[Dominus]

December 19, 2001 is, in my opinion, going to be one of the most important dates for the fantasy genre in our lifetimes. The Fellowship of the Ring the first movie of a trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book will come out, and I think will decide the fate of fantasy movies for a long time.
If the movies fail, we might as well say goodbye to any fantasy movies for a while due to an already big bias against this genre.
If however,the movies are successful, it could be the greates thing to ever happen to the genre. This could open Hollywood's eyes to the potential of fantasy movies and the huge literary fanbase already there. It could (hopefully will be) GREAT!!!!!!!!

[matthewajg]

Absolutely! If the LotR films (and don't forget Harry Potter) are a commercial success, you can bet that a string of fantasy films and television shows will follow. This is not neccessarily all cotton candy and ice cream though! Studios will invariably greenlight film versions of other fantasy books, and smaller companies will buy whatever fantasy scripts they can to produce and complete with the big guns in Hollywood. Some fo the resulting products will be stellar, but the vast majority (as is Hollywoods way) will be cheap knock offs of the Lord of the Rings...and the film industry will fall into the creative quagmire it has with other genres. Because fantasy has yet to prove itself financially viable in film (with the notable exception of STAR WARS which many in the film industry mislabel as sci-fi) those fantasy films which are made can take risks artistically...but once a formula has been introduced which sells (gosh, Hollywood loves that) then we'll just see the same film being remade over and over. Many would say that much of fantasy literature post-Tolkein has suffered a similar fate, just cheap LoTR copies, and the same could happen to film.

[Dominus]

I totally agree with that if it is a success, more fantasy movies will come out. And knowing Hollywood, some pretty cheap knockoffs. It would be great if they realized that there is a huge number of fantasy fans out there that won't want the same stuff and actually go out on a limb and experiment, which could be very good OR VERY bad.

[Warewolf]

I am ardently hoping that this is the case. Between Harry Potter and LoTR, we've got two book series with huuuge followings and, if the movies are done right, we just may be in for some brilliantly done fantasy movies in the future. Of course, if the Dungeon & Dragons movie hadn't been just drek, we might have gotten started earlier. There was so much potential to be mined from the D&D world, but they ruined it by making it cheesy (idiots!!!).

Of course, if fantasy movies start being made, it is also likely that we'll end up with a lot of junk like we do with sci-fi (e.g., Supernova, Event Horizon). It is my hope, however, that the good will outweigh the bad.

And, hope of all hopes, how about another fantasy movie by George Lucas? He showed that he knew what he was doing with Willow. Just think of what he could accomplish with the technology available today!!!

[Sammie]

Seeing LotR TOMORROW!!!!!

[Hobbit]

http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/biggrin.gif
Very jealous - Have a good time Sammie - Saturday (22nd) for us.

As it's One o' clock a.m. here (and still working!) I've just realised that it's the 19th http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/biggrin.gif.

To all who are lucky enough to go today, hope it's up to expectations!

*still holding breath*

Hobbit

[zivshteg]

how could they take D&D movie{dungeon and dragon movie} and **** it up
it should have been so easy.dragons,heroes,magic.just make up some story and you have got a movie.anyone who saw the movie and he's not afantasy reader would never see any fantasy movie ever again
{the dwarf is taller then the man,come on whats wrong with you}.anyway this is our fainel chance,to be or not to be.lotR could
a series of fantsy movies.just imagian a movie or a series on the "death gate cycle"
series.anyway the best fantasy movie i've ever seen were in the past,like willo and the pri..,never ending story etc.lets hope that the golden ages will retorn.
happy new year everybody{especialy u.s.a}.