Do the kids from the 80’s D&D cartoon die in Honor Among Thieves?

When Paramount Pictures was released a short clip from an action sequence late in the D&D movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, a certain subset of old RPG fans immediately jumped on a detail. As the film’s protagonists face a deadly gladiatorial arena built around a shifting maze filled with monsters, Edgin the Bard (Chris Pine) notices that another group of adventurers is also being thrown into the arena: Saturday’s group of displaced children 1983-1985. Animated series in the morning dungeons.

It’s a bit of a joke for some of the game’s older fans. The cartoon is hard to find legally these days – it’s not streamed and any previous DVD releases are out of print, although there are plenty of YouTube uploads. But a generation of fans remembers the show so fondly several toy rows are still made Celebrate the cartoon characters. More recently, a virally popular one Brazilian car advertising brought the characters into the live action and eventually brought them back home.

The 80s characters appear in honor among thieves isn’t just a one-off sight gag either – they repeat themselves throughout the scene and don’t fare as well in the ensuing gladiatorial match. Polygon has spoken Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein to find out what happens to these kids after they appear on the big screen.

[Ed. note: Spoilers for some action in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves follow.]

In the gladiator arena sequence, Daley and Goldstein follow Edgin and his party as they dodge a predator, a facial expression, and various traps through an ever-changing maze of traps and weapons. The characters from the 80s – Hank the Ranger, Sheila the Thief, Diana the Acrobat, Eric the Cavalier, Presto the Wizard and Bobby the Barbarian – also run through the maze, picking up weapons and dodging the dangers.

Daley and Goldstein say that getting the rights to the characters’ likenesses was easy enough since they belonged to TSR and they would have been part of the property purchased by Wizards of the Coast. “The rights are kind of burned into the film just because it’s D&D,” Daley told Polygon.

The only real difficulty with the sequence was figuring out how to fit the cartoon characters into the aesthetic of honor among thieves‘ world while it’s still recognizable.

“The biggest struggle was finding a way to portray her,” says Daley. “Something that didn’t look too absurdly cartoonish. Because they’re based on this brightly colored cartoon. We didn’t want them sticking out like a sore thumb. So it was a real process.”

“We also had to find an adult to play Bobby the Barbarian,” says Goldstein. “Because working with a child limits your hours. So we found a very muscular, not very tall man for the role.”

One element is missing from the party: Bobby’s favorite unicorn, Uni. There are obvious financial reasons for not designing a unique CG creature for such a brief cameo. But considering how many times the cartoon’s plots revolved around the party having to save him or go back for him, where’s Uni in it honor among thieves?

“They took Uni away,” says Goldstein.

“You know, it’s funny — I think the conscious decision was the idea that you can’t have an animal in these games,” says Daley. “Unfortunately, the university couldn’t take part.”

But what happens to the 80s characters in honor among thieves? Edgin’s group eventually finds her locked in a giant brass cage and sets out to free her. (Or join them? It seems like the kids in this cage are at least safe from marauding monsters.) But the protagonists change their minds and run away, leaving the 80’s kids in the cage. Shortly thereafter, the villain Sofina (Daisy Head), one of the Red Wizards of Thaydrops a massive spell that is called The waving death in the arena to turn everyone present into undead monsters. Edgin and his crew have escaped by then and the arena has emptied, but — aren’t the kids of the ’80s still locked in that cage?

“We don’t kill them,” says Goldstein. “The last thing we see in the movie is that they are safely in the Cage of Sanctuary and have escaped the Displacer Beast. So let’s assume good things.”

Daley takes a tougher route: He thinks the Beckoning Dead spell may have gotten to her after all. “We suggested that, but we would never say it openly. Because I don’t think we should,” he says. “It’s like the top at the end beginning.”

For its part, Paramount has not come out with an official response to the question. But the studio channeled the ’80s characters in its own way, releasing a short clip from the TV series with a new tone, mocking the “rules advocates” who complained about the film’s violation of the Dungeons Season 5 rules & Dragons complained. We don’t know if these children are still alive in the film canon or have become undead monsters – but we do know that five out of six of them approve of the transformation from druids to owlbears.