So ok, not all of them, but a great many ones do.
It took me a while to figure out why, and there are a number of reasons.
It took me a while to figure out why, and there are a number of reasons.
It’s a kind of Magic!
I think the first and foremost is lazy writing.
Not sure why the thing is even a thing? magic!
How does the hero survive the terrible death? magic!
Why even do ice creatures dwell in the lava fields? magic!
Worried the writing makes no sense and you don’t know how to rationalise it? Magic!
Seems to me that ‘oh its magic’ is an overused and crappy way of explaining some nonsense away.
For shame.
I think the first and foremost is lazy writing.
Not sure why the thing is even a thing? magic!
How does the hero survive the terrible death? magic!
Why even do ice creatures dwell in the lava fields? magic!
Worried the writing makes no sense and you don’t know how to rationalise it? Magic!
Seems to me that ‘oh its magic’ is an overused and crappy way of explaining some nonsense away.
For shame.
(oh and you can most likely substitute The Gods in place of
magic!)
But that is not my main reason for why they suck.
Nor is this, but it is close:
Kill the Evil Sorcerer!
Too many fantasy films are about saving the world from some mad sorcerer bent on destroying it or something significant like a kingdom.
(which in itself makes no sense really)
One example of this that springs readily to mind is the new Conan film.
Conan stories were not about saving the world, saving his own ass maybe, or saving that pretty girl over there.
But mostly about saving his own hide and getting some personal profit in the process.
But also Lord of the Rings.
Red Sonja, Willow, Conan the Destroyer, Hawk the Slayer, Ator, The Warrior and the Sorceress, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Deathstalker, etc.
Not every bad guy has to be a wizard that wants to rule the world.
Nor is this, but it is close:
Kill the Evil Sorcerer!
Too many fantasy films are about saving the world from some mad sorcerer bent on destroying it or something significant like a kingdom.
(which in itself makes no sense really)
One example of this that springs readily to mind is the new Conan film.
Conan stories were not about saving the world, saving his own ass maybe, or saving that pretty girl over there.
But mostly about saving his own hide and getting some personal profit in the process.
But also Lord of the Rings.
Red Sonja, Willow, Conan the Destroyer, Hawk the Slayer, Ator, The Warrior and the Sorceress, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Deathstalker, etc.
Not every bad guy has to be a wizard that wants to rule the world.
But mostly I think fantasy films are ruined by this person:
The Comedy Sidekick.
Why do so many fantasy films have a comedy sidekick?
They suck camels humps…
Now I am not saying comedy should be absent from fantasy films, but as in life, the comedy moments come from funny events, not a buffoon following you around.
Take Conan the Barbarian, the camel punch. Comedy moment, but not a cretin falling off something or banging his head.
Comedy sidekicks seem to be mostly inept, require saving and produce cheap laughs that make no sense and add no real value, just as Magic!
But it is not limited to sidekicks, the new Conan film has a preposterous scene where Conan propels a bad guy via a siege engine through the air into the ship being carried across land on elephants.
Red Sonja is utterly ruined by Prince Tarn.
So many fantasy films have a comedy sidekick added and or forced unnatural comedy moments.
This is much less frequent in sci-fi.
The best films are about the people, you get invested in one or more characters and you care if they live or die.
You don’t make a fantasy film great by making it funny.
You make it great by having a well written story with people you can get attached to.
Anyway, I am losing my way.
Fantasy films can be serious and good.
Conan the Barbarian is this.
I would say that Hercules (The Rocks version) is also this. (mostly).
Clash of the Titans.
Wrath of the Titans.
Season of the Witch.
Solomon Kane.
Beowulf.
Jason and the Argonauts, Sinbad and much of the Ray Harryhausen films.
Excalibur.
Black Death.
Immortals.
No doubt others too that I can’t recall right now, though a lot of 80's fantasy films are serious, just not good so do they count...?
Anyway, forced comedy has ruined many a fantasy film and I think that Hollywood’s insistence on doing this will mean the genre is never truly appreciated for what it can offer.
Having said that I will be rambling on about some of my favourite fantasy films soon.
Praise to be Apis!
Why do so many fantasy films have a comedy sidekick?
They suck camels humps…
Now I am not saying comedy should be absent from fantasy films, but as in life, the comedy moments come from funny events, not a buffoon following you around.
Take Conan the Barbarian, the camel punch. Comedy moment, but not a cretin falling off something or banging his head.
Comedy sidekicks seem to be mostly inept, require saving and produce cheap laughs that make no sense and add no real value, just as Magic!
But it is not limited to sidekicks, the new Conan film has a preposterous scene where Conan propels a bad guy via a siege engine through the air into the ship being carried across land on elephants.
Red Sonja is utterly ruined by Prince Tarn.
So many fantasy films have a comedy sidekick added and or forced unnatural comedy moments.
This is much less frequent in sci-fi.
The best films are about the people, you get invested in one or more characters and you care if they live or die.
You don’t make a fantasy film great by making it funny.
You make it great by having a well written story with people you can get attached to.
Anyway, I am losing my way.
Fantasy films can be serious and good.
Conan the Barbarian is this.
I would say that Hercules (The Rocks version) is also this. (mostly).
Clash of the Titans.
Wrath of the Titans.
Season of the Witch.
Solomon Kane.
Beowulf.
Jason and the Argonauts, Sinbad and much of the Ray Harryhausen films.
Excalibur.
Black Death.
Immortals.
No doubt others too that I can’t recall right now, though a lot of 80's fantasy films are serious, just not good so do they count...?
Anyway, forced comedy has ruined many a fantasy film and I think that Hollywood’s insistence on doing this will mean the genre is never truly appreciated for what it can offer.
Having said that I will be rambling on about some of my favourite fantasy films soon.
Praise to be Apis!
I can't disagree with you on this at all. Hollywood script writing is a well set process that they loath to deviate from at all, and just about every movie is the same basic concept, just with character and dialog changes. For fantasy they hit upon a formula that sells movies and makes money, but doesn't necessarily suit the genre. I really think it is both out of misunderstanding the Fantasy genre as well as fear. People like comedy, and fantasy stories are true unknown quantities (a heck of a lot of movies that were supposed to be the start of franchises doomed further investment by being badly done and losing money at the box office) so they try to inject it with something "everyone" will recognize and like, making a fantasy film more "familiar feeling". I'm with you, it's a trope I wish they would dump.
ReplyDeleteHaving said all of that, a lot of people liked the TV adaptation of Shanara. I haven't seen it, but perhaps there is a little hope in that?
I agree with you on the comedy sidekick, boy these can be anoying but they're not exclusive to fantasy though.
ReplyDeleteThey're like those know-it-all little kids they squeeze in monster movies: they add nothing and make the movie harder to watch.
As for the big bad evil wizard, it's a trope you get used to. They're everywhere, from childhood disney films (Cinderella, the Black Cauldron, the little Mermaid, Snow White, ...) to movies like Conan the Barbarian and the LoTR trilogy, even the Dark Crystal is just a variation of the theme.
But then again, it's a Hollywood cliché that the badguy needs to be defeated in the end and one you see in almost every genre. Big bad wizards are perfect for this because of the first point you made.
I kind of like subtle magic the best, it's less like a Deus Ex Machina and still has his role to play in a fantasy movie.
Again this kind of things are not exclusive to fantasy, as you often see the same in scifi (reverse the polarity!) series and movies.
Sorry guys - if you thought I would only annoy you on TWW and various FB groups you were utterly wrong. And I´m gladly share my bad grammar with you at this place too.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, back to the OP.
Mike, I can´t agree more with you. Again (or better as most of the time). And with the others. It´s the standard Hollywood formula. Have a theme, at best an expensice superstar actor, mix in a beautiful woman, if you´re a lucky a smashy OST and the guy for "humor" (=the sidekick), and you´re in for earning lots of money. Oh, and don´t forget an interesting series of trailers, other kinds of promotion and the merchandise. All shareholder will be happy and you can buy a large villa in one of the sunny states. And don´t forget: don´t risk anything! Never, absolutely never change something of the above formula. That´s the most important rule.
Hollywood invented it. George Lucas perfected it. Disney thought they could do it too. And we will see in a few weeks if it will work for Disney in the future. Well, actually, good old George shot at least once over the target - anyone remembering Jar Jar Binks? I can go even further and say Ewoks...
The Marvel movies had, in a way, a similar formula. It worked for a lot of people for a lot of years. Sadly, not for me (in fact I was bored by almost every single one).
I can imagine the executives imposing their ideas on Richard Fleischer on Conan the Destroyer ("don´t make this movie as dark as the first one", "there was far too much criticism on religion in the last movie - we may loose viewers in the belt", "NO HINTS OF SEX THIS TIME - remember people could be offended", "we´ve got this contract with Mattel now so make it a bit child friendly", "we need more humour" and so on).
Actually most of the movie we remember took risks. Examples? Alien I, most of the time the enemy is not seen and if it´s so different from what people have seen before..., Aliens II, Vietnam war - in space, Mad Max, all three original movies add something new. Even the sidekicks do somehow work. Blade Runner, who would have thought that a Film Noir sci fi movie would work and even get a classic?
Yes, that were all science fiction movies because I truly lack similar examples for fantasy except those Mike already mentioned.
In fact I´m still surprised that the animated Beowulf had so much critical content. (BTW: the Iceland/UK movie two years earlier is worth watching too!) You may say LOTR was different. Yes, that´s true. But that was because the story is nearly (or even better known) than Scandinavian sagas or German faery tales. And a diviation from the orignal story would resulted in a gigantic bomb at the box office.
Has nobody ever wondered why the original Game of Thrones seasons worked so well? I deviated so much from standard fantasy that it was watchable by adults and it brought in something new to fantasy: the schemings between the great houses and the resulting civil war. The travel scenes and the philosophical musings in between. The development of the various characters. That changed with the last two seasons - various houses have been wiped out (which isn´t bad if there were some of their retainers struggle to take the seat for themselves), a "great enemy" which wasn´t really needed at all. And the unsurprising turn of one of the main characters to the dark side (which was aready hinted at in season one. Sometimes I wonder were people have their eyes and their minds. It would have been more interesting if this certain character turned out completely different.
ReplyDeleteTo give some examples for the small screen take a look at the following: Space:Above and Beyond (gritty version of Tour of Duty in space with conpiracy. Canceled after season one), Firefly (space western. Every character had some kind of sidekick values. Canceled after season one), The Expanse (small worker type people getting in the way of the politics in the Solar System (and beyond. Far beyond. Nearly canceled after season three and miraciously saved by Mr.James Bond villian himself) and Babylon5 (LOTR in space. This time saved by the viewers in Europe and their respective TV networks which buyed it)
What all those examples have in common? An extremely detailed lore which hadn´t any kind of "wonders" and "magic"* but had a lot of politics of some kind(especially B5 played very much with this), good, believable characters with respective story arcs and believable settings.
Now we take a look at fantasy: Hercules and Xena** - they both have every trope fantasy has to offer in the worst possible ways. But they were very successful. The signal that any executive got from it: we´ve got to use this formula (it worked with this Conan movie a few years before). But maybe it wasn´t the formula. Maybe it was just simple entertainment for an evening or sunday afternoon. Something which you hadn´t think much about and would take you for an hour into an different environment and time.
Sadly, for a guy, like me, growing up with D&D, DSA, BT and all the other stuff this sucked. Today the situation is different. Today many people grew up with video games, trading card games, RPG etc etc and have different expecations than back then.
So, what to make out of all this. My opinion is that many artists take the safe road and don´t do what they actually want. Curiously people doing their thing seem to have a greater chance of having success. Just look at the examples I´ve given above (the creator of B5 wrote most of the stuff of 5 seasons alone). But just too often we get something that was just written by someone with no emotional connection to the stuff written (which may in some cases even good).
Do I have a solution? TBH, no.
"Do or do not. There is no try."
*the Star Trek McGuffin of the week, the hundred-and-oneth way to block the transporter etc.
** actually Xena had some interesting moments - especially the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle...
PS: Ho Lee F! When did I write all this stuff????? That wasn´t planned this way...
I have yet to watch GOT, it came out when I was on a sci-fi phase.
DeleteIt is something I will look to get on DVD.
I was a big fan of Xena, for the obvious reasons, but also for the musicals, they made me chuckle.
It was a bit moody in places too, look at Callisto, she was properly broken in the head and messed up.
Something I just thought of: the History Channel show "Vikings" is pretty popular. It is not very historical as it merges several different historical events and myths into one show, as well as some timeline displacement for a couple of characters. So, perhaps that makes it fantasy? It does share most of what TF said above, lots of political intrigue and backstabbing. The setting is very developed because it is a loose history we are familiar with.
ReplyDeleteYou also have shows like Templars, ROME, and the like that are "historical" yet not quite so. Perhaps a way to make "good" fantasy would be to talk Netflix into taking some historical events and settings and fantasy them up a bit, make their own series? (dear lord please no more Robin Hood drek....)
I started watching Vikings, but gave up on it.
ReplyDeleteI found it was too graphic.
I understand that violence was normal and should not be ignored, but the show seemed to revel in the depiction of some violence.
I much prefer The Last Kingdom.
I would say Fantasy films suck just as much as some sci-fi films, romantic comedies, spy thrillers etc. A good script, direction, actors etc can make a huge difference. So we loved Game of Thrones (basically the War of the Roses with dragons and some magic) and first few seasons of Vikings. The latter was excellent but failed once they left Ragnar's saga and went off in different directions.
ReplyDeleteVikings was ok but Norsemen is pure gold!
ReplyDeleteBut then I have a hard time taking anything seriously so it may just be a better fit for me.😉