The Offenders: Harry Potter (later films), Eragorn, The Chronicles Of Narnia, The Hobbit, Maleficent, The Golden Compass. As the defining films of a generation, it's hard to imagine that at the time The Lord Of The Rings was a big gamble. High fantasy just wasn't cool at the box office, to the extent the trilogy was originally going to be cut down to one or two films, with the finished product only emerging thanks to some smart foresight on behalf of New Line Cinema. And although The Return Of The King sweeping the Oscars seemed to herald a resurgence in the fantastical, that's not really happened. The big issue is that while other genres tend to develop over time, allowing new styles to emerge, every major high fantasy movie has tended to stick close to the LOTR game plan. In the years following the big hit countless fantasy films were commissioned that essentially took existing ideas and tried to make then more epic (and it's still going on today - look at Maleficent). But it's not just obviously derivative fare either; if horcruxes weren't a big enough Tolkien parallel, the final Harry Potter descended into a Hogwarts assault that rings close of Helm's Deep. The worst offender, however, is The Hobbit, which sees Peter Jackson try to ape his own success in a tonally inappropriate way. The only major fantasy to find proper success is HBO's Game Of Thrones. Although it's certainly going that way, initially the show steered clear of high fantasy elements, instead going for a rough medieval feel. The impact of Rings, however, is still there; the defence of the Wall was very Jackson-y.
