The Shannara Chronicles
Apr. 28th, 2016 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThe last episode of the Shannara chronicles just finished
and it really lost me on the home stretch
I'm pretty sure the subs messed up and said 'hero' for 'healer' at a key moment.
I'm not keen on whatever the heck is happening to Eretria. Is that really the plot thread to leave dangling? Plus making her bi just to kill her ex (and temporarily her) is as per usual a problem.
Then there's the thing where it took the entire miniseries to get to Safehold, across mountains and rivers and toxic waste and several kinds of enemies that would even still be there later, but it took one horse riding montage to get back. I mean, way not to sell it. Also you can't just gallop your horses home. I only know from reading fantasy novels but they had this one guy be the horsemaster and horses get worn out and break a lot. You can't just floor it and zoom. The modern attitude to horses, and lack of understanding thereof, just bugs me sometimes.
When they introduced a black lady elf as military commander I was pleased. Black but not evil elf + kick arse woman = yaays. But guess who didn't make it out of the season alive?
Prompting my first swearing at the TV of the evening.
Swiftly followed by my annoyance at the last moment before the Ellcrys, because the characters stopped to have feelings. There is a battle going on all around them, a battle claiming countless lives, including the lives of those they care about. Because of magic, the one and only thing they have to do to stop the battle is, metaphorically speaking, push the fucking button. But they stop. Instead. To have a talk. Instead. Because feelings.
... yes I said that kind of like a swear.
Personal is not the same as important.
Save the world now, stop the battle now, have fucking feelings later.
Granted by 'later' one of them will be a tree, but if she's going to have doubts about that, why are they having them in the form 'because boy'. *shudders* (no really, actual shudders, ugh) The supreme sacrifice is not only a sacrifice because boy. The actual sacrifice is she had a whole life ahead of her and now she has a much longer life but she will be a tree. She had not planned on being a tree. Why is her only regret expressed in the form of boy feelings?
But it really, really, riles me to see them pause the saving of the world to have feelings, as if romance were more important than thousands of lives.
... okay, so I could stand to have less feelings myself, right now, about this story, that is only a story.
... it just seems symptomatic of trends in storytelling recently, and I am vastly unimpressed.
I haven't read the Shannara books in a really long time, but I do not recall them having quite the same tone as this series. I think they added a lot of sex. And some attempted rape, which I really wish they wouldn't. Plus there was a whole grim darker tone than I recall, but I don't know which bits were there or not, I'm pretty sure I don't have the books memorised by now.
One thing that bothered me rather was they changed a bit right at the beginning and then didn't follow through on it at all. The first episode had the Chosen being selected by a blindfold run through the forest around the Ellcrys, and Amberle won it. So it got to the last episode and they were waiting until dark to make a run for the Ellcrys, and I thought, okay, bookend, Amberle being an action hero in the dark surrounded by demons, this is going to be awesome. But it wasn't. Because she didn't. She got towed along by a boy. and hid behind him. and only drew her sword to lose it. And didn't run in the dark, because it wasn't dark, somehow, in TV land. Torches and so forth. And this one thing they'd set up that would have been the simplest thing to open-and-close her story just... wasn't there. Because instead of her run through the dark with everyone trying to stop her, it was Wil's run through the torchlight, towing her along. I mean, it seemed like a big missed opportunity.
Also there was a vast lack of logic going on. I mean, why did everyone wait until dark to have their big battle? That didn't make a whole lot of sense.
If there's more story I'll probably watch more story. They're doing their own thing, and post apocalyptic human variants as elves etc is an interesting gig, and the whole thing they've done with elf politics and perception vs reality is... dark but interesting. But I don't exactly trust them with story. Has a lot of the usual fails, even with more women.
I'm probably going to read the books soon and grumble a lot, either because of differences or because sameness I'd edited out of my personal good bits version. ... so that sounds fun? :eyeroll:
But this series didn't leave me yaay for saving the world, just kind of irritated. Which is annoying. Because it also had a lot of good features.
Maybe I'll like it more later.
*shrugs*
and it really lost me on the home stretch
I'm pretty sure the subs messed up and said 'hero' for 'healer' at a key moment.
I'm not keen on whatever the heck is happening to Eretria. Is that really the plot thread to leave dangling? Plus making her bi just to kill her ex (and temporarily her) is as per usual a problem.
Then there's the thing where it took the entire miniseries to get to Safehold, across mountains and rivers and toxic waste and several kinds of enemies that would even still be there later, but it took one horse riding montage to get back. I mean, way not to sell it. Also you can't just gallop your horses home. I only know from reading fantasy novels but they had this one guy be the horsemaster and horses get worn out and break a lot. You can't just floor it and zoom. The modern attitude to horses, and lack of understanding thereof, just bugs me sometimes.
When they introduced a black lady elf as military commander I was pleased. Black but not evil elf + kick arse woman = yaays. But guess who didn't make it out of the season alive?
Prompting my first swearing at the TV of the evening.
Swiftly followed by my annoyance at the last moment before the Ellcrys, because the characters stopped to have feelings. There is a battle going on all around them, a battle claiming countless lives, including the lives of those they care about. Because of magic, the one and only thing they have to do to stop the battle is, metaphorically speaking, push the fucking button. But they stop. Instead. To have a talk. Instead. Because feelings.
... yes I said that kind of like a swear.
Personal is not the same as important.
Save the world now, stop the battle now, have fucking feelings later.
Granted by 'later' one of them will be a tree, but if she's going to have doubts about that, why are they having them in the form 'because boy'. *shudders* (no really, actual shudders, ugh) The supreme sacrifice is not only a sacrifice because boy. The actual sacrifice is she had a whole life ahead of her and now she has a much longer life but she will be a tree. She had not planned on being a tree. Why is her only regret expressed in the form of boy feelings?
But it really, really, riles me to see them pause the saving of the world to have feelings, as if romance were more important than thousands of lives.
... okay, so I could stand to have less feelings myself, right now, about this story, that is only a story.
... it just seems symptomatic of trends in storytelling recently, and I am vastly unimpressed.
I haven't read the Shannara books in a really long time, but I do not recall them having quite the same tone as this series. I think they added a lot of sex. And some attempted rape, which I really wish they wouldn't. Plus there was a whole grim darker tone than I recall, but I don't know which bits were there or not, I'm pretty sure I don't have the books memorised by now.
One thing that bothered me rather was they changed a bit right at the beginning and then didn't follow through on it at all. The first episode had the Chosen being selected by a blindfold run through the forest around the Ellcrys, and Amberle won it. So it got to the last episode and they were waiting until dark to make a run for the Ellcrys, and I thought, okay, bookend, Amberle being an action hero in the dark surrounded by demons, this is going to be awesome. But it wasn't. Because she didn't. She got towed along by a boy. and hid behind him. and only drew her sword to lose it. And didn't run in the dark, because it wasn't dark, somehow, in TV land. Torches and so forth. And this one thing they'd set up that would have been the simplest thing to open-and-close her story just... wasn't there. Because instead of her run through the dark with everyone trying to stop her, it was Wil's run through the torchlight, towing her along. I mean, it seemed like a big missed opportunity.
Also there was a vast lack of logic going on. I mean, why did everyone wait until dark to have their big battle? That didn't make a whole lot of sense.
If there's more story I'll probably watch more story. They're doing their own thing, and post apocalyptic human variants as elves etc is an interesting gig, and the whole thing they've done with elf politics and perception vs reality is... dark but interesting. But I don't exactly trust them with story. Has a lot of the usual fails, even with more women.
I'm probably going to read the books soon and grumble a lot, either because of differences or because sameness I'd edited out of my personal good bits version. ... so that sounds fun? :eyeroll:
But this series didn't leave me yaay for saving the world, just kind of irritated. Which is annoying. Because it also had a lot of good features.
Maybe I'll like it more later.
*shrugs*