The White Council

Re: Fantasy = Sad.

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

Treebeard. Fantasy books in their purest form is, as the genre name implies, an escape, removed from reality, somewhere to go that involves imagination and exploration. The result of this is that it would be extremly difficult to make a fantasy film the likes of "the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" and "lord of the Rings" for example, because the scope of possibility and execution would be enourmous. If a well known fantasy book becomes a successful film, it would become a norm and people would tend to relate back to it for ideas and images when re-reading the book, thus killing a huge part of the exploration/imagination thing(a worry i have about LotRs young readers after Jacksons films come out). The cost of such films would be prohibitive and the execution would be complicated(hence Peter Jackson saying he is sh****g his pants thinking of the awesome task he has ahead of him) . I dont think it is a "neglected" genre. Fantasy books still outsell science fiction and are still up there with the best. There have been some wonderful attempts at fantasy film, for example Princes Bride and some Ray Harryhausen films.-re Clash of the Titans etc. Then again, films such as Conan, The Beast master, Dragonslayer and especially Krull, killed the fantasy film genre simply because they were poorley executed, using others proven formulaes, hence not really eploring the scope of the genre. All made huge losses that turned studio execs right off doing it again. I do believe that fantasy is marginalised by the vocal "popular"(and i say that with a hiss of venom!) minority simply because (in my experience) they dont really have the intelligence to enjoy it, as a result, those on the peripheral support them because it is seen as "uncool", but (again in my experience) many on the peripheral do read it and enjoy it and keep quiet about their involvement. It really comes down to this---If you enjoy fantasy, great, keep on reading, playing, watching. You only need to look at fantasy/science fiction club memberships to see that thousands and thousands enjoy the genre worldwide.If others think youre a geek, who cares, they are the ones missing out on something special. Cheers, Scott :)

: With all of the discussion on the LOTR films it has made we wonder why there has never been a real classic fantasy film. Do you think, in the same way Dungeons and Dragons and computers are, that Fantasy is seen as the sort of thing only Geeky Sad kids get into. I know when I was at school (So long ago now, ahhh....) that I was always the odd one out because of my tastes in Books, Films, play AD@D etc....

: Maybe it is just a neglected genre because of the image it has.

: : Yours thoughts please.

: : TreeBeard....