Watched this via Amazon Prime.
Oh, boy, the dialogue was really bad (“woodsy house”?), and the performances by the young actors are pretty rough.
The guy playing Allanon, though, is great. He’s the one redeeming feature, but probably not enough for me to pay for Episode 2. Maybe when it comes up on Netflix I’ll give it a shot.
I wasn’t particularly impressed by the acting and dialog either, but other aspects of the show allowed me to look past it pretty easily. Maybe it’s because of poor direction and dialog writing, or maybe it’s because they’re trying to target younger audiences, I’m not sure.
That guy played Crixus in the Starz Spartacus TV series and Slade Wilson in Arrow, by the way. I think he may have been in the LOTR/Hobbit movies, too.
Wait…I saw you guys talking about Manu Bennett being in this, but they cast him as Allanon? Amazing.
No connection whatsoever. Bakshi ripped off half of Wizards from Vaugn Bode, and I think came up with the other half himself. Alas how badly the thing has aged do to the crappy animation quality. And those painful opening credits, sigh. Character design is still good, though, and I like the general effect of the rotoscoping.
this show is terribad… the books weren’t that great, didn’t stand out in the hundreds of pulp fantasy books I read as a kid, but they didn’t deserve this.
Production quality was quite good I felt, acting/dialogue was so-so… Might pick up.
First three episodes are on iTunes and I liked it enough that I watched all three in one night.
I thought the two female leads did a pretty decent job. The male lead less so.
One review I saw said it was like taking Xena/Hercules and combining it with the model-perfect teen cast of The 100. Which seems right to me. The production levels and fantasy feel felt very similar to Xena/Hercules to me. Although Shannara plays things a bit straighter rather than humorous, although it didn’t seem to take itself to seriously.
I thought the characters were likable and interesting and that overall the show was quite enjoyable. It’s not Game of Thrones, but I enjoyed it for what it was.
First episode, which is and hour and twenty minutes is up on iTunes for free:
The actress playing the elf princess is HELLA-attractive. I’d watch it just for that, but the show itself isn’t terrible. Certainly more ambitious than the CW/FOX DC superhero shows.
I still haven’t watched GoT, despite having read the books back in the 90s. I watched the first episode, went “oh hey they kept the incest, wow”, then never got back to it. I have them all saved up, as they’re right in my wheelhouse. One of these days.
Haven’t read Shannara books since the early 90s, so I really don’t remember them at all and am not making comparisons there. I know I read the Sword of Shannara, but have no recollection of Elfstones. But I’m sure I read it at some point as a middle-school student sitting in the corner all anti-social. Shannara never made much of an impression on me, I found it very light reading.
How does the show compare to something like Seeker? The Goodkind series (both books and the show) get dumped on a fair amount very similar to Terry Brooks’ Shannara series, so that servers as a good comparison point…
They kind of had to keep the incest in GoT - it’s a pivotal plot element and really informs who both of the characters involved are, to boot.
There’s already some pretty substantial divergences from the book in Shannara - for example, the Chosen are just picked by the Ellcrys in a ceremony once a year in the book, so they all know the tree can speak and is magical and there’s no weird blindfolded race. Amberle has already left before the book even starts and is known to be the only one the tree speaks to beyond that choosing, but she is considered outcast because she abandoned her duties. And Lauren (I felt sure it would be spelled Loren, but no) likes her but there’s no romance. The Dagda Mor is a demon, not a fallen elven druid (I think they’re mixing in the Warlock King from the first book, who was just that), and brings the Changeling with him (there’s no sexy naked lady version - the Changeling being introduced is him shifting between various forms to test things out) and then those two and a third which does not appear in the first episode so I will hold off mentioning fly on a winged monstrosity to the elven city where the Changeling murders all the Chosen - there’s no Amberle-form or stabbing, they’re all torn apart as though by wild animals. The elves know about the problem well before Allanon shows up and the Ellcrys tells them to find Safehold, but not how or where. Not sure who the blond son is supposed to be, unless he’s “Arion”, but in the book Arion isn’t there because he’s gone off to some other region for something, so the king has only Ander to rely on. There’s no “but magic isn’t real” nonsense. There’s some shock about Allanon but only because it’s been half a century since he last turned up. Allanon does not bring Wil to Paranor, he just goes there, finds the book he needs and then is (physically) ambushed by the Dagda Mor and a bunch of Furies, barely escaping with his life. Wil isn’t living in Shady Vale, but has been living in Storlock with the healers for two years already and he’s not Shea’s son but grandson. They meet up when Allanon comes to Storlock to be healed. There’s no solo journey or robbery by Eretria (although she does come into things when Allanon, Amberle and Wil all stop at a Rover camp later). Etc.
The first Sword of Truth novels were great, but it quickly devolved to inanity. The TV series was Hercules/Xena with much, much, much hotter girls. I mean, just ridiculously hot.
Sword of Truth novels were good, but the TV-series didn’t quite match the brutality of the books – but it was still enjoyable, especially once the Mord Sith came into the series. Would’ve liked for them to continue past season 2 as it picked up a bit in quality.
Shannara I hadn’t heard about before I saw the show, but I believe I recognized the authors name. Seems decent enough. Production wise it is more GOT quality than XENA.
The show isn’t terrible, thought the dialogue is pretty cheesy. The male leads are mostly awful, did they spend their budget on making sure they hired decent female actors first?
Yep :).
When we were in junior high and high school, Allanon was probably the most wanted name to use in our D&D campaigns, or anything else fantasy based where you could pick a name. Now I know where they were getting that from, heh.
That’s funny, because I always assumed the name Allanon is pronounced like the shorthand version of Alcoholics Anonymous, and seemed so goofy to me. Everything about the books is so hazy to me, having read the first three books back in jr high and high school. The first book was just kind of ok to me, and I think I liked the second two, Elfstones and Wish Song if I recall correctly, a little better. But the next series of four books, the ones that were directly related instead of kind of the lineage timeline of the first three, I remember I enjoyed those a good deal more. Though that’s as much as my memory can tell me and I’m a bit nervous about revisiting them as an adult.
The pilot was much better than I expected. Seems like it has a fair amount of budget, compared to any other genre show of this type other than GOTS.
All the Abercrombie models walking around is a bit distracting. It’s apparently so common in that world that no one even comments on how attractive anyone is.
I always assumed it was pronounced A-llanon, if you see. But apparently the folks at MTV were with you, Pogue.
Alanon isn’t the shorthand version of AS, its actually a separate org for codependants (spouses, children, etc) of alcoholics.
Like you, I only read the first three in junior high, and loved them at the time. Never got past that, though- my tastes grew up and broadened by HS. So I didn’t know he abandoned the lineage style of continuity, and I’ve actually been wondering about that the last few days. If this gets picked up for a second season, and they do Wishsong, they’d have to abandon all these actors (except Allanon). Think they’ll do that?
Alanon isn’t the shorthand version of AA, its actually a separate org for codependants (spouses, children, etc) of alcoholics.
Like you, I only read the first three in junior high, and loved them at the time. Never got past that, though- my tastes grew up and broadened by HS. So I didn’t know he abandoned the lineage style of continuity, and I’ve actually been wondering about that the last few days. If this gets picked up for a second season, and they do Wishsong, they’d have to abandon all these actors (except Allanon). Think they’ll do that?
This has become my new guilty pleasure. Some of the CG is pretty obvious and could be better…and its a little distracting how often they throw in ‘modern ruins’ all over the place, but the script…wow…and the characters…I have to wonder if the books were like this, but I was too young when I read them to notice. I really feel like all the characters are one-dimensional…like they were all created by a 10 year old.