{"id":772,"date":"2015-09-10T22:55:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T05:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/?p=772"},"modified":"2016-04-19T12:38:38","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T19:08:38","slug":"why-some-fantasy-franchises-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/why-some-fantasy-franchises-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Some Fantasy Franchises Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a pattern I\u2019ve noticed in failed movies trying to make the next Harry Potter<\/em> out of a book series that had reasonable sales. They\u2019re usually big budget, with tons of gorgeous CGI and special effects, and hit the box office like a cold lump of lead. There are a lot factors, I\u2019m sure, in what makes a movie box-office poison, but the biggest one in fantasy movies, particularly those aimed at kids, is this: a missing sense of fun.<\/p>\n

Now, I say fun because \u201csense of wonder\u201d is what all those films are going for. The problem is a \u201csense of wonder\u201d isn\u2019t enough if the movie\u2019s a dreary slog. Perhaps it was back in the 80s, when The Neverending Story<\/em> captured a whole generation\u2019s imagination despite being incredibly depressing. What I\u2019m saying is vicariously getting to ride Falcor the Luck Dragon made up for watching a horse drown in the mud.<\/p>\n

The Neverending Story<\/em> eventually got a sequel, but much like part 2 of the book, it was a hundred times more unpleasant and deservedly tanked. All I\u2019ll say about the second half of the book is it lives up to its title because no one\u2019s ever finished it. Most films following the The Neverending Story<\/em> format never get a sequel these days. After all, who wants to waste their time watching a humorless hero go through a thankless quest just to see a unicorn when there\u2019s more enjoyable fantasy fare out there?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These movies tend to start with a Dickensian waif who has a dead-serious quest dropped on them like a ton of bricks. If it\u2019s not right at the start, then it\u2019s after establishing how horrible or boring the chosen one\u2019s life is. The film, from then on, is laser focused on the quest with no time for levity. Every side character is there to hinder or aid the hero. Sidekicks are stalwart and rarely silly. If they’re kids, in human or CGI animal form, they\u2019re never given any time onscreen to be kids.<\/p>\n

How is a nine-year-old supposed to imagine themselves in the hero\u2019s place if the kids in the film always act like the adults are watching them, rulers in hand, just waiting to smack them if they ever crack a smile? The only person allowed to smile is the villain planning evil deeds. If the hero is allowed a break, it turns out to be a horrible trap. Every piece of candy is poison and the meat pies steal your soul.<\/p>\n

When it comes to translating a fantasy book into a movie, even a kids book, the goofing off scenes are often the first to get cut. Yet those scenes are the ones people remember when telling their friends how awesome a book or movie is. Take Harry Potter,<\/em> which started with the sad orphan in a closet trope, but quickly moved on to a new world filled with flying trains and magical jellybeans. The dreary version of this story tends to keep the magical train, but drops the magical jellybeans, and that\u2019s a huge mistake. Magical jellybeans, and other bits of silliness, remind the audience that these kids are still kids. Even as an adult I want to read about the magical jellybeans. Without them, the story loses its flavor (insert sad trombone noise).<\/p>\n

This even applies to fantasy movies not specifically targeted at kids. Peter Jackson did one thing right when he adapted the Lord of the Rings<\/em> \u2013 he added levity in places where it was desperately needed, even if it wasn\u2019t in the book, with hobbits talking about second breakfast and so on. It\u2019s something he failed to do as he stretched The Hobbit<\/em> into three movies, which partly accounts for why they were so dreadful to sit through. You\u2019d think, by stretching the runtime beyond the breaking point, he could have spent more time getting to know each dwarf and let them joke around, but past the first movie they dropped all that for one tedious action sequence after another. The only time characters talked to each other was to bitterly argue and lose all the rapport they\u2019d established with the audience before.<\/p>\n

All this is easier to take in the books, somehow, perhaps because there\u2019s no soundtrack in the background constantly reminding us bad things are about to happen by going DUN DUN DUNNN\u2026 Any breathing space in the book has fresher air. The reader can linger, rather than being railroaded from one mini-climax to the next. It\u2019s hard to capture even a sense of wonder if the film cuts panning over glorious mountains in favor of more shaky-cam sword fights. Its like the movie industry forgot what makes fantasy appealing because they\u2019re comparing themselves to video games (like Skyrim, that managed to turn killing dragons into a tedious chore) instead of the books they\u2019re based on.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a pattern I\u2019ve noticed in failed movies trying to make the next Harry Potter out of a book series that had reasonable sales. They\u2019re usually big budget, with tons of gorgeous CGI and special effects, and hit the box office like a cold lump of lead. There are a lot factors, I\u2019m sure, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[15,30,37,24],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-bullshittery","tag-criticism","tag-fiction","tag-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":774,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}