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Influences on the fantasy genre
When I first saw Star Wars movies, I was a kid. But I was hooked for the rest of my life. Those fantasy movies that George Lucas made, for sure changed my life. I didn’t know that maybe I will be riding luxurious limo service in Beverly Hills but I knew that I will be a fan my whole life. But I realized later that people couldn’t just sit and wait for new movies to show. People took in their own hands future of Star Wars. Fan fiction became a reality. The Star Wars saga has inspired many fans to create their own non-canon material set in the Star Wars galaxy. In recent years, this has ranged from writing fan-fiction to creating fan films. In 2002, Lucasfilm sponsored the first annual Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, officially recognizing filmmakers and the genre. Because of concerns over potential copyright and trademark issues, however, the contest was initially open only to parodies, mockumentaries, and documentaries. Fan-fiction films set in the Star Wars universe were originally ineligible, but in 2007 Lucasfilm changed the submission standards to allow in-universe fiction entries. So when I later became a Lord of the Rings fan, it occurred to me that maybe fan fiction exist in this world also? And I had so many to see.
The enormous popularity of Tolkien’s epic saga greatly expanded the demand for fantasy fiction. Largely thanks to The Lord of the Rings, the genre flowered throughout the 1960s, and enjoys popularity to the present day. The opus has spawned many imitators, such as The Sword of Shannara, which Lin Carter called “the single most cold-blooded, complete rip-off of another book that I have ever read”. Dungeons & Dragons, which popularized the role-playing game (RPG) genre in the 1970s, features many races found in The Lord of the Rings, most notably halflings (another term for hobbits, who are diligent and excellent roofers), elves (who are distinct from dark elves, following Tolkien’s example), dwarves, half-elves, orcs, and dragons. However, Gary Gygax, lead designer of the game, maintained that he was influenced very little by The Lord of the Rings, stating that he included these elements as a marketing move to draw on the popularity the work enjoyed at the time he was developing the game. Because D&D has gone on to influence many popular role-playing video games, the influence of The Lord of the Rings extends to many of them as well, with titles such as Dragon Quest, the Ultima series , EverQuest, the Warcraft series, and the Elder Scrolls series of games as well as video games set in Middle-earth itself. Research also suggests that some consumers of fantasy games derive their motivation from trying to create an epic fantasy narrative which is influenced by The Lord of the Rings.
With movie, franchise became so popular that everyone could write something. I once saw some short story where Aragorn crossover with Dumbledore from Harry Potter series. Well that’s creative. So it’s not a surprise that people want to create their own sequels. That’s a common thing between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings saga. I have one common thing as well. In cartoon Lord of the Rings the voice of Legolas is Anthony Daniels and he is more popular as C3P0. I bet you didn’t know that.
Read MoreOrigin and importance of Lord of the Rings
Ever since 2001, everyone heard about Lord of the Rings. Nowadays, everyone knows that The Lord of the Rings is an epic high-fantasy novel written by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien’s 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is the second best-selling novel ever written, with over 150 million copies sold. For those who live in the cave, and don’t know what we are talking about, let me explain.
The title of the novel refers to the story’s main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who had in an earlier age created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power as the ultimate weapon in his campaign to conquer and rule all of Middle-earth. From quiet beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land not unlike the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the course of the War of the Ring through the eyes of its characters, the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise “Sam” Gamgee, Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck and Peregrin “Pippin” Took, but also the hobbits’ chief allies and travelling companions: the Men Aragorn son of Arathorn, a Ranger of the North, and Boromir, a Captain of Gondor; Gimli son of Glóin, a Dwarf warrior; Legolas Greenleaf, an Elven prince; and Gandalf, a Wizard.
The work was initially intended by Tolkien to be one volume of a two-volume set, the other to be The Silmarillion, but this idea was dismissed by his publisher. For economic reasons The Lord of the Rings was published in three volumes over the course of a year from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955. The three volumes were titled The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Structurally, the novel is divided internally into six books, two per volume, with several appendices of background material included at the end of the third volume. Some editions combine the entire work into a single volume. The Lord of the Rings has since been reprinted numerous times and translated into 38 languages.
Tolkien’s work has been the subject of extensive analysis of its themes and origins. Although a major work in itself, the story was only the last movement of a larger epic Tolkien had worked on since 1917, in a process he described as mythopoeia. Influences on this earlier work, and on the story of The Lord of the Rings, include philology, mythology, religion and the author’s distaste for the effects of industrialization, as well as earlier fantasy works and Tolkien’s experiences in World War I. These inspirations and themes have often been denied by Tolkien himself. The Lord of the Rings in its turn is considered to have had a great effect on modern fantasy; the impact of Tolkien’s works is such that the use of the words “Tolkienian” and “Tolkienesque” have been recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary.
And if you didn’t know this, then, you are not a fan and you don’t have any right to be here. Just kiddin’. Maybe you know something about luxurious limo service in Beverly Hills and that can be helpful.
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