"(D&D)... game that launched a million junior high school wedgies."-- Time

[Sir Edgar]

This is a very generalizing, but interesting article about fantasy today:

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101021202/amfantasy.html

 

[Pielorinho]

The Tolkien revival began when the Internet bubble was bursting, the market for consumer electronics was nosediving like Harry Potter chasing the Golden Snitch, and America's long summer romance with technology was fizzling. "Change and technology are so pervasive a part of daily life that for the most part there's no magic to it anymore," says Vivian Sobchack, a professor of film and television studies at UCLA. "The promise of science and technology has been normalized. The utopian vision we had didn't come to pass." The magic would have to come from somewhere else, and we found it in fantasy.

Stupid lazy reporters: LOTR has been in production for years, certainly before the stock market began to dive. Harry Potter's success certainly antedated the bubble's burst.

Overall, an interesting article, although I do wish editors would catch nonsensical ideas like this and force the reporter to do a rewrite.

Must be the writing tutor in me .

Daniel

 

[Sir Edgar]

One interesting thing the article suggests is that there may be a flood of fantasy-oriented entertainment products (such as films) in the near future. To me, this means that there will be a lot of junk that will likely lead to a backlash. Get ready for the mid/late 80's again.

 

[John Crichton]

An interesting article but I think it's a bit off the mark. It's saying that Fantasy movies/media are taking a front seat by putting it up against the new Star Trek movie? That's hardly fair. At least put it up against Star Wars. And what about Spiderman? Hasn't it been this year's biggest grossing film? Yes, that's a comic-book movie but it blends both sci-fi and fantasy (not swords-n-sorcery, but the fantastic).

Not that that was the entire point of the article but it was in there...

 

[Sir Edgar]

I don't like the way the writer made everything fantasy sound pretty cool and "in" now, except for D&D though. It would have been better if he had done some research into how there is a new revival with 3rd edition rules and d20/OGL and the increasing diversity in the player population (partly because of the films like LoTR).

 

[Mulkhoran]

Hrm. Ok article, I guess but:

"Are we running away from reality when we indulge in fantasy?"

Uhhhhhh..............that's sort of the definition of fantasy....I guess. This just sounded silly.

Oh, and he ruins a key element of the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. What a jerk. Maybe

Spoiler

for a tag on the thread? Just a suggestion.

 

[John Crichton]

Oh, and he ruins a key element of the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. What a jerk. Maybe

Spoiler

for a tag on the thread? Just a suggestion.

Spoiler

Ah, yes! THAT annoyed the heck out me, too.

[rage]

I don't know how the 3rd book ends because I don't remember. I read the LotR books when I was in like 5th grade and luckily forgot all but a few names of a few characters. I've been looking forward to the movies as a new experience and then will re-read the books afterwards. GRRRRRR

[/rage]

 

[Celebrim]

Like a great many reporters, he mistakes his own awakening to reality for a transformation in the larger world. He imagines that since he is now just taking notice of events, that such events have only just begun to happen, and that they are significant of a great change in the tastes and habits of the public. He imagines that a temporary taste in Hollywood for fantasy signals a change in the taste of the public, when in fact it is only a fortunate coincidence that a few people in the movie industry have awakened to the fact that thier is a great crowd of fantasy fans that will pay alot of money if only thier favorite settings are treated with (something like) due respect. Very likely in some few years, the stupid suits will awaken to the fact that if they only treated Sci-Fi classics with a bit of reverence that they could make an equal ammount of money on them, and at such time the author will write about the 'huge revival' in Science Fiction and the demise of popular fantasy. As it is, Sci-Fi's death is hard to notice, what with the Star Wars franchise and the Matrix franchise, and what flops there have recently been have been largely due to Hollywood chopping up perfectly good stories and reforming them into processed plot substanceless McMovies.

In short, such an article only reveals the writer to be a clueless uninformed person to anyone that actually knows anything.

This is particularly clear when he trots out that tired old refrain:"At a time when Americans are wandering deeper into a nebulous conflict against a faceless enemy, Tolkien gives us the war we wish we were fighting—a struggle with a foe whose face we can see, who fights out on the open battlefield, far removed from innocent civilians."

Now, call me crazy, but isn't Sauron the consumate faceless villain, and don't lots of innocent people (civilians and otherwise) suffer in various ways during the war? I think it may be fashionable to say that the appeal of Tolkein has something to do with the war on terrorism, but the frank fact is that Tolkein has always had a huge appeal and his 'revival' is merely due to Peter Jackson's recognition of that. We'd be having a Tolkein 'revival' with or without 9-11. Why can't the establishment get it through thier thick heads that maybe Tolkein is enduring and popular because he was a good writer?

 

[Henry]

Wonder what Gary would have to say about the line: "Tolkien inspired an American insurance salesman named Gary Gygax to quit his job and create Dungeons and Dragons..."

Two things occur to me:

1) I suppose that little-known authors like Moorcock, Leiber, and Vance would just sail over the heads of the average reader.

2)I guess the truth shouldn't get in the way of a good by-line.

 

[Henry]

We'd be having a Tolkein 'revival' with or without 9-11. Why can't the establishment get it through thier thick heads that maybe Tolkein is enduring and popular because he was a good writer?

I do think that the September 11th terrorist attacks had some impact on a recent resurgence in fantasy, but I think it was only one contribution out of the greater whole.

Witness:

1980's retro culture is coming back in small ways in mainstream culture, similarly to the focus on 1970's retro in the last decade.

In 2000, a new edition of D&D was released and given much press, a lot of it favorable.

Ffrom 2000 to 2002, several different sitcoms, cartoons, movies, and other media have made both fantasy and Dungeons and Dragons references, and these references were favorable, or at least non-judgemental.

Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy and Chris Columbus's Harry Potter Trilogy had huge budgets, and even bigger successes, both putting these into the mainstream.

I don't think it's just one thing, but a culmination of various factors.