Hello everyone, my topic is “Common Connotation of Western Fantasy Movies”. I will give my speech from these six aspects.

What is fantasy movie? From Wikipedia and Baidu Encyclopedia I found these definitions. Fiction, Humanity are two key words in the definitions. So fantasy movies are some fictional movies contains magical elements which reflect humanity. I think fantasy movies are more romanticism than realism, so Dream of the Red Chamber and some other works is not fantasy works.

There are many famous fantasy movies, such as The Lord of the Ring, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Coco, The Chronicles of Narnia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Twilight and so on.

Among these movies, I found four common connotations:

• Fantasy movies reveals people’s understanding of the birth and operation of the world.
• Fantasy movies reflects people’s desire to change nature and break away from the laws of nature.
• Fantasy movies conveys the consensus that we must struggle to master destiny and control nature.
• Fantasy movies reflects the thinking of people under the conditions of fantasy.

I will detail describe these points.

First, Visions of Our World

Many fantasy movies described a grand world and their world are some visions of the real world exists in a certain historical period. These pictures are some components of J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, contains wizards, elves, hobbits, dwarfs, Orcs, Nazgul and others. These are components of Jorge Martin’s world, such as dragons, white walkers, gods and so on.

Some fantasy movies also described the world of the death. Where we go after we dead is a question many people curious. Coco gave us a beautiful answer. After we dead we will go to a wonderful world and we can go back to the real world on dead festival. “The real death is that no one in the world remembers you.” We need to remember our relatives, don’t we?

In the real world, our mind and emotion cannot cause substance change. But if in fantasy world? They can. In Harry Potter the love is a powerful power to protect little Harry. Dumbledore can use spells without a wand. This reflect the opinions of idealists.

Second, Breaking the Laws of Nature

The laws of nature limit us in many ways. We can’t fly, dive, live forever, be invisible, be too high or speak to dead ones. So fantasy movies reflect people’s desire for these ability.

In The Load of The Ring and The Hobbit, elves are all beautiful. The have beautiful appearance and they can keep their hair style after a long fight. And they are much better at archery than men. In many fantasy movies, giants are very common. In Jack and the Beanstalk giants are bad guys but in Harry Potter Giants are usually good guys. Our desire for growing taller can come true in fantasy movies.

In real world, we can never know what will happen in the future. What if we can know? What will happen? So prophecies are very important components in fantasy movies. Many prophecies in Game of Thrones will presage characters’ fate and story plot. “Everyone wants to know their future until they know their future. You won’t like the answers”. In Harry Potter, when Voldemort know the prophecy that the boy born in the end of July will kill him, he started killing others.

Third, Controlling the Nature and Power

Magic is powerful, but we still need to practice, like any other skill in real life such as boxing, swimming and singing. We need to practice hard to be skilled. If our level is higher than many other wizards, we will become a legacy and our power will be stronger.

The power of nature is endless. May be earthquake, typhoon and flood make human beings afraid of nature and we desire to seek methods to control it. In fantasy movies nature’s power is much more powerful than human or devils. The light can defeat orcs, water can defeat Nazgul. Elves are those who can control the nature, and some of them can speak to plants and animals. If we forge a sword with the moon light, the sword will be more powerful.

Last, Views of Human Nature

How temptation will change us? In J.R.R Tolkien’s world, men are more desire power. Sméagol killed his mate for the Mater Ring. Isildur abandoned destroy the load of the ring and take it which made millions of soldier’s deaths useless. Frodo could not resist the temptation of the Load of The Ring and he abandoned too.

And what we can do to make ourselves live forever? Tom Riddler made seven Horcruxes to ensure he can live forever. To make one Horcrux he needs to kill one person and he killed seven people. “Isn’t it bad enough to consider killing one person?”

In conclusion

If from the perspective of science and rationality, magic and monsters do not exist, but the world is not only scientific and rational. Fantasy movies provide a way to escape our ordinary everyday life. This is the charm of fantasy movies. It reflects the uniqueness of human beings and reflects our ability to think and experience beyond rationality. Although the fantasy film can’t give us the facts, it is a kind of reality because it has the vitality of myth. Fantasy movie is a way of describing reality. Fantasy movies portray reality with illusory content, where everything can happen, and everything is traceable.

Movie is essentially the biggest fantasy.

That’s all. Thank you.