SummaryThe adaptation of the fantasy book series by Terry Brooks set thousands of year in the future where follows Elvin Princess Amberle (Poppy Drayton); Eretria (Ivana Baquero), a Human Rover; and Wil(Austin Butler), a Half-Elf, Half-Human, seek to stop a Demon army from destroying the world.
SummaryThe adaptation of the fantasy book series by Terry Brooks set thousands of year in the future where follows Elvin Princess Amberle (Poppy Drayton); Eretria (Ivana Baquero), a Human Rover; and Wil(Austin Butler), a Half-Elf, Half-Human, seek to stop a Demon army from destroying the world.
The series is sassier than the book.... Moving pictures require something different; messianic folderol is best served there with a little sex, and a little seltzer. That has been provided.
Though there’s plenty of reasons to mourn a show that’s covering up its central emptiness with so much narrative busy work, there are glimmers of hope that maybe, if the show gains some footing in its second act, it might still find itself in time.
The world-building is imaginative and impressive, but the mythology is exhausting to keep up with, especially when the reward is basically just a romance-novel version of The Lord of the Rings.
Every time a character opens their mouth for some tin-eared quip that wouldn’t be out of place on a soapy drama like Gossip Girl, it knee-caps the rest of the storytelling. And wherever the dialogue isn’t weirdly contemporary, it’s frustratingly clunky.
This was a pretty good show. The first episode was amazing, and I am considering reading the books based on what I have seen in the rest of the show. However, the script seems flat, and some scenes can be very boring. The first few episodes are great, but it goes downhill from there.
As my screen name suggests, I was in my childhood an Avid sci-fi and fantasy reader, and read pretty much all of Terry Brooks work. There are spoilers in here so if you haven't watched them or read the books, you've been warned.
I remember as an 11 year old boy, seeing the cover of "Elfstones of Shannara", the second book, in an mall bookstore, and being intrigued. After reading "Sword", I read "Elfstones" and then "Wishsong" I skimmed through "Scions" but just couldn't make it. I feel that the Shannara books are probably Brooks least original work. Based loosely on Earth, thousands of years after an Apocalyptic end to known civilization, It is my understanding that Elves had once again revealed themselves on Earth, and that mutations and the like had spawned monsters, gnomes, trolls, etc. Magic has returned to the world after lying dormant during the reign of humankind and technology. Other than that, the novels are a bit of a knock-off of Tolkien's world, (which of course was it's own knock-off of the Fairy books and other things, including possibly WW2) with lots of teen angst and a considerable amount of moping about by Will, and Shea, while explosions spout forth from the Elfstones sporadically, in times of great need, and Allanon rides through the world like a darker version of Gandalf, always doing good, but always hiding a terrible secret. So, While at first I felt much like the others who wrote negative reviews of this series, when I think back on what the books actually were, they are really a perfect fit for this sort of mediocre quality fantasy. Will, in the books, is portrayed as sort of a small guy, and they have a giant hunk playing half-elf, but I think that works better for TV. I imagine that this character originally represented the author, much like Bilbo Baggins represented Tolkien in the Hobbit, and that certainly won't do for the small screen or MTV. The Elves are multi-cultural instead of Nordic, the gnomes are terribly ugly, Humans, for the most part, hardly come into the story and as many have stated the Rovers are portrayed as pretty fricking vicious. I do think the other casting is pretty great. Amberle is beautiful (Poppy Drayton) and does a fine job as Amberle, and Ivana Baquero is startlingly close to what I imagined Eretria would look like, hips, eyes, hair, attitude and all. Of course MTV HAD to try to get Amberle and Eretria to kiss. Really? Allanon (Manu Bennet), while different from my imaginings of him, is a pretty good fit for Allanon, I think. Allanon would definitely not be caught wearing a smile, and neither would Manu's portrayal. I was also glad to see John Rhys-Davies for a few moments, and even though he was about as far away from the Elf King as I can imagine, he always does a good job.
While the story is barely a mix of the Elfstones and a couple other books, I think the general plot line is about right. The Elfstones explode from time to time with blue light, Amberle turns into a tree and Eretria makes it. But there were some changes that were made that I thought would have been great in the story, Like when Eretria brashly declares that Will is "For her", early on, and then I believe those are the last words in the second book. Pretty great ending. While the books may have been somewhat weak, they weren't all bad, and as a teen/pre-teen. I didn't know any better. The stories along with others inspired me to try write some stories of my own. So from a subjective view, I think these Chronicles do a pretty fair job of revealing the world of Shannara, and are well homed on MTV. Not quite good enough to make a movie from. Like a teenagers life, there is plenty of infinite, angst filled drama sprinkled throughout with the occasional burst of magic. There are SO MANY books about this world, wow! plenty of fodder for season after season!
I predict it will do well, and I will probably ashamedly binge-watch the second season, pointing out flaws and picking at it, but staying for the occasional cool action shots of characters like Allanon, Will, Amberle, and the Elfstones of Shannara.
Manu Bennett is the thing good in the show. Between the feminist PC nonsense, purposeful and deliberate inclusion of lesbian situations just for the sake of being PC, and the idiotic and boring constant teen love angst while traipsing around talking in a forest literally 80% of the entire show (while a demon war is supposed to be waging), I am so done with this series. I was so excited to finally see the Shannara chronicles made into live action: and then I watched it. This is clearly more MTV than Shannara. Horrible costumes, lousy fight scenes when there actually IS a fight scene, and laughable CGI. And oh GOD the **** acting. I bet Manu is just rolling his eyes after every take, and weeping a bit inside his trailer between filmings. All you people had to do, was make a show depicting the SUCCESSFUL shannara series. That's all you had to do! Nothing more. Nothing less. And you failed. You needed to install your own politics and social engineering into a world that didn't even need it to begin with. I don't watch a fantasy show to deal with real world social justice, and honestly who does? PLus it's just so poorly injected and created to be even more of a focus than the actual story. I give up. I can only imagine how much money they had to pay John Rhys-Davies and Manu Bennett to be a part of this **** political social justice abortion of a series.