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Shannara Chronicles (1 Viewer)

Ok, I'm in the minority but I really liked it. Production values are super high, most of the actors are decent or I can see them growing into their roles (Erteria being the exception as she is cringe worthy).

Im in!

 
Thought it was pretty good. Loved the books as a kid and always thought elfstones was the best. Production and scenery are great. Character playing Allanon is good but Will and the two girls are pretty bad though think a bit of that has to do with MTV. I will keep watching.

 
this reminds me quite a bit of The 100, which even though it's aimed at teens... I love in a guilty pleasure kind of way. that one fills my love of post-apoc world, this one fantasy world. I don't remember the book being post-apocalyptic earth, but it was a looooong time ago and I only read the first book of the series. both have some truly goofily poor young actors/casting and writing, but I'm in.

 
It wasn't clear when elf stones came out that it was post apocalyptic.

Prequels eventually established that, linking that series with his Word and Void series.

 
I thought the quote from Terry Brooks in this article (http://winteriscoming.net/2015/07/10/terry-brooks-dont-compare-the-shannara-chronicles-to-game-of-thrones/) was interesting:

Anyone from 10 years of age up that has the reading skills can read these books. We’ve always talked about it as a family drama that anyone can watch.
Yet, when I watched the first two episodes, I was thinking that MTV was pushing the boundaries of nudity that can be shown on basic cable, specifically with that scene with the changeling.

 
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I liked it. Someone beat me to it, but I was expecting some SyFy channel poor-production-value dreck but it was very watchable.

I've never read the books and I was not familiar with the source material at all.

You can hear the plot creaking behind the scenes, but it's a fun watch.

I bought the love triangle, which is probably a key to enjoying the first four episodes.

 
DVR recorded another airing of the first episodes, guess they marked it as 1st run because it had commentary at the bottom with info about the production. Didn't watch more than a minute or two, but one comment they had was that the author confirmed the Four Lands are set in the Pacific Northwest. We've already seen Seattle in the opening episode and San Francisco in previews for the next episode.

 
haven't watched yet but the reviews are decent

8.3/10·IMDb
7.3/10·IGN.com
8.6/10·TV.com
50%·Rotten Tomatoes
 
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I finally watched the first episode ... it's ok, not great, maybe good. I'll keep watching since I like the genre.

The acting is not great. Even Rhys-Davies' acting seems forced. Azog as Allanon seems pretty good so far.

The books weren't great and I don't think I finished the series, so I don't know how much deviation there is.

 
Saw the first episode and I rather enjoyed it. My only negative reviews were:

1. it seemed a bit choppy;

2. some over-acting and/or poor acting - the scene between the female rover and the elf princess was cringe-worthy;

3. some questionable scenes/development - the king's son blaming the massacre on gnomes.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the opening scenes with the race.

Like the Alanon and Wil characters (although Alanon is hitting the acting a bit heavy).

 
It wasn't clear when elf stones came out that it was post apocalyptic.

Prequels eventually established that, linking that series with his Word and Void series.
I thought they made it pretty clear in the first book that it was post apocalyptic, it talks about the great wars where the humans almost destroyed themselves and changed the face of the world. It has the scene with the groups first big battle in the valley where they find the steel frames left of what seems like a modern era city.

As far as the series, I'm going to keep watching, but the writing an acting are pretty cringe worthy. Production values are really good, surprised they don't have better actors/script.

 
It wasn't clear when elf stones came out that it was post apocalyptic.

Prequels eventually established that, linking that series with his Word and Void series.
I thought they made it pretty clear in the first book that it was post apocalyptic, it talks about the great wars where the humans almost destroyed themselves and changed the face of the world. It has the scene with the groups first big battle in the valley where they find the steel frames left of what seems like a modern era city.

As far as the series, I'm going to keep watching, but the writing an acting are pretty cringe worthy. Production values are really good, surprised they don't have better actors/script.
Yeah, but that didn't make it earth. It was just a ruined human civilization.

This whole thing is set in our future.

And, by the by, I hate seeing rusted out cars and such... like they'd still be there a couple thousand years after they stopped working.

 
It wasn't clear when elf stones came out that it was post apocalyptic.

Prequels eventually established that, linking that series with his Word and Void series.
I thought they made it pretty clear in the first book that it was post apocalyptic, it talks about the great wars where the humans almost destroyed themselves and changed the face of the world. It has the scene with the groups first big battle in the valley where they find the steel frames left of what seems like a modern era city.

As far as the series, I'm going to keep watching, but the writing an acting are pretty cringe worthy. Production values are really good, surprised they don't have better actors/script.
Yeah, but that didn't make it earth. It was just a ruined human civilization.

This whole thing is set in our future.

And, by the by, I hate seeing rusted out cars and such... like they'd still be there a couple thousand years after they stopped working.
Agree that some things like cars probably would have rusted away completely by then.

But Seattle's Space Needle being prominently displayed among the ruined buildings in the show's opening moments was part of what let us know it's Earth, and the Pacific Northwest more specifically.

A preview for an episode also starts with them looking at the remains of the Golden Gate Bridge while standing in front of a highway sign that used to say San Francisco.

 
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Watch the third and fourth episodes. I'm enjoying it.

Seems I missed Wil's accent first two episodes. Very interesting that he's from California.

Acting still a weakness but overall its entertaining.

 
I watched a couple episodes and kept trying to place the Druid Allanon's voice, which seemed very familiar. Finally broke and looked him up - he played the gladiator Crixus in the Spartacus series. He also played the white orc Azog in the Hobbit trilogy.

 
CletiusMaximus said:
I watched a couple episodes and kept trying to place the Druid Allanon's voice, which seemed very familiar. Finally broke and looked him up - he played the gladiator Crixus in the Spartacus series. He also played the white orc Azog in the Hobbit trilogy.
Yep and Slade/Deathstroke in the Arrow TV series.

 
this reminds me quite a bit of The 100, which even though it's aimed at teens... I love in a guilty pleasure kind of way. that one fills my love of post-apoc world, this one fantasy world. I don't remember the book being post-apocalyptic earth, but it was a looooong time ago and I only read the first book of the series. both have some truly goofily poor young actors/casting and writing, but I'm in.
There's no more than a handful of paragraphs in the first few books that suggest it's actually a future Earth. It's more obvious in a couple of the later books.

 
I finally watched the first episode ... it's ok, not great, maybe good. I'll keep watching since I like the genre.

The acting is not great. Even Rhys-Davies' acting seems forced. Azog as Allanon seems pretty good so far.

The books weren't great and I don't think I finished the series, so I don't know how much deviation there is.
I finally gave in and watched the first episodes. A lot of the acting is just hard to watch including the main characters. I also think that Poppy Drayton with her little twig arms and emaciated model body looks like she could be blown over by a stiff breeze, but in the show she's supposed to be fighting demons. I mean come on.

 
I watched a couple episodes and kept trying to place the Druid Allanon's voice, which seemed very familiar. Finally broke and looked him up - he played the gladiator Crixus in the Spartacus series. He also played the white orc Azog in the Hobbit trilogy.
Knew right away he was Crixus but did not know he did Azog.

 
I finally watched the first episode ... it's ok, not great, maybe good. I'll keep watching since I like the genre.

The acting is not great. Even Rhys-Davies' acting seems forced. Azog as Allanon seems pretty good so far.

The books weren't great and I don't think I finished the series, so I don't know how much deviation there is.
I finally gave in and watched the first episodes. A lot of the acting is just hard to watch including the main characters. I also think that Poppy Drayton with her little twig arms and emaciated model body looks like she could be blown over by a stiff breeze, but in the show she's supposed to be fighting demons. I mean come on.
For me, it is more about her expressions. She is like on the verge of an emotion at any moment, she just does not know which one she should have, nor which one is going to come out, but by golly, those eyebrows will do some work.

I watched a couple episodes and kept trying to place the Druid Allanon's voice, which seemed very familiar. Finally broke and looked him up - he played the gladiator Crixus in the Spartacus series. He also played the white orc Azog in the Hobbit trilogy.
Knew right away he was Crixus but did not know he did Azog.
He will always be Deathstroke to me. :Mirakuru:

 
Last night's show was rather bleh. From a character development side, they have Cephalo (the head of the Reapers) help out Wil to get away from the kickass demon (which looked to be 30 feet tall at the gates but ends up being 6 foot tall. His past actions would have supported him taking the elf stones, throwing Wil to the demon and high-tailing it out of there.

Interesting fact: The guy who plays Cephalo also played Ajax in The Warriors. Also played Dexter's father.

 
...kickass demon (which looked to be 30 feet tall at the gates but ends up being 6 foot tall. ..
I noticed this as well. Huge unstoppable demon destroys entire city, gets closer and is just some dude, promptly sprints into a gas field and gets blown up. lol.

Is it just me or are there twice as many commercials than usual during this show.

 
mrip541 said:
kentric said:
...kickass demon (which looked to be 30 feet tall at the gates but ends up being 6 foot tall. ..
I noticed this as well. Huge unstoppable demon destroys entire city, gets closer and is just some dude, promptly sprints into a gas field and gets blown up. lol.

Is it just me or are there twice as many commercials than usual during this show.
Not just you. There are some shows where you feel there are as many commercials as there is content. Felt like that for The Last Man on Earth.

 
mrip541 said:
kentric said:
...kickass demon (which looked to be 30 feet tall at the gates but ends up being 6 foot tall. ..
I noticed this as well. Huge unstoppable demon destroys entire city, gets closer and is just some dude, promptly sprints into a gas field and gets blown up. lol.

Is it just me or are there twice as many commercials than usual during this show.
Not just you. There are some shows where you feel there are as many commercials as there is content. Felt like that for The Last Man on Earth.
isn't this on MTV? IIRC, pretty notorious for about 50/50 content:commercial ratio.

 
kentric said:
From a character development side, they have Cephalo (the head of the Reapers) help out Wil to get away from the kickass demon (which looked to be 30 feet tall at the gates but ends up being 6 foot tall. His past actions would have supported him taking the elf stones, throwing Wil to the demon and high-tailing it out of there.
I thought the same at first, but thinking back on it I think they set this up enough for him to help. All along he's treated demons as a very serious ordeal, but wasn't buying the princess' story that that demons had returned and only she and Will could stop them. Now that he's seen one in the flesh he believes her. He's still in it to save his own flesh, but the only way to do that is to help her and Will beat them.

 
FreeBaGeL said:
From a character development side, they have Cephalo (the head of the Reapers) help out Wil to get away from the kickass demon (which looked to be 30 feet tall at the gates but ends up being 6 foot tall. His past actions would have supported him taking the elf stones, throwing Wil to the demon and high-tailing it out of there.
I thought the same at first, but thinking back on it I think they set this up enough for him to help. All along he's treated demons as a very serious ordeal, but wasn't buying the princess' story that that demons had returned and only she and Will could stop them. Now that he's seen one in the flesh he believes her. He's still in it to save his own flesh, but the only way to do that is to help her and Will beat them.
He's already seen them. When Wil first used the stones (successfully), it was when the demon attacked Cephalo's camp. So he had first hand experience with a demon attack already. Wasn't news to him.

 
I'm still in because I love the genre, but this was clearly intended for the teenage MTV mindset. Good production value, but cringe-worthy relationships for barely past adolescent "adults"

Oh...and the rover girl is smoking!

 
Agree with the criticisms, too juvenile, high production values, of course my wife is hooked... For me there is just enough good to keep me around even if sometimes it is just laughing at some of the silliness they added in. Loved the hippie human commune watching clips of star trek on an old film projector, lol moment there.

Only two episodes left this season, havent seen anything on if the show has been renewed.

 
They put an EDM rave in Shannara. I just... no words...
Yup.

I raised my eyebrows skeptically when they fell into an abandoned high school last week.

Then this week, they meet the not as nice as they seem EDM rave cult that just happens to have a ton of working tech from eons ago.  Ugh.

That sort of stuff, just twerks me.  If the world we live in is the "ancient" world, there shouldn't be a collection of bicycle tires hanging up in your rave tent that has christmas lights (really, those never last 3 years without a nuclear holocaust) and ton of speakers wired to a record player.

Drove me nuts.

//Elfchickstillasmokeshowtho

 
I'm getting this confused with The 100 again.... pretty sure I stopped watching both. or maybe just one. not sure which.

 
Yeah...they've taken a LOT more liberty with "old human devices" than was ever remotely suggested by Brooks in the books. This is supposed to be 1000 or so years after human civilization destroyed itself...what little remained would be much harder to identify, much rarer to run across, and virtually none of it would be usable.

 
Yeah I read these books in high school and by coincidence just re-read them right before this TV series started.  Even though I like the idea of seeing Brooks' characters on the screen, there is just way too much wrong with it to even try to list here.  My personal favorite was the need to interject homosexuality.

 
Yeah...they've taken a LOT more liberty with "old human devices" than was ever remotely suggested by Brooks in the books. This is supposed to be 1000 or so years after human civilization destroyed itself...what little remained would be much harder to identify, much rarer to run across, and virtually none of it would be usable.
Yeah, you knew it was only a matter of time before they worked in a "gun" and had to explain it to a character about how it works.

But my favorite was the filmstrip of Star Trek, film degrades so quickly, plus where on earth would you find a filmstrip of Star Trek anywhere? Even a working DVD player would have made more sense, at least use things as examples of the "ancient world" mostly made from plastic and other materials that don't degrade quickly.

 
renesauz said:
Yeah...they've taken a LOT more liberty with "old human devices" than was ever remotely suggested by Brooks in the books. This is supposed to be 1000 or so years after human civilization destroyed itself...what little remained would be much harder to identify, much rarer to run across, and virtually none of it would be usable.
I believe canonically its roughly 2,000 years later.

 
I'm still watching. It has its flaws but it's watchable and I have less issues with it than The Walking Dead. Good scenery too. I haven't read the books though and wouldn't expect a MTV show to live up to the books.

 
Yeah I read these books in high school and by coincidence just re-read them right before this TV series started.  Even though I like the idea of seeing Brooks' characters on the screen, there is just way too much wrong with it to even try to list here.  My personal favorite was the need to interject homosexuality.
What have you got against lesbians?

 
They weren't in the story, to start with.
It's MTV. MTV has always prided itself on being a champion for gay rights, and tends to interject homosexuality far more often than would be reasonable compared to it's actual prevalence in society. Every third catfish episode contains features a gay person.

 
Yup.

I raised my eyebrows skeptically when they fell into an abandoned high school last week.

Then this week, they meet the not as nice as they seem EDM rave cult that just happens to have a ton of working tech from eons ago.  Ugh.

That sort of stuff, just twerks me.  If the world we live in is the "ancient" world, there shouldn't be a collection of bicycle tires hanging up in your rave tent that has christmas lights (really, those never last 3 years without a nuclear holocaust) and ton of speakers wired to a record player.

Drove me nuts.
Those lights are guaranteed for 1,000 hours.  I'm guessing they were probably at 970 hours by then.  Still plenty of life left in them.   :D

 
Agree with the criticisms, too juvenile, high production values, of course my wife is hooked... For me there is just enough good to keep me around even if sometimes it is just laughing at some of the silliness they added in. Loved the hippie human commune watching clips of star trek on an old film projector, lol moment there.

Only two episodes left this season, havent seen anything on if the show has been renewed.
Difficult to imagine this getting picked up.  Even though I'm still watching, some of the acting and premise is cringe worthy.

 
Difficult to imagine this getting picked up.  Even though I'm still watching, some of the acting and premise is cringe worthy.
Well Teen Wolf is on season 5 I think (never seen it,) MTV is kind of its own little animal with how it does things.

 
So was actually surprised they stuck with the book ending with Amberle's fate. Feel like that actually took some guts considering how most of the viewing public leans towards happy endings. They did telegraph it way too much though, IIRC in the book it was a big surprising twist (been decades since I read it though, may remember wrong.)

LOL moment this episode, riding montage to a terrible song where they travel from Safehold all the way back to elfland in about 2 mins via horseback. Why introduce the Roc from the earlier episode and not at least use that as fast transport back?

 
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So was actually surprised they stuck with the book ending with Amberle's fate. Feel like that actually took some guts considering how most of the viewing public leans towards happy endings. They did telegraph it way too much though, IIRC in the book it was a big surprising twist (been decades since I read it though, may remember wrong.)

LOL moment this episode, riding montage to a terrible song where they travel from Safehold all the way back to elfland in about 2 mins via horseback. Why introduce the Roc from the earlier episode and not at least use that as fast transport back?
My DVR cut off the last minute or two (looks like it started a couple minutes late). Hot rover chick was dragged in front of a troll who looked like he was pulling off his mask/helmet. What happened from there?

 

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