Terry Brooks' 'Shannara' Books To Become a TV Series

[Dream]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpi...-brooks-shannara-books-to-become-a-tv-series/

According to Variety, “Sonar Entertainment has acquired the rights to author Terry Brooks’ bestselling fantasy series “Shannara” and is partnering with Farah Films to produce a television series based on the books.”

The television series would start with the second book, The Elfstones of Shannara.

(It’s a good decision to start with the second book in the series. Many have criticized the first book as being too derivative of J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. However, the second book has more engaging characters, as well as more female characters, particularly the brave Amberle.)

According to Wikipedia, Brooks is one of the biggest-selling fantasy writer alive, with over 21 million copies of his books in print, including 24 Shannara books (and counting). Of course, producer Dan Farah likely took this into consideration when choosing the Shannara series as a future television show

More fantasy or sci fi on tv is always a good thing. The success of Game of Thrones might be responsible for much more fantasy shows in the future. I wonder what network it would be on? It might have a better chance on cable instead of broadcast television.

 

[Tulin]

I know of the books but don't know anything about them.

Hopefully they are more like GoT and less like that appalling NZ fantasy series a few years back with the young pretty guy. That was just more Hercules/Zena crap.

 

[Technobuilder]

Legend of the Seeker?

I'd love to see Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series brought to HBO or Showtime... Now that would be 12 kinds of awesome.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Shannara at that stage is more like LOTS than GOT, I'm afraid. Fun adventures, but not deep drama. Of course, later in the series it turns out

Spoiler: Shannara series

the world is a future North America,

so they'll probably big that up earlier in any TV version.

 

[DeadmeatDiggory]

Cool. But I always though they should have started with the first Prequel "First King...", but it seems more and more like Brooks is trying to distance himself from the LOTR-Inspired "Sword..." I wonder how they'll deal with the back stories of the Ohmsford's and Allanon?

Now if they can just get to work on a "Wheel of Time" series, I can have my eventual heart attack in peace.

 

[Procutus]

As a long-time reader of Terry Brooks, I'm pleased to hear this. For a number of years, there was speculation that 'Elfstones' would be made into a feature film, but a TV series is probably a better way to go, in terms of exploring the details of the Shannara world and for allowing better character developement.

 

[RoJoHen]

I've never read these books, but I've always been intrigued by them. I mean, he keeps writing more and more of them, so clearly they must have some kind of popularity.

 

[Silvercrest]

I read the first three books. I liked his writing style, but the LOTR thing really put me off the more I read it.

Plus his world didn't make a lot of sense. His elves and humans were identical in culture and psychology-- the only reason they weren't interchangeable is that one had pointed ears.

His dwarves were stated to be claustrophobic from the generations they spent underground. Huh? That's backwards. If it really happened, they'd never have survived to come back to the surface world. They would have gone insane and died out first. He should have said they were agoraphobic instead.

I don't know if the author ever resolved these problems in later books, but I wasn't interested in finding out.

 

[DWF]

I tught they were going to do a movie series but this might work out better. But I really don't understand why they'd start with the second book and not the first.

 

[Silvercrest]

Because they'd be advertising "Ripoff of J.R.R. Tolkien" for the world to see.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ How much Fantasy from the 70's & 80's wasn't a rip-off of his work on some level?

 

[Procutus]

While there's no question that 'The Sword of Shannara' was greatly influenced by LOTR, in the '90s the series pretty much found its own voice and depicted a world that was more of a balance between magic and science, rather than just magic. There were still elves, dwarves, men, trolls and gnomes, but the various tales became less like Middle-Earth and more a world of the far future, following the Great Wars.

Having recently just finished reading 'First King of Shannara', I'd love to see the show start there, but the problem would later become adapting TSoS, which of course, a lot of people have a problem with due to its similarity to LOTR.

 

[DWF]

The Sword Of Shannara gave us the backround of wars and the world the story was set in. And it gave us the origin of Allanon giving the Elfstones to Shea, maybe they could explain that Wil had them because it was passed down by his grandfather, which is the truth I guess.

 

[Procutus]

I suspect that much of the backstory from 'Sword' will be woven into the TV version of 'Elfstones', as the history of the races, Allanon's involvment and the origin of the Sword itself are fairly integral to the series in general.

 

[Silvercrest]

^ How much Fantasy from the 70's & 80's wasn't a rip-off of his work on some level?

The problem isn't that it used plot and theme elements from Tolkien.

The problem is that is contains so many that are identical.

Try this:

1) Young non-hero living in isolated land is informed by crotchety wizard that he's connected with an artifact that can defeat the Big Bad.

2) Non-hero is hunted by supernatural agents of the supernatural Big Bad in connection with same artifact. Forced to flee his homeland with a few friends and family members.

3) Group has unrelated adventures in wilderness while trying to reach a place of temporary safety. Group is baled out of trouble by friendly hermit/wilderness spirit-- unclear which. Has no bearing on story.

4) Group reaches safe haven. Council of war is called in connection with the artifact. Traveling group is formally arranged for this purpose which includes non-hero, his kinsmen, the wizard, representatives of the elf and dwarf races, and an uncrowned king of a distant land.

5) Non-hero is separated from the rest of the party and is required to complete the mission without them. He recruits as a travel guide a half-mad creature who has his own connection with said artifact.

6) Remainder of party gets involved in the overall war that is being waged by the Big Bad. They encounter a ruler who is under the malign influence of one of his advisors.

7) Having arrived at the city the uncrowned king is from, he is required to take command after the death of the interim ruler. He leads his people to a final stand against impossible odds. They are saved at the last minute, because--

8) The non-hero and his mad guide travel into the Big Bad's own land with the artifact and complete their mission. The Big Bad is destroyed. The guide is killed in the process. The enemy army stops fighting just in time to save the non-hero's friends.


Which work am I talking about?

 

[DigificWriter]

Before I get into my own thoughts on adapting Elfstones rather than one or more of the chronologically earlier novels (of which there are 9), I wanted to address Lonemagpie's spoiler-tagged comment. There were actually indications of what you mentioned present in The Sword of Shannara, although they really became prevalent in Elfstones and Wishsong (the second and third books, publishing-wise, in the series).

Now, on to my thoughts on the decision to adapt Elfstones. I'm not entirely convinced that avoiding comparisons to LotR is a strong enough reason to not adapt a story like Sword or First King, but, if that's indeed what they're worried about, they ought to adapt either the Word and Void or Genesis of Shannara trilogies since both are so dissimilar to LotR that it would be impossible for comparisons to be made between the two properties.

 

[Procutus]

^


It's been a very long time since I first read 'Sword', so I don't recall all of the details, but I believe you hit the nail on the head here - directly on the head, I might add.

There's no doubt that Terry basically took LOTR and retooled it for a more modern audience at the time (1977) and placed it two thousand some years into the future, but by and large, Ray Charles could've seen the similarities between the two works. Kind of amazes me that Del Rey even published the damn thing, considering how incredibly similar it was.

That said, however, in many ways, TSoS was a much easier read in terms of the actual prose itself and the fact it was streamlined into one novel, as broken in three (and yes, I know that Tolkien originally did write LOTR as one, gigantic novel, in the beginning).

'Sword' still have merit, if for no other reason than being ballsy enough to re-write the greatest fantasy work ever written.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I know of the books but don't know anything about them.

Hopefully they are more like GoT and less like that appalling NZ fantasy series a few years back with the young pretty guy. That was just more Hercules/Zena crap.

I am disheartened to see Sonar Entertainment behind it as apparently that's the new incarnation of RHI/Hallmark and Robert Halmi which makes a lot of mediocre but genial fantasy pablum. Occasionally they make something that's enjoyable but they're rarely ambitious.

Still something is better than nothing probably so I'm curious.

 

[DigificWriter]

The thing about using the 'it's too much like LotR' thing against Shannara - specifically Sword - is that it's not the only franchise or novel against which the same complaint can be leveled. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series also follows nearly the exact same formula as LotR, as do a number of the novels written by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, including their fabled Dragonlance series. However, that doesn't make them sub-par novels or unworthy of being adapted.

I'd personally disagree with the whole 'greatest fantasy work ever written' thing as it applies to LotR, but that's really neither here nor there.

 

[Procutus]

I'm not entirely convinced that avoiding comparisons to LotR is a strong enough reason to not adapt a story like Sword or First King, but, if that's indeed what they're worried about, they ought to adapt either the Word and Void or Genesis of Shannara trilogies since both are so dissimilar to LotR that it would be impossible for comparisons to be made between the two properties.

Excellent point. Though the Word & Void trilogy is the one part of the overall narrative I haven't read, I did read 'Genesis' and as you say, it's completely different enough to avoid any real comparisons to Rings.

Quite honestly, that really would be an excellent place to start, though if the show didn't continue past a first season, then you'd never really get into the Shannara world that so many are familiar with.

Incidentally, my above post was in response to Silvercrest's excellent comparison between Brooks and Tolkien.