 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to Top 5 Friday. Today, well last week we talked about the my favorite sci-fi horror media. This week we are talking about my favorite fantasy, not fantasy horror or grimdark or any of that stuff, but my favorite fantasy content. I think they are all, no they're not all, they're not all books, there's some movies in here. Anyways, we're going to jump right into it on with the show. Number five. So at number five, we have The Lord of the Rings, franchise, books, movies, all that stuff. That's down, it's number five easily. Again, these lists, unless I say otherwise, are in, I get this wrong every time, but it's from five to one. They are in that order from the fifth one to the first, to my favorite. I don't know how to put it, I think it's ascending, I'm not sure if it's descending. I think it's ascending, whatever. Let's get on with it. The Lord of the Rings is a classic, it's a favorite of mine. For the longest time, The Hobbit was above it, and I have to kind of backtrack to me not being able to finish The Lord of the Rings series. This is the last time I tried, but I was able to finish The Hobbit. The reasoning I'm giving for this is the movies. I think the movies are the best version of the books, and I know there's going to be people who are upset, but I think Tolkien went on too long, too long, too long. And with The Hobbit novel, the book is great, but it's rather basic, and the movies are actually horrible. So when I mash everything together, I have to look at Lord of the Rings as my favorite of that quadrilogy, or whatever you want to call it, my favorite of that storyline because I love the movies so much. I might like The Hobbit book a little bit better, but when I compile everything together, I think I still have to point to the movies as they are that big of an achievement. Number four. Number four is a movie with Tim Curry and Tom Cruise, and it is legend. It's funny because I can't stand Tom Cruise. I hate Tom Cruise. Love everything about Tim Curry. I hate that he's in such ill health. I believe he had a stroke, but he's one of my favorite actors of all times. I wouldn't love the Kongo movie as much as I did if they hadn't have added Curry's character because that character is not in the book. But anyways, we're talking about legend. This, I believe it's directed by Ridley Scott, is an absolutely gorgeous film to look at. It is so well acted. The whole thing, the story revolves around, I believe they're trying to get a unicorn horn back from this demonic devil character played by Curry. And if I'm absolutely honest, this is only one of maybe five times in Tom Cruise's career that he actually had to act. Probably because it was one of his first movies and he had to step up. But ever since, he plays Tom Cruise and everything. Then again, so does Brad Pitt and so does Angelina Jolie. These are actors who started off acting and now they just play themselves in every single movie. They've gotten lazy. But legend is one of those films that is an absolute classic to me and it's a beauty to behold and I always have fun watching it. At number three is a recent favorite of mine. A recent addition to this list as it were. And that is the dandelion dynasty novels by Ken Liu. I don't know exactly why. I haven't pinpointed exactly what I love about this series. I keep saying it's because it's not a western fantasy. A western fantasy. And what I mean by that is like a white people fantasy. This is an alternate Chinese history. It's got steampunk elements. It's got high fantasy. It's got brutal violence. It has amazing battle sequences. The characters are so in depth and well put together. The diversity is on point. There's representation of damn near everybody. It's one of those books, the series so far. And The Veiled Throne comes out in November. I'm super stoked for that. But it's one of those series that I never want to end. But then you look over and you have like Robert Jordan with his 14 book series that I couldn't even get past the second book. And then you have Brandon Sanderson with his 10 book. It's not complete. It's only on book four. I got board 300 pages into the first book. There's something different about Ken Liu that his characters truly spoke to me, which is funny because you hear it all the time. I can't, especially white people, I can't connect to these characters. Well, I connected more to these characters than I do any of the billion white fantasy characters out there. So I don't know. May is just a better characterization period. Maybe it is because it's a different culture and I just like new things because I don't know much about Chinese history. And it was an absolute joy to read about it. And it was an absolute joy to go back and research this stuff and find out exactly what stuff Liu took to to, you know, and embellished on and changed. It was fantastic. If you have not read this series, I implore you go out and get the grace of kings. I got hard covers on the way. I'll probably do that with my next book haul. I sent my paperbacks to my friend Terry. And I don't normally do that. I don't normally go out and buy unless it's something like Stephen King, Joe Hill, Caroline Kepnis, that kind of thing where I own all the paperbacks and all the hard covers that they've ever released. So you know I love this. And I own the audiobooks for the Liu books also. But anyways, please go out and check these out, especially if you don't like fantasy. If you have an issue with fantasy and it bores you to tears, definitely try this guy out. Number two. Number two is a fantasy movie that I never hear anybody talking about. It is a cult favorite. It has a cult following. But I love it just because it is so unique. Just because it is so, they did so much with such a small budget. And that is the movie, Inc. from 2009, I believe. This story, hello dirt, we meet again. I mean that quote right there, when you watch this movie or if you have seen this movie, that quote, hello dirt, we meet again. Fantastic. I mean the whole thing is fantastic, but there was so much humor, and it was such a light fantasy with such dark implications. It was shot so dark, it was, but there was an underlying insidious darkness to it that I really, really loved. And that kind of made it more of a horror movie than a fantasy. But I think that's why I liked it as much as I did, because it was so unique and I'd never seen anything like it before. I don't want to say too much about this one, because it is such a cult favorite, cult classic. So if you have not seen this movie, please go out and check it out. It's super cheap on Amazon right now. I had to look it up last night, because I don't actually own a copy. And I'd forgotten about it. But once I started thinking about my top five fantasy, because it was one of the things where I literally had to go searching out things that I had watched. I was going through a list of top five fantasy things, and I came across ink. I was like, yes, I need that. So I went over there and I had to put it on this list. So yeah, that's your number two. Number one. And number one is, of course, the Dark Tower. I mean, come on, folks. You knew it was going to be here. I'm a huge Stephen King fan. Roland's journey is absolutely amazing to me. Yes, I would say my second least favorite, what I would consider the second worst book Stephen King has ever written, is the fourth book in the series. And the sixth book in the series leaves a lot to be desired. But I think if we look at Song of Susanna, which is book six, I think if we look at that, if we look at Wolves, Susanna, and the final book, The Dark Tower, if we put all of those together, I think they make one final amazing novel. But separately, they do not stand well alone. Whereas The Gunslinger, Drawing of the Three, The Wastelands, and Wizarding Glass, which I actually cannot stand. One of the worst books I've ever read, period. Those books stand alone, I feel, other than maybe the beginning of Wizarding Glass because, you know, blame the pain. But anyways. So yeah, my number one is The Dark Tower. You guys knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. Everybody knew it was coming. Because I don't like fantasy. And Stephen King did enough to do, to change, to have western elements, even samurai film elements, so many different elements. And there's some Harry Potter in there. There's some Marvel comics in there. There's all different kinds. There's some Wizard of Oz in there. It is a story about story. And I think that alone makes it my number one. So that has been my top five fantasy. This is the second most requested top five Friday I have ever received. And of course, I didn't do it before now because I don't care too much for fantasy. So it's really odd. And I know there's going to be comments, how are you going to do a top five fantasy when you don't like fantasy? Well, I just did. So leave all of your favorite fantasy stuff, whether it be books, video games, any kind of media, movies, it doesn't matter. Leave all that stuff down there in the doobly doo doo, your own top five list, do 10, do 20. I don't care. Leave all that down there in the doobly doo. But until next time, I have an E, you have an U. This has been another top five Friday. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye bye.