Dumb Fantasy

In my last post I talked a lot about the moral problems in a lot of modern fantasy. But I didn't say anything about its utter silliness. I'm not familiar with the Terry Goodkind books, so I don't know about the merits or lack of merits of the worldview behind them. But last night I saw the first (very long) episode of the new TV series based on them, The Legend of the Seeker. If you've seen Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings there is no reason to see this.

Count the similarities: an artifact (a book, in this case) that will allow a dark lord to take over the world; an orphaned farm boy who is destined to become a hero (and whose father is unknown . . .); a crazy old man who turns out to be a wizard, gives the farmboy a sword and promises to teach him; the murder of the man who had raised the farmboy and the burning of his homestead, and so on and so forth. Its almost as bad as Eragon.

The show is shot in New Zealand, which means that the scenery at least is stunning, but, alas, it is wasted in the service of cheese. Character is the heart of story, and this story fails to make you care about the characters. Possibly the best character is the villain captain, who has an atypically quiet and non-villainous manner, but I suspect that is due solely to the actor's interpretation, since the character is still given prototypical villain moments such as when he tells the hero to beg for his life (but then inexplicable loses interest and does not kill him, thus ensuring that the story doesn't end before it has begun). Unfortunately he is the most interesting of the characters, despite being one-dimensional. Everyone else is annoying. Although their emotions are kept at a high pitch, none of it feels real. It doesn't help that the story starts in media res, with characters you don't know or care about in danger, but even when you've spent some time with these characters you still don't care. Maybe its the silly lines which they say so earnestly, or their too-stylish looks and behavior, or the way that the hero fights like an expert, mowing down literally dozens of enemies (mostly in slow-motion) without any training, while beside him fights the warrior girl that seems to be held obligatory in stories like these. The whole mess has the feeling of having been constructed by somebody who thinks stuff like this is cool, instead of feeling like a living, breathing world. You never get the chance to forget that you are watching a story and actually get immersed in that story.

Really, this show makes Peter Jackson's silly Lord of the Rings movies look first-class. Why couldn't they have picked something with at least a little substance? Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles would make a far weightier TV series, despite being written for children.