Nostalgia is a powerful drug that often distorts our memory of the past, convincing us that the entertainment of our youth was flawless. This phenomenon is particularly perceptible in the fantasy genre, where the suspension of disbelief is already a requirement for entry. We tend to remember the magical feelings these films evoked during a Saturday matinee or a sleepover, conveniently forgetting the clumsy special effects, the questionable casting choices, or the narrative themes that would never pass a pitch meeting in 2025. While many fantasy classic films remain timeless because their stories are rooted in universal human truths, others rely heavily on the specific cultural norms and technological limitations of their era. When those norms shift and technology advances, these once-beloved blockbusters can transform into awkward experiences.
The process of a movie aging poorly does not always mean the film has become unwatchable, but it does mean that the viewing experience has fundamentally changed. A movie that was once hailed as a visual revolution might look clunky to modern eyes, while a romance that thrilled teenagers a decade ago might be disturbingly like stalking to a more socially conscious audience. Finally, in some severe cases, the portrayals of race and gender are so outdated that they overshadow whatever artistic merit the film originally possessed.
7) Highlander
The premise of Highlander remains undeniably cool, as immortal warriors fighting through the centuries for a nebulous prize is the stuff of great pulp fiction. However, the execution of the 1986 cult classic is a baffling exercise in nonsensical casting that becomes more distracting with every passing year. The film asks the audience to accept Christopher Lambert, a French actor with a thick accent, as a born-and-bred Scotsman. To make matters even more confusing, the movie cast Sean Connery, the most famous Scotsman in Hollywood history, to play an Egyptian immortal masquerading as a Spaniard.
Beyond the linguistic gymnastics required to believe these characters, Highlander suffers from pacing issues and a romance subplot that feels entirely unearned. Furthermore, the visual effects, particularly the lightning-heavy “Quickening” sequences, have the distinct aesthetic of a low-budget music video. While the Queen soundtrack does a lot of heavy lifting to maintain the energy, Highlander is a movie that functions much better as a vague memory than as a 105-minute viewing experience.
6) Alice in Wonderland
Tim Burton is a director with a distinct visionary style, and his 2010 adaptation of Alice in Wonderland was a massive commercial success that grossed over a billion dollars. Despite its box office dominance, the film now represents the worst impulses of the CGI-heavy blockbuster era that defined the early 2010s. To make matters worse, the movie abandons the whimsical logic of the source material in favor of a generic “chosen one” narrative that turns Alice (Mia Wasikowska) into an armor-clad warrior destined to slay a dragon. This shift strips the story of its unique identity and forces it into a standard fantasy action mold that feels tiresome and predictable.
The visuals of Alice in Wonderland have also aged with surprising speed. The reliance on green screen environments creates an artificial look that lacks the tactile charm of Burton’s earlier practical work. Finally, the performance of Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter feels like a collection of quirks rather than a cohesive character, marking the point where his eccentric acting style began to wear thin. The “Futterwacken” dance sequence at the end of the film is now widely cited as one of the most embarrassing moments in big-budget cinema history, for good reason.
5) Twilight
It is impossible to overstate the cultural impact of Twilight when it premiered, launching a vampire craze that dominated bookstores and theaters for years. Yet, as the hysteria has faded, the central romance between Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) has come under intense scrutiny for its toxic dynamics. The film frames Edward’s behavior as romantic and protective, but a modern viewing reveals a relationship defined by control, isolation, and stalking. Edward watches Bella sleep without her knowledge, disables her truck to prevent her from seeing friends, and constantly dictates her safety in a way that removes her agency.
The Twilight problems extend beyond the main couple to the supporting lore of the franchise. The subplot involving Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) eventually leads to him “imprinting” on a literal infant, a concept that tries to spin a magical destiny bond but lands firmly in the territory of the grotesque. While the film is still enjoyed by many as a campy artifact of the late 2000s, the serious presentation of these relationships as aspirational love stories is a major hurdle for new audiences.
4) 300
Zack Snyder established his signature slow-motion aesthetic with 300, a film that turned the Battle of Thermopylae into a hyper-stylized graphic novel come to life. While the visuals were groundbreaking at the time, the film’s ideological underpinnings have aged terribly. The narrative frames the Spartans, led by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), as the ultimate defenders of freedom and Western civilization, ignoring the historical reality that Spartan society was built on brutal slavery and eugenics. Instead, the movie glosses over these facts to present a black-and-white morality tale that feels uncomfortable in the current political climate.
The depiction of the Persian army is even more contentious. The film presents the Persians as a horde of monstrous, exoticized caricatures. Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is depicted as a towering, pierced deviant, while his troops are often shown as disfigured beasts or mindless slaves. This contrast creates a visual language that equates physical disability and foreignness with evil, while equating the physical perfection of the Spartans with moral righteousness.
3) Big
Penny Marshall directed one of the most beloved comedies of the 1980s with Big, a film that charmed the world with the story of a boy in a man’s body. In the movie, Tom Hanks (Josh Baskin) delivers a career-defining performance, perfectly capturing the innocence and energy of a twelve-year-old. However, the central romantic subplot involving Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) blemishes Big‘s legacy. The film plays the relationship for laughs and sentiment, but the reality is that an adult executive is engaging in a sexual relationship with a middle schooler.
Big attempts to sidestep the issue by keeping the audience focused on Josh’s physical appearance, but the power imbalance and lack of informed consent are impossible to ignore today. Susan believes she is dating a quirky man, while Josh is a child who is completely unequipped to navigate an adult relationship. As a result, the moment where Susan stays the night at Josh’s apartment has shifted from a romantic beat to a scene that induces severe discomfort. Big remains a classic in many regards, but this specific aspect of the plot is a relic of an era that did not think deeply about the implications of its high-concept premises.
2) The Indian in the Cupboard
Based on the children’s book, The Indian in the Cupboard was praised upon its release for its special effects and heartwarming tone. The story follows a young boy named Omri (Hal Scardino) who discovers that a magical cupboard can bring his plastic toys to life. He befriends an Iroquois man named Little Bear (Litefoot), and the film attempts to teach lessons about history and friendship through this encounter. Despite these good intentions, the fundamental concept of the film is rooted in a colonialist fantasy where a white child literally owns a Native American person, keeping him in a box and controlling his access to food and shelter.
The Indian in the Cupboard relies on the trope of the “Magical Native American” who exists primarily to guide and enlighten the white protagonist. Little Bear is treated as a plaything and a curiosity rather than a human being with agency, and his culture is often reduced to surface-level signifiers. While the movie tries to address the fact that Little Bear is a real person with a life back in his own time, the power dynamic remains inherently uncomfortable. The Indian in the Cupboard trivializes the history of displacement and control, turning it into a whimsical adventure for a suburban kid.
1) Peter Pan
Disney produced many films that contain outdated stereotypes, but the 1953 animated version of Peter Pan stands out as the most egregious example in the fantasy canon. The film is a technical marvel of animation and features iconic songs, yet it grinds to a halt during the sequence involving Tiger Lily (voiced by Corinne Orr) and her tribe. Peter Pan (voiced by Bobby Driscoll) and the Darling children visit the indigenous encampment, leading to the song “What Made the Red Man Red,” which is a cavalcade of racist caricatures, utilizing offensive slurs and stereotypical imagery that has no place in modern media. In addition, the characters are depicted with exaggerated red skin and are shown speaking in broken, nonsensical gibberish. This depiction takes a significant portion of the film’s runtime, which centers entirely on mocking Indigenous people.
Even in the context of the 1950s, Peter Pan‘s portrayal was reliant on harmful tropes, but today it renders the film difficult to show to children without a lengthy conversation about racism. Even Disney has acknowledged this failure by adding content warnings to the film on streaming platforms, admitting that these depictions were wrong then and are wrong now. Peter Pan is the definitive example of a fantasy classic that has been fundamentally tarnished by the prejudices of its time.
Which other fantasy favorite do you think needs a critical re-evaluation? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
