However, I’ll admit that I did enjoy the Final Fantasy movie, I think because it was completly unrelated to anything Final Fantasy, and struck for something new.

As an animated movie, I accept that it will not be photorealistic. I thought the more-realistic 80’s-style cartoon, with realistic-looking characters, served the movie much better than what passes for cartoon movies these days (like Superman: Doomsday), sort of like the look you think of from the classic D&D Cartoon (ignoring Uni, it wasn’t terrible). The CGI should not have gone into it, I agree with you completely there. It was confusing and unnecessary.

Whenever you give a director license to make a movie based on someone else’s wok, you know he’ll add his own spin on it and take out the things that aren’t strictly necessary to save time. I think we can all pretty much agree that the best movie would be one that included every scrap of dialogue and every bit of action, but it’s not realistic to expect it.

As far as the portrayal of women, remember that Tika is a smoking-hot barmaid. What would be the first things Caramon (or most males, for that matter) would notice about her? I don’t think the attention her assets (no pun intended) were out of line. Elsewhere, perhaps, but in the most egregious case, with Tika, I’d differ in my opinion.

In general, I found the movie to be ambitious, and pretty fairly done for what it was. Perhaps I have an easier time divorcing myself from my inner “geek” or “uberfan” and view something on its own merits easier than the betrayed fans. For that matter, I saw the first D&D movie as nothing more than an adequate fantasy movie marred by an inexperienced director and the inclusion of an overacting Wayans brother, and the second movie to be a pretty good low-budget movie that, refreshingly enough, told a story in a D&D-based setting.

I also heard rumors about a movie based on R.A Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’Urden novels.