5. The Definition Of Adventure
These three films, filmed as one, released as three each December starting in 2001, took the world by storm and completely rejuvenated the fantasy genre. It destroyed box office numbers weekend after weekend and the last instalment, Return of the King, swept the 76th Academy Awards by taking every single statue it was nominated for. So what is it that made this story, so deeply embedded in the fantasy genre that it might as well have had underwater unicorns in it, have such rapturous success? Possibly a very complicated multiple choice question, but when in doubt always circle Adventure. Stripped to its core, every story is a quest of some shape or form, but Rings takes this idea of quest at face value and builds an incredibly imaginative world centered around it. So effectively in fact, that many consider LOTR to be the paragon of all fantasy adventures. In the Adventure department, LOTR gets the cake and eats it too, leaving the crumbs on the floor for future fantasy tales to pick up and nibble. While Game of Thrones is scatted, disheveled and stretched out on a rusty torture rack when it comes to narrative, Lord of the Rings is an epic in every sense of the word; creating an experience and not just a story.