The Shannara Chonicles - random thoughts

[daibhidc]

Interesting.

It's been a while since I read Elfstones of Shannara, but from what I recall, I get the feeling they changed just about everything beyond the basic storyline? Which is fine, although it's a shame the King of the Silver River got written out, confirming his role as the Tom Bombadill of the Four Lands.

I don't remember the remnants of the old world being so obvious in the book, either, or all that stuff about Eretria being a "Child of Armageddon" (which I take it is something to do with the Genesis of Shannara prequel trilogy, which I never read? But the first one was Armageddon's Children, so yeah, it presumably ties into the backstory there, which Brooks probably didn't have a clue about when he wrote Elfstones).

Anyway, they changed so much from what I remembered that, even though I remembered what the twist was, I wasn't entirely sure if they were going to do it, or if the real twist would turn out to be something else, somehow.

Fast forwarded through the gory bits. And then rewound when I realised I'd missed important plot points like what happened to the elder Elessedil brother.

The cast was good; the actor playing Wil maybe overdid the "hapless and clueless" a bit, but that's Ohmsfords for you.

And it looks like we're going to have some more adventures for  Wil and Eretria in season 2, rather than jumping straight to their kids, which is interesting.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

I watched this when it was on (E4, was it?) and I remembered even less from the books, which I don't know whether it was or wasn't a good thing. I remembered Wil and Amberle (and what happened to Amberle) and some other things came back to me, but, er, I can't even remember Eretria being in it at all beyond her first encounter with Wil, which just seems weird.

A TV series that leaps generations probably more than most networks would cope with easily!