The Cash-grab Modern Fantasy

Nov 2, 2024 | Journal

One of the major issues why a lot of films, books, and video games, among other things, fail in their storytelling is because they cannot keep themselves serious. Humour is basically forced into them and a consequently our shoved down our throats as well. As a result, neither the narrative nor the audience can take the whole performance serious any longer.

Do not get me wrong, humour is good, but as it is with everything, story elements are as good as they are made. If they are in the right place at the right moment, then there is nothing wrong with it. On the contrary, humour is much needed – it is one of the best coping mechanisms for human beings to deal with their traumas and various other issues in life.

However, there is a problem, where cheap humour and sex infests an otherwise fine narrative, because for one, sex sells, and two, cheap humour can get the attention of everyone. Fantasy in this aspect contracted the disease of capitalist money-making factories. In which case, this watering down of narratives with unnecessary humour and erotic scenes is just a symptom of a much grandeur issue.

Following the success of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the Lord of the Rings into a film trilogy and the massive popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) at the box-offices and, consequently, the normalization of the previously lowly regarded nerdy narratives, genres and mediums, the great media producers took up beloved intellectual properties to make profit. By not knowing how to deal with them and misunderstanding their successes, they turned to the old tropes of getting the attention of the masses by filling all the serious stories with humour and by changing their foundations into notions that are easier to relate to. A blueprint was created mainly based on the narrative techniques of the MCU that is filled with humour, some better some cheaper. This resulted in the elimination of seriousness and the need for thinking. Successfully, the conclusion for them was that mindless masses spent money to consume and the conveyor belt of media produced plenty of goods to sell to the ever-hungry consumer.

However, this also caused the symptoms of meaningless, un-serious fantasy that is either cliché or cannot tell its serious message, because it is impossible to be taken seriously. In addition, the pacing of these films and media became very fast, so that it can be consumed quickly in hopes of creating an addiction through attention. The mis-implementation of these elements caused first a boom in profit, but later on emptiness.

There is nothing wrong with the movie or the series adaptation of narratives from other media. However, for example, The Witcher, Rings of Power and the Warcraft movie (the list could go on) are the results of these tendencies that are related to basically media giants’ urge to print money. But these also led to them failing at it, because they managed to alienate the audiences by overfeeding them and overstimulating them thus rendering them immune to the above-described techniques. Also, there are other writing related issues that plague these narratives for which humour is also used to cover up these problems, such as plot-holes and sloppy dialogues and story, etc. Essentially, leaving us with a heap of meaningless products, instead of meaningful, strong, challenging, productive and educative narratives. In other words, it is no longer art – or at least art today is getting rarer in popular culture with the disappearance of passion within the industry. Therefore, the writing process is just the mimicking of the artistic process in the hopes of generating revenue and profit.

Additionally, of course, the writing suffers as well from the mass production aspects. Often times the narrative feels too basic as it is established above, but also the dialogues are nothing like they would have been uttered by any real person. They are cringe and pointless, filling the silence, because that is unbearable for the author or even for the audience. The narrative techniques in the story are insulting to the intelligence of the audiences, which is observable as the main point and the message is spoon-fed and forced, instead of being thought provoking and challenging.

In addition, the showrunners and writers in case of adaptations have too much of an ego and too little respect for the source material that they are supposes to adapt and they think that they can do better. So, they end up with a rewritten and botched narrative that is a patchwork instead of a finely weaved fabric. In film making, adaptations are a safe bet, because you do not have to come up with a totally new story, you only need to use an already well-established and beloved narrative, which in most cases is a straight line to profit. However, by botching the already well-written material with sloppy, cliché and watered-down unnecessary elements the result is that what made the original popular just gets lost. And there is your recipe for profit loss in the end.

In conclusion, most of the recent stories feel like random Dungeons and Dragons sessions, which might be interesting for the players involved, who can feel and think that ‘oh! this is epic and awesome!’, which is funny and goofy for a time from the outside as well. However, the audience may just turn their backs on the narrative as it does not seem immersive or real. Therefore, it is not enough, and it is just boring and unimaginative after the thousandth time. As a result, most fantasy narratives, as it seems now, feel like they are just the copy and paste of random table-top role-playing game campaigns.

The solution here is not too complicated. Shifting back one gear and slowing down can provide space, time and resources for more quality work. (Quality is always better over quantity!) Also, risk taking is advised! It might cause some flops and losses; however, in the long run it is proved to be a road to success, although it is the more difficult path. Creativity can thrive within the right frames and with the right foundations for it. Just let imagination fly! As a result, which is the case for the independent creators, who are willing to make all the above steps and risks, more and more novel and unique narratives could be made that are interesting, engaging and challenging, and also in the long run, profitable as well.