Jump to content

What's on the idiot box?


Blarghagh

Recommended Posts

I heard a rumor that they may can the Iron Fist series or give it just a few episodes to set him up and have the character be like the Hulk of the Defenders, no movies or continuing series of his own but appearing in the shared universe.

Realistically his and Luke Cage's series should just get one season each then combine into Heroes For Hire. Then move forward with the rumored Punisher and Moon Knight series'

The area between the balls and the butt is a hotbed of terrorist activity.

Devastatorsig.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Watched the first couple of Shannara episodes, pretty good overall. Can't comment on how well the books are followed as I've never read them but it was enjoyable, not atrociously acted (well, mostly) and the CGI was... better than you'd see on some full network shows.

 

The flawless glamorous make up and perfectly applied shiny modern looking lipstick of the women in that show drives me nuts. It's like they made no effort to make them look less like characters who should be on gossip girl or something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's an MTV show, immaculately pretty girls were inevitable. So long as they can act decently enough (jury is out for that) I can't say that I mind.

 

Raithe's comparison to a typical CW show is pretty apt really. Maybe Arrow would be more appropriate than a high school drama though, given two of the cast have been on that.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes I thought back on my impressions of the Shannara books and they were pretty much teen adventure / boys own mixed with classic fantasy, ocassionally they rose above the formula and later dipped far below. I'd recommend the second book "Elfstones of -" as probably the best of the first trilogy and "The Druid of -" as the best of the Scions quartet. There are some excellent ideas and settings used throughout, though any Englishman whose travelled the Isles will recognise most of the names Mr Brooks uses, but all told it is mainly just quite good fun.

 

Have to have a watch, thanks for the notification chaps.

 

Edit: Garret Jax was a marvellously strong though one dimensional character from the "Wishsong of -," indeed the whole company of Jair in that game was fantastically characterised. I much preferred his quite clever questline to the main protagonists, she was a touch too mary Sue-ish, purposefully so I believe.

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got bored about a third of the way though Sword of Shanarra and gave up. The wife has them all though, should I give them another try? (I was like 16 and had just finished reading the first Wheel of Time book when I read it)

The area between the balls and the butt is a hotbed of terrorist activity.

Devastatorsig.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's quite difficult to say because as you probably remember the prose is quite cumbersome and that book is where Mr Brooks is learning his craft and form, there are some good points later on but it does tend to drag, its certainly not a classic of the genre but neither is it without high points. Personally I believe that reading of any literature is never wasted time, however i'd read up to the Hadeshorn and the Tomb of Kings beyond if in doubt, or maybe even Paranor, the pace quickens at that point and arcs begin to be resolved.

 

Edit: I've got to wonder whether they found an actor capable of portraying the immense, cowled brooding presence of Allanon, the seven foot Druid who defines the first trilogy, must be hard to find someone of such physicality and yet the appropriate acting chops.

Edited by Nonek
  • Like 1

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Deadwood is coming back! Albeit in movie form.

 

One of the best things to come out of HBO along with Rome, The Larry Sanders Show, and Band of Brothers.

 

Oozes character.

 

Wild Bill Hickok

Al Swearingen

Seth Bullock

Calamity Jane

The Pinkerton's

Charlie Utter

General George Crook

George Hearst

Sol Star

Wyatt Earp

That coward, Jack McCall

Wu

Wu's pigs.

  • Like 2

"Things are funny...are comedic, because they mix the real with the absurd." - Buzz Aldrin.

"P-O-T-A-T-O-E" - Dan Quayle

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands: Utter dreck, filled with the usual cliches and anachronistic elements, do yourself a favour and watch the Beowulf and Grendel film with Gerard Butler from a few years back instead. This cheap Game of Thrones knock off is not even remotely entertaining, and butchers the source material unmercifully.

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what i've read the TV series is adapting the second book "Elfstones of Shannara." This is part of the original trilogy and I believe Mr Brooks writing on this world is still ongoing, though the quality of his content has deteriorated in the last twenty years or so. I'd just read the original trilogy personally, and perhaps use the library or a second hand book shop if the second quartet of books and beyond interest you.

  • Like 1

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what i've read the TV series is adapting the second book "Elfstones of Shannara." This is part of the original trilogy and I believe Mr Brooks writing on this world is still ongoing, though the quality of his content has deteriorated in the last twenty years or so. I'd just read the original trilogy personally, and perhaps use the library or a second hand book shop if the second quartet of books and beyond interest you.

 

The complete series (excluding the graphic novel and short stories) spans over 2 dozen novels (28 total iirc?).     

 

You can catch the first four episodes here:

 

http://www.mtv.com/shows/shannara

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the description I heard was "It's like someone shot Lord of the Rings with the cast from one of the CW's high school dramas.. and it somehow works regardless."

That's exactly how I would describe it too, except I just could'nt stand the All American High cast. Too 'plastic' for my taste and the show was a little too saturated with tired fantasy tropes.

It's very Divergence, Maze Runner, Hunger Games teenage-drama/angst.

Fortune favors the bald.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I think the description I heard was "It's like someone shot Lord of the Rings with the cast from one of the CW's high school dramas.. and it somehow works regardless."

That's exactly how I would describe it too, except I just could'nt stand the All American High cast. Too 'plastic' for my taste and the show was a little too saturated with tired fantasy tropes.

It's very Divergence, Maze Runner, Hunger Games teenage-drama/angst.

 

 

It's interesting how you can look back at it really.  When the first Shannara book came out it was the early 70's and you had that big resurgence of new fantasy authors coming out with their variants of Lord of the Rings. Brooks was rough around the edges with the first few, but he did have that slight twist that what appeared to be your standard fantasy world developed over time and turned out to be a post-apocalyptic far future Earth. Humanity having evolved into the different species (elf, dwarf, troll, etc) but still all having that background connection. It's been a decade or so since I actually read them, but the magic system itself was that touch skewed from the normal as well.

 

The first trilogy as such was more wrapped around your standard fantasy style but at heart was a lot of coming of age adventures for teenagers. So it makes sense that a lot of the cast in the show fit into that kind of casting group. Plus, the heavy focus of elves in the 2nd book (which they're using as the basis for the series) tends to go with the "lots of pretty people" to play them. It's rare for any version of elves not to be considered more attractive than human norm.

 

Heh, if you look back at it, Brooks wrote a lot of those standard YA dystopian future tropes before they became a thing and got hammered into us with the recent book-to-film adaptions.  So while you can look at it and see all those "tired tropes", he was actually sort of there first (if you don't get bogged in the LoTR inspirations).

  • Like 2

"Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Humanity having evolved into the different species (elf, dwarf, troll, etc) but still all having that background connection.

 

 

Elves were seperate and apart all the time weren't they, hiding in the manner of the King of the Silver River, and chose to emerge when the new world came to be? Which makes me wonder if the Magic Kingdom For Sale world is a part of the same continuum?

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Humanity having evolved into the different species (elf, dwarf, troll, etc) but still all having that background connection.

 

 

Elves were seperate and apart all the time weren't they, hiding in the manner of the King of the Silver River, and chose to emerge when the new world came to be? Which makes me wonder if the Magic Kingdom For Sale world is a part of the same continuum?

 

 

Possibly. As I said, it has been about 10 or 20 years since I sat down and read through the series. I think I got through the first 9 or so of the Shannara series and related books.

"Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've read a few of the later ones and you're not missing anything Mr Raithe, though he does narrate the transition of our Old World into Shannaras New World. He began from a series which was set in the Old World and featured proto Druid Characters, named Knights of the Word, implying an Old Testament connection it seemed.

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finally went to watching Arrested Development over Prime this weekend. Got to season 4 and saw that cost money, but I liked the previous ones enough, so I just did a Netflix trial.

 

What have I been doing without Netflix all this time? Good gosh.

  • Like 1
"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finally went to watching Arrested Development over Prime this weekend. Got to season 4 and saw that cost money, but I liked the previous ones enough, so I just did a Netflix trial.

 

What have I been doing without Netflix all this time? Good gosh.

 

Uh yeah, Netflix is pretty amazing right now.  I don't even watch movies on it anymore, it's all original programming or documentaries.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does anyone else find Heroes Reborn kind of boring?  I can't put my finger on exactly the biggest issue (maybe it's the writing or the confused script that's all over the place), but it's nowhere as interesting (to me) as the other "super hero" TV shows out there.

"Console exclusive is such a harsh word." - Darque

"Console exclusive is two words Darque." - Nartwak (in response to Darque's observation)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does anyone else find Heroes Reborn kind of boring?  I can't put my finger on exactly the biggest issue (maybe it's the writing or the confused script that's all over the place), but it's nowhere as interesting (to me) as the other "super hero" TV shows out there.

I actually liked it.

 

But I think the main thing that kept me going was the mystery about what happened to Claire. I was positive it was just faked, but the true reveal was a big let down.`

"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't watched Heroes since the end of the first season.  Didn't see any reason to return on the reboot but I hoped it'd be good for the people who had liked the show.

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Heroes reboot had largely the same flaws the latter seasons had. Incoherent plot made more disjointed by lots of different groups with little to no reason to care about any of them- with the exception of Noah Bennett- which consequently made it very difficult to follow the plot or care about the characters. It even has the exact same super power problems (inflation/ deflation depending on plot requirement) and to an extent at least the same senseless heel/ face turns as the original series, albeit not to the contortionate extremes they went to with Sylar.

 

I've actually still found it fairly enjoyable despite its flaws, but it should have been far far better than what we got and I cannot blame anyone for rolling their eyes at it.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...