> I want to address the sudden outflow of all these new trilogies that are comming out in the first place. I'm not sure but do you think it could be that the success of the old and new Star Wars trilogies were so spectacular that it really set the "trilogy wave" going?

The original Star Wars probably had an impact on this -- hey, it had an impact on everything else -- but series films have been popular pretty much ever since the beginning of the industry. I don't think the new Star Wars trilogy is even a factor. Franchise movies have been an established format for decades now. When adapting a serial format -- like a comic book series -- it is only natural to think in terms of multiple movies.

The reason I project Lord of the Rings being unusually influential is because Fellowship is arguably the first great swords and sorcery movie *ever made*. Sure, fantasy buffs have soft spots for Conan, Willow, Ladyhawke, Dragonslayer, or even the Beastmaster, but few of these are good and none great.

It's also the first time three movies have been filmed concurrently, although I would argue that this is less interesting in light of the fact that *two* movies have been filmed concurrently multiple times before, at least as far back as Richard Lester's Three and Four Musketeers, back in 1973.

What I'm getting at is when I look forward to "fantasy trilogies," the emphasis is on the "fantasy" part, a genre that has, until now, never been translated properly to the screen, and not so much the trilogy part.

> I can understand some of these, but when it comes to movies like you're talking about Sam, original fantasy films wanting to do trilogies before it even comes out, it's getting kind of sad.

Why? I'd much rather have a trilogy of movies that was conceived that way from the start, than two sequels made to cash in on the unexpected success of a hit.

I would say this is truer of the fantasy genre than any other: although I'm frustrated by series of fantasy novels that never end, the reality is that the genre tends to require a lot more room to work than most others, justifying trilogies or quadrologies of longer-than-usual novels. In any other genre except science fiction, all you have to do is tell a story. SF/F requires that, *plus* the establishment of an unfamiliar world.

Movies, being a more abbreviated narrative medium than books, are arguably *more* justified in adapting fantasy in trilogies than books are.

> First off, it has to take a lot of work to do a Fantasy in the first place, or at least one that don't sound too cliché.

I'm ok with other people doing that work.