by
Steve Lazarowitz
January 2002
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
The Fellowship of the Ring, first in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is arguably the most important fantasy movie event in history.
Forget the hype. Forget the Burger King tie in. Forget the toys and merchandising. Look instead at the bottom line. The first Lord of the Rings movie is breaking box office records across the nation. People, the ordinary movie-going public, are out there watching a well made fantasy movie and that can only be good news.
Few fantasy movies do well. Science Fiction flicks like Star Trek and Star Wars tend to pull in more money. Conan the Barbarian is one of my favorite swords and sorcery movies. I thought it was well done. I thought it was well written and well cast. While I was watching it, I felt like I was moving through a fantasy world. I felt the same way while watching Fellowship of the Ring.
The difference is that Conan was seen by a number of fantasy fans, but somehow never made it with the general public. I can name a fair number of solid swords and sorcery movies that didn't get the attention they deserve.
Lady Hawke, Dragonslayer, Labyrinth, Legend, Excalibur, First Knight and Beast Master are all good movies that never made an impression on the general public.
Lord of the Rings, however, seems to have struck a deeper cord. Perhaps it has something to do with the success of the Harry Potter books. Perhaps it was brilliantly promoted. Whatever the case, Hollywood producers will not likely look down their collective noses at a fantasy film again.
Lord the Rings by JRR Tolkien is a masterpiece. Perhaps the granddaddy of them all, LOTR is the most famous fantasy trilogy in the history of the genre. Yet it was never considered mainstream and few non-fantasy readers have read it. Perhaps, with the success of the movie that will change.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, what will come next? Will Hollywood be interested in turning The Sword of Shanara into the next big blockbuster? How about The Chronicles of Thomas Convenant the Unbeliever? Or the Wheel of Time series? There are so many great fantasy books out there just waiting to hit the big screen.
Lord of the Rings is more than just a huge fantasy motion picture event -- it's a milestone, upon which the future of the fantasy movie genre will be built.
The Fellowship of the Ring will do for fantasy, what Star Wars did for science fiction. And I, for one, can't wait to see it happen.
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