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Alright, I feel like I need to lighten my mood a bit after my last blog. I decided I'd write something else here.
Last night I hung out with a few friends and I mentioned how Legend of the Seeker was almost universally hated by fans of the original book series. Being a fan of the series myself, I never even watched the show. The criticism was immediate, harsh, and nearly universal. After mentioning this, we ended up watching the first episode, not expecting much. Since then I decided I'd watch the entire series, start to finish, as close to a marathon as possible. And I figure I might as well keep a log of my thoughts as I go through the episodes. I'll write something every few episodes.
Episodes 1-3
I figured the show would be so bad that I wouldn't even want to finish the first episode. By the end of the episode I was surprised to find I didn't quite hate it enough to outright stop. The acting was bad, the CG was terrible, the music was far from compelling, and the overall mood was far from what I'd been hoping for. However, I was still interested enough to keep watching. After finishing the second and third episode, not much has changed. The series so far feels like a mediocre low budget TV series. Neither so bad it would warrant immediate cancellation, nor good enough to warrant a closer look. The show is so firmly lodged into mediocrity that it may even be a worse watch than something that's actually bad. You can laugh at bad TV or movies, but it's hard to make fun of something that's just bad enough to not be worth watching.
After the first three episodes these are the issues:
While the lead acting is simply uninspired, the supporting cast's acting varies. While not all the supporting characters deliver their lines like they're in a high school play, even nearly all the dialog lends a terrible atmosphere to the show that somehow cheapens the whole show, even the parts that do accurately mirror the book (both in dialog and in plot). Surprisingly the sections that do follow the book, seem to follow the book quite closely at times and and feels like the writers really did try to preserve some of the spirit of the book. It's a shame Raimi was directing this, because I feel his influence is ultimately what is responsible for much of the overall feel of the show.
If the show can somehow pull itself together and improve on some of the atmosphere issues, I could see myself recommending it to people who are open minded and willing to look past it's many faults. That is, if they can, which is something I'm pretty skeptical of.
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I watched the whole thing and loved the fuck out of it. It was extremely campy and cringeworthy at times, but any show with lots of scenes of pretty forests and hot girls in tight outfits really can't fail no matter how hard it tries. The cinematography/set design are probably the best ever done in a fantasy series, including Game of Thrones.
I think its a lot like Xena/Hercules, not meant to be taken seriously, very tongue-in-cheek, pokes fun at some fantasy cliches. I really fell in love with it season 1 episode 18 when it went into full fledged comedy mode.
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I thought it was worth it to watch Legend of the Seeker just to see Bridget Regan. Holy crap is she hot. I feel like I should include pictures but you can google just as easily as I can.
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The writing quality of the books wasn't even really up to par so I don't really understand the complaints about the show. The story itself is quite well done, but the overall quality of the entirety the of show vs the books is rather similar.
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I fondly remember reading the books when I was much younger, so when I eventually discovered this show, I ended up watching all of them. The show was much like Xena/Hercules/Buffy. But I sort of enjoyed it, because I had forgotten most of the plot since I read the books.
I think true fans of the book series had maybe hoped for a more serious show. But if we're going to be honest, like KillerSOS said, the book series is really not that special. It falls into many of the common cliches of the fantasy genre, pushing all the right buttons of young adolecent boys. There is a reason why the fantasy genre is not fully respected in the literature world.
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On November 27 2012 09:35 stenole wrote:
I fondly remember reading the books when I was much younger, so when I eventually discovered this show, I ended up watching all of them. The show was much like Xena/Hercules/Buffy. But I sort of enjoyed it, because I had forgotten most of the plot since I read the books.
I think true fans of the book series had maybe hoped for a more serious show. But if we're going to be honest, like KillerSOS said, the book series is really not that special. It falls into many of the common cliches of the fantasy genre, pushing all the right buttons of young adolecent boys. There is a reason why the fantasy genre is not fully respected in the literature world.
I find it hard to stomach that you are comparing shows like LotS, Xena, and Herc to Buffy, the greatest television show ever made.
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EPT
