Fantasy Films (Recent ones)

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

Is anyone besides me whom is interested in the fantasy genre worried about the direction it is taking in film? In this regard I am taking about Films being shown in theatres, why are they still carrying on with making crappy 'modern' adaptations of fairy tales? Has Hollywood's skill fallen so far from grace that we cannot make any decent series off of modern fantasy stories rather than one-off flicks that will be here today and gone tomorrow? I don't know about you guys, but I don't have high hopes for the genre after The Hobbit is finished, and I believe its a great shame since so many great stories and series have been made in the genre. What do you guys think?

[Kirkendall 1st MRB]

I'd disagree.

Of course the most advertised movies are going to be these fairy tale adaptions because they are looking to make the cash. Right now the studios are trying to cash in as quickly and as easily as they could of of the Twilight series. What easier way then to make a movie that appeals to the same crowd? Although it feels strange to see these movies get adapted these ways, they haven't had bad feedback. Generally they are pretty well liked by moviegoers and critics aren't any more harsh on them thean they are on standard fantasy movies.

Also, before I am able to digress further, I think it is important to establish your defiinition of the fantasy genre. Is it all held within medieval-esque eras with swords, flails, and elves, or are we allowed to move into science fiction as well? There are a number of very promising science fiction movies, even appealing to a smaller fan base than many movies shoot for. (see Ender's Game)

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

We can include science fiction on here as well, but I will say that I believe Science Fiction is being far more original than Fantasy right now in my opinion. As for what I mean by Fantasy, I'm talking about everything from Game of Thrones which I consider to be almost alternate mediveal history to Tolkien's works, whom I basically consider the father of modern fantasy.

My problem isn't the movies themselves, its the fact that Hollywood seems incapable of pulling off and/or starting up any original Fantasy series particularly in literature since Harry Potter or Twilight despite numerous attempts. I wondering why they can't, and although I have my own theories on the matter, I was wondering what you guys think.

[M. Johnson 1st MRB]

We can include science fiction on here as well, but I will say that I believe Science Fiction is being far more original than Fantasy right now in my opinion. As for what I mean by Fantasy, I'm talking about everything from Game of Thrones which I consider to be almost alternate mediveal history to Tolkien's works, whom I basically consider the father of modern fantasy.

My problem isn't the movies themselves, its the fact that Hollywood seems incapable of pulling off and/or starting up any original Fantasy series particularly in literature since Harry Potter or Twilight despite numerous attempts. I wondering why they can't, and although I have my own theories on the matter, I was wondering what you guys think.

Can you give some examples please?

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

Well, lets see; Eragon was probably the best example of this, then there is The Golden Compass, and then there is Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. All three of those movies should have been excellent starts to great fantasy film series, yet they weren't (Though they are supposedly making the second Percy Jackson I'm surprised they are trying).

I say Eragon is the best example because the Inheritence book series which it is from is probably one of the best recent fantasy series that has been made in the genre (and if not, it is certainly a popular series), and I believe it could have made an excellent set of movies. Yet the guys who made the movie fucked it up so badly and changed so many elements of the story that they can't even make the second one even if they wanted to. They turned it into a one-trick donkey when they could have had an excellent cash cow that would have kept going for at least three more films. Were both the Director and Production Crew so off in their judgement of what the audience could stand in terms of changes that they didn't realise they screwed up? I mean judging by the ending its almost as if they didn't even expect to continue on with the second book the way that Christopher Paolini(the writer of the books) had intended. Why? Why would they do a crappy job and waste the opportunity they had? I don't know, but I don't think it helped that Paolini was too young at the time to secure the copyrights to his work.

The Golden Compass is also a good example because here we have intentional changes to the story, quite blatant ones that basically changed the story's meaning. For this one, I think it helps to know the book's reputation. The Golden Compass, being the first of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Triliogy was banned along with the following books in Catholic schools for promoting Witchcraft and being Blasphemous towards God. The book itself has plenty of allusions towards the Catholic Church that cast it in a bad light and it brings up interesting perspectives on the nature of Souls, God, and how such questions are viewed by both Scientists and Theolgians. Therefore, its a very controversial book for its subject matter, and I would say any film that intends to do the book justice has to include these elements, otherwise you destroy the message Pullman was trying to send when he wrote the series. They don't do this in the film though, although the Magisterium in the film is still alluded to be the Catholic Church in the Film, they don't delve into the ideas of God, Originial Sin, and the nature of the Soul that are brought up at the end of the book. Its important because the introduction of those ideas marks a change in the story, this is no longer just a story about a girl trying to find her Uncle so that she can give a device that will tell the truth to him, now she is thrown into a struggle that is far bigger and far more important than we originally thought. They completely change the ending, and do not make this shift, despite evidence in the trailer and in the video game that they shot the scenes. I don't get it? Did they lose their nerve in making a controversial movie part way through its production?

As for Percy Jackson, its more the same story with Eragon, but to a lesser extent. The end result of the film was basically the same as the ending of the book, so that is somewhat different from Eragon; but even so, like The Golden Compass, the larger conflict has not yet been introduced in the film when it was in the books by the time the ending came around. Dozens of scenes and characters were altered and/or cut for the purposes of film, which I hate because some of the scenes don't serve much purpose, or the original scenes were just as good and did not need to be changed. To be honest, I thought that the film was the decent when I first saw it before reading the book, but after reading it I don't understand why they changed so much. Was it to appeal to popular culture or the mass audience who probably haven't read the book? Possibly, but many of the scenes that were originally intended could have done that just as well. Too small a budget? Well they had enough to throw in a whole scene with a Hydra that never existed in the book, and have a big fight scene at the end that never occurred either, so I don't think that's a good excuse. I will say that this is the only one of the three mentioned that is confirmed to be attempting to make a second movie, Golden Compass may try, but this one is for sure trying; and I can see that they got enough success to try, but I have a feeling that people are going to think that this is too similar to Harry Potter, and it doesn't help that a large part of the original Harry Potter crew are working on it (anyone who has seen The Lightning Thief, recognize the flying shoe's movement when he first opened them up as similar to The Snitch's movements when Harry first opens it up?) I don't know, I'll just have to wait and see.

[M. Johnson 1st MRB]

Now, I have heard your points, I will have to disagree. I think with any genre of film making, you will have some books and stories that are just badly portrayed on the big screen and those that done superbly, more often it's with the first, rather than the later because of because of a multitude of things that don't actually matter to the story (Studios/Directors/Even Actors), but its on going thing. All I would say you could hope for is someone to come along and remake the film(s).

Anyway, all of it is a matter of opinion.

[Kirkendall 1st MRB]

I'd have to agree with Johnson in dissent. Further, the examples you listed aren't exactly recipes for success.

Phillip Pullman smacks you in the face every chance he gets with his dislike for the Catholic church, and really all faiths. That's going to alienate a lot of moviegoers, and really doesn't add to its chances of success. I disliked the books for other reasons, so I didn't bother with the movie. But ironically my religious father went to see the movie. Normally movies are a family get together for us, and most of us had no interest in the movie. Is that the movie's fault or the book's fault? Probably a bit of both.

Eragon... although being a popular book, was not the ideal movie producer's dream. The creator of the book is young, so you cannot rely on him for too much input, and much of his material is really just copied from others to become his own. Don't get me wrong, it's easy to say that about a lot of popular fiction books. But it's a maze to navigate making it screen worthy without having a lot of people cry foul on his content. Plus you get a group of people with relatively little experience compared to a lot of the other fantasy flicks, you're going to have a bad time. Sure, Stefen Fangmeier has done crazy good with his visual effects departments. But, now you want him to direct a whole movie? And what has Peter Buchman written? Nothing comes to mind.

Percy Jackson has some similarities to Eragon, but one that jumps out is that it gained momentum much too fast. Sure it was popular, but was it big movie popular? No, probably not. One thing you can safely say about movies like Harry Potter or Twilight, is that there's a legion of fans who will be seeing it regardless of the movies quality. So a safe bet for a extensive return of money. You didn't have that same kind of pull for Percy Jackson. I used to work in Borders, and up until they announced they were making a movie, people weren't ecstatically searching for Percy Jackson.

Every genre has its shit movies. For how many Science Fiction movies that are released, how many make good movies that continue into franchise? Take out the super-hero movies, or Hunger Games. How many adaptations have come out recently? Look at John Carter. There's a great classic Science Fiction book, A Princess of Mars, but now it's probably never going to get the adaptation it deserves. It wasn't a horrible movie, but it flopped terribly at the box office, a monumental failure of marketing. Look at World War Z, they've changed so much from the book to make it appeal that in many ways it doesn't resemble the original work. You have to take the good with the bad, and pull out the diamond in the rough.

[Armstrong 1st MRB]

I understand, but it just seems crazy to me that you have people even attempt to start up these series without as much passion or skill as the makers of other movies. Why would anyone even attempt to take on Phillip Pullman's work without intending to alienate people? They should understand from the start that this is a series of films that is going to offend a lot of people just from the subject matter involved, and if they are not capable of handling it then they shouldn't insult the authour's work, or the fanbase by trying to morph it into something else because they aren't willing to accept the responsibility. Moreover, why shouldn't they be bold? Going against the grain is more likely to get attention and recognition that just doing what everyone else is doing.

I just think that if these teams of film makers are not willing to do the books justice and produce a film worthy of what fans of the books hold them up to be, then they shouldn't bother touching them. As for the success of Twilight and Harry Potter, I think that the first movies were so 'magical' in a sense that they hooked the film fanbase to sit through the rest of the series regardless of any changes they made. Maybe its just me and because I'm older now, but a lot of these fantasy films just aren't putting their best foot forward in order to hook people to new series, and its a shame. Not just for fantasy, but all genres which have similar situations.

I just hate seeing all of these remakes, prequels or sequels of older movies or stories because its basically telling to me this: "Okay, we are incapable of making new stories or series out of stuff that people haven't tried or beaten to death, we have to stick to what we know in order to make anything good." Not that some of these can't be good, I mean Prometheus was an excellent 'sort of prequel' to Alien in my opinion, and people have been saying that some of these recent modern adaptations of fairy tales have been good, but that still doesn't mean that I don't like the poor effort that has been put forward to make series off of more recent stories.

I pray for the day the film-makers whom are desiring to make films off of books series take a page from Game of Throne's playbook, since that has to be the best Book-to-Film adaptation I've ever seen, and its a television show, but who knows.