Favorite 80s Fantasy Film

Which is your favorite of these four classic fairy tale/fantasy films?

 

Legend. Ridley Scott can put on good looking a show.

 

out of the 4 listed...
DC...
BUT, I like them all and own them all on home video.

 

Own them all on DVD, but I've always had a soft spot for The Dark Crystal.

 

Neverending Story.

The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth I have to be in the mood for.

 

aw, no princess bride?

 

Man, they're all haaaaarible. At least nobody brought up Howard the Duck. Dragonslayer wasn't terrible, but I'd call Time Bandits my favorite fantasy film of that period.

For decades, I used to say, "nobody will ever make a good modern fantasy film, because nobody will spend the money to do it right." In particular, I'd insist that it was impossible to ever make Lord of the Rings. Damned if Peter Jackson didn't prove me wrong -- and he did a terrific job on those movies. (Not so much with The Hobbit.)

Neverending Story is a movie with a plot that sounds like it was dreamed up while under the influence of about two fifths of 200-proof vodka, a pound of hash, and several large bottles of cough syrup. It's an incomprehensible, bizarre movie... but it has some moments. Horrible, horrible visual effects, though. The two lead kids did good work.

 

I figured that's in it's own class, so I left it out.

 

...have you read the novel? the author, Michael Ende, sued Warner partway through production largely because he felt the film's plot was overly simplistic compared to his work.

it's an incredible book.

 

Excalibur

 

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I think The Hobbit trilogy is much, much better than some/many give it credit for; people have to understand that Jackson was put in a very difficult position... after working with Guillermo del Toro for 18 months on those films, del Toro upped and left, and Jackson was faced with trashing millions of dollars of work and many people's livelihoods on the line or picking up the reins himself (something he was initially reluctant to do, and for good reason), he chose the latter out of obligation rather than out of passion, and if that wasn't enough, he had a set-in-stone release date he couldn't budge or delay any further, meaning he had to start pre-production again from nearly scratch, with less than six months to get the scripts in some kind of order, to design, cast, and create a whole new fantasy world from the ground up.

Under those difficult circumstances, he did a truly exemplary job. Are The Hobbit films as good as The Lord of the Rings films? Not nearly, but the former story does not have the emotional weight and heft of the latter story to begin with, they are very good films in their own right, imperfect as they are, but a rollicking good time overall made with real heart.

 

Absolutely love all 4... voted for Labyrinth. My legit favorite movie from the time I was a kid until the time I was allowed to watch the Godfather.

Going back and watching them all as an adult has made me realize why my generation is so messed up! Some very odd themes and mature concepts for children movies.

 

You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?

 

No, the truth is more complicated. MGM owned part of the rights to The Hobbit but were in the process of going through bankruptcy, which delayed their being able to finance the film for more than 18 months. Del Toro left because he didn't want to sit around for another couple of years not making a movie. It wasn't something he did in a fit of pique; he did it because he was frustrated that MGM was mired in legal problems. And Jackson actually did explore other options.

http://www.ew.com/article/2010/05/31/guillermo-del-toro-leaves-the-hobbit

My own problems with The Hobbit are mainly in that it should've been just one 3-hour movie, and not three 2.5-hour movies. I also think there's a lot of wretched excess in the films, just beating the audience over the head with the battle scenes. I feel like the whole thing was a cash-grab to make another $500 million (which it did). And I also think the look of the film is very fake and plasticky because of the vast amount of green screen work they did, some of which doesn't look too good.

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-real-reason-mgm-needs-the-hobbit-split-into-3-movies-2012-8

But it goes back to what I said before: fantasy is hard to do in film. I think there's a delicate balance involved where you have to fool the audience into believing that the impossible is possible, and still fulfill all the normal parts of good drama and good characters. I think The Hobbit films were way out of control and went way too far. I have similar problems with Jackson's version of King Kong, which is another great fantasy story done several times in Hollywood, but never really done better than it was in 1933.

 

I know all of that, none of that contradicts what I wrote... and I never stated nor implied that del Toro left in a fit of pique, I know why he left. As for Jackson exploring other options, he did at first, but relatively soon after, rumours started again about him directing... and so it was.

I'm sorry but you couldn't do The Hobbit onscreen in a proper way in only three hours, at least not in the way Jackson wanted to tell it; the Rankin-Bass 1977 cartoon was overtly a children's cartoon, but you couldn't take that same approach in a major motion picture franchise. Two films would have been ideal, but it was not the studio's idea to turn it into a trilogy, it was Peter Jackson's; he was very explicit that when they saw a rough cut of the first film and most of the second, they realized the amount of footage they had shot in addition to the footage they wanted to but had yet to shoot, in addition to the fact that they weren't happy with how the story was playing out as a duology all led them to go back and restructure the narrative. It was they who went to Warner Bros and said they would like to make a third film, the studio was wary at first, but came on board in the end.

I feel a little silly telling you this because you work in the industry and all of the above is common knowledge, out there in interviews.

 

Yet the consensus is that the Hobbit Trilogy is bloated, overlong, with made up stuff in it that should've been left on the cutting room floor...well, these days, in the Recycle Bin with a click on Empty with extreme prejudice.

Jackson does Tolkien best when he sticks to Tolkien...imho, of course.

 

I totally agree with the latter part, there is stuff in those films that make you wonder why Jackson/Walsh/Boyens felt the need to change it, but they usually address those changes in the audio commentaries (which I don't listen to as a rule). The Hobbit trilogy is a bit bloated, I'm not denying that, but Jackson was trying to do what Tolkien himself wanted to do; tie the events of The Hobbit more closely in tone and content to the events of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien began a wholesale revision of the former book with that intent in mind, getting through three chapters before abandoning the idea because he was advised that "it wasn't The Hobbit anymore" and he was changing what made the novel so endearing to begin with. Jackson had the resources to do what Tolkien didn't, the results may have been flawed but I totally understand what he was aiming for... whether or not one feels it was the right approach.

 

To the OPs question.

Legend - cuz I love the deliciously evil Tim Curry and the dialogue he was given.

 

It's a question of interpretation and communication. If you're superficial in your messages, you might wind up not mentioning the important points that are the keys to story. I'm not the only person who thought that The Hobbit films were bloated and overly long...

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies-20141217

http://arstechnica.com/the-multiver...-a-soulless-end-to-the-flawed-hobbit-trilogy/

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/05/viggo-mortensen-slams-peter-jackson-hobbit

http://nypost.com/2013/12/11/tolkiens-dragon-is-draggin-in-new-hobbit/

There are more examples. Do a Google search on "Hobbit" and "Bloated" and you'll find them.

 

I am actually partial to Ladyhawke, Alan Parsons soundtrack and all.

 

Both Clash of the Titans and The Beastmaster belong on this list. I found them more enjoyable than anything previously mentioned.

 

I cannot pick, they are all pretty good.

 

Labyrinth by default. Only because of the Jennifer Connelly factor.