"Lord of the Rings" was a game changer, I think. Before that, not only wasn't fantasy really accepted but rarely did they work visually even when they had a budget. Those movies finally did what we at the time all hoped "Willow" would do...

Willow was just... disappointing. You expected so much, being produced by Lucas and all, and it just didn't work. At the time my main thought was they were stealing from everywhere and it just wasn't forming a whole. Ladyhawk was a much better 80's fantasy.

There's a reason Lucas stopped being a producer, unlike Spielberg. He just wasn't good at it (or, at least, the movies didn't make money) unless Indy was involved.

As for the nostalgia, well, DIF has started tackling the classics so we're reminded of them. I'm hoping they do Willow, to see what went wrong. Personally I think the Moses and Hobbit ripoffs just got it off on the wrong foot. Having that upfront got the audience looking to see what else they were going to steal from instead of getting involved in the story. By way of contrast, Excalibur starts with something new and we're immediately involved and wondering how this is going to become, if it is, the Arthur story we know. Ladyhawk as well starts by focusing us something new (our main character) before bringing in the fantasy parts that may or may not be borrowed from elsewhere.