An Empirical Report on Young People’s Responses to Adult Fantasy Films

Drawing on two substantial databases—from the international Lord of the Rings and Hobbit projects—this chapter explores the ways in which young people’s responses to films are like or unlike adult responses. It analyses, in particular, how a possible transformative moment can occur in their lives, in which particular films play a crucial role in expanding their sense of the self and the world. These empirical findings are set in relation to psychological accounts of the “reminiscence bump,” and sociological accounts of generational memories, and to recent developments in general approaches to “fantasy.”