f13.net

Yeah, i know absolutely nothing about that title sounds the least bit appealing, but the trailer actually looks fairly decent. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDR8b1SpoSc&index=1&list=PLBPLVvU_jvGszbxBRdSqe3bcWLDotuP3z)

That's that Terry Brooks, no?  I read a couple of his books years and years ago but I didn't like them much.  Maybe they'll make better TV stories.  Here's to hoping!

Tolkien, with more WUB WUB WUB WUB.

If your favourite parts of Tolkien were the walking scenes, then this will be ace.

I'd be more interested if it were not on MTV, but I've never been rewarded for giving an MTV show a shot.  Teen Wolf was almost worth a look, I hear Scream is a step up from that... but I still don't trust MTV, aka CW dark.

I liked the Shannara books when I was a pre-teen, but I don't get why this is on MTV.

Because Teen Pregnancy reality shows and Jackass don't bring eyeballs the way episodic scripted dramas do these days.  So now everyone and their brother is hopping on the scripted drama bandwagon.

I expect ESPN2 to come out with one soon, for fucks sake.

ESPN's 30 for 30 is essentially that with all the dramatic liberties they take....

That trailer suggests significant liberties with the story.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, of course. I actually like the scenery's explicit reference to Shannara being post-apocalyptic. Then there is a cheese of the a sword assembling itself from fragments.

Just now saw the trailer.

Amazon video picked this up for on-demand purposes.  It's produced by Favreau btw.  That's enough for me to watch it.  That and guy from Spartacus is in it.
Tbh, this looks to be the best effort so far for a high fantasy TV series.  Basically Favreau doing what he does; lives out his childhood fantasies basically.

Until WoT comes out, this looks to be it for now.

Every time a fantasy title that isn't Black Company gets announced I die a little inside.

That happens with me and The Dark Tower.  Over and over. 
But yah, it's a shame HBO didn't latch onto it like they did GoT.  There's no way BC loses steam as GoT is currently doing.

I don't see how they could make it. The series is so bizarre near the end.

C'mon guys. We are all dying for more Terry Goodkind.

Saw a making of feature for this. Looks like Shannara gets the CW treatment or something I'll be surprised if it doesn't suck.

I really want a Dresden Files show on Hbo, Starz, or Netflix.

But we've already got The 100, which is south better.

I give anything with Favreau's name on it the benefit of the doubt... especially in this case, wherein Terry Brooks is alongside and Rhys-Davies is a main character.  That has me a bit giddy.  Starts tomorrow; we shall soon see.

Watching the promos, it is clear that they have mashed many different books from different time periods together.

If there's a purist fan of the books who is outraged that an important plot point in the first book gets lost, god help that person.

There are Shannara purists? That would be truly bizarre.

This show is not being streamed anywhere?  Seriously?   :oh_i_see:
I thought Amazon picked this up to stream ala Prime Video.  They do, but you have to buy the season for $17.  GFY with that.  Fail.

It's MTV they will replay the shit out of it.  Also I think they are streaming it on their site.

I stand corrected; yes, they are streaming it on mtv (now).  Not as trick as amazon (which can be chromecasted) but at least it's something.

edit: can cast from the app I guess (quality is poor though)

Interesting so far. First hour it really looked like it would be nothing but CW Game of Thrones meets the Maze Runner/Hunger Games, but it got better as it went.

Kind of weird having Crixus play Alanon. I read Sword long before any of the LOTR books, and he was one of my child hood heros.  Some of the visuals are really pretty (along with the cast). Story kind of starts where Elfstones started, but its pretty much a mishmosh. I'll give it a chance.

Really feels odd seeing Ryhs Davies as an Elf, knowing there are Dwarves in the world.

I heard they took out all the R rated material so anyone else vouching for this not being CW game of thrones?

I'm at epi. 3.  This is good.  Very good.
But, the two lead actors (Will and Amberley) are the weakest of them all.  Gratingly so.  And the casting director thought it'd be cool to make everyone an underwear model.  Yah, I know they're elves, but they really just look like hollywood dolls with fake ears on.

Had the casting been stronger, the show would have serious legs.  That said, it's still the best high fantasy series attempt since... forever.  That's kinda sad actually.   :oh_i_see:

Also, it's not anything like GoT.  The Expanse has more GoT similarities than this.

Meh I got 4 hours to kill whats the worse that can happen.

It will result in you posting more?



 :why_so_serious:

I know you like generic paint by numbers high fantasy  :awesome_for_real:

Obviously what this is, but aimed at the teen crowd and done with a stronger budget and production crew.
The young actors need to get better though; quickly.  Really, they are effing horrible and it's not like the script is that bad.

Watched the first two episodes/hours.  Seems like a very generic D&D game grought to TV.  Fun, but not a must watch.

I'm kind of expecting to see a D&D TV show come down the pipe focusing on their Dark Elf character.  Something that is halfway between this series and Badlands.... Salvatore has sold more copies than Eddings....  They are doing a movie apparently... can the NEXT shared universe be far behind?

I'm pretty sure their black elf is not the same as a dark elf.

I think he means Drizzt.

Sam Jackson is the black Elf named Shaft.

Just realized Amberle was one of those cute waifs from Downton Abbey (complete with requisite mouth-agape acting style at all times) and Eritrea was the lead in Pan's Labyrinth.  Yah, the latter makes me feel damned old now.  Let the love triangle commence!

Weis and Hickman (Dragonlance) obviously stole the whole half-elf vs. elven princess vs. human rogue love triangle thing.

A friend of mine on Facebook is complaining that the acting in this is something from a "bad teen drama" and that it is getting the "full twilight" treatment. He hasn't read the books so I assume he thinks every fantasy tv show should be GoT.

I am trying to explain to him that the source material was written for the same age audience as twilight and it is on the network that has made its mark by targeting teenagers/young adults. There should be no surprise it is coming across that way.  :why_so_serious:

Though im probably two and done with this show I'm not particularly keen bashing it. It's teenagers who watch mtv exposure to fantasy. I cant really judge this considering this generation lacks the popcorn of the mid-late 90 fantasy shows like Hercules and Xena. Maybe they'll grow up and find all this YA stuff cheesy nostalgia.

I think people just get that sour grapes feeling when they watch this kind of thing. Like someone else decided they were in an age group for supporting characters, not main characters. The book is total tween drama. The main actors aren't great, but they're age appropriate for the book.

Finally got to watch the rest of the first 2-hour episode. It was ok. The musical score was overbearing and really needed to be toned down a lot, and some of the actors were fucking awful. Overall though, I liked it enough to keep watching. I've read about 1/4 of the first Shannara book many years ago and put it down as boring, derivative hack work. Does the fact that it's a post-apocalyptic Earth ever matter for anything?

Not much in the original 3 books, it is basically just scenery. In later series in the world there is a bit more of the connection between them.

Their "watcher in the water" ripoff was some sort of giant scorpion robot.

I really liked the third Shanarra book. The first 2 were alright at best. I read a couple of the follow ups and they weren't bad.

He definitely got better.  I think The Heritage of Shannara is the best of it.  After that his character tropes start to wear thin even though his world building gets more interesting.  I stopped reading in the Genesis series, even though it felt like it should have been the most epic. It's bridging the Word and the Void series with the Shannara world and setting it in the apocalypse but it was the same old character archetypes again and I couldn't slog through it all.

Just noticed this on Netflix and watched the first two eps. It is really pretty, and light enough fare for me to watch as I try to get to sleep. The guy playing Wil is annoying the fuck out of me. The other two young characters aren't much better, but they are definitely easy on the eyes.

You've been nominated to power through this thing and spoil it for us.

There's nothing to really spoil.  The show stays fairly consistent from beginning to end.  I liked it, which is more than I can say about the books honestly.

There's a handful of elf rave party scenes that are strange and cringe-worthy, but I kinda had fun with it on a second screen while I was playing Diablo3.

Mostly the actors just made me feel old.

Yeah that was mainly my take away from it as well.  That and the actor who played Crixus in Spartacus now plays gladiator gandalf complete with the growling speech.  However I thought if you could suffer through the elf rave, and teenage angst that on the whole it was actually entertaining in places. 

One thing that I really wish we could see is a series that takes place in the era of the prequels to Shannara specifically starting with the Word and the Void series.  I haven't read much of the Shannara books, I didn't think they were sufficiently different then 90% of the fantasy genre out there.  However the Word and the Void and the Genesis of Shannara books were really fantastic.  The post apocalyptic images they generated in your mind and the gritty realism of a dying world was something that I think would be really well received if done faithfully.  I really can't think of another series other than the A Song of Ice and Fire that I enjoyed more than the Word and the Void / Genesis of Shannara series.