Yeah! My last class this week ended at 3:00 on Monday, so I decided to borrow the Lord of the Rings movies from my brother-in-law and throw a marathon! Instead of watching them all in one day (which would probably have been really disgusting), we watched one each night, Monday thru Wednesday.
It was way fun! It’s been so long since I’ve immersed myself in this epic fantasy world. So classic! I can see how so many different fantasy stories have spun off of the genius of this man. And the films–they’re different from the books, in some ways, but still AMAZINGLY good. Especially the battle scenes!
So after finishing Return of the King tonight, here are some of my thoughts:
I wonder if it’s a requirement of epic fantasy to have some dark evil overlord as the main antagonist? Is it possible to have a world where evil exists, but it can’t be nailed down to just one person? For some reason, I can’t think of a fantasy series whose villain isn’t entirely evil. What if nobody is entirely evil, but the fact that they just can’t get along is the evil? Sci fi tends to blur the lines a lot more like that–why not fantasy?
Regardless of that, every fantasy needs epic battle scenes. There were so many awesome battles in Lord of the Rings–Helm’s Deep, the fields of Pellenor, various battles for Osgiliath, the battle at the gates of Mordor, etc etc. It made me think back to the battles in Mistborn, or the battles in the Chronicles of Prydain, or even the Chronicles of Narnia. Heck, you can even trace it all the way back to the Iliad. Every good fantasy needs some epic battles–not just the fighting and all that, but the before and after: the rallying of the troops, the “we must save our homeland” and “save the women and children,” and afterwards the mourning for the dead, various rites of burial, etc.
Man, all this Lord of the Rings goodness is making me want to write a fantasy story! That will probably wait until after November of next year, but I can start dreaming it up and figuring it out right now.
