The Shannara Chronicles premieres on Tuesday, January 5th, on MTV.
That said, every Tuesday, the first thing you can watch is the title sequence for the TV show!
It is posted above. I find title sequences super important in this new golden age of TV. My favorites the last few years have had this kind of style—animation mixed with a song. Game of Thrones, True Detective, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc. Powerful opening statements that help set the tone for the overall show.
The title sequence for The Shannara Chronicles is no exception. As one fan said this morning, “Word/Void and Shannara tied together in 41 seconds! It took Terry 25 years to do that! I love it! Very excited for the series!!!” I couldn’t agree more. A lot to like here. The dark and gritty animation. The song with its lyrics. And I especially love how the dripping blood turns into the different branches of human evolution — into trolls, dwarves, gnomes, etc. — giving a brief history of how the Four Lands and its denizens came to be. Add in the post-apocalyptic aspects here like the Space Needle and Century Link field and this not only sets up this TV show but possible spin-off shows in pre-Shannara if this show becomes a hit (I’d love a spin-off show adapting Genesis of Shannara)!
What don’t I like? Not a whole lot of epic fantasy in this beyond the very end with the Ellcrys, which is kind of sad, but overall a strong title sequence. Will love watching it every week before every episode!
What do you think?
17 responses to “Opening Title Sequence: The Shannara Chronicles”
Will this be out on DVD someday, I don’t have TV. It looks wonderful.
If the show does well, it will be assured. 🙂
Looks awesome. I’m really excited about this series, I hope it’s not too long in coming to the UK.
I really like the graphics, the Human Skull dripping blood which then splits into Dwarves , Gnomes and Trolls gave me goosebumps. Didn’t like much the music, it seems to me that it doesn’t fit that much to an epic fantasy series.
Ditto on the music. It seems like something a bit more epic might be appropriate.
Never mind. I watched it again. I love the music. I think it fits Terry’s theme of tying the old, forgotten world to the new. You have to remember that Terry’s world is very different from Tolkien’s. We’re actually thousands of years in the future.
I love this! The opening reminds me a lot of Man in the High Castle.
I’m looking forward to the show but it’s trying too hard to be Daredevil and True Detective. Two of which I know you pointed out but the worst part is the song. Then I have to remember this is MTV and as much as MTV wants to keep us books fans around for the show (they need us) their main demo is the tween crowd that have never read the books.
That being said does it spell doom for the show? Of course not. In the end no one gives a bleep about the stupid opening credits. You could make the ugliest opening in the history of tv but you want the show to be remembered for how great it is, not the opening sequence.
Thanks for sharing though.
I like these opening credits, but I almost always fast forward the Big Bang Theory main title.
I don’t like to sound negative… but the trailer opening sequence is too dark! And I hope the decision is made to change it before the tv series airs on MTV! It should be screenshots or a mix of the videos already released… film footage from the series! And NOT all black and skulls… dripping blood! But that’s just my two cents… 🙂
Hate to break it to you, but it’s very doubtful that they would change the intro at this stage. The show premieres in just over a month, not nearly enough satisfactory time to make a new intro when this one, in my opinion, is fine as it is, with the few criticisms that Shawn Speakman made. I’m sure it’ll grow on you over time, most things will if you’ve been subjected to them repeatedly.
Interesting opening credits. They are definitely trying to reach a younger audience. One of the trailers made me think of The Hunger Games when I saw Amberle in The Gauntlet to be selected as one of the Chosen. I hope the show is immensely successful! I will for sure be watching!
I like this. It has a very James Bond kind of feel to the opening. Again, not what I would’ve imagined for Shannara, but I think it works.
The should use the Shannara videos that have already been released as the title scene … instead of using dark, blood, and skulls! This is not a gothic fantasy… but the Elfstones of Shannara! Did anyone else see the past trailer videos released? There is a huge difference with the title sequence for the TV show!
The song grows on me. My main issue with this is that it seems a bit too short for an opening. But I suppose that leaves us a precious few more seconds of the show to elude the snip snip of the editors.
Hey Shawn, why do you think the show is highlighting the post-apocalyptic aspect of the world so much more then the books? Is this just an attempt to differentiate the series from others? I find it interesting. Also, one of the major challenges the show will have seems to be from season to season and how many characters go from book to book (unless they move into the later series). Looking forward to the show, so happy it is finally happening.
When Terry pitched the series, he wanted it to be post-apocalyptic. He wanted the series to align more with what he’d written later in the books and I think they’ve achieved that. A rusted out skyscraper wasn’t or a dome like in Druid were not enough. The happy aspect of this is that it does differentiate the series from other fantasy properties. In this day and age, I think that’s important. New matters.
When it comes to characters from season to season, you’ll have to wait and see what we do. I love it. But can’t talk about it yet.