There is a major flaw in Midnight Chronicles that isn't addressed in the movie (and is only hinted at in passing in the trailer)... this is not a complete story, but part of a series.
Sadly there is no indication of when, if ever, the remainder of the story will be told.
Perhaps it is supposed to be a "set-up" for a roleplaying game campaign (
which would be pretty cool if it was) as the movie, made by Fantasy Flight Studios, is based on Fantasy Flight's
Midnight setting for
Dungeons & Dragons.
The backstory is a clever spin on
Lord Of The Rings (
and Peter Jackson's trilogy is clearly homaged, in a low-budget way, especially in the establishing exposition sequence): what would a fantasy world be like if the bad guys won?
In
Midnight Chronicles, the world of Aryth has fallen under the thrall of the wicked god Izrador, the elves have fled to their forests and the dwarves disappeared underground, leaving mankind to be ruled by Izrador's dark priests, the Legates, and his legions of orcs.
An infamous Legate, Mag Kiln (Charles Hubbell) is on a mission to track down a missing priest, assisted by the annoying, hedonistic Kruce (Sam Landman).
However, they are diverted by acolyte Chuzara (Dawn Brodey) to the town of Blackweir - to investigate why the town's temple still hasn't been completed after a hundred years... and whether attacks by a local brigand known as the Hunter are to blame.
And this is where a second fault with the film begins to reveal itself, a fault tied very heavily into the first, that there is simply too much going on in the story for the audience to keep track of.
Compound that with the surfeit of 'otherworldy' names and characters and it's no wonder the full story couldn't be told in 100 minutes.
There's a "monster" (
or is it a force for good?) lurking in the temple, but it's exact nature is never explained, and there are hints of a heroic warrior - who doesn't know his destiny is to be the counterbalance to Mag Kiln's rise to power - but he barely registers in the story and is quite possibly redundant to the plot of
this movie.
The film makers clearly accept that they are working on a limited budget and don't try to overstretch their special effects, limiting the non-humans, such as the orcs and elves (
dwarves are talked about, but never seen), to pretty decent masks and make-up and the film's CGI effects to attractive backdrops and subtle magical effects.
However, the script is clearly written by a gamer rather than a professional scriptwriter because, as I have said, a lot is set-up that never pays off - which is fine in an RPG because the characters can always go and explore those avenues at a later date, but a film script really needs to be self-contained.
The blurb on the DVD case says the film is:
"...the epic narrative that tells the tale of two legendary characters - one for the cause of good, the other for the cause of evil. This is the story of their rise, their struggle and ultimately their fate, as their destinies become intertwined with that of the world and the dark god that occupies it"
That's a lie... kind of. That's the plot of the whole 'epic' that this is simply the prologue of. And if the series ever gets made, I'd gladly watch it because there's a lot of detail in this world that has the potential for some thrilling storytelling.
http://What we actually get here is the first two episodes (
a 'pilot' as it were) for a potential television series that never took off. Given the success of
Legend Of The Seeker around the time of this film's release there would definitely have been a market for this, but I suspect that boat has sailed.
Unfortunately I don't think the rest of the story
will ever be told because
Midnight was a 3.5 edition
Dungeons & Dragons setting, from what I can recall, and the gaming world has moved on from there.
Fantasy Flight has turned its attention to
Warhammer,
Anima and
Grimm these days and wasn't supporting
Midnight anymore.
Which is a shame, because this movie certainly has potential. The script and the acting certainly aren't Oscar worthy, but the effects don't grate and the setting has the strong verisimilitude of all good game worlds.
So instead of the launch pad for a television series that could have become the role-players' equivalent of
Lord Of The Rings (
maybe),
Midnight Chronicles stands alone as a quirky experiment by a games company that will probably, sadly, fade into gaming lore as time continues to move on.
Back in 2010, over on Facebook, Angus Abranson, then at
Cubicle 7, explained:
"I believe that this was made as a pilot to tout around various TV networks. Also Midnight is an IP that FFG own themselves and are quite fond of (they've already used the Midnight setting in one of their Runebound Board Games too) so don't be surprised to see other 'Midnight' related products appear outside of the RPG market at somepoint."
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