The Endurance of Fantasy: Exploring the Relationship of Fantasy with The Lord of the Rings and Star

This essay aims to explore how these two blockbuster Hollywood films and their relationship and engagement with the fantasy genre and whether this has aided them to endure beyond the screen. How does each one integrate and/or change this staple genre? What is their use of fantasy storytelling tropes and imagery and how has this exploration become elaborated upon long after the film’s runtime has concluded. What is each film’s relationship with fantasy and is this why they have become such phenomena?

Star Wars: The Force of Fantasy and Finding the Balance Within

Now, fantasy, when done right, and it often isn't, has the potential for just as much depth and nuance as science fiction, but in a very different way. Fantasy usually tackles deep human issues through the use of emotional, metaphorical, allegorical or symbolic storytelling; fantasy should have something profound to say about the world and our place in it just like science fiction, albeit in a more abstract way; after all, that's what makes fantasy's predecessor, the classic myth, so compelling to audiences even hundreds of years after they've been written. Well-executed modern fantasy shares that timeless sense of storytelling for the human condition; but, of course, there's not so well executed fantasy out there, with a major problem for the genre being the concept of “Deus ex machina.” As a result, the genre has developed an unfair reputation, at times, for being childish. The truth of the matter is that it's not the genre itself that's a problem, instead, rather, it's execution; the execution must be done well. Clever writing takes work and crafting a fantasy world and narrative with depth and nuance can be a Herculean task – which is why, when Star Wars (Dir. George Lucas, 1977) pulls it off well, it is highly regarded and noticed.

There's a lot that goes into telling a good fantasy story, though it's probably most important to take note of the one topic that seems to irk storytellers and audiences; that being the most convenient low effort “hot fixes” you can have: magic (I mean, the Force). Forms of magic, and by extension the Force, are integral to a fantasy narrative story but one that cannot be used it solve all the narrative problems because, being candid, the Force is what some fantasy enthusiasts call a “magic system” (albeit a very soft one) and there are certain guidelines and rules that need to be followed when creating these. The rules of the realm can be whatever the creators (primarily, in this case, George Lucas for Star Wars) want them to be, but they must remain internally consistent once an expectation has been set. No matter how outlandish the world's magic is it must remain internally consistent; it can have space wizards that choke people with their minds across vast distances, so long as the creators make it clear to the audience, early on, that something like this is possible and that the precedence which is set remains constant. And, in a way, that makes fantasy a little bit more difficult to create for because one not only has to follow a certain set of rules in order to keep the audience engaged, but it must also have created rules in the first place; needless to say, creating believable rules for outlandish powers is no simple feat.

Good fantasy is always striking that perfect balance between escapism and realism. One needs to have enough fantastical elements in the story to provide the audience with a wondrous place to escape to while simultaneously providing enough grounding and realism to make the audience believe, even if it is just for the time it takes one to tell the story, that the fantastical place they are visiting could be real; it's a grand Illusion and one that takes considerable effort to achieve. The world building must be well thought out, interconnected and have some grounding in the real world to act as a compass around which the audience's suspension of disbelief can navigate and Star Wars (1977) has the potential for grounded fantasy world building on the level of Tolkien where every race, culture, weapon, political system, religion and philosophy can be explored in an almost never-ending ripple through the universe. The amount of potential for exploring these concepts and flushing them out in new and unique ways is astounding and fans have been reaping the benefits of that type of storytelling for years, through extensions to the universe like books and video games; even the mainstream audiences of Star Wars have been immersed in that potential with the rising popularity of Star Wars television, in both its animated and live-action forms.

In both science fiction and fantasy, real effort is required to craft a compelling story; a storyteller cannot be lazy with either of them. In fact, one notable scene which demonstrates Star Wars’ is the Death Star conference meeting where Darth Vadar ends up using the force to choke an Imperial officer. He dispenses with the officer’s jingoistic prowess with the completion of the Death Star with the line, “don’t be too proud this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force.” In this one line, and demonstration of the Force, the film clearly shows how its creators expertly wove sci-fi and fantasy and why Star Wars is ultimately a fantasy story; the emphasis is placed on belief and spirituality overcoming technological “superiority”. It is almost a self-reflective proposition on the movie itself with its own innovation in cinematic presentation; yet it keeps that core of magic, of the fantastic, of hope, kernel to its story and themes. This is what makes Star Wars so unique. It is its ability to exist in both the science fiction and fantasy genres, simultaneously, and to do it artfully.

There's something so special about a story that provides the escapism of fantasy – with the Force, Jedi and Sith, saving the princess and fighting against strict order and oppression, mirroring gothic principles such as those outlined by Punter and Byron – whilst also delving into other questions often found in science fiction like the impact of technology and its relationship with power, humanity and its misuse, such as with Jekyll in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). There are other space fantasy stories that blend these concepts well, but Star Wars is unique and the pure cultural impact it has with its fandom, the breadth and scope of this franchise's cultural saturation is mind-boggling; and new people are being introduced to fantasy through it, every day. Something this special doesn't happen every day this is something; that is worth our time and attention.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of Fantasy

“J.R.R Tolkien characterized fantasy as a literature of hope...” (Fowkes, K.A., 2010.)

Now, as heretical as I know it may be to say, the fantasy genre in film did exist prior to Tolkien and Peter Jackson’s renowned and faithful adaptation. But Tolkien's and Jackson’s credits come in that Tolkien codified the tropes of the genre that worked into a single text with his own spin The Lord of the Rings (1954) and then how Jackson elevated the notoriety of the book and the genre and brought even prestigious Academy acclaim with The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) winning him a Best Director Oscar and The Return of the King (2003) winning the highly coveted Best Picture Oscar in 2004. While much of the legacy of these works is in codifying the tropes that we identify with fantasy (elves, magic, wizards, quests) the works engaged with and changed the fantasy genre more through the tropes that were left behind.

Fantasy has long been termed as escapist literature stories wherein the reader can escape their worldly woes and fulfill desires; but, for a long time, the escapist ideal of fantasy was quite literal. A book (and adapted film) like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis C., 1865) and even in more contemporary fantasy with the film Coraline (Dir. Henry Selick, 2009), fantasies which featured a protagonist who literally escaped the real world and woke up in a fantasy world. With the end of this story usually culminating in their return to earth, a film like The Wizard of Oz (Dir. Victor Fleming, 1939) or even books like Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales had created stories about child characters (therefore appealing to children) who, though they may go to this wondrous world of color and whimsy, do in the end need to return to the real world and confront responsibilities. These worlds were whimsical and often designed not necessarily to make sense but to communicate a theme relevant to what the characters needed to learn for when they returned. These fantasy worlds weren't designed to be real and a trait of this unreality in these fantasy worlds was that time would pass differently, usually more slowly compared to the real-world, a way to signal that consequences would matter less because things didn't really happen; time isn't lost. It's more akin to a dream. The legacy can be seen even in Tolkien's contemporary, CS Lewis, who carried on this escapist model throughout The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56), telling stories about children who come to a land where time passes quickly but must eventually return and confront their issues back home; the characters come to Narnia to know “Christ” so that they may know him better in the real world; and the result of this is that the feel of these stories is remarkably fable-like, where the world itself exists dependently to support theme more than for its own sake. This was, and still is, a hallmark of the fantasy genre; this fable-like suspension of belief was seen as a childish thing as CS Lewis wrote in On Juvenile Tastes (from Of This and Other Worlds, 1966), “the specifically childish taste has been generally held to be that for the adventurous and the marvellous [where] educational and moral... motives may come in...” On the other hand, Tolkien chose to leave these tropes behind and instead fight for what he termed a “secondary world” into which both designer and spectator can enter to the satisfaction of their senses; thus, broadening the audience to make his work accessible to adults, as well.

Middle-Earth, it was a wholly invented world, and it was explored with a deftly evocative yet efficient approach by Jackson, showcasing the richness in culture, history and most importantly language. The language of the elves (Quenya) can be heard uttering in the opening of Fellowship of the Ring before transitioning to English, immediately bringing that aura of mysticism and depth of lore to the world about to be entered. Language, Lord of the Rings was made, rather, to provide a world for the languages than the reverse; all of this gave a depth to Middle-Earth that was stripped of the childish unreality of fantasy before. This deep world building meant that the world existed independently of theme, as if it existed before it was ever encountered. There's a greater sense of consequence and weight to things that happen there than in the whimsical fable fantasy worlds of before, simply because Middle-Earth makes sense; it feels real; it exists for its own sake. A greater sense of maturity was earned. People, who may have only seen The Lord of the Rings films once, may forget who was who, but what they do remember is Middle-Earth itself. It's got all the properties: the soul and the presence, the depth, the personal quirks and the feeling of an existence outside the books and films. Adults could engage with the text on a different level; there's a deep sense that there's so much more going on than what is being seen on screen. Fundamentally, it was the cinematic advent of deep world-building that found a new and wider audience for the genre, rather than change the genre itself, leaving behind several other tropes to help with this shift. The characters were no longer escaping their troubles, and, in fact, our heroes are nearly always thrown into the mires of narrative unwillingly and the clock is always ticking down to apocalypse. Main characters, like Aragorn, Frodo and Gollum aren't children; the timelessness that defined the fantasy worlds before was left behind. The world doesn't exist to hold up a theme and that brings with it an odd maturity. This fantasy story was expertly crafted and adapted to cater for and be accessible to adults, lending it such tremendous success commercially and culturally.

This was to the extent that people mimicked Jackson’s adaptation and exploration of fantasy filmmaking qualities with the tropes and idea of deep world building for “secondary worlds” being so influential that it turned one man's passion for linguistics into a cornerstone of the genre and a cultural and cinematic staple. The Lord of the Rings is a more interesting case study in how a genre’s form and what fantasy means as a genre. Fantasy is still escapism but it's not because people are refusing to engage with things that matter. The temptation powers of the One Ring explore how those already in power are more susceptible to corruption and succumbing to it while there is power in humility and a humble life. From the release of the movies, the fantasy genre’s perceived notion was altered in a way that changed what kind of escapism it was, an escapism for adults as well as children.

As expressed earlier and cited with Fowkes, it is this inherent hope within the fantasy genre which both films and franchises tapped into; an exultation of a more spiritually driven narrative displayed with such deftly handling and technical spectacular innovations, pushing source material and/or inspirations and, ultimately, the fantasy genre in all mediums of entertainment to a whole new level of attention, world-wide public appeal and, subsequently, spawning an enduring fandom of dedicated fantasy lovers. The hope and joy these films indulge celebrates the universal themes that fantasy so classically explores, now though with modern the modern medium of film producing works which have evolved from the classical myth which itself was an evolution of the supposed primal age of man where cave drawings and tales round the fire were his means of storytelling. In this way, the evolution of cinema has coincided with the popularity of fantasy as, in a way, it is the epitome of telling a campfire tale en masse. Both films signalled the evolution of fantasy: Star Wars with its technical and visual sensationalism and its unique blend of science fiction and fantasy; and The Lord of the Rings with its evolution of the genre itself and changing attitudes towards the Tolkein-esque. In all, it is the purity of hope within these stories which connects and bonds people around that proverbial fire, and gets us through the night.

Bibliography:

Fowkes, KA. (2010). The Fantasy Film. John Wiley & Sons. (p.6, 134-145)

Fry, S. (2017). Mythos. Penguin Books. (p. 395-410)

Gordon, A. (2018). Star Wars: A myth for our time. In Screening the Sacred. Routledge. (p. 73-82).

Lewis, C. (1865). Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis, C., 1865)

Lewis, CS. (1966). Of This and Other Worlds. Collins. (p. 55)

Punter and Byron (2004). Civilization and the Goths, Gothic in the Eighteenth Century, Gothic and Romance, Science, Industry and the Gothic, Victorian Gothic, Art and Architecture in The Gothic (p.1-38)

Stevenson, RL. (1886). The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Filmography:

Coraline (Dir. Henry Selick, 2009)

Star Wars (Dir. George Lucas, 1977)

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Dir. Irvin Kirshner, 1980)

Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi (Dir. Richard Marquand, 1983)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Dir. Peter Jackson, 2001)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Dir. Peter Jackson, 2002)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Dir. Peter Jackson, 2003)