Dawn of New Age for Fantasy Movies

The "Lord of the Rings" movie is finished and Fellowship of the Ring will be released December 19, 2001. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is out now, breaking box office records. Will these films spawn a new interest for Fantasy films to be made by Hollywood? Hopefully, if these movies make a lot of money, since that is the bottom line, they will. Fantasy fans might be seeing the dawn of a new growth in Fantasy films and television fare in the future.

There have been many films in the genre before. In the past, the entertainment industry has made Fantasy themed movies, but they have been limited in scope. The movies have been about angels, devils, people switching bodies, ghosts, poor versions of sword wielding warriors and many humorous ventures. Granted, some of these are well done, even classics, but most are terrible disappointments. They have inconsistent plots, boring characters and cheap special effects. Few of them explore the depths of the Fantasy genre or leave us with memorable stories. It is time for the film industry to take a bigger chance on the genre. Fantasy movies can be made better because of special effects, the genre fan base and the books available to film makers.

Special effects give a Fantasy movie its imaginative elements and brings the Fantasy world to life. In years past, these effects were clumsy, shoddy and cheap, giving the film a very fake appearance. This ruins the watching experience for the movie viewer, leaving the feeling of being cheated. A viewer gets pulled away from the fantasy elements by fake looking costumes, inferior sets and bad plots. In the present day, special effects have improved greatly. Computer generated images and monsters create imaginative images. When blended with live action shots and actors, a viewer is drawn into the film. Recent examples include Dragonheart and the not so successful Dungeons and Dragons. These films make their Fantasy worlds seem realistic. Animation helps too. The success of Shrek demonstrated how computer animation can be used to make entertaining, successful movies.

Another factor that can spur a growth in Fantasy movies is the fan base. There are large numbers of fans of the genre all over the world waiting to see some good movies. Appealing to this fan base with more films could increase the film going audience. The fan base is an untapped area. Readers of Fantasy would enjoy more films made in the genre. The general movie audience would appreciate this too. There is the popularity of TV shows to demonstrate this. Beastmaster and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are consistently high in the ratings. Hercules and Xena had big audiences when they were on television. Miniseries like Merlin and Jason and the Argonauts obtained high ratings also.

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