The Legend of Zelda (film)

The Legend of Zelda is a 2006 computer-animated fantasy action-adventure film directed by Peter Jackson, produced by Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke, and written by David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin, based on the video game series of the same name by Nintendo, and the second film in the Nintendo Cinematic Universe (NCU). It stars Elijah Wood, Winona Ryder, Christopher Plummer, Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Keith David and Morgan Freeman. The film follows Link as he embarks on a quest to save Princess Zelda from the clutches of the sinister Ganondorf.

The film was the result of a complex development process, starting with Zemeckis' idea of directing and co-producing The Legend of Zelda with Universal Pictures in 1995. Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka turned their attention to producing Zelda, which was to be a computer-animated fantasy film directed by Jackson starring Wood and Winslet. The team agreed and completed filming in two years with Centroid Motion Capture at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California using motion capture technology, after which animation work and post-production ensued in the United States, Hong Kong, and China for a year.

The Legend of Zelda premiered at the Tower Theatre in Sacramento on May 27, 2006, and released in the United States on June 2, and in Japan on June 23, as part of Level One of the NCU. It set the record for the biggest opening weekend for a video game film, and was a box office success, grossing $1.167 million against a $451 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2006, and received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the plot, casting, performances, humor, action sequences, visual effects, emotional weight, faithfulness and Jackson's direction to the source material. It was praised for its darker plot, sets and a story appropriate for a young audience. It was followed by The Legend of Zelda: The Sacred Realm (2014) and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (2018).

Plot
In the land of Hyrule, the demon Ganon was defeated by Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule, the King of Hyrule. Before passing away, however and tragically, the King separates the Triforce, a sacred golden relic (left behind by the Golden Goddesses, Din, Nayru, and Farore, once they finished creating the realm) that grant their holders great power, into three fragments; the Triforce of Wisdom was covered and hidden by the Hyrulean Forces while the Triforce of Power was captured by Ganon's forces. Meanwhile, the fate of the Triforce of Courage is unknown, possibly under the possession of a hero who would soon take the now deceased king's place as defender of Hyrule.

A long time later, in Fort Hateno, the only home of the Hyrulean Forces during the time of the ongoing Hyrulean Civil War, Link is a young boy soldier who is the runt of the legion under the command of his uncle, General Alfon. Link opts to be the legion's lookout, a relatively easy job as no one dares to attack them. As the Hylians feast, Link spots an army led by the evil Ganondorf. He attempts to blow the warning horn, but his lungs are too weak, and the Hylians are taken by surprise. Alfon is killed by Ganondorf and all the other Hylians are captured. The only two left behind are Link and Tingle, a wise-cracking wizard.

Link seeks out the help of the Oracles for assistance, with Tingle planning to tag along to which the boy soldier himself reluctantly agrees. The Oracles reveal that Ganondorf wears a magical suit of armor and the only weapon capable of killing him is the Master Sword, a powerful weapon King Rhoam once used to defend his kingdom, which must be wielded by a fearless warrior donned in green. The Oracles also say that the Master Sword is hidden somewhere in the catacombs beneath the Hyrule Castle, the heart of Hyrule currently under the Ganondorf's control. Meanwhile, Ganondorf finally possesses the Triforce of Wisdom, and plans to use both Triforces to control the world, but his advisor, Wizzro, reminds him about the Triforce of Courage Link had around his neck. Realizing that he does not have enough power to control Hyrule yet, Ganondorf decides to set a trap for Link.

Later, Link manages to enter Hyrule Castle, disguised as a Moblin Sentry, but during one of Ganondorf's assemblies, his cover was blown by a mob of Hylian slaves, resulting in his capture along with Tingle's. Ganondorf then lectures him on the power of flesh, which he demonstrates by hypnotically enticing a Hylian slave girl to leap to her death. Thrown into the dungeons with his partner, Link is left to brood over his failure. Just then, a piece of the floor opens, and a girl in a tiara armed with a bow pops up. The girl introduces herself as Princess Zelda, daughter of King Rhoam, and, despite not seeing Link as a warrior, offers Link and Tingle a chance of escape. Link and Tingle agree, and the trio teams up to escape the castle.

While exploring the dungeon, they share their stories about how they got thrown in the dungeon. Zelda was captured because Ganondorf thought she can tell him where the Triforce of Wisdom was, and like Link on the Triforce of Courage, she was thrown into the dungeons when she refuses to surrender it. They come across a burial chamber of King Rhoam, where Link obtains a sword. They then enter a room where a minstrel is being chained by another Moblin. The minstrel, Kass, tries to convince the henchman to let him go. But everything he says is a lie: he is cursed, and every time he lies, one of the strings on his harp snaps. Link, Tingle, and Zelda attempt to set him free, but then they hear more henchmen coming. They run for it, while Kass tries to save himself. Link and Tingle get separated with Zelda in the process.

Suddenly, Link runs into a Moblin guard wielding an axe. The guard attempts to kill Link, but before he can strike, Link pulls out his sword, which is suddenly revealed to be the Master Sword, and uses it to block the axe. The sword magically damages the axe, and the horrified guard runs away. Excited over the magic sword, Link uses it to clear a path in order to regroup with Zelda, and the trio continues onward. They run into more guards, and Link deflects them with the Master Sword. Meanwhile, Kass has escaped the dungeon, but is being chased by a dog. Link slows down the guards by slashing some wine barrels with the sword. The trio finally makes it to the entrance of the castle, only to find the drawbridge closed. Onox and the other henchmen have them cornered, but then Link uses the sword to cut the chain to the drawbridge, allowing it to fall down. Onox and the guards stand back in fright, while Kass bowls past them. The trio make it past the closing gate, but Kass barely makes it with his pants ripped, and together, they escape into the forest.

Back in the castle, Onox nervously goes to Ganondorf and informs his master of Link's escape. Angered by this, Ganondorf sends his army to find him. In the forest, Zelda has sewed Kass's pants back together, much to his relief. They are all very thankful that they made it out of the castle alive, except for Link, who was suddenly troubled over the fact that the Hylian Shield, a special shield which King Rhoam also used along with the Master Sword, was supposed to be in the burial chamber with the Master Sword. Convinced, Zelda pinpoints the Hylian Shield's current location, Turtle Rock. The quartet soon travels to Kakariko Village to find passage to Turtle Rock.

For 17,000 rupees, 2,000 in advance and 15,000 upon arrival, Darunia, a noble descendant of a lost Goron tribe, agrees to take the four of them to Turtle Rock. Suddenly, General Onox and his troops enter the tavern, where the team is hiding, to confront the quintet, only to be subdued by patrons in a ensuing bar brawl which allows Link and his friends to escape the confusion. Darunia leads them to Turtle Rock, where Link braves a series of booby traps to retrieve the Hylian Shield, but not before the team gets chased out of the temple by a giant rolling boulder first. They are then confronted, arrested, and taken back to Hyrule Castle by Ganondorf's soldiers.

Ganondorf's goons take Link and his team to an area where all three Triforces will be brought together and tie them to a post to observe. Soon, Ganondorf combines all three Triforces, transforming into a massive boar-like beast, Ganon, to finally execute the Hyrulean Forces. Eventually, Zelda uses her dagger to free the team, allowing Link to free the rest of the Hyrulean Forces to battle Ganondorf’s army. Link and Ganondorf face off and succeeds in stabbing Ganon's weak point, i.e., Ganondorf’s crown, destroying them both.

With Link believed to be dead, the Hyrulean Forces honor him as the bravest boy soldier in history, only for Link to suddenly wake up, having only been unconscious after the final battle. As Hyrule returns to its former splendor, along with the now combined Triforce safely secured in the highest room of the tallest tower back at the Castle of Hyrule, a victory celebration commences, complete with medals for the heroes, Link, Tingle, Kass, and Darunia, presented by Princess Zelda, who now safely takes back control of Hyrule on behalf of her late father.

Voice cast

 * Elijah Wood as Link
 * Kate Winslet as Princess Zelda
 * Christopher Plummer as King Harkinikan
 * Zelda Williams as Navi
 * Emma Thompson as Impa
 * Pom Klementieff as Princess Ruto
 * Golshifteh Farahani as Nabooru
 * Uma Thurman as Great Fairy
 * Mary Steenburgen as Saria (motion-capture)
 * Joey King as Saria (voice)
 * Michael Clarke Duncan as Darunia
 * Nick Offerman as Rauru
 * Julia Butters as Malon
 * Charles Marinet as Talon
 * Keith David as Ganondorf
 * Ewan McGregor as Kass
 * Tress MacNeille as Twinrova
 * Kurt Russell as General Alfon
 * Morgan Freeman as General Onox

Background
The earliest attempt at a feature-length adaptation of a Dungeons & Dragons property by the major film industry date to the early 1980s, as there was a strong interest in producing a film based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; Gary Gygax had several discussions with producers and agents about the idea, and a screenplay by James Goldman received eyeballs from major studios. However, nothing came about this due to conflicts between TSR and the studios. Dungeons & Dragons player Courtney Solomon, who had personal experience with the entertainment industry as a child because his mother was a production coordinator on television series filmed in Toronto, wanted to produce a film based on the game since 1990.

In 1990, Solomon contacted staff from Dungeons & Dragons 's publisher, TSR, Inc., under the guise of working on a school economics project; they informed him about studios in the past failing to produce a film based on the game due to having too little of an understanding of the RPG's X-factor. It took him 18 months to convince TSR to set up negotiations, but TSR finally agreed to it because of his upfront royalty being better than other studios the company worked with, according to vice president Ryan Dancey. Solomon obtained an option from TSR after writing a 30-page proposal showing how he would adapt the game and going through three months of "intense" broker dealing with the game publisher.

Solomon went on an 18-month-long trip across the world funding the film once a draft of the screenplay was completed, and most of the financing depended on foreign distribution rights. During the trip, he met a leading businessman in Asia named Allan Zeman, who viewed the 24-year-old as a "young, ambitious, artistic person" as well as a "convincing salesman" of a project based on an enterprise with a huge fanbase. In early 1992,Zeman and Solomon formed Sweetpea Entertainment to fund Dungeons & Dragons and sell it to other investors.

Originally, Solomon planned to have Dungeons & Dragons be a $100 million studio project with a big name in the director's chair; during development, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Renny Harlin, and Stan Winston were attached for directing the film at one point but dropped out. In addition to the script receiving positive coverage from the magazine Movieline, Premiere also announced the project in a 1995 issue when Winston was still signed on, revealing plot details such as a rogue lead, a magical dragon-controlling device, 14 creatures from the original game, and an effects-heavy final battle.

A majority of studios and directors loved the screenplay, but turned away due to a lack of recent successes in the big-budget fantasy genre and Justin Whalin's lack of star power. Solomon and the studios he encountered constantly conflicted with TSR, which wanted a direct-to-video release instead of the big-budget theatrical film the Canadian dreamed of. Cameron considered the project just before he did Titanic (1997), but the deal did not suffice due to TSR's failure to come up with a merchandising deal that appealed to 20th Century Fox, where Cameron worked. Potential deals with Paramount Pictures and Lightstorm Entertainment were also destroyed due to strong disagreements on how to finance the film. Solomon's amount of focus on getting the film green-lit caused the relationship with his girlfriend to break apart.

Joel Silver, an executive producer most notable for action films such as the Die Hard movies, joined the Dungeon & Dragons project in April 1997, and the screenplay was finalized in June 1997. Silver came in with the vision to make it a television series instead of a film. Solomon thus tried to incorporate that plan in his project; however, TSR sold the rights of the original game property to Wizards of the Coast, and despite TSR leader Lorraine Williams telling Solomon Wizards would allow a TV series, that ultimately was not the case.

The plan changed to a $3.5 million direct-to-video film, as the $100 million budget appeared too risky and TSR's set filming deadline was nearing; what allowed for the change was technological advancements decreasing required effects money, and the availability of Prague as a shooting location, which had several medieval-era-looking places and thus lessened the need of costly studio sets. Solomon became director and started test shooting a three-minute scene battle in Los Angeles in August 1997. Silver was so roused by it that he stayed on the project as executive producer and thus increased the project's credibility to the point where investors raised up to $30 million. This now made the production a theatrical one and also saved the producers from legal action by Wizards of the Coast, who argued it was not a "real" film. Zeman put the money up for the project, in addition to Solomon and his grandfather Joe Smuckler co-signing a $25,000 bank loan, to begin pre-production on February 9, 1998.

Due to filming in a Czech Republic location, Dungeons & Dragons ' props and sets cost five times less than if shot in the United States. Although the final budget totaled to $35 million, the film was made with $21 million in cash during production, as there were several deferments in effects crew and actors' pay to meet its intended large scale. To maximize the quality of the film's effects with a limited budget, Solomon made equity deals between the effects houses involved so that less money was paid. At the time of its release, Dungeons & Dragons was the biggest-budget independent film ever produced.

Solomon began writing the script in 1991 based on the rules of the second edition of the basic Dungeons & Dragons game; he planned Dungeons & Dragons to be a film trilogy, his goal being to create "the Star Wars of the fantasy genres" using the original trilogy as a template for the story arcs.Two Miramax script doctors, Carroll Cartwright and Topper Lilien, were interviewed to be additional writers in April 1992, thanks to an executive's connection with Solomon.

To give the writers an idea of the quality expected in the screenplay, Solomon first required them to view 1980s fantasy films he felt showed the bad state of the genre at the time, and then adventure productions like Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Ben-Hur (1959). The first draft of the film took eighteen months to complete. Solomon claimed the final product is a collection of different scenes from 16 drafts.

Although the class of characters and rules of Dungeons & Dragons are brought over to the film, Solomon decided to create a generic setting only loosely based on one of the lesser-known game settings, Mystara; he felt using specific campaign settings heavily dependent on player interpretation would confuse viewers. He also had to risk the combat actions not reflecting how players would use them; for example, "somebody could be casting one of those spells and standing there for ten minutes until the spell is ready to go," explained Solomon. Spells were occasionally altered if their original descriptions were not "visual" enough to be present on screen; for instance, a Mind Flayer in the film controls another character by going inside him rather than controlling him from a distance. Another small creative liberty was the red dragons being more powerful than the gold dragons.

Casting
The cast of Dungeons & Dragons was a mixture of established film actors and up-and-comers in Hollywood. Most of the casting took place in London starting April 21, 1999, due to the Prague shooting location; this resulted in the inclusion of actors like the Fourth Doctor actor Tom Baker and Richard O'Brien, whom Solomon cast with knowledge of his performance as Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), a film released the same year as the first Dungeons & Dragons game.A-list actors were mostly avoided for leads in order for the characters to look like "normal" players of a Dungeons & Dragons match.

For the part of Ridley, in particular, Solomon looked for "someone who wasn't a movie star but who could be." Whalin, a Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman star who had disinterest in most fantasy films, became a part of the project due to a strong friendship between him and Solomon; he was the only one to join the project before the start of pre-production, entering in December 1997, and had to reject several other acting offers to make himself available. Thora Birch was cast for the project shortly after she finished filming American Beauty (1999) and before she became a breakthrough actress once it was released;she chose to play the positive-minded empress Savina to get herself out of the somber psyche she put herself in for her role in American Beauty. Birch, Whalin, and Kristen Wilson were cast before the start of principal photography.

Mark Leahy, a producer who was involved in the writing for a year and a half working on revisions of Solomon, Cartwright and Lilien's original script that were mostly rejected, was the one who conceived the cast being as ethnically diverse as possible; as he explained, "I thought this film had (and has) a chance to really be something special, and knowing that I hated the thought of a bunch of kids watching a great story in another world-where there are only white people." Leahy originally wrote the elf Liana (later named Norda) to be a black elf, but after contention from his peers, he changed her race to Asian; she was a black elf in the final cut. Leahy wrote what would become Snails as an African-American half-orc in his versions, although this was considered poor taste by his colleagues. He also wrote all members of the mage empire to be Asians.

Wilson, after reading the script, wanted to play Norda specifically due to the character's enigma; as she elaborated, "her position within the royal court world....the power that she has, certainly psychologically ..and she's a mystic...and then she's this incredible warrior. And she doesn't really let on too much.. but you can look in her eyes.. and you can see that she's not somebody to be trifled with." In fact, she was so committed to being cast as the elf that when calling the casting director, Wilson demanded to meet Solomon in person and tell him, "I'm Norda." The meeting happened, with Solomon and the other producers agreeing with Wilson. The director claimed to have cast Wilson as Norda for the same reasons she liked the character: "She's serious and mysterious and very, very cool [...] But when you look at her she doesn't look like some sort of prosthetic elf, she looks like she's another race. When you see her in the film, she's got these wild eyes, this wild exotic look, and she looks like a Dark Elf, which is great, because it's what she's supposed to be."

Lee Arenberg and Irons joined during filming, with Irons the last actor to get on board; he did so through the connection of Silver, who previously worked with him on Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995). He initially rejected the opportunity as he was overseeing the renovation of a Ballydehob castle he purchased named Kilcoe. However, Silver then sent a package to Irons made for him by Solomon, which included the script and sketches of the look of the film; this plus his desire to try out a commercial fantasy production and Solomon's decade-long tenacity to get the screenplay produced made Irons get on board during filming on July 14, 1999.

The trickiest characters to cast were Elwood and Savina. As Solomon explained the dwarf, "The way I saw the D&D; dwarf was not like a hobbit, they're sort of in-between a human and a hobbit. They're smaller than an elf, too, so it was hard finding somebody with the height requirements, but also somebody who's going to be bulky like a dwarf as well." Arenberg was chosen to portray Elwood, although before he was cast American Job (1996) star Charlie Smith was a contender for the role. The producers originally look for an actor under five feet, but Arenberg went in the audition room and told them, "I have a few more inches but a foot more talent than the other short people." When looking for the empress Savina, according to Solomon, "that was one of the toughest characters to cast because I was looking to find somebody that young to play the role, because that's what that character called for, but I also needed somebody with a depth to her and understanding that's beyond her years."

Design
Zemeckis worked on the looks of each character, including the lead role portrayed by Wood. According to Zemeckis, the project required a lot of research. Around 150 costumes per character were designed on paper and out of those, 25 costumes were selected and detailed. He also created a range of 20 to 30 looks especially for Wood's suit of armor as well as the supporting cast of Zelda. Zemeckis, along with the team working on the costumes, created the looks of all characters on the sketch. They had worked for about eight months on the various characterizations of Wood and the supporting cast. According to him, "It was a different kind of design experience altogether".

Zemeckis drew inspiration for the visual-effects of Legend of Zelda from experience with The Polar Express (2004), which uses motion-capture technology to create three-dimensional CGI images of characters. Appointing Jerome Chen, whom Zemeckis worked with on The Polar Express, the two decided to chart realism as their foremost goal.

Animation supervisor Kenn MacDonald explained that Zemeckis used motion capture because "Even though it feels like live-action, there were a lot of shots where Bob cut loose. Amazing shots. Impossible with live-action actors. This method of filmmaking gives him freedom and complete control. He doesn't have to worry about lighting. The actors don't have to hit marks. They don't have to know where the camera is. It's pure performance." A 25 × 35-foot stage was built, and it used 244 Vicon MX40 cameras. Actors on set wore seventy eight body markers. The cameras recorded real-time footage of the performances, shots which Zemeckis reviewed. The director then used a virtual-camera to choose camera angles from the footage which was edited together. Two teams of animators worked on the film, with one group working on replicating the facial performances, the other working on body movement. The animators said they worked very closely on replicating the human characters, but the character of Ganondorf had to be almost reworked, because he is a monster, not human.

Over 450 graphic designers were chosen for the project, the largest team ever assembled for a Sony Pictures Imageworks-produced movie as of 2006. Designers at Imageworks generated new animation tools for facial, body and cloth design especially for the movie, and elements of keyframe animation were incorporated into the film in order to capture the facial expressions of the actors and actresses. The mead hall battle scene near the beginning of the film, among others, required numerous props that served as additional markers; these markers allowed for a more accurate manifestation of a battlefield setting as the battle progressed. However, the data being collected by the markers slowed down the studios' computer equipment and five months were spent developing a new save/load system that would increase the efficiency of the studios' resources. To aid in the process of rendering the massive quantities of information, the development team used cached data. In the cases that using cached data was not possible, the scenes were rendered using foreground occlusion, which involves the blurring of different overlays of a single scene in an attempt to generate a single scene film.

Filming
Shooting of Dungeons & Dragons took place from May 28 to the middle of August 1999 in Prague, with a two-week rehearsal period that included eight days of a cast read-through at Solomon's apartment just before. 2,000 extras were provided by Prague's casting agency Sagitarius, with each battle consisting of around 35 stuntmen and five of the leads at most. While working on Dungeons & Dragons, Snails actor Marlon Wayans was also filming Requiem for a Dream (2000), meaning he had to go back and forth from Prague to New York and deadlines for fight scenes involving the character became very strict.

While real places were leased for sets, work of the film was also done at Barrandov Studios. Dungeon & Dragons was the first feature-length film to use the Sedlec Ossuary, which serves as the interior for Profion's lair, as a location; the church was decorated by František Rint with 40,000 skeletons of people who died as the result of the Black Death. The Magic Council meetings were filmed at the city's State Opera house, and Irons described them as the most difficult to shoot due to the amount of blue screen work and dialogue involved.

The film posters showed that the film would use performance capturing technology, which was previously used in The Polar Express. Miyamoto announced that the filming would commence from January 15, 2004. The first schedule of indoor shooting started with Wood's base actions being filmed as per the motion capturing norms. The film was launched with a formal puja on January 19, 2004 at the Hyrule Castle located inside Stage 25 at Paramount Studios. The first phase of production began in Chennai on March 15, 2004. It was then moved to London on March 17, 2004, where motion capture filming was done at Centroid Motion Picture lab in Pinewood Studios Production in London lasted for 15 days, during which, Jackson announced that the film might be released for June 2, 2006. After completing the first phase of production in London, the crew returned to Chennai on April 2, 2004. The next schedule of the film shooting was planned at various locations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Filming in Los Angeles took place at Stage 16 at Warner Bros. Studios backlot.

The second phase of production began at Stage 19 at Universal Studios Lot. Although initial reports claimed that production had moved to Mohanlal's Vismayas Max studio, it was later reported that shooting never took place at that studio. It instead happened at Stage 12, where the crew shot scenes which they were unable to complete during their schedule in London. The second phase was completed on April 30, 2004, after which a romantic song choreographed by Saroj Khan was filmed in early May 2004. It was said that the entire film shooting would be completed in the second schedule itself and the post-production work would begin. However, the team was off with the lead actor to Hong Kong for the third schedule of the film on May 12, 2004 where some crucial scenes and combat scenes featuring the lead actor and the antagonist were shot at the State of the Arts Gallery studio. Since the film was shot using performance capture technology, 48 cameras were used to shoot each and every scene. The 48 cameras captured performance of artistes' at 48 angles. Kochadaiiyaan was equipped with Dolby Digital sound technology. As per reports, due to involvement of extensive graphics, four separate teams, including teams from Chennai and London were also working on the film. On February 20, 2005 the director announced that Zelda was in the process of being finalized. On February 28, 2005 the final edited version of the film was screened by the director, writer and the lead actor along with handful crew members.

Directing
Solomon tried to make Dungeons & Dragons unlike other big-budget films that focused the most on effects and not on plot, and was especially careful to make the battle scenes with the dragons not too "cheesy." Producer Kia Jam described Solomon's method of directing and producing as different from how other major studios would create fantasy productions: "they never seem to get it right because I think they replace a true fantasy feel with exorbitant amounts of money in order to achieve it superficially. The feeling has to come from a central source and here that's Corey." One major deviation from other fantasy films was the otherworldliness of the setting, whereas similar products would take place or be heavily inspired by the Middle Ages.

At the same time, the director still went for a strong "wow factor" with the film, where "you have to be able to say 'wow' at least ten times in the first 30 minutes." The two toughest scenes for the cast and crew to film were the maze scene and the concluding battle. The battle is eleven minutes long, required more than 280 shots, and was filmed on a 360-degree panoramic blue screen stage due to it involving more than 150 computer-generated dragons; it was tough for the actors as they had to fight while imagining dragons were around them, and it was tough for the director because the actors could not interact with the dragons that would be imposed in post-production later.

Despite playing a dwarf, Arenberg was a 5'8" actor, which meant he had to stoop his head, squat while still, move with his legs apart, and have extensive costuming in order to look short. He described his role as the hardest he'd ever done, primarily due to having to perform actions scenes while wearing a red beard that "itched like crazy" and "about 50 pounds of clothing complete with padding." When directing Wayans' improvisational method of acting, Solomon offered him the ability to perform three ad-libs in exchange for properly saying three lines in the script. O'Brien also improvised lines, such as "oh, what a romantic notion" in a scene after Ridley goes through the Thieve's Maze; the line was scripted as "honor is for fools, my friend," but the actor dismissed it as "cliched swords-and-sworcery kind of dialog."

Fight choreography
Apart from Wayans, who played the game during his high school years, and Arenberg who was a casual player, none of the leads were familiar with the original game; Jeremy Irons learned a bit about it from his sons who were fans, and Whalin prepared for his role by watching Dungeons & Dragons games in person, but then "realized that it seemed to be mostly about arguing" and "just put my trust in the script." While not a player, Wilson's knowledge of the game came from groups of her high school peers playing it: "I remembered stories that I heard about kids committing suicide, and all this other nutty stuff. But I didn't really know anything about it. I knew that it was a fantasy game ..a roleplaying game and THAT interested me." When working on the battle sequences, Solomon and the actors had a strong emphasis on making sure they followed the rules of the original game.

Solomon and the producers intended Dungeons & Dragons to be a "fun" film that would appeal to younger audiences and fans of the game, which explains the over-the-top performances by actors such as Irons;however, the director also tried to push the PG-13 rating with the violence in the battle sequences. In trying to make the fight scenes have as much realism as possible, Solomon and the choreographers not only used blood and gore, but also had the actors use real swords. Due to the long amount of time a fight scene would be choreographed and filmed, several "repeat blades" of swords were built and used; a total of six repeat blades were made for Damodar's sword, two of them broken during shooting.

Most of the principal actors did the stunts themselves, with choreographer Graeme Crowther recalling only "two or three" times a double was required; in fact, when shooting the Thief's Maze sequence on the film's last day of principal photography, Whalin intentionally wanted the first 300-pound steel axe as close as possible to him in the frame, which Solomon agreed. Instances where Whalin was doubled by Theo Kypri consist mostly of acrobatic shots. The actors' fighting styles varied from Ridley's "quick and dirty" yet "smooth" movements to Elwood's hardcore methods to Norda's artsy "fluid," art-like maneuvering, which Wilson attributed to her background in dancing. Whalin's experience in taekwondo also aided in his fighting skills.

Sound design
Diego Stocco is the sound designer for the film. He worked over two and a half years on the sound design of the film. Three teams of sound editors were working in Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Chennai under him. The final phase of re-recording was done in Chennai at A. R. Rahman's studio during end-March 2006. In an interview with The New York Times he quoted, "For the war sequence, we got 150 people scream like how they would in a war and recorded the sound. I went to fortresses and collected samples of how sound resonates. Based on the impulse response data, we recreated the acoustics of a durbar." Pookutty started working from the scratch instead of using available sound samples. He added that when his team started working on the foley (ambient sounds) he told the film director to provide him with the exact costumes used whilst filming. However, realising that the filming was done using performance capture technology, the entire set of costumes were designed to provide requisite foley. He also paid attention to nuances extensively where he added, "For instance, the image you see on screen is a composite of several layers of images. The clothes, the movement, the swords and so on were created separately and put together. My team also had to add sound, layer by layer."

The computer effects were done by Station X and Blankety Blank. Station X's founder, Grant Boucher, had experience in writing for Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game and offered free advice to the crew despite not officially considered part of the production. When filming began, Boucher predicted a total of around 200 shots with digital effects and 75 dragons in the film's climax. After filming finished, Solomon claimed the number of shots with digital effects to be 550 and computer-generated settings and characters to be 15, with more than 150 dragons in the climatic showdown. Allen Crawford, a Station X animator, declared four months of computer effects work was spent on the movie's first minute. There were also concepts originally planned to be practical effects but were computer-generated in the final edit; this included the gyroscope that holds the scepter, which was initially a machine-controlled device where all attempts for the motors to control it properly failed, and Dexter the pocket dragon which was planned to be an animatronic dragon.

For the dragons, the animators focused the most on their flying and diving cycles, using hawks and eagles as references, as well as their skin, where reptiles such as crocodiles were observed in producing the textures. While the dragons were computer-generated, the fire they blew was done using practical effects, and to be digitally incorporated, the flame throwers were filmed outside during the night time and blown into a steel set hanging on its side.

Music

 * Further information: The Legend of Zelda (soundtrack) and Music of the Nintendo Cinematic Universe

The original score was initially set to composed by Patrick Doyle and has written several cues for the film. Due to creative differences with Jackson, Doyle opted out of the project in February 2006 and subsequently Howard Shore replaced him. With scoring beginning by late-March 2006, Howard had only five weeks to work on the film, as a result, he found the film "hardest to compose". Recording sessions took place at the Sony Scoring Stage, California and Todd-AO, Los Angeles, consisting of 108-piece orchestra and 40-member choir, and a varied range of instruments used. The soundtrack album was released on May 19, 2006 in CD format.

Theatrical
The film had its world premiere on September 8, 1999, at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. Three days later, the film appeared at the Toronto International Film Festival. With the filmmakers and cast in attendance, it screened at several American universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, New York University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Northwestern University.

On September 15, 1999, American Beauty opened to the public in limited release at three theaters in Los Angeles and three in New York. More theaters were added during the limited run,and on October 1, the film officially entered wide release by screening in 706 theaters across North America. The film grossed $8,188,587 over the weekend, ranking third at the box office.Audiences polled by the market research firm CinemaScore gave American Beauty a "B+" grade on average. The theater count hit a high of 1,528 at the end of the month, before a gradual decline. Following American Beauty 's wins at the 57th Golden Globe Awards, DreamWorks re-expanded the theater presence from a low of 7 in mid-February, to a high of 1,990 in March. The film is part of Level One of the NCU.

Home media
The Legend of Zelda was released by Universal Studios Home Entertainment on DVD (in separate widescreen and pan and scan editions) and HD-DVD on December 5, 2006, and on Blu-ray on November 4, 2008.

The film was also collected in a 10-disc box set titled "Nintendo Cinematic Universe: Level One – The Beginning" which includes all of the Level One films in the Nintendo Cinematic Universe, released on June 22, 2010.

Box office
The Legend of Zelda opened theatrically on June 2, 2006, alongside The Break-Up, and grossed $22.2 million in its opening weekend, ranking number three at the North American box office behind The Da Vinci Code and X-Men: The Last Stand.

In its opening weekend, Zelda earned $60 million in 3,985 theaters in the United States, ranking number one at the box office, ahead of The Devil Wears Prada 's $326 million. For six months, it would hold the record for having the highest opening weekend for a video-game-film until it was surpassed by Sonic the Hedgehog. In the United States, the film held onto the number one spot for a week before being surpassed by Cars. On its second weekend, it grossed $64,878,725 in 3,908 theatres, an average of $16,601. The film remained in the Top 10 at the box office for the remainder of its first twenty-two weeks. It ended its initial domestic run on November 5, 2006, taking in a total of $1.167 million.

Critical response
The film received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the plot, casting, performances (particularly of Wood and Ryder), humor, action sequences, visual effects, emotional weight, faithfulness and Jackson’s direction to the source material. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an 87% score, based on 55 reviews, with an average score of 8.54 out of 10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “The Legend of Zelda is a action-packed adventure that all fans of the series will enjoy, and proves that 2006 isn’t such a bad year for movies after all.” On an A+ to F Scale, the film received a “B+”.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 78% based on 205 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A life-affirming, if saccharine, epic treatment of a spirit-lifting figure in sports history". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A on scale of A to F.

Robert Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, and wrote: "The movie's races are thrilling because they must be thrilling; there's no way for the movie to miss on those, but Zemeckis and cinematographer, Erik Messerschmidt, get amazingly close to the action."

Accolades
Coming soon

Sequels
Coming soon

Transcripts
Coming soon