Epic Fantasy Archives - Page 17 Of 24

October 5, 2021October 5, 2021

“House Of The Dragon” 1st Look Features No Dragons, Oddly

You know what they say about Game Of Thrones spin-offs, don’t you? Every time a new one gets announced, the gods toss a coin in the air, and the world holds its breath to see how it will land. Some have filmed entire pilot episodes before being abruptly canceled, some haven’t made it nearly that far, but so far prequel series House Of The Dragon is the only one that we can be (relatively) certain will actually hit HBO sometime next year.

As for whether it will be any good, the other big question that must necessarily be asked of any Game Of Thrones property following the long-running original series’ disastrous final season, that’s much more unclear. The first photos from House Of The Dragon weren’t particularly revealing, but failed to inspire much confidence in the series’ costume, hair, and makeup departments. Today, HBO unveiled a brief teaser trailer that still features its fair share of awkward wigs and lackluster outfits, but at least promises more of the political intrigue and intricate royal court drama that made Game Of Thrones such a phenomenon in the first place…before the writers ran out of George R.R. Martin books to adapt, and abandoned realism for bland high fantasy.

Fortunately for everyone involved, the source material for House Of The Dragon is a finished work, one that doesn’t require the writers to clumsily invent their own ending for the series from scratch. Based on Martin’s book Fire & Blood, House Of The Dragon tells the story of the war that tore the Targaryen family apart from the inside roughly two-hundred years before the events of Game Of Thrones. But while a lot changes in that time, even more stays the same: because just like Game Of Thrones, House Of The Dragon features deeply flawed and morally-conflicted characters fighting for power – only this time, basically everybody has a dragon.

Now, I’ve never read Fire & Blood, but I am a history buff, so it didn’t take me long before I started really vibing with the source material as I researched the history of the Targaryen family, the lead-up to the Dance of the Dragons, and the central power-struggle between Rhaenyra Targaryen, Daemon Targaryen, Alicent Hightower, and Aegon Targaryen II. It’s all really good stuff, and House Of The Dragon is going to have multiple seasons to give this story and these characters the justice they deserve. Based on this trailer, season one is very much going to be a “prelude to war”, fleshing out all of the characters and their relationships before pitting them against each other.

The teaser trailer provides very quick glimpses of important characters and events, accompanied by some (in my opinion, rather poorly-edited) narration from Matt Smith’s Daemon Targaryen, the younger brother of Westeros’ current Targaryen king, Viserys I. With Viserys nearing the end of his life, the question of who will succeed him weighs heavily on the minds of everyone at court, particularly Viserys’ adult daughter Princess Rhaenyra, and Rhaenyra’s stepmother Queen Alicent Hightower. Two political factions emerge, one recognizing the legitimacy of Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne and the other seeing Alicent’s young son with Viserys, Aegon II, as the better (i.e. male) option.

My hope is that these characters will all have clear and well-defined motivations for wanting the Iron Throne, but I do worry that House Of The Dragon will try too hard to justify Daenerys Targaryen’s “mad queen” turn in the final season of Game Of Thrones by retroactively doubling down on the idea that latent sociopathy runs in the Targaryen bloodline and can pop up whenever the writers need to cut a character’s arc abruptly short – a lazy excuse for a horribly-executed plot twist that I’d rather see retconned entirely than expanded upon; especially since House Of The Dragon is focused on another ambitious woman soon to be vilified for her actions.

House Of The Dragon is very clearly trying to establish visual and thematic parallels between the stories of Daenerys and Rhaenyra – the latter’s slow yet confident march toward the Iron Throne echoes Daenerys’ climb to that accursed chair in dream sequences and at the very end of her life in Game Of Thrones, and even their appearances are strikingly similar. I can only hope for Rhaenyra’s sake that her writers don’t fail her the same way that Benioff and Weiss failed Daenerys and her legions of fans, and in so doing tainted the Iron Throne to the point where even seeing it onscreen again brings back feelings of disappointment and regret.

House Of The Dragon will at least feature a relatively more diverse main cast than Game Of Thrones, which relegated most of its characters of color to the outskirts of the story. Most of the characters from House Valeryon, including Corlys Valeryon and his children Laenor and Laena, will be portrayed by Black actors, and the fascinating Mysaria, Rhaenyra and Daemon’s Mistress of Whisperers, will be played by Japanese actress Sonoya Mizuno. All of these characters have integral roles in the Targaryen civil war, and I can’t wait to see more of them.

And, of course, there will be plenty of dragons for everyone wondering…although they’re absent from this teaser trailer, which I think is a mistake. I understand that House Of The Dragon is still in post-production, so HBO probably doesn’t have any good dragon footage ready to go just yet, but in that case they should have just waited until they did. The show has dragons in the title, Matt Smith’s narration and HBO’s new tagline for the show both use the quote “Dreams didn’t make us kings…dragons did”, and the trailer itself has no dragons. It’s very disappointing in that regard, particularly seeing as dragons are a really big part of the Dance of the Dragons storyline…as you’d expect from, you know, the name.

But now we wait…for a specific release date to be announced, for HBO to show us some dragons already, for the coin to finally land and decide whether House Of The Dragon can reclaim the throne that Game Of Thrones itself willfully abdicated in its final season, or whether it will all come tumbling down, like the easily-avoidable pile of bricks that ultimately killed Cersei and Jaime Lannister because dying ignominiously in the penultimate episode was better than surviving into that dumpster-fire of a series finale.

Trailer Rating: 8/10

September 19, 2021

“The Lord Of The Rings” Enlists Howard Shore To Craft A New Musical Identity For Middle-earth

Twenty years ago, as J.R.R. Tolkien book purists waged an online war with folks excited for Peter Jackson’s then-upcoming adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings, who would have guessed that someday Jackson’s movies would have purists of their own? Sadly, with the recent revamp of Tolkien fan-forums like TheOneRing.com, it’s rather difficult these days to find exact discussions and posts from, say, September 19th, 2001, but I can assure you that the arguments on those fan-forums back then played out much like the arguments happening nowadays over the contents of Amazon’s new series.

But the tables have turned. Amazon hasn’t done much marketing for The Lord Of The Rings just yet, but what little they have done has been designed to appeal to fans of Tolkien’s books…specifically his lesser-known, posthumously-published books. That screenshot they posted last month had all of Silmarillion twitter freaking out and urgently debating the light-source in the image (long story). But I can imagine it left some hardcore fans of Peter Jackson’s movies who haven’t necessarily read The Lord Of The Rings, much less The Silmarillion, a little confused or even underwhelmed.

I definitely don’t think Amazon helped remedy this problem by announcing that The Lord Of The Rings would be moving production on season two to the United Kingdom shortly thereafter. For fans of Peter Jackson’s movies (specifically fans who haven’t read the books, but also kind of everyone), that was another blow. New Zealand and Middle-earth have become intertwined in the public consciousness to the point where they’re nearly synonymous, for better or worse. Fans introduced to Tolkien’s vibrant fantasy world through the movies were disappointed, and it’s understandable why, even though there are upsides to filming in the UK (one being that it was Tolkien’s home-country).

All of that brings us to today’s news, which fell upon my ears like the echo of all the joys I’d ever known (bonus points if you know which chapter of The Lord Of The Rings I’m paraphrasing there). Howard Shore, the composer for both of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth trilogies, is in talks to return to the world he helped define through his phenomenal music. It hasn’t been finalized just yet, according to Deadline, but the odds seem pretty good that Shore will get to craft new soundscapes, themes, and iconic leitmotifs for the Second Age of Middle-earth.

It’s the kind of news that makes everyone happy, or at least nearly everyone. Howard Shore is a genius, and his Oscar-winning score for The Lord Of The Rings is widely regarded as one of the greatest in film history. If he boards Amazon’s series, we can be certain that the kingdoms of Númenor, Lindon, Eregion, and Khazad-dûm at its height will each have their own rich and distinctive sound, and that Shore will choose from among the most unique vocal talents of our time to back up his work with original songs (I’m just gonna namedrop Tolkien-inspired singer/songwriter Oonagh here and hope that someone at Amazon reads my blog-posts).

But best of all (at least from a business perspective), this news makes fans of Peter Jackson’s movies happy. And getting them onboard with the series is going to be crucial for Amazon if they want to have a hit. I’m not advocating for Howard Shore to simply copy-and-paste his Fellowship and Shire themes into the soundtrack for Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings (although I’d love to hear echoes of those and other themes at appropriate moments), but I think Peter Jackson fans want a sense of continuity between the movies and the series, and this is a great way to achieve that.

And what’s even more interesting about all of this is that according to Fellowship Of Fans, Howard Shore will be joined on the series by another great composer – Bear McCreary. McCreary’s name might be less well-known to some folks, but the Emmy Award and BAFTA Award winning composer has established his own very unique style over the past decade or so, working across several different mediums and genres, on TV shows like Black Sails, Outlander, The Walking Dead, and my own personal favorite, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., dozens of films including the Cloverfield sci-fi/horror franchise, and the two most recent God Of War video games inspired by Norse mythology.

Assuming that all of this comes to pass, I foresee a lot of Emmy Awards in Howard Shore and Bear McCreary’s futures, and I can’t wait to hear some of their work soon. Who knows? Maybe…just maybe…a first trailer or teaser is already being edited together, and Amazon wants Shore’s music to really sell it for general audiences. I know that would sell it for me.

What do you think? Which composer’s work are you most excited to hear in The Lord Of The Rings? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

August 23, 2021

“Nightmare Of The Wolf” Is A Dazzling 1st Witcher Spin-Off

With The Witcher franchise expanding exponentially across Netflix, I’m happy to report that the live-action series’ first spin-off is a resounding success. And as much as we all love Geralt of Rivia, the thrilling anime Nightmare Of The Wolf is sure to have fans baying for more adventures with Vesemir (voiced by Theo James), the charismatic monster-hunter who predates Geralt by almost a century – so it’s a good thing that season two of The Witcher, premiering later this year, will reunite audiences with Vesemir: albeit an older and wiser version of the character, portrayed in live-action by Kim Bodnia.

Or…well, it’s partly a good thing. Nightmare Of The Wolf is at its best when it’s doing its own thing and not trying too hard to connect back to the live-action series. Some crossover is inevitable because so many of the characters in this franchise are immortal, but Nightmare Of The Wolf tells such an interesting story, and with so many fascinating and complex characters, that at several points I totally forgot that it was a spin-off. The film stumbles a little in its final minutes when it starts feeling less like a stand-alone feature, and more like an extended prologue for The Witcher season two. I half-expected the words “Vesemir Will Return” to show up before the credits rolled.

But I do believe you could jump into Nightmare Of The Wolf without having watched The Witcher, and it would give you just enough worldbuilding to work with before starting the live-action series. Right up until those final minutes, the film is a wildly fun ride around The Continent that delivers on character development, action, and the kind of fantasy spectacle for which animation (and in this case, the high-quality anime of South Korea’s Studio Mir) is perfectly suited. Animation is simply capable of things that live-action isn’t, at least not on a limited CGI budget.

Take magic, for example. When The Witcher uses magic, it’s generally of the non-flashy variety – lots of wind-gusts, and conveniently invisible energy blasts and stuff. And it works, for the most part, in the grounded environment of the live-action series. But Nightmare Of The Wolf is straight-up fantasy, and the sky’s the limit when it comes to how much magic can be used, or how epic and visually stunning it can be. The anime shows off Witchers at the height of their ability, wielding magical spells and runes in battles with monsters who are capable of many of the same tricks, and mages who defy the very laws of physics. The third-act battle involving all three is a real treat.

And while The Witcher got a lot of criticism for not featuring all that many monsters in a show about monster-hunters, that’s not a complaint that can be had of Nightmare Of The Wolf. This film is chock-full of more demons, ghouls, werewolves, wraiths, and other beasts and creepy-crawlies in just an hour and a half than the live-action series could probably have afforded across eight episodes. Mind you, season two of The Witcher appears to have a great many monsters of its own, including a leshy like the one that Vesemir fights in the first few minutes of this film, so there’s no need to look down on the live-action series.

But of course, the real heart of this story is the human drama at play – because what are humans if not the worst monsters of them all, and the ones that Witchers are duty-bound to protect? That philosophical dilemma has always been the most interesting thing thematically about The Witcher franchise, but Nightmare Of The Wolf approaches the subject with more determination than the live-action series. At the time this prequel film takes place, Witchers and humans still interact regularly – and we can see the first rifts in that once-symbiotic relationship that by Geralt’s time have widened into a chasm of prejudice and distrust.

But while that’s all very interesting stuff, I feel that even Nightmare Of The Wolf cheats a little by retconning a pivotal moment in Vesemir’s backstory – the attack on the Witcher citadel of Kaer Morhen by an angry mob – to include monsters and mages. Perhaps it was meant to highlight the similarities between humans and monsters (and the ease with which they’ll side with their own enemies to gang up on somebody else), but it does draw the focus away from the conversation about humankind’s own capacity for monstrous acts of violence and hate.

On the flip-side, Nightmare Of The Wolf features one of the franchise’s most prominent human characters who is just that – all flesh and blood; no hidden superpowers. Her name is Lady Zerbst (voiced by Mary McDonnell), and she manages to steal the spotlight away from Vesemir in every one of her scenes. The spirit of kindness and generosity that’s motivated her for her entire life is like a breath of fresh air in the grimdark world of the Witchers where most people are driven by their worst instincts. She also has a really lovely romance, which is kind of a spoiler so I won’t give away anything except to say that it’s adorable.

Moving on from that, this film is built on plot twists. Installing powerful mages in every royal court across The Continent was always a great opportunity for political intrigue, and Nightmare Of The Wolf realizes some of that potential here, with an intricate tale of conspiracy and subterfuge. I can’t talk about any of that, however, so instead let’s discuss something that was revealed in the trailers: the return of Filavandrel (with Tom Canton reprising the role). The Elven king plays a larger role here than he did in The Witcher, and we get a new perspective on him and his motives that humanizes the enigmatic character a bit, but not so much that he loses any of his mystique.

And although this next point is technically a spoiler, it’s also so depressingly predictable that I felt I had to bring it up, because…seriously? The Witcher doesn’t have very many LGBTQ+ characters to begin with (and Ciri’s bisexuality has yet to be mentioned in the live-action series), so to introduce a cool new character, give them a few lines of dialogue confirming them as a queer Witcher (and if I’m not mistaken, the only queer male Witcher in the franchise), and then kill them off without even so much as a noble death in battle? That’s both cringeworthy and frustrating. We wanted bisexual Vesemir, Netflix; not a Bury Your Gays trope!

Things like that do hinder my enjoyment of Nightmare Of The Wolf, but the film is very well-made and serves as a great introduction to a character I think audiences will want to see much more of going forward. There’s plenty more story to tell through Vesemir’s eyes, and with The Witcher franchise already growing across multiple spin-offs, another anime film or miniseries couldn’t hurt, right? It’s so nice to meet a Witcher who actually…talks, and is emotionally honest, I’m not sure I’m ready to give him up just yet, or even trade him in for the broodier older version we’ll meet in live-action come December.

Rating: 8/10

August 13, 2021

“The Lord Of The Rings” Is Coming Home In 2022

If nothing else, Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings has already done a great deal to expose the power and influence that Peter Jackson still wields, not so much over Tolkien fandom as a whole – although his mark is certainly felt there, and his The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is understandably an entry point for many fans – but over the general public’s view of the franchise. Imagery that originated in his trilogy has become indelibly associated with the story over the past twenty years, and some hardcore fans of his films display the kind of surprisingly strong and aggressive loyalty to Jackson that makes any attempt to supplant that iconic imagery…difficult, to say the least.

Now, Jackson’s films are each cinematic masterpieces in their own right (I am of course deliberately ignoring The Hobbit trilogy), so it’s not totally surprising that they’ve still got legions of diehard supporters. I myself am a massive fan, and if you don’t believe I’ve got a few “10 out of 10” movie reviews for the trilogy on my blog that should dispel any doubt. They are my favorite movies. But that doesn’t make them perfect, and I’ve always been open to the idea of seeing something new and unique from Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings – especially since their show isn’t a remake of Jackson’s trilogy, something that a lot of people still don’t know and which complicates the discourse around it exponentially.

But one of many things that Jackson got right was his use of nature in the trilogy as more than just a setting, but as a main character in the story.

A deep-seated respect and admiration for nature is integral to all of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings, and therefore to any adaptation of said writings. And by choosing to shoot almost the entirety of The Lord Of The Rings in his home country of New Zealand, Peter Jackson imbued the films with a love of nature that was not only important to the story on a thematic level, but important to him on a personal level. He utilized stunningly beautiful landscapes around the North and South Island that at that time were mostly brand new to global audiences, thereby ensuring that, for many people, Middle-earth and The Lord Of The Rings are the only exposure they have to New Zealand.

And over the past two decades, New Zealand has slowly taken on the very identity of Middle-earth, to the detriment of its own Māori culture and history, and to a point where there’s legitimate cause for concern over how much the country relies on its tourism industry, which in turn relies on The Lord Of The Rings and other big movie franchises, which in turn leads to things like the infamous “Hobbit Law” – passed in 2010 as a little incentive for Warner Brothers to make its Hobbit trilogy in New Zealand – that prevents workers in New Zealand’s film industry from unionizing. The Hobbit Law has been subtly revised several times, but not repealed, and the dispute it caused even led to a feud between Jackson and The Lord Of The Rings actress Robyn Malcolm.

But while that’s the kind of thing you might think would entice Amazon to stick around (and that’s the very reason for the Law’s conception), neither the reprehensible Hobbit Law nor New Zealand’s location incentive program (which, if I’m reading the reports accurately, would have made Amazon eligible for an “uplift” of roughly $23.1 million dollars, if not more down the line), could ultimately keep the studio in the country. Amazon announced last night that the second season of The Lord Of The Rings will move production to the United Kingdom, marking the first time in the franchise’s history that it will be filmed entirely in the nation of its origin.

The reaction has been divided, nowhere more so than in New Zealand itself, where Amazon’s decision will have far-ranging economic and political effects. It doesn’t help that Amazon gave very little indication of why they made the move, although it’s worth noting that many of their upcoming series’ are being produced in the UK anyway, so it may just be a matter of practicality – especially since The Lord Of The Rings is also hiring quite a lot of British actors who had been stuck in New Zealand for several months during the country’s lockdown. With the nation only just signaling its intentions to reopen its borders beginning early next year, it may be simpler for Amazon to work in a slightly less restrictive nation for the time being…although filming in New Zealand certainly came with the benefit of not having to shut down production because of COVID-19 cases every thirty minutes, which is not a guarantee in the UK.

Another benefit that came with New Zealand were its stunning landscapes and vistas, which have become visually synonymous with the fantastical realms of Middle-earth: from the hilly patch of farmland in Matamata that quite literally is the village of Hobbiton, to the slopes of Mount Ngauruhoe where the Mount Doom sequences were filmed, to the forests around Paradise that served as home to the Elves of Lórien. As has often been noted, the diversity of environments in New Zealand gave Peter Jackson’s films the look and feel of being a globe-trotting adventure, but the fact that so many of his iconic filming locations are accessible in a single vacation made them excellent for tourists trying to escape into their favorite fantasy world.

The UK may not be blessed with nearly as many mountain ranges as New Zealand, but it still boasts a number of beautiful forests, coastlines, and craggy landscapes – particularly in Scotland where, what do you know, Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings was originally going to be filmed. As long as they continue to film on location in the UK, rather than assembling their landscapes in post-production using CGI to replicate the real deal, I don’t necessarily see an issue with this change. Maintaining visual continuity with season one is gonna be a hassle, but at this point Amazon has been filming for so long in New Zealand that they may be able to stitch reused footage into English or Scottish countrysides seamlessly. Maybe that’s what that fake production crew was actually doing this whole time…

I think one reason this decision has been met with such backlash is because it seems to confirm what’s becoming increasingly clear – that Amazon intends to cut ties with Jackson’s continuity, perhaps for good. I mean, we don’t know that for sure. They may end up returning to New Zealand for some reason. But this definitely suggests that Amazon’s The Lord Of The Rings is going to establish its own visual style and aesthetic moving forward, and I can understand why that would make some fans upset. I know I’ll be extremely angry if the rich and unique landscapes of New Zealand are swapped out for lifeless greenscreens. We saw what that looked like in The Hobbit, and it was a travesty.

But hey! Maybe we’ll see some of the locations that inspired Tolkien himself in The Lord Of The Rings. That would be pretty darn awesome, and feels like too good an opportunity for Amazon to miss. I’m gonna miss New Zealand, I’ll be honest, but I’m hoping that, in this case, change doesn’t necessarily mean a change for the worse. We’ll have to wait and see.

If you live in New Zealand, I’d be especially interested to learn more about how this move affects the country, and if you live in the UK, I’d love to hear what locations you think would make great settings for The Lord Of The Rings! Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!