“You’ve got to be kidding me," the bouncer said crossing his arms across his chest. This is the opening line for Cassandra Clare's "City of Bones." I would be lying if I didn’t say I had much the same reaction to the opening scene of the new "Shadow Hunters" TV show. I have loved the "Immortal Instruments" series by Cassandra Clare and her prequel series, "The Infernal Devices." The series was a perfect combination of real life and fantasy. Round of applause to Cassandra. She made me wish I could pick up and a stele and kick some demon ass. And I am not alone, the books captured audiences since its release in 2007, so why not try to capture that on a TV screen?
The first book in the series "City of Bones" has a 4.5 rating from Barnes and Noble reviews and a 4.2 from Amazon. But if we take a look at the first try "The Immortal Instruments: City of Bones," the movie version. Now there was A LOT of hype for this movie, and it did not live up to the hype. It was given a 6 of 10 from IMDb and 12 percent from rotten tomatoes. So far after only having the pilot episode out the TV show "Shadow Hunters" has a 6.5 from IMDb and a 42 percent from Rotten Tomatoes. So what is the difference?
Let’s take a look and compare the movie and the TV show and my thoughts on each.
Casting: If I go through and compare the movie to the TV show I actually think that I like the movie cast more. (I could also be slightly biased because Lena Hedley is my women crush every Wednesday and I mean Lily Collins is beautiful.) But if you go back and compare the casts to the books the TV show definitely sticks to the books more. Let’s look at three characters.
1. Clary Fray: Clary is the protagonist of the series. In the books, she is described as: Small, slender, delicate looking, freckles, fiery red hair, and freckles.
On the top, we have Lily Collins, who is a natural brunette. For the movie, they gave her a more auburn tone and in press release photos like the one shown gave it a bit more of a red tint. On the bottom is Katherine McNamara clearly McNamara fits as a better Clary.
Jace: Love interest of Clary. He is described as tall and slim but muscular, very strong and a highly skilled soldier, tawny golden hair and striking golden eyes.
For the role of Jace, we have Jamie Campbell Bower and Dominic Sherwood. While both men fit the cannon roll of Jace, I feel that Bower (so far) did a better job of capturing the mystery of Jace.
Valentine Morgenstern: A madman, but one who stood by what he believed in (a dangerous combo), cold, fine features with a narrow ascetic face, silvery white hair cropped close to his face and black sorrowful eyes.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers did a pretty good job as portraying his version of Valentine, had he had a better script I believe it would have been better. As for Alan Van Sprang in the TV show… he’s only had about five minutes of screen time but he is everything I want in Valentine.
Plot: When the first book starts in the club Pandemonium. The TV show gets there after a little bit. It mixed up some of the beginning scenes in order to help the new fans who have not read the books understand what kind of world they are getting themselves into. Learning that, I think that it was a pretty effective first episode. The movie stuck to the plot in the beginning but quickly falls away leaving the original plot far behind. Think "Eregon" bad. The cast of the TV show, however, assures hardcore fans that they will be sticking to the books.
So Actual Reviews?
So while I have my own opinions I can’t help but think that I am going to have to agree with some of these reviews.
Unfortunately, Freeform's adaptation of Cassandra Clare's "The Mortal Instrument" series, called "Shadow Hunters," opens just as cocky as that effort sounds. Oddly confident that this time familiarity will breed success, creator Ed Decter and producer McG make far too many assumptions, including (and especially) the notion that good-looking young actors plus demons plus CG weapons and runic tattoos are enough to ensure a big hit.
-LA Times
“Shadow Hunters” boasts a smidgen of old-school elegance owing to the fact that these characters use swords to battle each other. But in just about every other regard, the series pilot is an eye-rolling collection of pseudo-hip gestures that seems calculated to cater to teens and tweens with all the forced cool of your dorky new stepdad wearing a backwards baseball cap. (“Shadowhunters” is the type of show in which every fist-bump and meme-referencing bit of dialogue feels market-researched and cynically dispensed.)
- The Wrap
So, I guess we will see from the future episodes if the show "Shadow Hunters" will flourish or flop.
