Pp wanted to watch The Shannara Chronicles.
"It'll be terrible!" I warned him.
"It might be good!" he said.
The look of dawning horror on his face as we watched the first fifteen minutes was a thing of beauty, but now things have pretty much dissolved into helpless giggling.
Pp's conclusion: There should be more lines like: "Are there any elven traditions you respect?" "Only the ones with parties." Or "I was expecting something more woodsy".
And characters named after minor African countries.
My conclusion: MAKE IT GO AWAY! THE HORROR! THE HORROR!
I think the very worst bit for me was the Elventhrone of Obviously Moulded Plastic, surrounded by garden centre silk plants. You feel that there should be an overpriced tea-room and a shelf of new age music just around the corner.
"It'll be terrible!" I warned him.
"It might be good!" he said.
The look of dawning horror on his face as we watched the first fifteen minutes was a thing of beauty, but now things have pretty much dissolved into helpless giggling.
Pp's conclusion: There should be more lines like: "Are there any elven traditions you respect?" "Only the ones with parties." Or "I was expecting something more woodsy".
And characters named after minor African countries.
My conclusion: MAKE IT GO AWAY! THE HORROR! THE HORROR!
I think the very worst bit for me was the Elventhrone of Obviously Moulded Plastic, surrounded by garden centre silk plants. You feel that there should be an overpriced tea-room and a shelf of new age music just around the corner.
Comments
AND YET.
It was like a lesson in How Not To Write. :(
And to get over the whole "Sci-Fi is very expensive thing to make" when trying to sell Red Dwarf to the BBC, the trial scripts had comments like "HE WALKS DOWN A CORRIDOR [it's a very plain and ordinary corridor. It could be a corridor anywhere, really. Even Television Centre.]"
If the writing and characters grab you, sets and even plot are distinctly secondary. But Person A telling Person B what her race and rank are, is just dire and cringe-worthy: "You are an elven princess!"; "I am your friend and servant!"
Oh, God! Make them stop.
I'm more of a Blakes Seven person than Who, personally, but yes +1 on the 'cheap sets are fine!'
Also, I was a BBC Merlin fan, so it's not like my fantasy bar is set unrealistically high :-D
Skordh adds: it sounds as if they have borrowed the stage sets from Beastmaster 3: The Eye of Braxus. That had similar quality of sets/props, and indeed dialogue.
Beastmaster: "Where does Lord Agon keep his prisoners?"
Random Castle Person he accosted: "In the dungeons!"
Beastmaster: *lets RCP go and dashes off, without asking for directions to the dungeons or preventing RCP from sounding the alarm*
Us: *facepalm*