Annotated Catalouge

How the fantasy adventure genre has changed in the past 10 years.



Focus Film Item 1- The lord of the Rings: The return of the king
This film is my focus film, i chose it because out all the other related films I chose this was rated the best out of them. This makes it easy to compare and easy to show what makes well received fantasy films. It was also the most successful of the films and so makes an excellent point towards how successful, films from this genre can be.



Related Films
Item 2- Lara Croft Tomb Raider- This film is useful because we can compare them to the others on the grounds of action and the sense of adventure that takes place in fantasy adventure films. We can see if the conventions of the genre are present in this film and see which (if any) have been ignored and how that impacts the film. I may use a few scenes from this film to explain certain points I will make.




Item 3- The city of ember - Using this film use the techniques we picked out from the last two films such as checking for genre conventions and others. We can also look at the audience difference in the film and see how audience affects the content of the film and possibley how good it is.




Books
Item 4- Extract from The film genre book by John Sanders. This book is useful because although it details films I am not analyzing it contains information as to why they were placed in that category/genre. Thus giving me a insight into the conventions required to be a fantasy adventure film.




Reviews
Item 5-http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?DVDID=117407 This is The lord of the rings: the return of the king review taken from empire magazine. This review is useful as it presents various opinions of how people received the film and allows it to be compared to the other films i have selected.


Item 6-http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?DVDID=7487 This is the empire review for Lara Croft Tomb Raider, the review is useful because I will be able to take the opinions and ratings and refer these back to the focus film to create a better analysis of the fantasy adventure and what changes make films better.


Item 7-http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=10517 This is the empire review for City of Ember. This review is useful as if i were to combine both the reviews and criticisms on this and the Tomb Raider review, we can see the differences between the films and understand why some were rated higher than others.


Videos
Item 8- Return of the King trailer- This trailer is useful because it gives us a glimpse into the films content and can attract us, so we want to see more and possibly to go see the film on it's release. It shows us the stars and certain scenes (usually full of action) or even sometimes gives away part of the plot just to get us hooked.


Item 9- City of Ember - This trailer is different to the other two because of the audience it is made for. It is made to be aimed at children and therefore shows less action scenes and more scenes that focus on setting or on people. It helps to show the changes between a more mature film is advertised and how a childrens film is advertised.


Item 10- Lara Croft Tomb Raider Trailer - This film differs from the first two by being a more modern version of the fantasy adventure genre. As opposed to TLOTR:TROTK it's set in a modern time, so things such as automatic weapons and other present day tech, rather than the swords and shields of middle earth. It is yet another take on the genre showing how even though the time setting is different (the others are in the past and the future) the content can still be as good as ever.


Websites - imdb.com
Item 11- IMDB page for TLOTK:TROTK - This page is useful because we can find a lot of background information on the film including what awards it won and how popular it is. We can also find out what actors were in the film and compare them to the less successful films of the genre that I have picked.


- IMDB page for City of Ember - I found this page to be useful as it's a different type of fantasy adventure film and helps me to compare and contrast between this film and the other two films that I have picked to analyze (Lara Croft Tomb Raider and TLOTR: TROTK). This also is useful because we see how popular children's films amongst the children of this generation.


- IMDB page for Lara Croft Tomb Raider - I found this page to be useful as it sits in-between the other two films due it's setting in time during the film. It allows us to compare between the two as a sort of fall back comparison. It also happens to be an adaption from a game rather than a book (unlike the other films).

Websites - BoxOfficeMojo.com

Item 12 - This website is useful because it details the takings for the films and gives background information on it's popularity and where it ranks against other films from the fantasy adventure genre. It will be useful should I need to how well received it was by people or just to reference money in the presentation.

Websites - Wikipedia.org

Item 13 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Fantasy) - This is useful because it shows the conventions (things you expect to see) in the fantasy genre. This makes it easier to tie together with things that I have picked up about the genre, or things that I need to get a little bit more information on.