Whatever happened to Sword & Sorcery Cinema?

[Green Knight]

Anyway, back to the original post, you can't really blame them for not turning Narnia and Goblet of Fire into gorefests. In the past couple of years they've made movies of only three fantasy worlds. And two of them are based off of childrens books. It isn't a matter of making the movies family friendly, so much that the books were family friendly by intent. Written with children in mind. So the lack of gore in Harry Potter or Narnia shouldn't really surprise anyone. Now, if they were to make a bloodless Conan movie, that'd be a whole other thing, but Harry Potter and Peter Pevensie aren't exactly heroes that're supposed to be running around drenched in the entrails of their enemies.

 

[Krieg]

In the past couple of years they've made movies of only three fantasy worlds. And two of them are based off of childrens books.

...and strangely enough all three authors are from the UK.

 

[sniffles]

Really?

The Bunker
Stalin
Conspiracy
Throne of Blood
Ran
Richard III
Titus
A Simple Plan
Man Bites Dog
Natural Born Killers
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Apt Pupil
American History X
The Godfather
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Get Carter
House of Cards

The main characters in those films are appalling, or frequently do very appalling things, yet they remain compelling films nonetheless (though I found Branagh's Frankenstein laborious, overwrought, melodramatic, and altogether too self-congratulatory). Not necessarily pleasant films to sit through, to be sure.

Warrior Poet

Well I didn't say it was impossible, did I?
Anyway, in the grand scheme of things that's a pretty small list.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

I want a Hawk the Slayer remake.

LMAO! I just watched this movie a few weeks ago. Great pick!

 

[Ranger REG]

I've just seen Narnia, with fantastic special effects used in a totally bloodless battle. We've also had a great dragon in Harry Potter, disposed of in a equally bloodless way. Why aren't they making S&S films anymore? I know making a film for kids maximises box office. But is wrong to want to see a seven-foot tall barbarian evicerate a monster? There were loads of S&S films during the 1980s, all with dodgy special effects. Why - just when the technology is there - have these films stopped being made? Does this strike anyone else as an absolute tragedy?

"Dodgy"? Is that a new lingo for "mediocre"?

I don't know about S&S -- which Hollywood immediately associate that with any B-type cult films -- but we have seen film companies taking a chance on some of the currently popular or classic archetypal (mostly epic) fantasy literatures and adapted them to films.

So, if Hollywood follow that formula -- albeit not all the time -- what's the next fantasy book to adapt?

 

[Desdichado]

There wasn't a good fantasy movie around for many years before The Fellowship of the Ring came out. The LoTR trilogy was so fantastic that it sparked some really good fantasy-type films (and some not so good ones as well) such as the Harry Potter movies, Troy, and now Narnia.

Narnia's the only movie that can claim to have been made because of the success of LotR. The first Harry Potter actually came out a month before the first LOTR movie, and Troy was clearly made in imitation of Gladiator, not LotR. The lead time on movies is too long otherwise.

 

[Rykion]

I hear that if you turn out the lights and say Highlander 2 three times while looking into a mirror, Connor McLeod will reach through the glass and murder you.

I hear doing that just makes Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez come back to life for no apparent reason.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I hear that if you turn out the lights and say Highlander 2 three times while looking into a mirror, Connor McLeod will reach through the glass and murder you.

I have just discovered that the hubby owns a DVD of The Film Which Must Not Be Named...

In his defense he would like it noted that it is the directors cut, which he was told made more sense. He did not, however, find this to be true.

(he also owns Blues Brothers 2000, but bought it by mistake based on its cover apearance to the original and has never opened it.)

 

[ssampier]

I hear that if you turn out the lights and say Highlander 2 three times while looking into a mirror, Connor McLeod will reach through the glass and murder you.

It's true, I heard that it happened to a friend of a friend. The phone rang and he was dead.

Wait, wrong movie.

 

[replicant2]

I've just seen Narnia, with fantastic special effects used in a totally bloodless battle. We've also had a great dragon in Harry Potter, disposed of in a equally bloodless way. Why aren't they making S&S films anymore? I know making a film for kids maximises box office. But is wrong to want to see a seven-foot tall barbarian evicerate a monster? There were loads of S&S films during the 1980s, all with dodgy special effects. Why - just when the technology is there - have these films stopped being made? Does this strike anyone else as an absolute tragedy?

It's a tragedy for those of us who like sword and sorcery yarns, but to defend the film making industry I think the problem is a lot of S&S material doesn't translate well into the kind of films audiences like/are used to seeing.

It's easy to empathize with the characters of Narnia, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Oftentimes they're flawed. Many of them represent the everyman, like Frodo. They have to overcome not only impossible odds but their own mortality and frailty. It's easy for audiences to identify with these types of characters. They also feature groups of characters working together, allowing for more on-screen interaction and external character development.

Conversely, S&S often features a single, larger-than-life protagonist who overomes all odds through brute force, or ingenuity. S&S is, in its purest form, all plot -- pure story -- with cool worlds to explore, monsters to fight and riches to win, but frankly, without a lot of depth, The characters are quite often static and change little, if at all.

I love these kinds of stories, but thematically many of them are rather shallow. They'd make for great spectacle, sure, but I think they'd be panned by the critics and their turnout would suffer. It's too great a risk for a multi-million dollar movie production.

Before I get the Howardites jumping down my throat, let me state that I understand there is a lot more going on in the Conan stories than just a brute hacking away with a sword. I think the whole civilization vs. barbarism angle could make for a compelling hook to a film, I'm just not sure of its appeal to a large audience -- or, just as important, a Hollywood exec who has to finance a grim, dark film like "Beyond the Black River," for instance. And I'm not even going to get into Elric.

I also think a secondary factor is that a lot of the S&S films of the 80's were just plain bad, and who wants to take a risk on another Hawk the Slayer or Beastmaster? Again, films you and I and probably a lot of folks on these boards enjoy, but do they truly have a broad appeal?