I was VERY happy with PJ's rendition of the first chapter of Lord of the Rings. My favorite book of the trilogy is Return of the King, so here's to December 2003!
I thought FOTR was brilliant, but the pace was relentlessly rushed. So I am impatiently awaiting my copy of the the "extended edition" (PJ doesn't like the term "director's cut", saying they are both his cuts) to see how that plays. I am one of those Tolkien fans who got sucked in by the half-seen vistas of geography, history and poetry, so I was very pleased by how much of Middle Earth had been transferred onto the screen. There was a lot of detail in every scene that I wanted to see, and little time in the movie to see it.
Very different from standard Hollywood fare like the Scorpion King, where you depend on fast cutting to keep you from being bored out of your mind: the scene is: Glistening hulk. Sword. Fire in the background. Got it. Next. No detail at all beyond what's built into the sets, not even a rudimentary attempt at character or plot.
I don't think there are that many good fantasy films at all, but I'm very picky about that genre. "The Last Unicorn" and "Princess Bride" are good, "Lady Hawk" isn't bad. By way of fun fantasy, "Time Bandits" and "Baron Munchausen" are good diversions as well. :)
Agreed, unless you count The Empire Strikes Back as fantasy (there's no science in Star Wars). I didn't care for The Princess Bride, but I liked Lady Hawk. I haven't seen the others. Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal was another good fantasy movie.
Fantasy is hard to do well. Like science fiction, you have to invent the whole world, not just your characters and plot, and make it believable. Also, there is a predominate school of thought that Fantasy is not suitable for serious subjects and should not be taken seriously. (I don't agree at all, and I recommend reading Ursula LeGuin, who has some very good essays where she rebuts this notion) If the director feels this 'embarrasment' at taking Fantasy seriously in its own right, then he won't be able to prevent himself from giving the 'wink' to the actors to camp it up a little. Now, that's fine if the story was meant to be humorous or campy, but deadly if the story was meant to be about evil or heroism or friendship or some other serious subject. |
