{"id":32389,"date":"2016-06-01T06:30:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T18:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=32389"},"modified":"2016-05-30T16:58:09","modified_gmt":"2016-05-30T04:58:09","slug":"big-worlds-on-small-screens-fantasy-films-from-the-eighties-that-werent-that-bad-rebecca-fisher-discusses-time-bandits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/06\/01\/big-worlds-on-small-screens-fantasy-films-from-the-eighties-that-werent-that-bad-rebecca-fisher-discusses-time-bandits\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Worlds On Small Screens & \u201cFantasy Films From the Eighties That Weren\u2019t That Bad\u201d \u2014 Rebecca Fisher Discusses \u201cTime Bandits\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

~ by Rebecca Fisher<\/em><\/p>\n

If any film could be accurately described as containing everything but the kitchen sink, I’d stake my money on Time Bandits<\/strong>. You could describe it as a zanier episode of Doctor Who<\/strong>, or a slightly more child-friendly offering from Monty Python, or a mash-up of Roald Dahl and Douglas Adams \u2013 but its combination of dark comedy, time-travelling adventure and tongue-in-cheek musings on the nature of God and Evil make it truly unique.<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/a><\/p>\n

Kevin is a young history buff with two parents that couldn’t care less, being glued every night to the television set and discussing the neighbours instead of paying the slightest bit of attention to their son. As a result, Kevin is more delighted than terrified when a band of dwarfs tumble out of his wardrobe, calling themselves “time bandits” and explaining they’ve got a map that leads them through time itself.<\/p>\n

By leaping through time holes, they’re able to pull off heists without the slightest chance of being apprehended, greedily accumulating a fortune for themselves. The movie initially plays out like a series of vignettes, with Kevin and the dwarfs journeying to places such as Ancient Greece, Sherwood Forest and the Titanic, meeting the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robin Hood and King Agamemnon along the way.<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/a>Kevin in a brief moment of happiness with King Agamemnon<\/em><\/p>\n

But there’s a catch. The dwarfs are the one-time servants of the Supreme Being, Creator of the Universe, who isn’t too impressed with what the runaways are up to. What’s more, a sinister figure known only as the Evil Genius watches the time-travellers from afar, coveting the map they carry so that he might remake the universe according to his own design.<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/a>Evil and his minions watch the progress of Kevin and the Time Bandits<\/em><\/p>\n

Written by Terry Gillam and Michael Palin (with the former directing and the latter in a small cameo) Time Bandits<\/strong> is an odd duck of a movie. As you’d expect from the writers, there’s a heavy dose of black humour and irreverence at work, with some dizzying questions raised only to be casually brushed aside. (On being asked why he created evil, the Supreme Being shrugs and says: “I think it’s something to do with free will.”)<\/p>\n

As such it’s hard to know what to make of Time Bandits<\/strong>, or who exactly it’s for. Though the protagonist is a likeable child, the story has enough sharp edges to make younger viewers uneasy. There is no warm affection built up between Kevin and the dwarfs; he consistently disapproves of what they’re doing, and is resentful when they drag him away from a happy life as King Agamemnon’s adopted son. Neither is there any sort of reconciliation with Kevin’s parents: they ignore him at the start of the film, and they’re still ignoring him at its end. And though Kevin may desire an escape from his mundane life, his grand time-travelling adventure isn’t that much fun either.<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/a>The Time Bandits pose with their ill-gotten gains.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like Alice in Wonderland<\/strong>, it’s all a bit arbitrary at times, with the film’s main strength to be found in its imagery and set-pieces: Kevin’s bedroom wall extending into an ever-lengthening hallway, or the dwarfs escaping a hanging cage through an elaborate series of swinging ropes.<\/p>\n

Ultimately it’s a surprisingly unsettling movie with an ambiguous message. Is Kevin better off for having had his adventures? Was there any point to them at all? What’s he going to do at the end of the film, left with no parents and a burnt-down home? And should what is ostensibly a children’s movie even be asking<\/em> these questions of its audience?<\/p>\n

This more than anything makes it a film worth the watching.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next Time:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We continue to move away from the strict definition of “fantasy films” with Highlander<\/strong>, which today’s more expansive terminology might classify as a time-slip urban fantasy adventure. Conner MacLeod is an immortal, caught up in a centuries-long competition with others like him that can only end with one left standing. As the tagline says: “there can be only one.”<\/em><\/span>
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

About The Reviewer:<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com<\/a>, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com<\/a> and her They\u2019re All Fictional<\/a> blog.<\/p>\n

To read Rebecca\u2019s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:<\/p>\n

Big Worlds On Small Screens<\/a><\/h3>\n

Rebecca won the 2015 Sir Julius Vogel Award<\/a> for Best Fan Writer, for writing that included Big Worlds On Small Screens<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

~ by Rebecca Fisher If any film could be accurately described as containing everything but the kitchen sink, I’d stake my money on Time Bandits. You could describe it as a zanier episode of Doctor Who, or a slightly more child-friendly offering from Monty Python, or a mash-up of Roald Dahl and Douglas Adams \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-worlds-on-small-screens-with-rebecca-fisher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32389"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32397,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32389\/revisions\/32397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}