Fantasy is no longer the playground of loners, gamers, nerds, and geeks. It has become mainstream. An escape from the real world to a realm of claws and fangs and magic, it is where dragons rule the skies, and elves, the forests below. Where vampires stalk their prey, witches brew potions, and werewolves howl at the moon.
“In human art, fantasy is a thing best left to words, to true literature,” wrote The Lord of The Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien in his essay On Fairy Stories. He was wrong.
Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney have invested millions of dollars in the battle for OTT dominance, and in doing so, have brought magic to life on our screens. They’ve rebooted popular franchises to teleport neophytes and fans to the familiar and the fantastic. From The Sandman to Wednesday, 2022 did not disappoint.
Sweet Dreams
Netflix tapped into Neil Gaiman’s brilliant body of work to bring his bestselling DC Comics series The Sandman to life. It took more than 30 years since the first issue was published in the 1980s, but the series—produced by DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television Studios—was well worth the wait.
Advanced Computer-generated imagery (CGI) and Gaiman’s refusal to cater to the lowest common denominator ensured that the TV recreation of The Sandman was nothing short of brooding magnificence.
A petulant but powerful Lord Morpheus, or Dream of the Endless, played by Tom Sturridge, frees himself from a magus’ prison. He restores his kingdom while toying with the humans who dared to trap him. His sister, Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), is kinder and more empathetic to human foibles and frailty. The series “drew 69.5 million hours viewed in its first three days of release,” according to a report in Deadline.
Gwendoline Christie’s Lucifer Morningstar cut an almost sympathetic figure closer to John Milton’s Lucifer in Paradise Lost. But the devil is sly and cannot be trusted. The duel between Dream and Lucifer pushed the boundaries of fantasy and imagination.
Purists will revel in The Sadman, but it may not be easy viewing for those new to Gaiman’s world. There are no explainers, no shortcuts. But stick with it, it’s a roller-coaster ride into the darkest depths of the human mind.
Also read: If Tolkien’s work is the Bible, then Amazon Prime’s ‘Rings of Power’ is a…
Rings of disaster
If The Sandman was the underdog, then Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power had everything going for it. Production for the eight-episode season reportedly cost over $460 million, which averages out to more than $55 million per episode.
A prequel to Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings trilogy, it is the most expensive television series to be made so far. It attracted 25 million viewers worldwide in the first 24 hours of its release.
But the hype, CGI, and even the earnest but inconsistent acting could not make up for a weak plot and poor characterisation. At best, it remains glorified fan fiction. The less said the better.
Here’s hoping that Season 2 will do justice to the rich world that Tolkien created.
Politics of dragons
House of the Dragon on Disney+ Hotstar had a ready fanbase—the millions of viewers who devoured the violence and politics in HBO’s Game of Thrones.
But unlike GoT, House of the Dragon came with a whole new cast, which—barring Rhaenyra Targaryen’s children—all have uncannily similar white-blonde hair. Set 197 years before the first season of GoT, it’s limited geographically. But the series is a slow burn that gets better with every episode. More than magic, it’s the political game of chess that’s riveting.
House of the Dragon is more nuanced than Rings of Power, but it isn’t as compelling as GoT, at least not yet. There is no Stark equivalent to root for, and instead, we watch a bunch of privileged psychopaths fight for the iron throne.
Everything ties together in the final episode, which sets the tone for a promising and equally violent Season 2.
Wednesday
Good fantasy should test the barriers of our imagination. It should create worlds far removed from any reality we can dream of. But sometimes, it can turn to familiar and tried-and-tested worlds without compromising on the fantastic. And Wednesday, Tim Burton’s witty Addams Family spin-off on Netflix, achieves that with aplomb.
It is set in a boarding school, a comfortable setting for storytellers: Enid Blyton made boarding schools popular and then J. K. Rowling added magic to the setting with Harry Potter. Wednesday‘s boarding school, though, is for werewolves, sirens, shapeshifters, and all the outcasts that don’t conform to boring, ‘real-world’ standards set by muggles.
Jenna Ortega, who plays Wednesday, nails teenage angst and rebellion, chafing against the ties of her family, especially her mother Morticia. She navigates the minefield of friendships and teenage crushes ruthlessly in the backdrop of a strange and dark boarding school. Special shout-out to principal Larissa Weems, played by Gwendoline Christie, whose eerie but genteel performance adds another layer to the storytelling.
Fantasy allows for the epic clash between good and evil. In a good fairytale, there is, as Tolkien writes, both beauty and peril, and “sorrow and joy as sharp as swords”.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)