Stuber Productions/Kobal/ShutterstockA decade and a half ago, a fantasy epic premiered that would go on to become the biggest thing in pop culture; a juggernaut that redefined the fantasy genre and which permanently altered fandom. Also, nine days before that, Your Highness came out. Unlike Game of Thrones, which debuted on HBO a week and change after Your Highness hit theaters on April 8, 2011, the raunchy stoner fantasy comedy did not set the world ablaze, and 15 years later, it's mostly forgotten about. It would be a lie to say that Your Highness is a hidden gem worthy of canonization among the fantasy (or comedy) greats. But, in light of what came after it, the Danny McBride flick is a fascinating artifact; and although there are plenty of regrettable jokes among the side-splitters, it's a unique genre mashup.Described as a "self-indulgent dream project for the 11-year-old in me" by director David Gordon Green, Your Highness puts the "high" in "high fantasy." A follow-up to Green's 2008's action-comedy Pineapple Express, itself a stoner spin on another genre, Your Highness stars McBride as Thadeous, the lazy, immature second son of the king of the land of Mourne. His elder brother, James Franco's Fabious, is by all accounts the perfect prince: noble, chivalrous, and brave in battle. When Fabious returns from a quest with a new bride (Zooey Deschanel's Princess Belladonna), Thadeous very much resents this happily ever after — until an evil wizard named Leezar (a bizarrely committed Justin Theroux) crashes the wedding and kidnaps Belladonna. The brothers must set off on a new quest to rescue her, joining forces with a warrior woman named Isabel (Natalie Portman). The adventure that follows involves armored pratfalls, betrayals, magical swords, CGI wizardry, sex jokes, and a severed minotaur penis.Despite the goofy, juvenile nature and scrappiness of the comedy, Your Highness looks the part of a fantasy adventure. A $50 million budget isn't huge for a fantasy movie, but it's a lot for a comedy and is double what Pineapple Express cost. The costumes and sets are detailed, the makeup is great, the practical effects are plentiful, and the computer effects aren't nearly as bad as they could be considering this was an early-'00s movie. It's certainly more realized (and better-shot!) than many straight-to-streaming genre flicks these days. Still, even though Green clearly has a sincere affection for the genre, the craftsmanship is in service of a fantasy world that's unfocused and inherently somewhat generic. It's understandable — deep, deep lore would get in the way of the primary purpose of the movie: being silly. And maybe there was a sense that audiences in 2011 weren't really looking for a big fantasy world. The Lord of the Rings films were nearly a decade in the rearview mirror and the eighth Harry Potter film would come out that summer. Other high fantasy movies in the '00s — like the Narnia films, Eragon, and The Golden Compass — were hits but there might not have been as much enthusiasm behind them. If audiences were getting a little exhausted by fantasy, why not make an irreverent parody?Game of Thrones would prove that, actually, audiences were not tired of fantasy. They just needed a great, earnest, and serious take on the genre. Instead, Your Highness had passable fantasy action — with limited stakes due to the comedy of it all — and jokes. Some of those jokes kill, like McBride's banter with his servant Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker) or a few raunchy quips that get at the vulgar, immature magic of his comedy delivery in The Righteous Gemstones. As the evil wizard Leezar, Theroux really goes for it.The brothers go on a quest. | Stuber Productions/Kobal/ShutterstockThe biggest — and honestly perhaps disqualifying — problem with Your Highness is how much of the humor is about rape. The threat of rape even drives the plot, as Leezar needs to have his way with an unwilling Belladonna to impregnate her with a dragon. The density of rape jokes in Your Highness quickly goes from "yeah, unfortunately I guess pop culture was more casual about this back then" to "this is genuinely uncomfortable to watch" pretty quickly. The jokes aren't meant with malice. They're sex jokes in a sex comedy that play in the unsavory aspects of a lot of serious medieval-set tales. One could almost make the case that the crass way Your Highness jokes about the subject is better than some of the ways that Game of Thrones frequently deployed rape as a means to up dramatic stakes. That doesn't make Your Highness more comfortable to watch, and even if you're inclined to give the movie the benefit of the doubt in any attempt to reappraise it as a possible cult classic, it's hard to ignore.The most interesting thing to compare Your Highness to isn't actually Game of Thrones despite the similar premiere dates and controversial subject matter. Instead it's the 2023 film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Even the funniest jokes in Your Highness find their humor in the contrast between fantasy and the film's R-rating. The vulgarity of the jokes doesn't match what you'd expect from this world of swords and sorcery, a deliberately comedic clash. The D&D movie, though, is an earnest fantasy world that finds tons of laughs in its made-up, trope-filled world organically rather than by playing against it.Dungeons & Dragons premiered into a pop culture landscape that was friendlier to this type of fantasy than Your Highness, in part because Game of Thrones revitalized the genre and because it had the benefit of a known and increasingly popular IP while Your Highness was all-original. At the risk of some phrasing that sounds like a joke from Your Highness, Your Highness came too early. It's hard to parody something that isn't established enough in pop culture to be parodied, and harder still when the parodying is as lewd as it is here. And yet… what fantasy fan can't appreciate embarking on a bold, foolhardy quest? Your Highness tried — and the minotaur dick gag is, you gotta hand it to 'em, pretty good.Your Highness is streaming on Starz.