Always an innovator when it comes to youth culture, MTV has found a way to combine the popularity of Game Of Thrones with the demand for futuristic dystopian stories about impossibly attractive teens. The channel’s latest series, The Shannara Chronicles, is set thousands of years in the future after a nuclear holocaust has wiped out most of the planet. But rather than form various factions and force their children to fight one another, here humans have reverted back to a medieval existence full of dwarves, druids, elves, and magic.
Despite its topical premise, the series is actually based on an expansive book series by Terry Brooks that began in the late ’70s and is still going strong today. The show is specifically adapting the second book, The Elfstones Of Shannara, which follows an elf princess named Amberle (Poppy Drayton), a human named Eretria (Ivana Baquero), and a half-human, half-elf named Wil (Austin Butler).
MTV clearly has a lot of faith in the project, greenlighting it straight to series last year. This first trailer forgoes plot or character introductions in favor of a kinetic montage of the show’s expensive-looking visuals and the comely twentysomethings who play its teenage heroes. The Shannara Chronicles premieres January 2016.