Do you remember the last good movie set in a traditional fantasy world, by which I mean something like a fairytale? Or based on mythology? Or even just the last historical epic set before the 20th century you thought, "That looks great?"
I sure don't.
Part of this can be blamed on the fact that superheroes have been the main popular genre of the past 15 or so years, and you have science fiction in there as well. Tastes come and go, and what is popular now will be seen as cringeworthy in the future.
That part is understandable.
But the other reason why is far more sinister.
The same woke zeitgeist that is demanding the removal of historical monuments no matter their intended message is the same one preventing us from being able to look back at the past fondly, or even just a fantastical version of it.
Yet this same movement demands of the genre it seeks to destroy by changing it to reflect the present. Settings must be as cosmopolitan as present-day American cities no matter how unrealistic and contradictory to established logic it must be because acknowledging this fact is somehow exclusionary, if not bigoted.
People may argue we are seeing unnecessarily diverse casts in science fiction settings, but sci-fi by its very nature makes those diverse casts more believable. The belief that the inclusion of diverse characters is somehow groundbreaking or transgressive in such a genre is the issue there (hate for Disney's "Star Wars" would not be nearly as deep as it is for this same reason, aside from just how badly written the sequels were in general).
Related: Shatner Suggests That Moderns Feel Threatened by Capt. Kirk
Fantasy tales and historical epics do not have this luxury, since their nature as lower-tech settings means migration and travel are much slower, which in turn means characters will not be particularly diverse.
Wokeness doesn't care. Your fantasy world MUST resemble our present-day one, suspension of disbelief be damned.
But even more than that, wokeness does not accommodate for anything less than present-day morals and values, again contradictory to the setting's own logic.
Themes such as honor, love, sacrifice, and redemption, ones found across cultures and across time, must be twisted to serve what is considered upright and rational now, or discarded entirely.
Just imagine if 2004's "Troy" were made now. Just because Achilles' and Patroclus' relationship has been debated for centuries does not mean it should be the focus of a movie about, you know, the Siege of Troy. No, you would have to focus on Achilles and Patroclus as lovers above all else. And even if this were kept in the background of a modern film, this would be the part elevated in the press, no matter what anyone, including the director, says.
Don't even think about adapting "The Song of Roland" into a film or making a movie about the Crusades where the Christians are presented as anything other than villains. 2005's "Kingdom of Heaven" gave both the Crusaders and the Saracens a fair shake, so current woke sensibilities would find it "problematic."
An adaptation of "Dante's Inferno" would undoubtedly include blatant references to modern politics, and a modernized version would easily include people considered bete noire by the modern left. The predictable excuse is that some of Dante's own political rivals from his time are in there too, but it is far more than that, as the Divine Comedy deals with sin and redemption, concepts shunned by the modern world.
I would say something about "The Lord of the Rings," but you all know what happened there with Amazon's "Rings of Power."
