The news these days is an endless cycle of bad news, bad news and even more bad news. With this much negativity, it’s important to find some escapism to occupy your mind. For me, a good old-fashioned adventure where the heroes defeat the evil and come out victorious is the perfect way to find some light in a dark world. Here are eight great shows and movies to stream online from the fantasy genre!
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
If you haven’t seen Lord of the Rings in 2020, you are missing out on not only a fantastic movie with beautiful New Zealand scenery, epic music and fantastic battle scenes, but also on a group of fantastic actors playing The Fellowship, a group of men, hobbits, a dwarf and an elf who travels across the land of Middle Earth to destroy the One Ring, an artifact of pure evil that seeks to corrupt the world. These films still hold up as beautiful and unique, even with today’s world of computer graphics, and will leave chills down your spine and tears in your eyes!
Castlevania
If Twilight was your favorite teenage flick, then Castlevania may be a fun show to try out. Set in the land of Wallachia, the story revolves around the disastrous revenge of the Vampire Vlad Dracula, his plan to wipe out humanity, and the vampire hunter, the sorceress and the son of Dracula who plans to overtake him. With fantastic animation, amazing writing and scathing, yet insightful commentary on hard-hitting topics such as life, death, religion and freedom, this is not a show for the faint of heart.
The Dark Crystal
Are you a fan of 80s movies that nobody has heard of? Then you’ll love The Dark Crystal. A Jim Henson classic, the film features no live-action actors and consists of only puppets. The story follows a young boy named Jenn and his journey to restore the Crystal of Truth, the life source of his home planet of Thra, while simultaneously outrunning and thwarting the villainous and birdlike creatures who have overtaken the land, the evil Skeksis.
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
If you liked the last movie, you’ll love this prequel show that aired last year as a Netflix original. In the years before Jenn’s journey, a group of Gelfling, the native people of this world, uncover a plot by the Skeksis to drain the essence of every creature on Thra in order to consume it and gain immortality. The show is beautifully shot with a whole new cast of puppets and a fantastic world to explore rendered in gorgeous CGI.
The Dragon Prince
This animated Netflix original series is absolutely stunning, as well as heartwarming! This epic fantasy tells the story of the human kingdom and the elf kingdom who are in opposition due to humans developing dark magic and killing the king of the dragons. Now the prince of the human king and an elf assassin must try to bring peace between the two kingdoms.
The Witcher
Netflix has been killing it with fantasy content lately. The 2019 Netflix original series based on the very popular video games stars Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, a supernaturally advanced fighter known as a Witcher, who finds himself tangled in the fates of a beautiful sorceress named Yennefer and a young princess named Cirilla. Now before you ask me, yes I watched The Witcher for the plot…the plot of Henry Cavill in the bath. Sue me.
Merlin
An old show, but still good. Merlin is a retelling of King Arthur’s rise to power, his relationship with the sorcerer Merlin (the main character of the show), and the forming of the Knights of the Round Table. The writing is extremely funny, the acting is actually very emotional and the world-building is fantastic, considering the show is supposed to be set in ancient England.
Critical Role
If you’re a fan of fantasy you might have heard of a little game called Dungeons and Dragons. D&D has overtaken nerd culture ever since its conception in 1979. Many people have begun filming their D&D games to show their stories to an audience. In 2015, Critical Role was aired for the first time, advertised as a show where professional voice actors play Dungeons and Dragons led by Matthew Mercer, known for his role as McCree from Overwatch. Every “episode” is very long (on average about four hours) and there are over 200 episodes, but hey with everyone being stuck inside, it’s easy to catch up.
Escapism is important in this time. It’s good to find ways to let your mind wander from the news and politics if only for a little while. If you want to journey to a whole new world, try these films and tv shows that’ll take you out of this world for a while.
Want to see more HCFSU? Be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest!