this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
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Here's a list of tons of leftist movies.
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There's been like 4 big budget attempts at making high fantasy TV series post game of thrones and none have been much better than alright. Idk if the genre just doesn't adapt to screen that well, if the writer's they're handed of to don't know how to write in the genre, or if there's a bunch of nepo babies in screenwriting who just aren't very good at writing in general.
Game of thrones was huge not because it had big flashy battle sequences and dragons but because it was a really intense political drama about flawed people abusing their power. Those stories are really hard to tell.
I think that's mostly it. You could replace the fantasy setting with squabbling nobles in Renaissance Italy, and if it leaned into the political intrigue / cloak-and-dagger stuff and was well executed , it could do great numbers.
Which ones are hard to tell, the dragon stories or the political dramas? For prestige TV writers the latter is probably easier because it's similar to a lot of things that's already in that the genre, and I think part of why the latter TV shows fails was because they tried to go for the game of thrones-y political drama angle when the source material doesn't lend itself to it.
It's the nepo babies in Hollywood lmao. Even the Game of Thrones showrunners are nepotism hires. Writing decent fantasy is fairly easy when you stop and take a moment to think about the implications of something. For example, if domesticated dragons are real, then they become WMDs and warfare is going to center around how to avoid their use and how to defend against them.
A lot of these failed projects aren't stopping to ask these kind of questions. Instead, they imitate successful franchises, eliminate the human storytelling, and create plot holes/remove the suspension of disbelief when they ignore how their fantasy world works.
Cargo cult shit
If you count Star Wars as fantasy, Andor could be an example of good storytelling
Also, I feel like GoT set an incredibly high bar that people (and cokehead producers) constantly feel new fantasy series need to clear. I think expectations are way too high. Not every show is going to be a global hit.