SO I finished watching the first 4 eps. of the Shannara series on MTV. As a fan of the books, I guess I was expecting more. MTV put out a ton of money for this series in hope of capitalizing on the growing comic book fantasy market such as game of thrones and walking dead. The new buzz words for storyline acceptance is strong, independent female character preferably the main protagonist thus the producers of Shannara went with elfstones rather than the first book sword of Shannara. Most of the primary budget went into the series special effects with a constant bragging that they are on par with big budget movies. While decent, so far that is just hype to me. They're no better than series like the expanse or other SciFi series which have flooded the market.
The toughest part for me to watch was seeing Shannara's vision turned into the land of the fashion models. Everyone is spotless, a common flaw in med-level series that tends to pull watchers out of sync with the illusion of fantastical realities. It's the to pretty too be real curse. For example Eretria, the gypsy thief, looks as pretty maybe even prettier than the elven princess. Brooks dynamic of conflict between pretty elf princess and the rugged rogue girl seems very lacking, instead, the writers seem to focus on its a conflict about their heritage. The two look more like they're going to get into a slap fight rather than go to swords every time they conflict. What happened to strong independent female? Even worse, the main male character seems even more girlier than the girls, and lacks any look of that he was raised in a poor farmer's life, but looks instead like he just came from skateboarding with his bros and hates that his beach life has been disrupted by responsibilities and the constant nagging that he may have had decent parents after all.
Pacing I would say is the next big problem. They never give us time to identify with the characters. You never feel their loss as bodies start hitting the floor. You never get a good sense of their internal motivations, only glimpses as they rush from one scene to the next. The pace is so fast it makes you feel like the end of the first series will be it. It feels like their tying up loose ends before it ends, not a good start.
Overall there is still a lot of room for improvement, but that being said, there is still opportunity and potential to rise above its bumpy beginnings. Let us hope there is still some amazing magic to be seen as the quest moves on.
W. (My two cents.)
Have you seen it? What's your thoughts?
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Haven't, wasn't planning to.
If I've read right, the series (or the beginning of it) seems to be based on the second book in the series. (I don't know all the permutations and prequelitis of it all, having stopped reading the books many books ago.)
Kinda puzzling, that they'd not start with the first book...and, if I remember it right (I might be confusing one book with another), I wasn't too happy with the unhappy ending. (Can't tell from the description on Wikipedia; my copies of what I've got are somewhat inaccessible at the moment.)
Posted by walexander (Member # 9151) on :
(spoiler on star wars toward the end. Be aware before you read.)
They chose the second book because it has two strong female leads over the first book which has none. Saves them from having to write in or change a male character to a female charater like battlestar galactica did to the starbuck character, and LOTR's replaced some of gandalf's parts with arwen's so there would be a strong female. Like I said at the top, it is well reported right now that almost all new series and movies {Like star wars) have to have a very strong female lead. Star wars covered both it's bases with female and minority leads. For all the hype of star wars I wasn't disapointed in their choice of main characters, but the lack of staying true to the training needed to become a Jedi. (Spoiler) Ren who has absolutely no training in the lightsaber or the force beats kylo ren who has extensive training in a duel. If you have no training in just a regular sharp sword the chances of you injuring yourself are almost a hundred percent, especially in battle, but I guess ren is so strong with the force she doesn't need any training at all. That was a little disapointing, but I'm glad to see the star wars universe back even with these small nits.
W.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
MORE SPOILERS - be warned!
Well, Kylo Ren wasn't at his best in that conflict, having been shot by a weapon they made a big deal about in the movie.
Also, he was training her, in a way, every time he tried to use the Force on her. She learned a great deal from what he was doing.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
And Arwen took over what Glorfindel did in the FELLOWSHIP more than what Gandalf did.
Posted by walexander (Member # 9151) on :
True kdw, on both points. Still I would have liked to see rey win more by her wits than the force to begin with. After all she's not just a skywalker but a solo also.
typo fixed
[ January 23, 2016, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: walexander ]
Posted by Disgruntled Peony (Member # 10416) on :
Pretty sure Kylo Ren is male...?
(Finally saw the movie the other day. I knew it would never live up to the hype, but I still enjoyed it.)
Posted by walexander (Member # 9151) on :
sorry DP, typo meant Rey.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
quote:Originally posted by walexander: sorry DP, typo meant Rey.
You do know how to go back and fix it, right, walexander?
Posted by walexander (Member # 9151) on :
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
kdw