The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => The Arts => Silver Screen => Topic started by: WeirdRaptor on January 05, 2007, 05:20:08 PM
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The discussion about "Eragon" put me in the mood to open up a discussion about fantasy films in general, so here it is.
I'm wanting to discuss the merits and drawbacks, or strengths and weaknesses of fantasy films.
I've made a list (see bottem of post) of the kind of thing that we're talking about here.
I started with the 80's, because that's when they had the huge fantasy film boom (that I'm actually familiar with).
Alright, time to get started now that I've bored and driven everyone off.
I think the major strengths of fantasy films are that they have the most freedom in story-telling. They can feature anything, anything can happen, and they have no limitations on what point of the story is. Unfortunately, they require a huge budget to be done credibly well, and it seems that CGI had become a must, although there were most certainly fantasy films before the use of CGI. I'm not knocking it here, but I think some filmmakers are copping out on the Special Effects, when its been shown that costumes, puppets, and such still work.
That's all for now. What are some of your thoughts on the matter overall, and not just the points I made.
1. Hawk the Slayer (1980)
2. Clash of the Titans (1981)
3. Excalibur (1981)
4. Conan the Barbarian (1982)
5. Dragon Slayer (1982)
6. Time Bandits (1982)
7. The Dark Crystal (1983)
8. Conana the Destroyer (1984)
9. The NeverEnding Story (1984)
10. Return to Oz (1985)
11. Red Sonja (1985)
12. Legend (1985)
13. LadyHawk (1985)
14. Highlander (1986)
15. Labyrinth (1986)
16. The Princess Bride (1987)
17. Mio in The Land of FarAway
18. Willow (1988)
19. Highlander 2 (1991)
20. Hook (1991)
21. The NeverEnding Story 2 (1991)
22. DragonHeart (1996)
23. Dungeons and Dragons (2000)
24. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
25. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
26. Shrek (2001)
27. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
28. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
29. Reign of Fire (2002)
30. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
31. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
32. Peter Pan
33. Ella Enchanted (2004)
34. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
35. Shrek 2 (2004)
36. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
37. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
38. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
39. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)
40. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
41. Eragon (2006)
42. Lady in the Water (2006)
43. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
44. Tales of Earthsea (2006)
Add anything you think should be here.
I kept it the limited to traditional for now, right at the start, though the discussion can and will probably evolve in any direction.
I had a hard time finding any decent fantasy films n the 1990s.
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Titan A.e was ok, as was Balto...buts its sequels were horrible..
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Balto (1995) technically isn't entirely fantasy...based off of a true story/legend, whatever, so they were trying to keep to some sort of realistic plot. Should've added anime to that list...most of the stuff out of Ghibli is fantasy, any Digimon/Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh film is fantasy.
Most of that list I've never even seen to be honest so maybe my experience with the genre is limited. :p
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*disregard*
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I kept the list simplely to live-action traditional fantasy at base. As I said, I intend for it to expand once it gets going.
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Well, Watership Down (1978) was listed as Fantasy, so I guess I'll add Watership Down.
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Of those movies listed WR's post, here are the ones I've seen.
7. The Dark Crystal (1983)
20. Hook (1991)
22. DragonHeart (1996)
25. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
26. Shrek (2001)
27. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
29. Reign of Fire (2002)
34. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
35. Shrek 2 (2004)
39. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)
41. Eragon (2006)
They were all pretty good. Narnia was incredible, my favorite of these fantasy movies. Reign of Fire could have been better, though, and Eragon was not as exciting as I thought it would be.