I wondered why the cool movie Willow made your list. It was only in the last few paragraphs I remembered the crushingly disappointing TV series - that I had watched all the way through... Point well made!
I learned about the Willow series from this post. Apparently, it was such a failure that it was used as a tax write-off and is no longer available through legal means.
Which is rather dark when you think about it. In the DVD era, it was at least worth something in the Walmart $5 bin. But now the entire work is in the Iron Vault of tax write-offs. Sure it was garbage, but if they can do it to garbage, they'll do it to something good eventually.
"When I was a kid, you had to stretch the definition of fantasy quite a bit if you were going to claim there was any on TV at all." What about the Wizard of Oz?
Great Archer: Fugitive From the Empire. I remember watching that live. I haven't seen it since, so I have zero idea if it holds up, but I really liked it.
It was my understanding it was intended to be a pilot or a series of movies, like the orginial Battlestar Galatica, and then it was canceled.
The worst part of modern TV and movies of all type is the obsessive need to give everyone a backstory. There is no need.
In earlier times, they just existed. The Fugitive doesn't give us a backstory for each of the marshalls-- they just exist. It is a very diverse and believable team.
In the Abyss, we only get a vague backstory for the two leads. Does any of the rest of the crew have or even need a backstory, let alone the Navy Seals? No.
Likewise, in Heat, we don't know much of anyone's backstory, except Pacino, and his is very vague.
Sean Connery in Dr. No has almost no backstory. He is just James Bond.
And Alien gives us no backstory for the crew. They just exist.
Val Kilmer created his own backstory for Iceman, but he didn't explain. He justed embraced it and created an amazing character.
It depends on if the world needs the backstreet to explain it, and often backstreet can be shown as opposed to told. (Show don't tell).
Look at the opening of Star Wars and after the scroll (telling us as opposed to showing), we see the Tantive IV fly past and then the Star Destroyer enters and shows us the power differential. It explains through visuals, and sets the stage for the story while also providing the hook fornthe audience.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, that model became the norm.
People hate on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but at the same time its opening with the reveal of the Imperial Klingons, the new D-7, and then watching them destroyed was the visual hook to the story. Of course TMP was more like 2001 a Space Odyssey than Star Wars which is why people actually disliked it IMO.
The point is, backstreet needs to exist to make the world feel real, but it cannot be the focus of the story, because the story isn't about that character's history, especially when they aren't the main character.
Backstreet isn't backstory. We don't need the origin story for every major figure in a movie. We don't need to "understand" why they became what they are and what motivates them. It can be relevant, but we don't need "poor misunderstood" villians and "outsider" future heroes. Explaining it all doesn't make it better usually.
What is it about the American Media landscape that makes it so aggressively and all-consumingly shit?
For example; Japan’s entertainment industry is just as if not more cutthroat and addicted to formulaic Lowest Common Denominator audience-bait, and yet in between the seasonal tides of 1-cour Isekai factory-line slop, there still exists a corner of the business set aside for lower-demand yet ambitious artistic dabbling.
Frieren Beyond Journey’s End, Delicious in Dungeon, Witch Hat Atelier. Each of them is a monthly manga firmly in the fantasy sphere, maybe not _High_ Fantasy but certainly has some elevated themes and morals. Each of them has decently detailed and distinct magic-systems, world-building, and intrigue-subplots. Each of them have a lot of heart and thought put into their writing and were met with respectable blooming success.
Why is it not possible for modern-era Westerners to allow a boutique-tier to their industry? I can read the retrospectives about the desperate desires to both recover from and recreate the lost DVD golden-age, but I can’t wrap my head around why it has to be so completely all-or-nothing.
Why did 100% of the “AA studio” equivalent have to be sacrificed? Why is the idea of “extremely cheap and low-risk titles cranked out in a corner with a decent chance of one becoming a blowout or at least cult success” so anathema or invisible to Hollywood and the big cable companies? Why does no executive have any interest in funding even a self-indulgent vanity project that has a niche or particularity style? Does business school really kill that much of your soul and imagination that these people really have no thought in their head that isn’t “how can I make every title I touch check all of the algorithm-boxes & therefore make all the money?”
This really takes me back; I would offer that shows like Ator or Death Stalker was standard fair for the teenage version of Myself and friends back in the 80's. We loved those movies at the time, again, because we where teens, and discovering girls.
At the same time , the Male fantasy (or is it?) was being discovered by all of us kids. Defend the weak, protect the codes, fight injustice, and rescue the fair maiden!
In this day and age, I'd take the wide eyed man, struggling against anything but self, more than the slop they give us today.
It is why shows like Star Trek and the Six Million Dollar Man resonated with my generation. Always do the right thing, and be responsible for those under your command.
For me, another issue is ignoring the source material. See The Watch from the BBC that was so far off of Discworld that PTerry's daughter said it had nothing to do with the books.
As someone who remembers the 90s ~ 00s era of the Hercspolitation genre on TV... it is interesting to me how many of those I can still remember despite themselves.
Which begs the question…why no RA Salvatore or Dragon Lance. Projects that seem right for long form TV. The dogs breakfast they made of Wheel of Time I guess puts paid to any chance of my favorite two IP’s ever getting made. interesting point on the Unreal Engine. The various orks and goblins from these shows all look the same from the Rings of Power to the Warcraft movie. HBO did an ok job with the dragons but I’ve still yet to see an Elmore dragon come to life on screen as I remember it. Yet another great post.
Forgotten Realms is in development hell at Netflix. Hopefully it will stay there. As for Dragonlance, here you go. You won't thank me for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEuYMCVJMlQ
Yeah I was tracking that. Joe Manganelo has been trying on Dragon Lance forever and I know there were issues between Wizards and Weis/Hickman. You know as sure as shit if they did Crystal Shard and cast the Drow..he’d be black because Drow’s are.. black?
Netflix clearly developed a "house" style- and because of its once notable popularity, other streamers felt the need to copy it. And we as viewers all suffer...
Great write up. You could spend an entire article on how there used to be “ugly” actors in every movie and show, which made them more believable, interesting and memorable.
Heck, even the handsome actors still had a lived-in look to them. I noticed that generational divide between talented but craggy actors and checkbox actors when I watched Game of Thrones and had to reconcile Renly Baratheon being related to Stannis and Robert.
If any series goes on too long the writers run out of ideas and the whole thing runs out of gas. The Office, Breaking Bad, and others have reached this point. But Netflix series invariably run out of gas during the second season and sometimes by the end of the first. Hunters is a good example.
I think someone somewhere figured out that if they keep making half-decent shows which get canned, the audience is more likely to chase the next one, invest their time in more series, stay subscribed longer, consume more shows... the economics beat having one good show which drive traffic for the short term. It's quantity over quality, unfortunately.
That might be the reason, but I think it's more likely that they want to have a huge long-running series like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, but they just keep failing. They're undaunted by failure because they have all the money in the world to spend, so they try again and again.
Shannara I remember buying that book in Bremerton with my grandmother. She looked at the book and noted the type was poorly set so you couldn't read all of every page and it was poorly bound. I bought it anyway because I didn't want to wait for the bookmobile. I remember far more about that book I bought about fifty years ago than I do about the tv show. Or any episode of the witcher. I've seen nothing of the rings of power and only part of one episode of the wheel of time. They might as well be blended and squeezed into sausage.
The only modern fantasy I can think of is a couple video games.
Heck, Darks Souls is more memoriable than this stuff.
Dark Souls is more about theming than plot or characterization, but its visuals and scenarios are extremely memorable.
Exactly.
Thats what makes it so sad.
I wondered why the cool movie Willow made your list. It was only in the last few paragraphs I remembered the crushingly disappointing TV series - that I had watched all the way through... Point well made!
I had to be reminded of its existence myself. Not that it technically exists anymore.
I learned about the Willow series from this post. Apparently, it was such a failure that it was used as a tax write-off and is no longer available through legal means.
Which is rather dark when you think about it. In the DVD era, it was at least worth something in the Walmart $5 bin. But now the entire work is in the Iron Vault of tax write-offs. Sure it was garbage, but if they can do it to garbage, they'll do it to something good eventually.
"When I was a kid, you had to stretch the definition of fantasy quite a bit if you were going to claim there was any on TV at all." What about the Wizard of Oz?
Great Archer: Fugitive From the Empire. I remember watching that live. I haven't seen it since, so I have zero idea if it holds up, but I really liked it.
It was my understanding it was intended to be a pilot or a series of movies, like the orginial Battlestar Galatica, and then it was canceled.
The worst part of modern TV and movies of all type is the obsessive need to give everyone a backstory. There is no need.
In earlier times, they just existed. The Fugitive doesn't give us a backstory for each of the marshalls-- they just exist. It is a very diverse and believable team.
In the Abyss, we only get a vague backstory for the two leads. Does any of the rest of the crew have or even need a backstory, let alone the Navy Seals? No.
Likewise, in Heat, we don't know much of anyone's backstory, except Pacino, and his is very vague.
Sean Connery in Dr. No has almost no backstory. He is just James Bond.
And Alien gives us no backstory for the crew. They just exist.
Val Kilmer created his own backstory for Iceman, but he didn't explain. He justed embraced it and created an amazing character.
It depends on if the world needs the backstreet to explain it, and often backstreet can be shown as opposed to told. (Show don't tell).
Look at the opening of Star Wars and after the scroll (telling us as opposed to showing), we see the Tantive IV fly past and then the Star Destroyer enters and shows us the power differential. It explains through visuals, and sets the stage for the story while also providing the hook fornthe audience.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, that model became the norm.
People hate on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but at the same time its opening with the reveal of the Imperial Klingons, the new D-7, and then watching them destroyed was the visual hook to the story. Of course TMP was more like 2001 a Space Odyssey than Star Wars which is why people actually disliked it IMO.
The point is, backstreet needs to exist to make the world feel real, but it cannot be the focus of the story, because the story isn't about that character's history, especially when they aren't the main character.
Backstreet isn't backstory. We don't need the origin story for every major figure in a movie. We don't need to "understand" why they became what they are and what motivates them. It can be relevant, but we don't need "poor misunderstood" villians and "outsider" future heroes. Explaining it all doesn't make it better usually.
What is it about the American Media landscape that makes it so aggressively and all-consumingly shit?
For example; Japan’s entertainment industry is just as if not more cutthroat and addicted to formulaic Lowest Common Denominator audience-bait, and yet in between the seasonal tides of 1-cour Isekai factory-line slop, there still exists a corner of the business set aside for lower-demand yet ambitious artistic dabbling.
Frieren Beyond Journey’s End, Delicious in Dungeon, Witch Hat Atelier. Each of them is a monthly manga firmly in the fantasy sphere, maybe not _High_ Fantasy but certainly has some elevated themes and morals. Each of them has decently detailed and distinct magic-systems, world-building, and intrigue-subplots. Each of them have a lot of heart and thought put into their writing and were met with respectable blooming success.
Why is it not possible for modern-era Westerners to allow a boutique-tier to their industry? I can read the retrospectives about the desperate desires to both recover from and recreate the lost DVD golden-age, but I can’t wrap my head around why it has to be so completely all-or-nothing.
Why did 100% of the “AA studio” equivalent have to be sacrificed? Why is the idea of “extremely cheap and low-risk titles cranked out in a corner with a decent chance of one becoming a blowout or at least cult success” so anathema or invisible to Hollywood and the big cable companies? Why does no executive have any interest in funding even a self-indulgent vanity project that has a niche or particularity style? Does business school really kill that much of your soul and imagination that these people really have no thought in their head that isn’t “how can I make every title I touch check all of the algorithm-boxes & therefore make all the money?”
That's why I don't watch Netflix. I don't really watch Fantasy on streaming services, because they always get it wrong.
That's okay, because not very many writers can write fantasy.
Most streaming services tag Fantasy as medieval, or Europe around the 800s.
Peter Jackson did okay with LoTR, but even he changed things, moved things, and left things out.
The best I've seen so far, is Vox Machina, which is a semi-anime.
This really takes me back; I would offer that shows like Ator or Death Stalker was standard fair for the teenage version of Myself and friends back in the 80's. We loved those movies at the time, again, because we where teens, and discovering girls.
At the same time , the Male fantasy (or is it?) was being discovered by all of us kids. Defend the weak, protect the codes, fight injustice, and rescue the fair maiden!
In this day and age, I'd take the wide eyed man, struggling against anything but self, more than the slop they give us today.
It is why shows like Star Trek and the Six Million Dollar Man resonated with my generation. Always do the right thing, and be responsible for those under your command.
Great article BTW.
For me, another issue is ignoring the source material. See The Watch from the BBC that was so far off of Discworld that PTerry's daughter said it had nothing to do with the books.
That thing was truly horrendous.
I have not watched any more than the trailer that was enough. The fuckery with existing characters and going steampunk made no sense.
As someone who remembers the 90s ~ 00s era of the Hercspolitation genre on TV... it is interesting to me how many of those I can still remember despite themselves.
Which begs the question…why no RA Salvatore or Dragon Lance. Projects that seem right for long form TV. The dogs breakfast they made of Wheel of Time I guess puts paid to any chance of my favorite two IP’s ever getting made. interesting point on the Unreal Engine. The various orks and goblins from these shows all look the same from the Rings of Power to the Warcraft movie. HBO did an ok job with the dragons but I’ve still yet to see an Elmore dragon come to life on screen as I remember it. Yet another great post.
Forgotten Realms is in development hell at Netflix. Hopefully it will stay there. As for Dragonlance, here you go. You won't thank me for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEuYMCVJMlQ
Yeah I was tracking that. Joe Manganelo has been trying on Dragon Lance forever and I know there were issues between Wizards and Weis/Hickman. You know as sure as shit if they did Crystal Shard and cast the Drow..he’d be black because Drow’s are.. black?
Netflix clearly developed a "house" style- and because of its once notable popularity, other streamers felt the need to copy it. And we as viewers all suffer...
Great write up. You could spend an entire article on how there used to be “ugly” actors in every movie and show, which made them more believable, interesting and memorable.
Heck, even the handsome actors still had a lived-in look to them. I noticed that generational divide between talented but craggy actors and checkbox actors when I watched Game of Thrones and had to reconcile Renly Baratheon being related to Stannis and Robert.
This way they avoid the ableist trap.
A good article on the mechanics of imagination containment.
If any series goes on too long the writers run out of ideas and the whole thing runs out of gas. The Office, Breaking Bad, and others have reached this point. But Netflix series invariably run out of gas during the second season and sometimes by the end of the first. Hunters is a good example.
I think someone somewhere figured out that if they keep making half-decent shows which get canned, the audience is more likely to chase the next one, invest their time in more series, stay subscribed longer, consume more shows... the economics beat having one good show which drive traffic for the short term. It's quantity over quality, unfortunately.
That might be the reason, but I think it's more likely that they want to have a huge long-running series like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, but they just keep failing. They're undaunted by failure because they have all the money in the world to spend, so they try again and again.
Shannara I remember buying that book in Bremerton with my grandmother. She looked at the book and noted the type was poorly set so you couldn't read all of every page and it was poorly bound. I bought it anyway because I didn't want to wait for the bookmobile. I remember far more about that book I bought about fifty years ago than I do about the tv show. Or any episode of the witcher. I've seen nothing of the rings of power and only part of one episode of the wheel of time. They might as well be blended and squeezed into sausage.