Almost every fantasy show is trying to be D&D or Game of Thrones

[Ryujin]

Fantasy show that doesn't try to be GoT or D&D: His Dark Materials (BBC/HBO).

And don't forget "Carnival Row" and "Shadow and Bone", which have new seasons coming up on Netflix in February and March, respectively.

 

[RangerWickett]

What shared vision? Modern fabrics? Modern speech patterns or wisecracks? A notion of respect toward individual rights?

It's weird.

Like, it's quite possible to critique a lot of these shows for bad character development, poor understanding of the purpose of scenes, talky exposition, and middling choreography, all things which have nothing to do with the creators' political views.

And indeed, we have shows like Andor (and games like God of War) which clearly do take a very political stance and yet are frikkin phenomenal.

But nevertheless, a lot of people apparently want to complain about . . . well, Jahydin hasn't explicitly said it, but I've seen these same sorts of comments elsewhere from people who have a bug up their butts that shows have diverse casts.

The flaws of something like Witcher Blood Origin aren't because the lead actress is black. It's because the writing is at about the level of most media throughout my life. Heck, the ending of Game of Thrones sucked not because the show runners (who amusingly are called D&D) were political, but because they rushed it.

But some people want to push this idea that the existence of nonwhite-man leads is 'political.'

What's political in my view is the excellent perspective in Andor on the nature of tyranny, the motivation to resist, and the moral compromises that are necessary but perhaps justifiable in the pursuit of broader freedom

Or if you've played God of War Ragnarok, there's a ton of political themes involving colonialism, manipulation, and how people can be drawn into working for villains who give them a sense of purpose. That stuff is great. We want more of that. But people got their gnards in a twist because a Norse mythology character was black.

Maybe that's not what these people mean when they're talking about politics, but I don't know what they are talking about then. Because some of the things that are political, are great because of it.

 

[wicked cool]

I treat the top shows fantasy like I would food etc

Got/house of dragon, and or-this is best meal and #1 choice. I’ll pick it every time when’s it’s on the menu. Acting directing top notch. Both are good standards for me.

Witcher- not bad but it has flaws. I like it but not love it

Vox machina, bad batch etc- same as above but cartoons are separate and I treat them differently and I can’t bring up cartoons in adult conversations always

Wheel of time, rings prequel-I’ll watch as they seem to have promise but I’m always disappointed.

There are some that clearly see the agenda that directors have in new shows and movies and I ( my opinion) that agenda hurts the show in the short long term. Plus these directors are just not very good. The streaming networks might be slowly realizing this. Dc properties, dr who, cowboy bebop, recent Disney cartoon movie such as buzz light year and strange world, resident evil, the dragon age cartoon, going to put Witcher blood origins here, the Star Wars movies have bad directors and have turned off audiences with political messaging
It has 0 to do with them wanting to be d&d worlds as these directors dont even know the source material of the world they are directing

 

[Stalker0]

... no?

The bad fantasy shows are bad for the same reason bad fantasy shows have always been bad. Cocaine is easy to get and a lot of these showrunners don't have any ambitions beyond getting paid.

This.

I definitely think there are shows that get "overtly preachy" but the vast majority of bad shows are bad because....their bad. Lazy writing, poor characterization, bloated budgets that don't return on the investment, you name it.

Now if we are talking about shows mimicking GoT, there are two styles of GoT (the show) that are being emulated.


Character Driven Story: The characters are well established, and the plot naturally flows from their interactions. This is how GOT operated for most of its seasons.
Plot Driven Story: The plot dictates what the characters do, even if it creates characters actions that are "not in character". This is the last few seasons of GOT.

Quality GOT reminded us that good characters are the anchor of a strong story. Its what people gravitate towards. A good plot is also important but it needs to work in service of the characters, not become a prison by which characters are forced to act in nonsensical ways. A lot of lazy writing falls into this trap, and you can see it in a lot of properties today. Someone has a cool idea for a plot, and then they just force the characters to get there "somehow" instead of working through the hows and whys of the characters.

 

[RuinousPowers]

I couldn't make it through 20 minutes of the new Witcher series. Never finished the books, but I didn't realize that 1,000 years prior Elven culture was indistinguishable from human culture of Geralt's time. Just hanging out in taverns with beer wenches must be the unifying thread of all fantasy.

 

[Ryujin]

This.

I definitely think there are shows that get "overtly preachy" but the vast majority of bad shows are bad because....their bad. Lazy writing, poor characterization, bloated budgets that don't return on the investment, you name it.

Now if we are talking about shows mimicking GoT, there are two styles of GoT (the show) that are being emulated.


Character Driven Story: The characters are well established, and the plot naturally flows from their interactions. This is how GOT operated for most of its seasons.
Plot Driven Story: The plot dictates what the characters do, even if it creates characters actions that are "not in character". This is the last few seasons of GOT.

Quality GOT reminded us that good characters are the anchor of a strong story. Its what people gravitate towards. A good plot is also important but it needs to work in service of the characters, not become a prison by which characters are forced to act in nonsensical ways. A lot of lazy writing falls into this trap, and you can see it in a lot of properties today. Someone has a cool idea for a plot, and then they just force the characters to get there "somehow" instead of working through the hows and whys of the characters.

There's a third type of emulation of Got, though I suppose that it falls into either the "bad writing" or "poor characterization" camps anyway. It's "sex and nudity for their own sake." some production companies decided that GoT must have been a success solely because of the nudity in it. Sure, that would likely have been an initial draw for many but when it is completely gratuitous, and not in service of character or story, then viewers can quickly tire of it.

 

[Celebrim]

Bad unoriginal writing is more likely to be at fault than any sort of intentionality on the part of the show producers. I mean, we can see signs of intentionality in certain character choices that are being made by seemingly almost everyone now, so that characters rarely feel original or interesting, but I think fundamentally that also comes down to a lack of originality and the adoption of the easiest and laziest possible stereotypes.

I was big in the Tolkien online community in the run up to PJ's movies, and I got the chance to argue a lot with some professional script writers and I have to say that there is this tension between not having the arrogance enough to write professionally and at the same time not having so much arrogance that you think everything you write is a masterpiece. What I found is that a lot of script writers had no real idea how to write, but they were absolutely 100% convinced that they could follow some commonsense formulas and it would just work.

I'm reminded of an episode of the short lived and largely regrettable reboot of the classic sitcom WKRP in Cincinatti. Amidst the banal attempts to wring more story out of a setting and characters that had largely run their course, there was a thought-provoking episode of meta-commentary in which the writers of a TV Sit Com were inspired by the stories of the original cast and wanted to make a TV sit com about WKRP in Cincinatti. But instead of telling the original funny stories (in the real sit com) they were all convinced that they could alter the stories to make them more humorous using rules - "The Letter K is Funny", and so forth. "It's not funny that Les Newman's office doesn't have walls. It's funny that he doesn't have a desk. Walls aren't funny. Desks are funny, because they have the letter K." And so forth.

When I see these scripts for fantasy and sci-fi shows, I often think of that. Just assume that at least 2/3rds of the people in the profession are completely incompetent but because 2/3rds of their bosses are also incompetent, they are able to continue working in the profession. It's not that they are trying to emulate D&D - it's that they don't have any more storytelling or writing talent (and often less talent) than the average player of D&D and so their show ends up no more well written or interesting (or even less interesting) than the average story generated by a game of D&D.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Bad fantasy shows are crushingly bad these days because in addition to the reasons you gave and as Jaydin mentioned, the creative teams behind these awful shows prioritize evangelizing the same shared progressive ideals rather than being faithful to the source materials and their fandoms.

Go back to your echo chamber.

That's complete nonsense.

 

[Mannahnin]

There's a third type of emulation of Got, though I suppose that it falls into either the "bad writing" or "poor characterization" camps anyway. It's "sex and nudity for their own sake." some production companies decided that GoT must have been a success solely because of the nudity in it. Sure, that would likely have been an initial draw for many but when it is completely gratuitous, and not in service of character or story, then viewers can quickly tire of it.

I think this predates GoT, though. Premium cable has gotten ribbed for that for many years, whether it be "Skinemax" as a nickname for Cinemax based on it showing a lot of T&A, Starz' Spartacus TV show (the first season, subtitled "Blood and Sand" I heard folks repeatedly joke about as "Spartacus: Blood and T*ts"), or the recurring joke in TV criticism about the HBO VP of Boobs.

 

[Deset Gled]

But nevertheless, a lot of people apparently want to complain about . . . well, Jahydin hasn't explicitly said it, but I've seen these same sorts of comments elsewhere from people who have a bug up their butts that shows have diverse casts.

I'll also like to toss out the idea that the "diversity" in fantasy TV shows actually has it's own interesting set of trends that can make things feel the same across shows. For example, fantasy TV shows seem to have a much higher percentage of lesbian couplings than male homosexual ones. And black characters might be replacing redheads more than they offset other variations on caucasian characters. And there's a lot of discussion to be had about what ethnicities are used when they want to create a nondescript but blatantly not-white character.

But it can be really hard to discuss those things in a meaningful way when the discussion grinds to a halt at "ZOMG ethnicity is changing!"