Fantasy storytelling reached a new level of cultural visibility and mainstream popularity with the immense success of Game of Thrones (2011-19). As Game of Thrones rose to prominence, it inspired The Simpsons creator Matt Groening to develop a new animated series, his first major new series since Futurama (1999-2013).
Read MoreThe most recent Pixar film, Onward (Dan Scanlon, 2020), tells the story of two brothers, Ian and Barley, who set out on a magical quest in a bid to spend one final day with their late father. On Ian’s sixteenth birthday he is presented with a gift left to him by his father, whom he has never met, with the instructions that he and his older brother could only open it when they were both at least sixteen. Onward is therefore a story strongly embedded in loss. Ian is a teenager, unsure of himself and anxious about transitioning into adulthood.
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