The Best and Worst Fantasy Movie Evah

[mishalak]

To relieve my bitterness with having missed out on a special advance screening of Serenity in my neighborhood I am now going to throw a few grenades. Like the fact that I think The Lord of the Rings isn't the best fantasy movie. In fact I don't even like the Peter Jackson LotR. I can't watch The Two Towers or The Return of the King without grinding my teeth in frustration and then possibly leaving the room to find something better to watch like even effin' Willow. It's not a fantasy movie, it's a fukin' adventure video game.

The best fantasy movie ever? Well that's easy; The Dark Crystal in my none too humble opinion. Despite the limitations of the technology in 1982 they made a damn fine movie that managed to capture some real wonder. "But they don't even look human, they're puppets.." Yeah, and? If perfect realism were the criteria for great fantasy then LotR would fail too with its rubber physics and bad guys rushing about like computer driven cockroach swarms. Both of them managed to create a world on the screen that I could believe in for at least the length of a dream. The trouble with LotR is that is shows everything. In The Dark Crystal there are things half in shadow and half in light, they didn't show everything and then "BAM! Kick it up another notch!"

And though there were funny moments they didn't have characters who were nothing but comic relief. Even Fizzig, the cute little animal thingy that was mostly mouth in TDC, wasn't the butt of a joke 90% of the time he was on screen. I would not have found the movie Gimli to be an acceptable character even if he wasn't based upon a good character. Fucking dwarf jokes.

Now contrast the moments when Jen has fallen down in the Garthim pit with the way the Paths of the Dead was done. He's there in the dark and then you just hear a little noise. The rattling sound of Garthim and then more and worse in the darkness a pair of shining eyes. Then they don't show the whole contingent of the Garthim by turning on the lights, Jen is jerked around in the near darkness trying to avoid them when the room is filled with them! In the movie Paths of the Dead you get to see every dead warrior on screen. No tension. No mystery, no wonder. And it was like that at every turn in the movie. Any chance for leaving us wondering just a bit and they take it away in favor of showing us the whole thing and burying us in a wave of skulls in the extended version.

Beautiful set design. Beautiful character design. Masterful creation of a world. And then it's all screwed up with a focus on the special effects rather than on actual story telling. They're going to show you were every dollar went and screw you if you don't want to watch a boring hour of CGI characters fighting on screen. Bah.

Comments

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

I agree that The Dark Crystal is an underappreciated masterpiece. Henson was a genius.

I am intensely fond of Dark City myself. A fantasy of an entirely different sort.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Dark City works on a lot of levels. The only trouble is that the CG that looked so fresh back then looks much worse now whereas the practical and model effects look as good as ever. There is a lesson to be found in that.