For most of cinema history, the fantasy genre has been marginalized, often existing only in children’s films and the animated works of Walt Disney. The Wizard of Oz was a groundbreaker, but it didn’t open the doors one would think. Because as in literature, fantasy was deemed an unserious genre -even a gargantuan figure like Tolkien was rarely uttered in the same breath as revered geniuses like Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, James Joyce, or Virginia Woolf. Even among the populists of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, or Truman Capote, no fantasy writer would be found -certainly not one who wrote of wholly fictional worlds and races, active magic and mystical battles. For the film industry the genre might have been deemed far too niche and far too expensive to produce to be worth the stigma. In Hollywood certainly, but also in most other national film industries, fantasy never managed to get a foothold really -until 2001 when The Lord of the Rings trilogy broke through and became a sensation.
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Since Lord of the Rings, fantasy in film (and TV) has been on an upswing -more common, recognized as more lucrative, and more seriously considered and acclaimed where appropriate. Lord of the Rings will go down as a cultural watershed for several reasons, but one of the more consequential is what it did to popularizing this genre. But there was not a total void between it and The Wizard of Oz, much as film history breakdowns might reduce it to. With the advent of movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars -special effects blockbusters that changed science-fiction on film forever- other kinds of genre fiction, namely horror and fantasy, suddenly seemed approachable. And the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons beginning in the 1970s indicated their might be a market for fantasy films after all.
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And thus came an oft-forgotten era between the Disney fairy tale classics and the post-Lord of the Rings phenomenon of standalone fantasy movies coloured by imagination and ambition but never so successful or celebrated as their sci-fi and horror blockbuster peers. A genre that was still largely depreciated, seen as novelty without its own Star Wars yet to lend legitimacy. A pack of strange and clumsy films, but curious too, made in that wild environment of dubious swings (and also awesome poster artwork) that was the 1980s. Movies like Dragonslayer (1981), The Dark Crystal (1982), Ladyhawke (1985), and Legend (1985), more popular children’s fare like The Last Unicorn (1981), The NeverEnding Story (1984), and Willow (1988) -perhaps even sword and sorcery epics like The Sword and the Sorcerer and Conan the Barbarian (both 1982); and somewhere I will insist that Krull (1983) also fits in. A variety of movies, very different in subject and scope, and yet they feel fairly classed together as much by their patterns in aesthetics and effects as by their overarching genre; artistic choices often directly at odds with what is expected of fantasy film today.
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They are unique specimens that fascinate me as a fan of the genre -each with their own take on fantasy concepts, worlds, and creatures -when not wholesale inventing them out of cloth. Their productions are very compelling too, often a mix of location shooting in some ancient-seeming locale, and richly designed artificial environments. The style of Brian Froud, who designed both the creatures and sets of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth (1986) looms large in my perception of 80s fantasy -even on films he had nothing to do with like The NeverEnding Story and Legend. It's that mix of otherworldly imagination with rootsy folktale imagery that also evokes naturally the work of Tolkien in its esoteric, arguably purer form before Peter Jackson's impressions superceded it. The art of Ted Nasmith and Inger Edelfeldt or even that Rankin/Bass Hobbit film linger a touch on the margins of Dragonslayer and Legend -and certainly The Last Unicorn, made by the same animation team.
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Most of all though I think what is appealing about these movies is their texture -and the tangibility of just about everything in their worlds -which isn’t always the case in later fantasy movies (even Lord of the Rings). Look at Dragonslayer, Matthew Robbins’s high-fantasy take on the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence from Fantasia, with its castles and wizard rooms filled to the brim with artifacts hinting at a denser mythology that is implied but mercifully not extrapolated. Props like the staff and amulet don’t look like mere props, costumes denote a vague medieval setting that is worn and lived-in -on that point so too do the customs and culture, not merely in the tradition of virgin sacrifices to a dragon, but things like the informed scene of musical revelry after the tomb has been sealed. And the dragon of course, though obviously an elaborate animatronic (and in some places a stop-motion puppet), feels vivid and threatening as a genuine element of the scene -much more so I’ll say than Smaug in The Hobbit; that is apart from the climax where the limited early 80s green-screen effects have aged horribly.
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That isn’t ever the case for The Dark Crystal though, which also feels innately real despite having no human presence on-screen to connect to. Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s ambitious all-puppet hero’s journey has ironically virtually no artifice to it. Because everything we see, beyond some necessary special magic effects, is hand-crafted and manipulated, the world of Thra comes to life in a way that many human worlds in movies do not. It’s not just that each creature design is highly specific and distinct, but they exist in relationship to their environment entirely organically. And the movie is very mesmerizing for this, even when the storytelling itself falls short. This was a very particular aspect too of the movie’s creation. The Dark Crystal was an incredibly ambitious project that at one time was conceived without even any accessible dialogue (it was going to be all invented alien languages with subtitles). It was to be the next big step in Jim Henson’s evolution of the art of puppetry in cinema -a Snow White or Toy Story level achievement. As such realizing the world was critical, and it’s a wonderful thing that Henson and Oz were given the resources to actualize that, even if the reception to the movie wasn’t to be what they wanted.
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But the exquisite richness of that world did have an effect on the look of fantasy through the remainder of the 1980s. The NeverEnding Story and Legend both pick up on that same kind of intensity of artificiality. For a movie closer to The Dark Crystal, in terms of exuding a lot of fantasy aesthetics while technically being more a work of science-fiction set on an alien world, Krull does too. I love Krull, directed by Peter Yates, one of the strangest and yet most formulaic movies ever made -about a band of more than a dozen adventures (most of whom don’t make it to the end) accompanying a prince on his quest to rescue his princess from the aliens who have invaded the planet and kidnapped her. The artificial sets here are generally less sophisticated than in The Dark Crystal, but they are still very vivid and imaginative -especially on the white castle at the start of the film, the spider’s lair in the middle, and the alien’s keep in the climax. One of the neat things about Krull is that it alludes to a more expansive and interesting world. There are unseen kingdoms referenced, cultural mores like Liam Neeson’s casual polygamy, and various kinds of magic like shapeshifting and curses on people frozen in time -all things that make sense of a concept that started as a translation of Dungeons & Dragons. Giving tangibility to these details are the unique artifacts like the film’s signature weapon -the Glaive- a magic throwing star with retractable daggers on each point, as well as creatures like the great white spider and the companion Rell, who just happens to be a cyclops. These effects are corny and not so believable as in other films, but there is a charm and creative conviction to the world of Krull that I don’t think deserves to be overlooked. Certainly it is one that stayed with me as a teenager.
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Not as much though as the iconic death of Artax for a whole generation of 80s kids in The NeverEnding Story, a movie that feels like a big pillow. That could be due to the fluffy appearance of the dragon Falkor, but there is also an atmosphere throughout the land of Fantasia that even in its darker corners is soft and comforting. It’s more a minimalist world than some of those I’ve discussed previously -there’s not a ton of intricacy to the various stops on Atreyu’s journey, though there are strong designs regardless, characteristic of this very different, ethereal kind of realm -the Ivory Tower is a kind of heaven, while the cragged stony lair of Gmork is hell-like. The environments are minimalist and don’t convey any sense of reality -it is of course meant to be a story read by a modern lead character, Bastian. And yet it is incredibly vivid still through Wolfgang Petersen’s conceptualization conveying an almost omnipotent scale. The NeverEnding Story knows it is a conceit, but it still lifts you into its world as it does Bastian. More than the kind of conventional fantasies of Tolkien and his followers, it appears to derive from older sources, like At the Back of the North Wind. Fairy tale mixed with the mores of fantasy, and it comes alive well.
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Another filmmaker who looked explicitly to fairy tales for the basis of his fourth movie was director Ridley Scott, coming off of the twin sci-fi classics of Alien and Blade Runner. Legend, written by novelist William Hjortsberg, would not be in that same pedigree, though it was one of the stronger candidates at a mainstream fantasy movie for its time. So much was poured into its elaborate production and its exquisite visual character -not just in the content of the scenes but the ways in which they were shot. The cinematography by Alex Thomson, who also shot the fantasy films Excalibur and Labyrinth, is very crisp, the colour saturation and moody use of lighting capturing intently the kind of dark fairy tale it is attempting to be. The sets are incredibly evocative of this as well, with a lot of natural aesthetics in their make-up that recall old illustrations of folktales and -appropriately- legends. And yet as is typical of Ridley Scott, there is an epic quality as well; a sense of grandiosity especially in the immaculate though empty lair of the Lord of Darkness, played by Tim Curry under the most overzealous prosthetics imaginable. But it is worth it, because he appears like a real demonic figure -everybody in the movie does, including the unicorn that Scott had experimented with rendering in Blade Runner. Legend perhaps drips with more atmosphere than any other live-action fantasy film of this era, in some places it is almost a translation of Rankin/Bass’s Tolkien world. It is sadly let down by the execution of some of its themes and a miscast Tom Cruise in the leading role, but few fantasy films even since then have so strongly immersed their audience.
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And Legend was probably the pinnacle of this style of fantasy production that largely favoured whole worlds essentially crafted in-house and dripping with manual creativity (though Labyrinth would to some degree give it a run for its money), the immersive 80s fantasy film could also encompass movies that focused less on artificial environments and more on effective and atmospheric uses of the real world. Dragonslayer certainly showcased well the evocative scenery of North Wales. And Ladyhawke, directed by Richard Donner and perhaps my favourite of this crop of films, doesn’t manufacture much of any of its production -and in fact feels very proto-Lord of the Rings in its use of real environments down to the genuine castles it shot in. Italy was this movie’s New Zealand, and it captures well the vistas, forests, mountains, and of course still-standing medieval iconography to sell its world. And the locations give it a real attachment to that European history where the movie is technically set, but in an uncertain time. Donner is not so focused on a magical world here, but the magical story itself -a tragic romance between two cursed shapeshifters who can never occupy their human forms at the same time. Nonetheless, that world is still rendered as vivid and enticing through sharp choices of lighting and framing, costuming, and even visual effects. A medieval world rendered just a little more otherworldly, with characters who in disposition are just a little more beyond the pale of realism and classically romantic.
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I feel like I have to touch on next at least briefly The Princess Bride -which is an 80s fantasy film, but doesn't fully fit the character of these others I have discussed. Beyond its storytelling framing device and identifiable geographic reference points, it is just a little too modern and whip-smart in sensibility -like A Knight's Tale but with Rodents Of Unusual Size. It is both a tongue-in-cheek and blisteringly earnest take on a fairy tale, but its approach to setting and atmosphere isn't too dissimilar to something like Dragonslayer. Some sets like the ruins where the first sword-fight takes place and the fire swamp are artificial constructs that feel distinct to this bigger world, and though it is not so rich for an openly fictitious narrative as The NeverEnding Story, there's still plenty of life to its reality and especially to the characters who exist within it.
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The same is largely true of Willow, which brings full circle nearly a decade of fantasy adventure films endeavouring to be at some level or another the genre’s answer to Star Wars, though this time with George Lucas himself involved as the chief architect -with Ron Howard hired to direct. As with Star Wars, Willow alludes to an incredibly expansive magical world and concepts, though it isn’t so successful at distinguishing itself. It is another film moving closer towards what modern fantasy would be in terms of aesthetics, and even compared to Star Wars, features very little in terms of creative artificiality in its production. Yet there is certainly some to be found in smaller forms -the costumes and objects and visual effects -dated but full of character, and not quite so embarrassing as the green-screen from Dragonslayer. Like Ladyhawke, Willow also makes good use of mountainous topography through one stretch to show some geographic versatility to a film genre that often stuck to reliable woodlands or pastures or quarries. While it is a little more elaborate in its world-building, Willow does also restrain itself, focusing on its own story with mere hints of bigger things to add colour -one of the more attractive traits of the original Star Wars. It is not a space so cozy or curious, and it is more than a little derivative by 1988, but if it is a bridge to the new fantasy it still has enough quaint traits of the old.
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“If George Lucas and Ron Howard …if they can’t come up with anything fresh in this genre, I think it’s wiped out.” That was Gene Siskel on Willow in 1988, assessing the state of the fantasy genre; a sign of where fantasy on film was at near the end of that decade. It was never popular, even with a mild hit here and there. Siskel actually liked a few of the movies I've discussed, notably Dragonslayer and Ladyhawke, but these were treated as anomalies by critics and general audiences, within a genre that was pretty safe and predictable and a domain best inhabited by cartoons; though it is worth noting the one true high fantasy film Disney ever attempted, The Black Cauldron, came out in the middle of this era and nearly bankrupted the studio -perhaps it too informed the cultural perception. What effects that these movies did have were not appreciated and by the time the genre gained better mainstream recognition and acclaim at the dawn of the twenty-first century, their charms were largely forgotten, recalled with novelty. What you'll see in the wikipedia entries for most of these movies (The NeverEnding Story and The Princess Bride excepted) is the phrase 'cult classic'.
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And most of them deserve to be there in spite of their flaws. Because they belong to what comes across as a loose but distinct movement for a genre looking to break out, and each signals itself through some charming quality in the style of their production. There is an atmosphere that they bring that no longer has a place in the form of the genre that took off. For better or worse, Lord of the Rings inspired a need for fantasy films to be epic; Harry Potter inspired them to be convoluted in concepts and scope. Nearly every fantasy project to come after has aimed at one or the other or both (as in the case of Game of Thrones). But these self-contained fantasy films of the 80s, broadly straightforward if archetypal, limited in the worlds that they showed but implicitly rich in those limitations, and practically creative and tangible in a way that could feel like stepping into a storybook -there is a magic in that worth appreciating and that has long been gone from the fantasy genre on film. The atmospheres of these movies can be intoxicating, their realities can be affecting -and certainly they have the power to spark imagination, as I think is one of the underlying goals of their class of art. A reason they all still do have their fans no doubt is because they were watched by enough kids at formative ages, who were drawn perhaps to the might of the beast in Dragonslayer or the sprites, the devil, and fairy tale extremes of Legend. Or just the captivating tangibility of the world of The Dark Crystal (the darkness of some of these films no doubt had an impact as well). And don’t believe their mark isn’t still there on those modern descendants. One of the most iconic shots from Peter Jackson’s trilogy (of the hobbits crouched under the tree root) was directly copied from Ralph Bakshi’s rotoscope animation version. You can’t tell me his Smaug doesn’t at least owe something to Vermithrax Pejorative. And David Lowery, director of the most recent great dark fantasy film The Green Knight has pointed to Willow of all things as a substantial influence.
It may be a stretch to call the 1980s a great period for fantasy, but it was certainly an interesting and a unique one that is worth more consideration. And the films themselves are fun. Sometimes in movies, but especially fantasy movies, what you need are those low-key worlds you can touch, and this awkward but valuable era too frequently forgotten was a treasure trove of them.
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