Fantasy Films - High Fantasy

High Fantasy

In high fantasy films, the story is set in an entirely different world, or ‘secondary world’ to the ‘primary’ or real world.

There are three subtypes of high fantasy:

1. A setting in which the primary world does not exist – ‘The Sword of Truth’
2. The secondary world is entered through some kind of portal from the primary world – ‘Alice in Wonderland’
3. The secondary world in ‘within’ the primary world – the ‘Harry potter’ series

Some say that the ‘Lord of the Ring’ trilogy is set in s secondary world, where the primary world does not exist, Tolkien often denied this as said that it is set in the primary world, but in the past. This raises the question as to whether the trilogy should be categorised as a high fantasy or a historical fantasy, demonstrating the difficulty in which fantasy films are categorised.

High fantasy is usually told from the perspective of a main hero and often revolves around their mysterious nature. The protagonist usually starts as a young person with some kind of special talent for combat or magic. Whilst there is no rule as to what gender the main protagonist has to be, more often then not, they are male.

The story tends to start out with the hero being threatened by some kind of superior, supernatural force. Unlike sword and sorcery fantasy, the hero enjoys ordinary life and is not willing to abandon it, but has no choice as they are pulled into this quest. The hero normally completes the quest and settles back into normal, everyday life by the conclusion of the story. The protagonist gains knowledge of their own past through long-lost relatives or a mentor – who usually knows more about them then the character, knows about themselves. The mentor is usually depicted as a wise old man, such as Gandalf in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy or Dumbledore in the ‘Harry Potter’ series. Some kind of evil overlord is normally also prominent in the film, in which the main character will eventually have to fight and come up against. This person is normally some kind of powerful wizard, a demon or even an old god.

There is also almost always the theme of good vs. evil in high fantasy films and normally marks some kind of moral struggle. The ‘evil’ character will usually try to do one of three things:

1. The villain is not evil like the protagonist thinks they are
2. The protagonist is the one who is actually evil
3. The ‘mentor’ has been using the protagonist for their own ends and does not care about the protagonist