The Path of Pardu...
Added 6/9/2007
PLOT
The film begins with the excitement of a new college semester on the verge - Kate, Daniel, and Jay-Jay travel to school with their seemingly 'normal' stereotypical families'... then there's Robbie, a sensitive sort with an alcoholic mother and verbally abusive father, trying to align his priorities despite his past extreme distractions with a fantasy board game akin to "Dungeons & Dragons" called "Mazes & Monsters", when lo and behold, he spies an "M&M" group advertised on the posting board in the cafeteria... and it begins... the obsession resurfaces, progressing from a gloomy candlelit room to "taking it to the next level" wherein the players actually don the accoutrement of their characters {acquired from Theatre class} and travel to the local caverns where Jay-Jay, the resident "Game Lord" {eq. 'Dungeon Master'; D&D} has arranged several objects including a skeleton which appear on cue when the wayfarers pass through certain spots in the caves, whereupon the Game Lord's voice echoes forth with warnings and instructions. This is where the hallucinations begin for Robbie, imagining a literal "Gorvil" creature stalking the stalactite-laden corridors, which becomes the first indication of his mental degeneration.
He confides in his girlfriend Kate about the loss of his brother 'Hall' on Halloween to a mysterious dissappearence and was never found...
Thus, on Halloween night, while others were living it up, he sleeps and begins dreaming of a dark figure named "The Great Hall" who informs him of his erstwhile 'destiny' as 'Pardu' the Holy Man, who must seperate himself from the group, become {ack!} celebate {there went Kate...}, and seek 'The Towers' by engaging upon a quest, which takes Robbie to New York City where he roams in a hypnogogic state until an attempted mugging by a couple of greasy thugs results in him defending himself by stabbing one of the lowlifes, all the while perceiving himself as this 'Pardu', and the attacker as another Gorvil.
Frightened by this encounter, he almost comes to his senses and calls for help. Being skiddish however, seeing another couple of guys on a street corner scares him enough to descend into the city's subway system and further below into the labyrinthine underworld beneath the streets, and its roaring "Great Dragon"...
Meanwhile, the Police become alerted to his sudden disappearence, and the group are payed a visit by an investigator. Scared that they may be implicated in his missing, his friends scramble to figure out where he may have gone by inspecting his room and find a hand-drawn map, carefully brainstorming to decipher his 'journey'.
Robbie eventually encounters a homeless man who jestingly refers to himself as 'The King of France' - of course, being in a completely delusional state of mind, "Pardu" acknowledges him as such, inquiring for directions to 'The Towers'*, which turns out being 'The Twin Towers', The World Trade Center, to be exact, which one could see coming from a mile away, as it were, both figuratively and literally. Included is some extensive interior footage of the WTC from lobby to observation deck.
His friends eventually catch up to him as he climbs out on the parapet preparing to join with "The Great Hall", until tearfully awakening from the somnambulism. He is eventually committed to a scenic mental home where his delusions persist, and after one last 'adventure' with friends, is left to live out his days in his fantasy world.
ANALYSIS
Obviously, Robbie dealt with the loss of his big brother by anthropomorphosizing his memory as "The Great Hall", and his desire to reunite with him. Delving into the board game as a form of escapism taken to an extreme, in this case served as an affectation of his mental illness, but may not necessarily have been the cause of it, but merely placed fantastical definitions and terminology to establish an albeit false identity.
Through a balanced perspective, these games can be an amusing recreational activity, but there may always be the danger of those with a wayward brain who will literalize elements therein and attempt to detrimentally personafy either the characters and/or activities described. While the exercise of the imagination is encouraged and channelled into creative endeavors, care must sometimes be taken with the mentally ill in order to prevent compulsion, lest you travel the "Pardu Path" to insanity.
__________________
* 'The Towers' as part of the legend of 'The Lord of The Rings' series writ by sage Tolkien were acknowledged as one of the possible motivations while the group were inspecting a map and gathering clues to his whereabouts, defining his mentality by the persona of the Pardu character. Ergo, "What Would Pardu Do?"
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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I can't believe I wasted 105 minutes of my life watching it. I was expecting a Labrynth-esque type show based on reading the cover. Instead it was a "lesson" on the evils or RPG.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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When will this be on DVD?
Added 12/25/2004
I hate video tapes. They were OK for a while, but it's time to move on to DVD. When is this movie going to be put on DVD? I love this crummy little movie. It deserves to be on DVD right now. I love extras on DVDs, but if you can't get anyone to add extras, just put the movie on DVD by itself. That would be better than nothing.
4 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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What drives you crazy?
Added 11/17/2004
'Mazes and Monsters' was a made for TV movie broadcast in the Fall of 1982. This movie featured Tom Hanks out of his 'Bossom Buddies' attire and instead donning a robe. A good number of role-players I know hate this movie; interestingly enough, most of them have never seen it. There is an interesting hypocrisy here: many of them whine at being labelled and misunderstood by people who do not know them, and yet, they turn right around and do the same. Hence, there are also several misconceptions about this movie both from people who never watched it or those who watched it with a closed mind. 'Mazes and Monsters' is based on the book of the same name by Rona Jaffe. This is the story of four college students who come to know each other by answering a players wanted flyer posted on a bulletin board for the game Mazes and Monsters. The students, as many people do, have varying degrees of issues in their lives and/or do not socialize well. This is not by any means represented as a definition of gamers but rather as a reason people look for activity and for some escape; for these particular students, they chose gaming. This additionally adds character development into the story so the characters themselves are not one dimensional. One of the students, played by Tom Hanks, has had a breakdown before and is pleaded with by his mother not to get involved with that game again; addictions are hard to break. As the gamers get further into the game, such as playing the game in a maze of caves, one of them, the Tom Hanks character, begins to find it difficult to seperate fantasy from reality as his worlds are melding. As his behavior deepens and he further isolates himself from his friends, he becomes drawn further into this world his own mind has created. This leads to his disappearance and his friends and the police, together and seperately, trying to find him before something really bad happens. One of the major complaints lodged against this movie is that it is anti-roleplaying. This story was directly influenced by events involving roleplayers which made local and national headlines at the time. It is never represented in this movie that the game itself was the culprit but rather the degree of escapism with regard to someone who has difficulty seperating fantasy and reality. In other words, the game did not drive someone crazy, they used the game as an escape from reality which, due to their lack of stability, went too far. This is further punctuated by the use of a newscast in the movie which uses the game as fodder for the disappearance, although, we have seen through the events which have transpired and through his friends that it is his stability, or lack thereof, which has led to this. This same type of escapism could just as well be applied to someone who loses themselves in the world of a TV show, a movie, or a series of books. Rather than condemn its subject, as many who have never seen this movie claim it did, it seeks to propose a scenario of how someones instability and tendency to excess when combined with an obsessive activity could possibly lead to such behavior. This movie sought understanding not blame, which is further punctuated by the very last scene of the movie when the four friends are together again. Those who condemned this movie only sought blame for their lack of understanding. Since this was a made for TV movie, this may move a little slower than that with which a lot of todays movie viewers are comfortable. This is after all a psychological drama and not a horror movie.-Bob
7 out of 9 people found this helpful.
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Campy Halloween Party Fun for MST3K fans!
Added 10/7/2003
What I wouldn't give to see what the gang from MST3K could do to this one. You will shriek in horror and howl hysterically! This not-so classic fright-fest starred Tom Hanks well before he had a copious choice of film projects. The plot is dreadfully simple, and simply dreadful. A Fantasy Role-Playing game drives a college dweeb to insanity when the players take it too far for his fragile little psyche to withstand, proving that even the highest of the Hollywood echelon had to just pay the rent sometimes. This mock-worthy made for TV movie aired in 1982 and had audiences wondering why they were watching this crap in the first place. Mazes and Monsters did for Dungeons and Dragons what Reefer Madness did for marijuana. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll kiss 75 minutes of your life good-bye! Get this for your next party with your wittiest friends and have some hearty laughs. You'll be glad you did.
10 out of 12 people found this helpful.
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The Path of Pardu...
Added 6/9/2007
PLOT
The film begins with the excitement of a new college semester on the verge - Kate, Daniel, and Jay-Jay travel to school with their seemingly 'normal' stereotypical families'... then there's Robbie, a sensitive sort with an alcoholic mother and verbally abusive father, trying to align his priorities despite his past extreme distractions with a fantasy board game akin to "Dungeons & Dragons" called "Mazes & Monsters", when lo and behold, he spies an "M&M" group advertised on the posting board in the cafeteria... and it begins... the obsession resurfaces, progressing from a gloomy candlelit room to "taking it to the next level" wherein the players actually don the accoutrement of their characters {acquired from Theatre class} and travel to the local caverns where Jay-Jay, the resident "Game Lord" {eq. 'Dungeon Master'; D&D} has arranged several objects including a skeleton which appear on cue when the wayfarers pass through certain spots in the caves, whereupon the Game Lord's voice echoes forth with warnings and instructions. This is where the hallucinations begin for Robbie, imagining a literal "Gorvil" creature stalking the stalactite-laden corridors, which becomes the first indication of his mental degeneration.
He confides in his girlfriend Kate about the loss of his brother 'Hall' on Halloween to a mysterious dissappearence and was never found...
Thus, on Halloween night, while others were living it up, he sleeps and begins dreaming of a dark figure named "The Great Hall" who informs him of his erstwhile 'destiny' as 'Pardu' the Holy Man, who must seperate himself from the group, become {ack!} celebate {there went Kate...}, and seek 'The Towers' by engaging upon a quest, which takes Robbie to New York City where he roams in a hypnogogic state until an attempted mugging by a couple of greasy thugs results in him defending himself by stabbing one of the lowlifes, all the while perceiving himself as this 'Pardu', and the attacker as another Gorvil.
Frightened by this encounter, he almost comes to his senses and calls for help. Being skiddish however, seeing another couple of guys on a street corner scares him enough to descend into the city's subway system and further below into the labyrinthine underworld beneath the streets, and its roaring "Great Dragon"...
Meanwhile, the Police become alerted to his sudden disappearence, and the group are payed a visit by an investigator. Scared that they may be implicated in his missing, his friends scramble to figure out where he may have gone by inspecting his room and find a hand-drawn map, carefully brainstorming to decipher his 'journey'.
Robbie eventually encounters a homeless man who jestingly refers to himself as 'The King of France' - of course, being in a completely delusional state of mind, "Pardu" acknowledges him as such, inquiring for directions to 'The Towers'*, which turns out being 'The Twin Towers', The World Trade Center, to be exact, which one could see coming from a mile away, as it were, both figuratively and literally. Included is some extensive interior footage of the WTC from lobby to observation deck.
His friends eventually catch up to him as he climbs out on the parapet preparing to join with "The Great Hall", until tearfully awakening from the somnambulism. He is eventually committed to a scenic mental home where his delusions persist, and after one last 'adventure' with friends, is left to live out his days in his fantasy world.
ANALYSIS
Obviously, Robbie dealt with the loss of his big brother by anthropomorphosizing his memory as "The Great Hall", and his desire to reunite with him. Delving into the board game as a form of escapism taken to an extreme, in this case served as an affectation of his mental illness, but may not necessarily have been the cause of it, but merely placed fantastical definitions and terminology to establish an albeit false identity.
Through a balanced perspective, these games can be an amusing recreational activity, but there may always be the danger of those with a wayward brain who will literalize elements therein and attempt to detrimentally personafy either the characters and/or activities described. While the exercise of the imagination is encouraged and channelled into creative endeavors, care must sometimes be taken with the mentally ill in order to prevent compulsion, lest you travel the "Pardu Path" to insanity.
__________________
* 'The Towers' as part of the legend of 'The Lord of The Rings' series writ by sage Tolkien were acknowledged as one of the possible motivations while the group were inspecting a map and gathering clues to his whereabouts, defining his mentality by the persona of the Pardu character. Ergo, "What Would Pardu Do?"
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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I can't believe I wasted 105 minutes of my life watching it. I was expecting a Labrynth-esque type show based on reading the cover. Instead it was a "lesson" on the evils or RPG.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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When will this be on DVD?
Added 12/25/2004
I hate video tapes. They were OK for a while, but it's time to move on to DVD. When is this movie going to be put on DVD? I love this crummy little movie. It deserves to be on DVD right now. I love extras on DVDs, but if you can't get anyone to add extras, just put the movie on DVD by itself. That would be better than nothing.
4 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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