target anyone else with this, no one else is famous or alive. Further, with any campaign, you always focus on one person (I spent three years as President of our local teacher's union. Focusing on one person works. We can smear Jack Chick later.)
Now that you mention it, smearing Jack Chick would be fun. Can we get Jack Van Impe while we're at it? PleasePleasePlease? He's another along the same stripe. Not the same as trying to pushing out Billy Graham and Jimmy Swaggert's brain-dead
litters, but almost as much fun. Oh, and that whiner in the Senate from CT that simply *must* campaign to have video games banned. He liked the attempt to have D&D banned back then, too.
As far as Tom Hanks, he really only needs apologize for his assistance in giving these idiots ammunition. I kinda like him otherwise. He did very well in the role of Jim Lovell.
-Sarena
Wow, I always thought it was just some off brand that made cheap crappy shoes for Walmart. I remember every pair if Voit shoes I ever owned lasting less than six months before Destruction began to set in . I guess you learn something new every day.
I used to get cheap shoes up till middleschool where my Converse shoes lasted longer than four pairs of shoes combined, and then after that the Offbrand buying stopped. My next pair was a pair of Nike Airs that out lasted my shoe size even.
After that I discovered Steel Toe boots in highschool. Been wearing those ever since. I've been through exactly three pairs of boots since highschool. One pair was given to a friend. One pair ruined by a mineral spirits accident. And this pair is well over three years old.
If so I regret to inform you he won't be helping you anytime soon. I introduced him to a Cake Buffet.
I would also like an explanation from my dad as to why he would spend money on freaking Bachelor Party. I assume he was wandering around Sunset Video drunk or something.
You all can dis Mazes & Monsters and Castaway all you want, but leave Bachelor Party out of it! That movie was Hanks finest performance! That was easily the best movie to come out of 1984. That and the donkey scene in that movie led to the donkey scene in Clerks 2, funny, funny stuff.
1984 was the year that gave us Ghostbusters, The Terminator, Spinal Tap, Amadeus, Buckaroo Banzai, and Repo Man. If you think Bachelor Party was the best film of the year you are out of your damned mind!
What Hanks really owes us all an apology for is The Terminal.
1984 was the year that gave us Ghostbusters, The Terminator, Spinal Tap, Amadeus, Buckaroo Banzai, and Repo Man. If you think Bachelor Party was the best film of the year you are out of your damned mind!
What Hanks really owes us all an apology for is The Terminal.
I should of done more research before proclaiming Bachelor Party the best movie 1984 had to offer, obviously that distinction should go to Spinal tap! Hello Cleveland!
And to be honest its been years and years since ive seen Bachelor Party, and chances are its not nearly as good as I remember it, much like Tron.
And The Terminal isnt all bad, anytime I have trouble sleeping, I put that one in, works like a charm!
I dunno about Mr. Hanks, but I for one apologize to the world for my good friend Firebeetle's sorry excuse for a sense of humor. I shall have him beaten profusely for this. You may all go back to your daily routines.
On a side note.... Tom Hanks is fine, we should however kill the writer of that terribly crappy movie.
I dunno about Mr. Hanks, but I for one apologize to the world for my good friend Firebeetle's sorry excuse for a sense of humor. I shall have him beaten profusely for this.
See that you do. To ensure that he does not relapse into old ways, We officially appoint Psirat as Firebeetle's keeper. You are new here, so We offer you a bit of advice that needs rarely be spoken: "Do not disapoint Us".
Assistant: "And we have a petition. . ."
Hanks: "Really, what for? I usually don't get petition."
Assistant: "Well, apparently 250 fans of Dungeons and Dragons want you to, ah, apologize."
Hanks: "Apologize, what for?"
Assistant: "Your role in Mazes and Monsters, but the letter says they loved you in Castaway and Forrest Gump."
(Silence, followed by laughter)
That's funny, why can't we make that happen?
That's funny, why can't we make that happen?
Because the internet is serious business, and only to be used for serious business. That business is not serious, and thus it has no place here.
That's funny, why can't we make that happen?
1) Because it isn't funny.
2) Because this:
they loved you in Castaway
is totally untrue. To those of us that support Voit, this movie was an abomination.
Surely you all have something better to do.
(Ahem.) Ah, you do realize you're replying to a thread that's a month old, right?...
I haven't forgotten. Hanks will apologize, yes, he will. Bwahahahahaha!
Surely you all have something better to do.
(Ahem.) Ah, you do realize you're replying to a thread that's a month old, right?...
no, not really. I've been hanging about the DAZ forums more than here.
Where is the petition to ask Tom Hanks to apalogize for "Da Vinci´s code" and "Angels and demons" movies?
The real problem with this idea is that I really doubt Tom Hanks would ever admitt to be in Monsters & Mazes. Really most big Hollywood actors and directors hate it when fans bring up crappy movies from the past. It would almost be as bad as about asking Spielburg about the Star Wars X-Mas Special.
the Star Wars X-Mas Special.
There was a Star Wars X-mas special?
< grins > Ohhhh yeah. < /grin >
Edit:
Oh yeah, I found it. Ewoks:Battle for Endor or something or other. But it wasn't a Christmas special.
the Star Wars X-Mas Special.
There was a Star Wars X-mas special?
No. No there was not
.
Everyone should have a copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special!
So.
Where do I buy this piece of art?
You can not. Lucus gathered every copy of it and destroyed...it would be gone from this earth if not some few preserved by taping it. Thanks to the internet we can all share in the joy. I think Lucus really hates the internet now.
The most f***ed up scene is when Grandpas Chewbaca views a porn like scene...
Everyone should have a copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special!
So.
Where do I buy this piece of art?
I am remember seeing the battle for Ewoks: Battle for Endor.
Caravan of Courage: an Ewok adventure,was made first en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_of_Courage...
Yes I remember the Ewok made for TV movies, and the cartoon, and the Droids cartoon as well. I wouldnt mind geting the Droids one on DVD, the others I can live with out.
But if you really want a copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special, I posted a linky. I remember loving that as a kid, I thought it was the best thing ever! I was so disappointed that it never aired again. Flash foward years later and I finally find it on DVD and I was like yes! Then after I watched it I was like what the hell? Lucas must of done something to it, I dont remember it being so utterly incoherent.
So who wants to play some Mazes & Monsters, Live action!!!
