I’ve been thinking about this lately and there seems to be a fine line between the two words.
Is the movie Willow a cliché or is it authentic? I don’t mean this movie especially it’s just an example.
Willow seems authentic and genuine in its setting and presentation of a medieval fantasy world.
Although could it be considered cliché compared to Lord of the Rings which also centers on a small being with the help of strong tall human to complete a quest?
I think it lies in the details, directing, filming locations, aesthetics, costumes, fight choreography and use of CGI etc.
Is that what makes the movie authentic and timeless and not categorized as cliché?
It’s not a cliche if something has a similar pattern to an existing work.
It is one when they use elements that are common to many works, and in a way that is no different from everything else. It’s the writing that makes something a cliche. If they reuse well-known tropes, then they’re cliched. If they subvert the tropes or do something entirely different, it’s original.
Said another way: If the critic likes it, it’s authentic. If not, it’s cliché.
How long ago did mankind come up with the last of the only 7 possible stories? In one sense everything since then is derivative bunk. In another sense, the combinations are limitless and we’ve barely scratched the surface of all the literature (of all media) that will eventually ever have been created by humanity.
Willow and Lord of the Rings both had filming in New Zealand with a massive mountain range as a backdrop.
My favorite medieval fantasy game(s) of all time is Myth The Fallen Lords and Myth II Soulblighter that include a massive mountain range called The Cloudspine.
A massive mountain range is not original or cliché it’s authentic. It’s what a medieval fantasy world is MEANT to include in a traditional sense.
The point of this thread is that there is a fine line between what is cliché and what is traditional.
I had two filming locations figured out in general questions because there’s simply more people that use that section of the site.
To figure out a filming location you need a large mass of people to try and figure it out. That’s honestly why I didn’t label my last filming location question as being from a movie because I knew you would move the thread to Cafe Society and my question would never be figured out.
And because it stayed in general questions it was figured out to be Devil’s Basin in Elk, California.
There’s nothing that says authentic can’t be used to describe fantasy works.
A massive mountain range is not original or cliché it’s authentic for a medieval fantasy story.
Imagine Lord of the Rings without it.
Willow is cliché in its story because it’s too similar to Lord of the Rings although the presentation of Willow is authentic which makes it timeless and not categorized as cliché.
IMO there is nothing inherent in medieval fantasy that requires a mountain range.
ISTM you’re simply declaring things you like, or things you’ve experienced in the particular tiny subset of all stories that you’ve read to be “authentic”. Read some different tiny subset of all stories and you’ll find a completely different “authentic.”
Further, as **igor **wisely points out, authentic and cliché are far from antonyms. They describe completely different axes of critical evaluation. The only sense they’re even capable of being compared is that “authentic” is often viewed as a positive trait whereas cliché is viewed as negative. Both of which are oversimplifications.
A cliche used to be innovative or authentic (if you prefer this word) but its meaning and application are now pigeonholed within a culture.
Cliches are therefore intellectually boring for everyone well acquainted with its use; they don’t tell them anything new or stimulating, though their familiarity might induce a feeling of comfort and reassurance.
A movie like Willow isn’t cliched at all for a viewer who isn’t familiar with all the groundwork (literary and cinematographically) that it is built upon. More importantly, it’s a kid’s movie where the use of already known ideas is a valuable reaffirmation process. Willow works like a cleaned-up fairy tale that teaches moral principles and good conduct.
And it does so with enough self-consciousness that older viewers realize that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is, imo, essential to avoid the tediousness that comes with a reiteration of well-known ideas.