Anyone else seen the Return of the King preview?

[Drake Tungsten]

Hey, I like the Sword of Shannara. I don't really consider it a copy of LOTR either.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Oh and the scene with the Wargs, and the Elves turning up at the battle, were good additions IMHO (although we could have lived without Aragorn falling off the cliff).

One of the main themes throughout the books is that the elves will no longer take active part in the affairs of mankind. Yet, we see a scene of them leaving from Rivendell for the west (too early) and then (suprise-suprise) a few hundred "elf-robot" archers turn up at Helms-Deep. Merde!

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Hey, I like the Sword of Shannara. I don't really consider it a copy of LOTR either.

I only read it once when it first came out (cos it was so disappointing after the pre-publication hype), but I do remember that it even has a scene with one of the characters being "eaten" by a tree a-la the willow and Tom Bambodil.

[Drake Tungsten]

That's what you're basing your opinion on? The two scenes are completely different if you look beyond the superficial "deadly tree" connection.

[SpencerH]

There are more similarities but since I havent read the Sword of Shannara in close to 30 years I cant remember every detail. As I recall there is a group consisting of various races including an elf, a crusty dwarf, a wizard, that travel on a mission to defeat a dark lord character. Isnt there a scene much like where frodo is stabbed with the sword on the hill-fort? etc etc. If it came out today it might be forgivable, but when the Sword of Shannara came out, there wasnt as many fantasy authors and books as there is today. The book was massively hyped as contender to LOTR. When I read it, I found that the plot-plagarism was obvious and I've never read another of his books.

[Drake Tungsten]

Isnt there a scene much like where frodo is stabbed with the sword on the hill-fort?

Not really. Shea gets poisoned by a giant scorpion thingie, if that's what you're thinking of.

As I recall there is a group consisting of various races including an elf, a crusty dwarf, a wizard, that travel on a mission to defeat a dark lord character.

Doesn't every fantasy novel have that? The details are what make the two different. The Shannara books take place in a post-nuclear holocaust world and all the different races sprung up because of that event (except for the elves). Very different from the historical land of Middle Earth that Tolkien set his books in.

[Arrian]

It was when the movies were in total contradiction to the books, that I was really displeased. For example, the entire Faramir fiasco - what was that about? What a waste of 10 minutes.

The only bad thing about TTT is the character assassination of Faramir. Otherwise, it's a better movie than FotR.

Yep. That pissed me off. Otherwise, it was solid. I'm ok with the other changes, because they were pretty minor. But I saw no reason for destroying one of my favorite characters.

-Arrian

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Doesn't every fantasy novel have that? The details are what make the two different. The Shannara books take place in a post-nuclear holocaust world and all the different races sprung up because of that event (except for the elves). Very different from the historical land of Middle Earth that Tolkien set his books in.

No.

Perhaps the difference is that I read the LOTR soon after its 're-discovery' in the early to mid 70's and the sword of shanara in 77. The other fantasy authors that I read at that time were REH, Moorcock, Norton, etc that are completely different from Tolkien. In the context of a publishing market that wanted to take advantage of the LOTR phenomenon at that time, the similarities between LOTR and SoS were very clear to me. I viewed (and still view) SoS as a poor rip-off of the LOTR and as I said it wasnt the only one (it was just the most hyped). I've heard that his other books in the series are more novel, but I wouldn't know since I havent read them.