Downloads and Dragons: Look what they've done to Fantasy, ma - Page 8
© Michael Martinez
The genre, if it becomes established, will differ from old failures like "Hawk, the Slayer" and "Fugitive from the Empire" because it will be able to draw upon well-established stereotypes and standards. That is what set the Western genre in the forefront for so long. Much of the mystique which permeated the Hollywood westerns of the 1940s - 1960s (before Hollywood forgot how to make a good, classic Western) had already been established by years of experimentation and by the Wild West shows which had toured the country years before. All the cliches were there waiting to be picked up and developed into cinematic art.
Adventure fantasy may be ready to emerge from seething cauldrons of boilerplate genres to stand side-by-side with Spy Thrillers, Disaster movies, War movies, and Westerns. All that remains to be done is the creation of the basic formula for writing non-formulaic stories. That is, Hollywood has to understand that even in fantasy adventures characters need to be motivated, to have real purpose. They can't be moved by seedy, semi-erotic nonsense. They can't be manipulated by cardboard villains who are too stupid to realize their cliche assistants are going to betray them in return for being treated like dirt. A good fantasy adventure has its betrayals and moments of stupidity, like when the soldier takes his helmet off in "Saving Private Ryan" to look at where a bullet grazed it, only to be shot and killed instantly.
Good movies follow the same rules regardless of what genres they fall into (if they fall into any of them). And the same is true for good literary stories.
Which brings us back to "The Lord of the Rings". If it succeeds it may establish a new genre, too. Unfortunately, there just aren't that many good fantasy books to bring to the silver screen. Which isn't to say Hollywood won't try to bring other fantasy books to the silver screen. Let's just hope they can improve the stories where they need improving. It may be as simple as rolling some dice.
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