‘Shannara Chronicles’ Trips On Teen ‘Tude Speak

I had hopes for the new MTV high fantasy series The Shannara Chronicles, because I thought updating the writing might solve many of the issues I had with the books. Alas, while the updating did happen, it simply made the series more appropriate to the MTV audience.

I read the first book in Terry Brooks’ Shannara series, The Sword of Shannara, right around when it came out in 1977. I didn’t care for it much, for the same reason many other critics have called it out — it is incredibly derivative of Tolkien. But I also had a problem with setting a high fantasy book in a typically science fiction setting — some 2,500 years after a nuclear holocaust. The time frame isn’t nearly enough, even with radiation, to have humanity split into four races that have taken on names from “age-old” tales — dwarf, troll, gnome and human. The elves, it turns out, pre-date humans and have been hiding until the Great War allowed magic back into the world.

I tried to read the sequel, The Elfstones of Shannara, on which the new series is based, but I didn’t make it more than about one quarter through, as it had the same issues I had a problem with in the first book, and jumped the story ahead 300 years, making it not remotely a direct sequel.

To give him credit, Brooks’ writing wasn’t all bad. He handled character development and motivation surprisingly well even in those early efforts — Allanon the Druid (played by the massive Manu Bennett in the MTV series) is a very complex character with really mixed motivations, for example. And Brooks has written more than 20 books in the Shannara universe, as recently as 2013, so I am sure his writing isn’t the same as it was in 1977 and 1985. But his dialogue was always hit or miss, and that is what the series writers have updated the most — into the best 21st century young-person speak MTV could want.

Writing and series creator credits go to a pair I admire, Al Gough and Miles Millar, who created Smallville. Sadly, the main characters, elf princess Amberle (Poppy Drayton), bandit girl Eretrea (Ivana Baquero), and half-elf descendant of legendary elf-king Jerle Shannara, Wil Ohmsford (Austin Butler) say things that would be right at home in Smallville High, in the heart of 21st Century Kansas. Any sense of high fantasy created when elf king Eventine Elessedil (John Rhys-Davies) and Allanon talk about the dying magic tree the Ellcrys or the demons it’s power keeps contained gets ruined the minute any of the young characters open their mouths.

The settings are gorgeous, to be sure. It is filmed in New Zealand after all, home of all movie things Tolkien. And the special effects are top notch, so far. But I cringe every time one of the young leads says something in a flat American accent with sarcasm and a 21st Century tone — I expect a “dude” or “bro” to get dropped at any second.

Add on to that a sense of everything in the story being rushed (seriously, is there nothing that sets the benchmark for how long or far these people have to travel? It seems like they span whole nations in a day on horseback) and you get a rushed, jumbled story that is told in an inconsistent tone and voice. Also, at least in the first two episodes, you get none of the sense of the other humanoid races as being anything but monsters — not the way Brooks handled them right out of the gate in the books.

Come for the visuals, the effects and the nerd heroes like Bennett and Rhys-Davies, but put your critical brain on hold if you plan to stay with The Shannara Chronicles.