The Shannara Chronicles

So just saw a commercial for this on TV and kinda thought it was a joke at first.........apparently its real!

I really enjoyed the books but am rather afraid that a wild shock and awe game of thrones treatment would ruin this!  


"Coming to MTV in January 2016, ‘The Shannara Chronicles’ is a new TV series based on the best-selling fantasy novels by Terry Brooks. Set thousands of years after the destruction of our civilization, the story follows an Elven Princess, Amberle, a half-human half-elf, Wil, and a human, Eretria, as they embark on a quest to stop a Demon army from destroying the Four Lands."

Dude, I'm gonna pee my pants.

I'm so afraid to hope for this to be good, but I'm REALLY digging the trailers I'm seeing. (I notice they don't feature much acting/dialogue though, which concerns me.) It's MTV, which until now I've lumped in with the CW. But this looks like something more than a teen magnet. A lot more. The budget on visual design and effects looks crazy for TV. And the tone feels not too dark, but definitely serious.

Can we celebrate Christmas and New Years already? I wanna watch this premiere!!! (No cable at our house, so I REALLY hope you can watch/buy online!!!)

Yes will have to wait and see. Does look like they put alot of money into it. The TV commercial I saw was a bit different than this one and there are several other versions on YouTube. I just don't have high hopes for MTV. Here's to hoping to be wrong!!

Paeter wrote:(No cable at our house, so I REALLY hope you can watch/buy online!!!)

MTV does have an app where you can watch episodes of their shows so there is a good chance of it

CreatorsPixels wrote: I just don't have high hopes for MTV.  Here's to hoping to be wrong!!

Totally with you on this. Watched about 40 seconds of "Teen Wolf" and that was plenty. The pedigree of the channel only concerns me. My hope is based solely on the trailers and my own desires.

So yeah, my hope is pretty baseless. But c'mon MTV, pretty pleeeease?

It is like the words have been taken right out of my mouth.
Potential.... but that can cut both ways.

Personally, I don't like all the call-backs to modern civilization, I don't remember that being something that was obvious in the early books at least.
However, it *looks* really good.
I would have expected the Word and Void to be made first, as it would be less SFX heavy, and could test the waters.

That was one of my first impressions too. Wasn't it like the 2nd or 3rd book till you found out about modern civilzation?? That was like a huge reveal and they blew it out in the trailers!!! Hmmmm. Well still hoping!

mikel.withers wrote:

Personally, I don't like all the call-backs to modern civilization, I don't remember that being something that was obvious in the early books at least.
However, it *looks* really good.
I would have expected the Word and Void to be made first, as it would be less SFX heavy, and could test the waters.

I think Word And Void is so different in setting (including even the "bridge" books between series) that it wouldn't have been a good test of whether folks would like the main series.

But yeah, the reveal of the old world would have been cool to wait on, but I think it also makes a good hook that sets the world apart immediately if you reveal it right away, so I see why they did that.

Who knows, if people like this maybe we'll get that Thundar The Barbarian reboot franchise I've long thought would rock.

So this was on this week finally!! Anyone happen to catch it? Thoughts?

Personally it had been a while since I've read the books but I gotta say, my first impression was that it wasn't anything like I remembered it!

By the way, if you missed it on tv looks like you can stream it online http://www.mtv.com/full-episodes/76v9sl/shannara-chosen-episode-1-and-2-season-1-ep-101-102.

It plays better on Amazon (first two eps free, combined as one ep). MTV had lots of frame rate issues for me.

Here are my thoughts!

I'm guessing that by now you will have seen the whole thing. Were you still happy with the end product. I have to confess that I thought there was still a lot of angsty teen drama in it for me, but I did love the druid character Alanon (which reminds me of a support group every time I hear it).

I watched it through with my son (18yo), and ...we enjoyed the experience.
The anachronistic stuff really took me out of it, I mean it supposedly has been thousands of years and we see items that wouldn't last decades.
The teen angst bit was eye-rollingly bad... which made riffing on it really fun. I'm afraid my boy and I can be quite merciless.
Alanon really was the touchstone of potential for the show. Manu Bennet's performance was grounded in a way that all the other ones were not. As if his druid was dealing with all these elven flights of fancy around him. (or as if he was the one actor who took the show seriously)

Overall, I'd say it was so bad it was good, but with the hidden gem of showing real potential for something epic.

Yeah, I bought the whole season and still haven't watched an ep since the "lesbian bath scene" episode. It's on my bucket list, but they really lost me at around that point.

Since then I've purchased Dungeons and Dragons 3 on DVD and have found it measurably more enjoyable, if that says anything...

Oh...I forgot about that, Paeter.
In my family, we have a habit (my son and I) of looking at each other when ...shall we say "questionable content" comes on the tv screen. That way we encourage each other to not look.
I will say there was some "near miss" questionable content, but I don't remember anything directly offensive... but there is a good chance I was sharing an eye roll with my boy if something bad came on.
To me, the ham-fisted nature of the sexualization of the two girls... not women, but girls... was so poorly done as to be humorous not tempting. Having worked in fast food, I've dealt with girls who thought they could flirt their way into anything. This show had the same pathetic-not-sexy feel to it.
Of course, I'm a 40 year old, younger fellows might not have the same response.

mikel.withers wrote:
Of course, I'm a 40 year old, younger fellows might not have the same response.

LOL!

That's a cool thing between you and your son. Did you make that a thing or did it just start happening organically?

It started when I was a kid, my dad liked Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, but they tended to have bits of nudity in them, so "cover your eyes, boys" was a common occurrence at my house.
When I got married, I'd look away from the tv when stuff came up, and we had my son do the same. My making sure that he didn't sneak a peak turned into him making sure I didn't as well, and that turned into a shared little "if I'm staring at you, I'm probably going to be making faces."

Dude, that's so awesome. I hope I can cultivate a relationship like that with my boys. Thanks for the example!