I assumed automatically - and still agree with myself - that it is fantasy, but when I looked up genre information, the two key elements were "magic" and the "supernatural." Which don't quite fit... anyway. It must be acceptable!

Going out of town this week so won't really have any time to watch things, but I have a red eye flight tonight (and can't sleep on planes), and a 3 hour layover next weekend, so along with books on my kindle fire I loaded a few movies that will count for the challenge so hope to at least get a couple of movies in at some point.

Quite. If one wants to be nit-picky and bloody-minded, all films (and TV episodes) are "fantasy" because they aren't real - even if they're based on real things.

But the genre definition is different from a pseud-y literal stance. And for that, you need space, future, technology, aliens, time travel, monsters, "science," the paranormal, the supernatural, speculation, lasers, parallel worlds, telepathy or similar. And there's easily enough of that in Wreck-It Ralph.

Again, earlier it was mentioned that The Lion King is classed as "fantasy" somewhere..! If it's for the talking animal aspect, then all Disney fare is allowed (which is not completely unlikely, given that fairy tales fall under fantasy, but is a bit stretchy); if it's for the very brief "supernatural" bits (Mufasa in the clouds), then any time any character in anything dreams or hallucinates an interaction with someone who couldn't be there, that thing would weasel it's way into Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Which would wind up being completely ludicrous...

Not to harp on this too much again but I was reading something completely different and found out that the story was basically lifted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

I guess I'm complaining more about all the people that rave about the film and not knowing it was from a short story.

I've been thinking about this. When he orders them to retrieve the documents, they have no plan on escaping the time period. It's not until the last 20 minutes that Spock comes up with the idea of slingshotting around the sun. So, yes, in the end it becomes unnecessary, at the time it was to cover their tracks.

Though, I'm with you on the tour of the Enterprise. Unless he just assumed he wasn't going to return Christoper, but still...a bit too presumptive of Kirk as he's taking him from the transporter to the tour...

Which is why, I guess, at some point someone decided to make it a rule that it must be listed as such on IMDB or allmovie.com. Otherwise, where do you draw the line?
Maybe the right thing is to stand by this rule and use the wildcards for things such as this. maybe in the future the wildcards could be increased in this category for this reason.

I will fight anyone who says Wreck-It Ralph isn't fantasy. I mean fight them in a game of Street Fighter.

If it helps, I'll just say, I'd allow Wreck It Ralph.

or just wait til next month's Animation challenge

Wreck-It Ralph is a metafiction story about a video game character. How is its eligibility even in dispute?

That's what I was going to do. It could be a good cross-over choice though. Is there a crossover period with the animation challenge? Does it start at dusk on July 31?

Well, it came up because neither of the two websites chosen as the authorities on what would qualify list it as SF or F.

Yeah, but it's such an obvious one that it seems to be a matter of lawyering the challenge unnecessarily. This isn't the IMDb Sci-Fi/Fantasy Challenge. The whole point behind deferring to IMDb and Allmovies in the first place was that no host could be expected to be familiar with each and every movie that someone may want to count during a challenge. It's reasonable to defer to an accepted authority for such things. But that deference doesn't need to be so absolute that it prevents us from making obvious, common sense determinations.

^Well said.

(And for those of you who participated in this year's Historical Challenge - I'm *not* saying that just to keep "most favored" status next year. )

Ha! Now there's a challenge where eligibility involves a lot of lawyering...!

Would anyone object to me using Brave as my sword and sorcery entry? Yes I know there aren't any swords but bows and arrows come pretty darn close IMHO. I hadn't seen it since it was in theaters and I enjoy it more this time around.

Random question that I don't expect anyone to have the answer to but, as I was watching Bulletproof Monk I swear that the exterior of Jade's house looks exactly the same as the exterior of Victor Maitland's house from Beverly Hills Cop. Anyone know if that's the same house/set?

in regards to Brave maybe next year we'll have a 'Bows and Arrows & Witchery' sub category

It starts at midnight on July 31, so there is a whole day of crossover,

Now that's threading the needle! Well put!

I really dislike rules lawyering--that's why I stopped participating in the History challenge, and I would hate for that to happen here.

Common sense dictates that Wreck-It Ralph falls well within this challenge. Virtually any animated film--barring an outlier like Grave of the Fireflies--is going to be a fantasy fillm, and a film about a video-game character gone rogue is not exactly a BBC documentary.

I was in Amarillo for a few days so ran by one of the local Big Lots to see if I could find any "new" DVDs. Found a copy of Jonah Hex - as it was discussed in the Historical Challenge I picked up a copy for the SciFi/Fantasy challenge. I also gound a copy of The Sonny Chiba Collection which has 4 of his films in anamorphic WS in original Japanese and English subs for $3! I picked it up mainly due to the Sony Chiba name, that they were WS in original language and only $3. Not being familiar with the films I took a quick look at them on IMDB to discover 3 of the 4 qualify for the SciFi/Fantasy challenge! Cool! G.I. Samurai, Ninja Wars, and Legend of the Eight Samurai all have Fantasy and/or SciFi as genres. Only Resurrection of Golden Wolf doesn't qualify. It's nice to accidentally make a SF/Fantasy film purchase!

A couple years ago we discovered that IMDB didn't have Austin Powers listed as Science Fiction. It has cryogenics, time travel, spaceships, cloning, sharks with frikkin lasers, etc. IMDB is a good guide, but it's certainly not definitive.

let's go for a third time ...

That'll do me!

(Now I probably ought to find time to watch it myself, having gone on about it so much...!)

Personally, I don't see it as falling into the Swords & Sorcery category, BUT there are swords in it a fair bit, as well as a scaffy old witch, so it does fulfill the two named criteria!