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[GreyHorace]

After the success of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter as film series in the early 2000's, we all thought it would usher a new wave of big budget fantasy movies. But... it didn't pan out like we were hoping. Disney had some success with Narnia but the series died after Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Other studios tried to cash in on the wave but their attempts sputtered after one film. Fox tried to adapt The Inheritance trilogy but it sputtered after Eragon bombed. And New Line thought they could rekindle LOTR's success with the His Dark Materials series but that too failed with The Golden Compass. The only real success during this period would be Warner Bros' The Hobbit Trilogy but again that's riding off the success of the previously mentioned LOTR.

But today, after this years'San Diego Comic-Con, we now have two high profile fantasy properties coming to streaming TV. First, HBO and BBC are taking a second crack at His Dark Materials. And secondly, of course, Netflix has The Witcher. But wait, they also have a new Dark Crystal series coming out. And Amazon has not only a Lord of the Rings tv series in the works (which they spent big money on), but also a Conan series. And looking at some new sources there also adaptations of Sandman, Wheel of Time, The Kingkiller Chronicle, and many others.

I've no doubt most of this was spurred by the success of Game of Thrones. While yes, many people thought it ended horribly, there's no denying what a phenomenon it was for 8 seasons. As for others fantasy shows on right now, I thoroughly enjoyed Amazon's adaptation of Good Omens.

It seems like movies will be dominated by superheroes for the time being, so the small screen is now a haven for us fantasy buffs. So, are you on board with streaming TV fantasy shows? And what other fantasy properties would you like to see adapted?

 

[highrider]

I’m all for it, but I’m sure some is just studios looking to ride the GOT wave. You can have good actors and a budget but you have to execute compelling content and it’s hard in fantasy to do that I think, especially over a substantial number of years/episodes. As you said while GOT may have stumbled at the end, it still had a run of years where it had great content that appealed to men and women.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

My only gripe is when these adaptations are started before the books are finished, but yeah I think now that the quality of these miniseries has reached an acceptable level, there's less of a reason to trim everything down to a movie (or a movie trilogy) when you can instead tell much more of the story across a full TV series.

I'd love a series for Book of the New Sun. It's far too dense to be crammed into a movie or even into a movie trilogy.

 

[nikolino840]

Maybe Is more hard to find a producer for movie in theaters
Was hard for Peter Jackson so maybe with less known authors Is more hard

GoT was succesful but wasn't produced by a streaming company,so yes could be the future of fantasy movie/series but for now there Is no example of worldwide succesful shows

 

[Super Mario]

Streaming TV is the future of most things TV. You can reach more audiences, quicker. Traditional cable will die as the infrastructure that has to be put in place is limited and costly when you can just launch an app and reach millions, if not billions.

TV series in general seem to be a bit hit. You basically can take one story, and instead of having it fill a 2 hour movie, can fit a 10 episode series for 8 seasons. I've been recently watching the Shooter series. It was a reboot of the movie. I like this trend and it's smart for business. A movie isn't enough content to justify a streaming service. However, a reoccurring exclusive season of something of interest to you is compelling to renew your membership

 

[GreyHorace]

Bit of a thread necro here, but I was wondering how everyone still feels about this topic? Now that the year is ending I'd like to see people's impressions of what streaming tv has given us with regards to the fantasy genre. Let's start with mine:

The Witcher (Netflix) - As a big fan of the books and games, I came out of this with a mixed reaction. I mean the casting of the principals was great (Anya Chalotra as Yennefer stole the show from Henry Cavill's otherwise solid Geralt), but others were either good (Jaskier) or awful (Triss). The story was confusing because they had the bright idea to mix 3 different narratives throughout the episodes. I was not a fan of how they rewrote certain events from how Sapkowski wrote them in the stories. And some of the effects and fight scenes were of varying quality probably due to the budget. Still, not a bad start to The Witcher saga, but I hope the next season is better or I'm tuning out.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Netflix) - I've only seen the first episode, but I thought this was great. Netflix clearly spent their money to recreate Jim Henson's vision. I only stopped watching because I was busy with other stuff but I really should get back to watching this.

The Mandalorian (Disney+) - A real surprise for me, as I didn't think this show would be this good. Oh, and before anybody protests, this is Star Wars. It's always had a fantasy theme despite the spaceships and aliens. And while we're on the topic, this is the best Star Wars media I've seen in years. It captures the space adventure feel of the original movies much better than that of the sequel trilogy. Season 2 can't come fast enough.

So those are the major ones I've watched. I've not checked out HBO's His Dark Materials but I've read it's not exactly clicking with people. But we still have more to look forward to like Amazon's Lord of the Rings series The Second Age and The Wheel of Time.

 

[poppabk]

There are only a few fantasy series that can drum up support for multiple 3 hour long movies. The fantasy genre is generally pretty dense on plot, detail, and overall narrative so you need that 9+ hours to do them justice. So a TV series is the best bet for most of these fantasy adaptations, doesn't have to be streaming but as they usually also feature a lot of deaths with medieval style weapons, the lack of content restrictions helps there.

 

[GV82]

I think so even though I’m not much into fantasy myself at all but if you’re going to include Star Wars though which is fair as it’s always been said it’s Space Fantasy, then I at least like that aspect of Fantasy.

Because if i’m not mistaken fantasy stories usually are huge and epic with mass amounts of lore etc (going by Star Wars again) so yeah I think TV now in this day & age is the way to go as long as it’s written well and we should always give each show 2-3 seasons chance because not every show nails it in the first season, if they do they probably got cancelled.

Even Lord of the Rings Didn’t that get expanded on home media?? Because there’s only so many hours you can do in the cinema before it becomes too much for some people.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Were in a second golden age of tv shows with all the cool streaming stuff being made. I'm loving it.

 

[Troyaferd]

I am really excited for the Lord of the Rings TV Series, I always liked Fantasy Stories and I think it's a Genre that has much Potential on TV in the Future.

 

[SometimeLaterToday]

I’m all for it, but I’m sure some is just studios looking to ride the GOT wave. You can have good actors and a budget but you have to execute compelling content and it’s hard in fantasy to do that I think, especially over a substantial number of years/episodes. As you said while GOT may have stumbled at the end, it still had a run of years where it had great content that appealed to men and women.

I definitely think this is more the case (riding on that GoT hype) than anything else. Compelling storytelling is compelling storytelling, but then there is also the randomness of the internet, where people latch on to strange things, sometimes: Stranger Things, Tiger King, Westworld.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure it works the same with movies, too. LOTR was a one hit wonder born from a confluence of fortunate circumstances and that was later further proven with what happened with The Hobbit.

Amazon revived The Expanse and fed money to it significantly more than most other shows, but the wide general public is still arguably lukewarm towards it.

Personally, I think The Witcher is more a Hercules: The Legendary Journeys than anything else rather than a new Game of Thrones blockbuster and that's why I think it has the potential of staying power on its side. But with Netflix, you never really know.

Bottom line is, the next Game Of Thrones could be anything.

As an aside: Amazon's started to go into gaming too, but instead of actually putting in effort and money into the right channels, they went with the more commercially viable product: a generic MMO.

 

[GreyHorace]

I am really excited for the Lord of the Rings TV Series, I always liked Fantasy Stories and I think it's a Genre that has much Potential on TV in the Future.

The LOTR series has me concerned with what woke elements Amazon are going to insert in it. I personally don't want to see any black, asian or latino elves in the mix when Tolkien specifically stated there were no darkskinned individuals in Middle Earth during the Second Age.

I definitely think this is more the case (riding on that GoT hype) than anything else. Compelling storytelling is compelling storytelling, but then there is also the randomness of the internet, where people latch on to strange things, sometimes: Stranger Things, Tiger King, Westworld.

I'm sick and tired of Game of Thrones being this sort of benchmark of the fantasy genre for tv or movies. There are lot of good fantasy properties out there ripe for adaptation that don't have the prerequisite violence and sex. I think Disney proved it last year with Star Wars The Mandalorian that you can make a good fantasy show for the whole family to enjoy.

Personally, I think The Witcher is more a Hercules: The Legendary Journeys than anything else rather than a new Game of Thrones blockbuster and that's why I think it has the potential of staying power on its side. But with Netflix, you never really know.

I thought The Witcher was okay, but it struggles in keeping a consistent tone of whether it's a episodic fantasy tale or an outright heroic epic. A lot of the humor and satirical take on fairy tales that made the books so interesting is missing. There's still a chance Netflix could improve on this, but for now the videogames are the best adaptations of Sapkowski's work.

 

[SometimeLaterToday]

I'm sick and tired of Game of Thrones being this sort of benchmark of the fantasy genre for tv or movies. There are lot of good fantasy properties out there ripe for adaptation that don't have the prerequisite violence and sex. I think Disney proved it last year with Star Wars The Mandalorian that you can make a good fantasy show for the whole family to enjoy.

When I kept mentioning Game Of Thrones, I meant it more as a general entertainment product, which is what companies today are looking to invest in: success. The genre doesn't really matter. Also, even though it was Disneyfied in later seasons, I'm not sure the first ones were all that of a wholesome family time.