Contest: ENTER SF&F Avatar Contest: The Days of High Adventure

[Kai "the spy"]

Netflix has a huge hit with The Sandman, HBO just had record ratings for its premiere of House of the Dragon, and coming up Amazon Prime will launch The Rings of Power. Fantasy is definitely having a moment right now.

But, of course, fantasy has been a popular genre for adventurous movies for a long time. From adaptations of fairy tales and mythology like the Ray Harryhausen classics or John Boorman's Excalibur, to literary adaptations like Conan the Barbarian and Lord of the Rings, and original movies like Highlander or The Dark Crystal, there's been a ton of great fantasy films that have excited us as long as we all have been alive. Not to mention fantasy TV like Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffyverse, or Fantaghiró.

So, this contest will be about fantasy films and television, but (and here's the twist) only from before the year 2000.

Entries may not be bigger than 200x200 pixels and/or 1 Mb data, and also need to be safe for work. Each user may have up to five entries.

 

[Orac]

Here's Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal (1982):

And here's some forest spirits from Princess Mononoke (1997):

 

[theenglish]

Here are a couple from 1981 to start:

Dragonslayer

Clash of the Titans

And from 1978:

The Lord of the Rings

 

[Avro Arrow]

The Princess Bride (1987)

Legend (1985)

 

[Orac]

A Slayer from Krull (1983):

A spooky skeleton from the Black Cauldron (1985):

 

[the G-man]

The Rankin-Bass version of the Hobbit (1977):

 

[Kai "the spy"]

#1

Deathstalker

 

[Orac]

Jareth the Goblin King from Labyrinth (1985):

 

[Avro Arrow]

Willow (1988)

And to finish out my entries, a couple by Terry Gilliam...

Time Bandits (1981)

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

 

[Kai "the spy"]

#2

Die Nibelungen, Part 1: Siegfried

#3

Gargoyles

 

[JD]

Jim Henson's The Storyteller

 

[JD]

The Never-Ending Story

Bram Stoker's Dracula

 

[Kai "the spy"]

#4

Fantaghirò (alternatively known as The Cave of the Golden Rose)

 

[JD]

I just realized, Dracula is technically horror, not fantasy, so should I delete that one?

 

[Kai "the spy"]

I just realized, Dracula is technically horror, not fantasy, so should I delete that one?

I was thinking about it. Horror in this case is at least partly fantasy, as Dracula and his minions are certainly creatures of fantasy. This goes beyond the basic idea of the vampire as depicted in most horror movies, as there is wall-crawling, shape-shifting, and even Mina is shown to use witchcraft to influence the weather and the hasten dusk.
But this theme is about adventurous fantasy. Ultimately, I decided that this particular movie, though obviously a horror movie with fantasy elements, has enough adventurous elements. There is travel into "the unknown" (as far as the characters and the story are concerned), there's a quest (the hunt for Dracula to kill him and save Mina), there are sword fights, there's even an argument that van Helsing fits into the wise-wizard archetype.

So, long story short, I'll allow Bram Stoker's Dracula. But the point of mapping out my thought process here is to point out that this doesn't mean that all horror with supernatural elements is fair game.

 

[JD]

OK, I'll leave it then.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

#5

Conan the Barbarian

LAST CALL!!! Poll will go up in the coming two days.

 

[JD]

Aladdin

The Little Mermaid

 

[Kai "the spy"]

If you dare, follow this link to the fantastic vote of a lifetime!