![]() ![]() It's pretty much an incoherent mess, with just enough good bits of action and suspense to keep you watching. This is our own world thousands of years later, but we're only really reminded of this (or informed of it) when we see things like a rusty truck suddenly appear in the middle of nowhere, or a gas-mask adorned troll. ![]() We zip from here to there, racing through huge plot developments at breakneck speed, never really stopping to breathe.įinally, the setting is hard to swallow. How much time has even passed? It seems characters can move all about the realms in just a matter of hours, traveling from the elven capital Arborlon to any other point on the map instantly. Meanwhile, we move through everything so quickly it's honestly a little hard to get our bearings. There's very little humor in the Shannara Chronicles, and far too much earnestness. It's all pretty cheesy, and made more so by just how sincere everyone comes across as. We've been having a good time guessing at the true origin of Jon Snow, but in Shannara we're told straight off the bat that young Wil Ohmsford (Austin Butler) is the last in a long line of magic elf kings (the titular Shannara.) It's pretty hard to take jokes about elf ears seriously. We're accustomed to Game of Thrones at this point. Can't anyone be dirty and unkempt from time to time?īeyond this, the story itself is almost too campy and D&D/Lord of the Rings like to be truly satisfying in this day and age. Actually, I think a lot of young fantasy viewers would prefer more characters like Allanon, who actually gets a bit cut up and dirty, and has a couple more decades under his belt. Just because something is "Young Adult" doesn't mean all the actors need to be perfect looking 20-year-olds without personalities who are immune to dust and grime. This has long been the CW's strategy when it comes to appealing to younger viewers, but I'm not sure it actually makes much sense. This insistence on youth and beauty and perfect cleanliness makes the entire thing feel fake in ways the CGI could never accomplish. Even in the midst of battle, in the middle of the woods, running from a demon, everyone is perfectly appointed. Everybody is 20 to 24 years old and beautiful. Probably the first thing that annoyed me about The Shannara Chronicles is just how much it feels like a CW show. ![]() Wil (Austin Butler), Amberle (Poppy Drayton), Eretria (Ivana Baquero) (Credit: MTV) Unfortunately, if you start to actually pay attention or question stuff about the show, its flaws aren't hard to find. It's the sort of low-calorie fantasy you can easily watch and enjoy if you turn off most of the critical faculties in your brain for an hour. The fights and magic and action really ramp up the show's energy. One shape-changing demon is particularly scary. The demons are sufficiently creepy and there's some good fight scenes. There's some good special effects at work here, too, though nothing mind-blowing. But the younger stars, from Austin Butler to Poppy Drayton, all do a decent job as well, especially given some of the lines they're asked to deliver with a straight face. The acting is decent, especially from Lord of the Rings veteran John Rhys-Davies and Arrow and Hobbit alumni Manu Bennett as the elven king Eventine and druid Allanon respectively. ![]() I enjoyed it enough to have fun watching, even if sometimes that fun was derived from laughing at it a little. The Dagda Mor Unleashes An Evil Demon Into The Four Lands (Credit: MTV)ĭown below, I'm going to really tear into the Shannara Chronicles, but before I do that, I think it's important to note one very important tidbit: I'm actually glad I had the chance to watch the first four episodes of the show. ![]()
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