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Legend of the Seeker anyone?

I'll watch it, because I did enjoy the first novel (for my sins) but I imagine it'll have to be severely toned down... although I'm not sure I want to see some of the things that happen in it on tv anyway... hopefully the series will a) be good, and b) diverge heavily from the books as soon as the first couple of stories are finished. The books are painful now, and have been for some time, awful objectivist propaganda, and Goodkind is an insufferable prick.

Unfortunately I also think the trailer looks awful, but not for the same reasons the books are.
 
I'll give it a go... but I agree with the others saying it looks awfully generic, and from what people are saying about the books, I'm rather more likely to just turn away if it's not good from the start.
 
Venardhi said:
Richard looks like he belongs in a CW highschool drama complete with patchy stubble and artfully mussed up hair(you have illustrations right on the covers of half the books to show you what he looks like, use it!)
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Yeah, all they needed to do was look at my avatar!
 
Skywalker said:
Okay, I can buy (and I agree with) the argument against calling the series "Wizard's First Rule," but why not call it "The Sword of Truth," instead? I mean, that is the name of the novel series. Is it because they want to avoid using a generic, cliched fantasy name? Because "Legend of the Seeker" isn't exactly original or dynamic.
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That's a good question. Without speaking on behalf of anyone, I think the specific character reference tracks better with audiences, i.e. "Legend of the Seeker" being more specific than "The Sword of Truth." We see this in shows like Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dark Angel, The Nightstalker, Veronica Mars, Highlander, etc.
 
Skywalker said:
Okay, I can buy (and I agree with) the argument against calling the series "Wizard's First Rule," but why not call it "The Sword of Truth," instead? I mean, that is the name of the novel series. Is it because they want to avoid using a generic, cliched fantasy name? Because "Legend of the Seeker" isn't exactly original or dynamic.
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Well, to be fair, neither is "Sword of Truth," but yeah, I see your point. Did Raimi or Tapert ever answer this question?
 
The only argument I can make for not using "The Sword of Truth" is because in the end Richard doesn't need the sword to be the Seeker. Mind you I still like "The Sword of Truth" better than "The Legend of the Seeker".

I'm not terribly optimistic about the series but I'm willing to give it a shot.
 
Sword of Truth sounds just as dull and generic as Legend of the Seeker. Since the vast majority of the potential audience will be people like me, who don't know anything about the books or even that the show is based on books, the primary purpose of the name should be to be memorable and grab people's attention - while communicating that "this show is in the fantasy genre" - and the accuracy of the name won't matter once the audience is locked in (or decides not to watch, in which case the show is cancelled and the name doesn't matter in that case, either). The name is a marketing tool for grabbing an audience; to communicate anything about the story is very much a secondary purpose.

For an example of a very successful name that doesn't really describe the show, how about Star Trek? A "trek" is a journey of immigrants across a vast area. Kirk & co were not immigrating anywhere, they were flying around in circles to patrol the Federation and then go back home. Star Trek was a good name for Roddenberry "Wagon Train to the Stars," idea as pitched to the suits, but that's not at all the series he made. He was making Star Cops, Space Soldiers, Star Patrol, or perhaps Annoying Federation Buttinskis...but the inaccurate name is far superior to the more accurate options.

If the name has punch and grabs and audience, nobody will quibble that it sorta kinda doesn't make any sense. They won't even think about it.
 
The preview really didn't look that interesting or informative, but I decided to go ahead and read the first book, Wizard's First Rule to see if it would be something I'd be interested in. I liked the book, and I'll be interested to see if they expand the parts of some of the other characters such as Zedd and Chase to help fill the series. I wouldn't mind if they toned down some aspects of the book, particularly the torture, which was far too descriptive and long for my tastes (though that really shouldn't be too hard since so much time is spent in the book just describing everything, whereas you don't need to do that in film).

As for the title, I'll admit Legend of the Seeker immediately made me think of the failed The Dark is Rising movie, but the Sword of Truth, though matching the series would not have been that great either. I don't know for sure about the rest of the series, but Wizard's First Rule might have worked because it is a pretty broad rule (people are stupid being the rule) and it sounds more interesting.
 
Bob The Skutter said:
I'll give it a go... but I agree with the others saying it looks awfully generic, and from what people are saying about the books, I'm rather more likely to just turn away if it's not good from the start.
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The books aren't great. They're somewhere in between terrible and mediocre, in terms of quality, and there's little in there that's original. And those are only the first two books. Never got beyond the second.

That said, a pure fantasy television series right now is original. I'd love to see something different on T.V., wouldn't you? There's a smorgasbord of god-awful reality/game shows, Medical Dramas of the Week, half-baked "science fiction" wannabes (Pushing Daisies, anyone?), and if you don't have cable, you're probably missing out on some of the best shows on the tube. P.S. -- I have cable, but I don't have Showtime! Damn...

I'll be checking Seeker out. As always, judgement (or should I say confessing?) will be reserved until then.
 
RedFenix said:
Bob The Skutter said:
I'll give it a go... but I agree with the others saying it looks awfully generic, and from what people are saying about the books, I'm rather more likely to just turn away if it's not good from the start.
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The books aren't great. They're somewhere in between terrible and mediocre, in terms of quality, and there's little in there that's original. And those are only the first two books. Never got beyond the second.

That said, a pure fantasy television series right now is original. I'd love to see something different on T.V., wouldn't you? There's a smorgasbord of god-awful reality/game shows, Medical Dramas of the Week, half-baked "science fiction" wannabes (Pushing Daisies, anyone?), and if you don't have cable, you're probably missing out on some of the best shows on the tube. P.S. -- I have cable, but I don't have Showtime! Damn...

I'll be checking Seeker out. As always, judgement (or should I say confessing?) will be reserved until then.
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Personally I loved Pushing Daisies, and I'd classify that as a modern fantasy series... and traditional fantasy on TV isn't new, it's just been a few years since it was last on, Herc, Xena, Sinbad, etc. and there's Merlin this autumn too.

But yeah, I'm all for variety. And I'm willing to give anything that sounds the least bit interesting a chance, so I'll give it a go. I doubt it'll be picked up by one of the main networks here though.
 
In case anyone is interested I just came across another promo pic:



I think it looks better than the sleaveless shot of Richard .
 
It looks to become a very generic fantasy show. This is especially interesting in the light of Mr. Goodkind claiming his books are not fantasy but instead deal with "important human themes." Very interested to see how the show will deal with such "important human themes" as kicking young girls in the jaw, the dangers of fire speech , the torture and those long speeches Richard likes to give.
My guess is it will cut out all those things and we'll be left with a generic fantasy series about a young man who grew up in the middle of nowhere, overseen by an old and wise mentor, who discovers he is more then he thought he was.

On the bright side it will probably be better then the books but unfortunately will probably lose the great snark factor that the books have. So it could be dull too. However I'll be watching. I want to see if Richard really is taller then most men.
 
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RedFenix said:
That said, a pure fantasy television series right now is original. I'd love to see something different on T.V., wouldn't you? There's a smorgasbord of god-awful reality/game shows, Medical Dramas of the Week, half-baked "science fiction" wannabes (Pushing Daisies, anyone?),
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So many new shows this season are procedurals. I feel like every new drama pilot is described as: "Character X joins forces with the police of City Y to help them fight crime!" Character X is either a psychic, a horror novelist, a prostitute, an alien...take your pic. Same show, different variation of Character X, though they're probably all the maverick archetype. City Y is New York 66.67% of the time.

So honestly, I think it'll be nice to see something different on television. I was really excited about Pushing Daisies...until four episodes in when I realized the premise couldn't be sustained and the stories were pretty silly.

This show has an established world, and a wealth of source material to draw from (I think there are like 11 books or something in the series). I imagine the graphic stuff will be left out, but I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff to draw on.

and if you don't have cable, you're probably missing out on some of the best shows on the tube. P.S. -- I have cable, but I don't have Showtime! Damn...
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Hey! Funny enough, I don't have Showtime either.

TheSeeker said:
In case anyone is interested I just came across another promo pic:



I think it looks better than the sleaveless shot of Richard .
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Oh cool! Where did you find that? I do like that shot a lot.... :D
 
I'm about as stoked as I could be to watch this show and that trailer looks quite good. I must admit though that the characters don't look like anything I had in my mind's eye. I'll be really interested to see if they even "go there" with the Mord'Sith :>)
 
Othello said:
I'm about as stoked as I could be to watch this show and that trailer looks quite good. I must admit though that the characters don't look like anything I had in my mind's eye. I'll be really interested to see if they even "go there" with the Mord'Sith :>)
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They don't look like what i imagined either, but i'll be checking it out. I actually kinda liked the trailer as well. As to the Mord'Sith it will be interesting to see where they take those characters..and their pretty red outfits. Is there an actress cast for Cara that anyone knows about?
I wonder if they'll get around to showing the Bene Gesserit..uh, i mean the Sisters of Light. I guess that won't be for a few seasons, if at all.

Actually the more i think about it the more i'm looking forward to seeing this show. Obviously they are going to break away from the books, but it would be fun to see it on the screen without all the postering and long winded speeches from the books.
 
Personally I loved Pushing Daisies, and I'd classify that as a modern fantasy series..
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Pushing Daisies is probably the most unique show on TV. Not everyone likes it - you gotta have a HIGH tolerance for whimsy :rommie: - but it's great to have any show that isn't like everything else. There really isn't any category for it, which makes it very different from practically everything else on TV which, good or bad, can always be pigeonholed.

Someday, someone will do a (LOTR style) fantasy series that appeals to me. Not sure if this one is it, but I'll check it out. Ditto for vampire shows - still waiting for that, too.
 
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