Earthsea

It never ceases to amaze me how some hack screenwriter can think he's gifted enough to take award-winning, much-loved source material and alter it nearly to the point of unrecognizability. This can never lead to a good outcome. This miniseries was further proof. What a complete waste of time and money. Stilted, wooden acting, lame dialogue, and pointless major plot changes (not to mention detail changes) resulted in one of the worst book-to-film adaptations I've ever seen. Several times I found myself wondering whether the people responsible for this mess had ever actually read the books. And what was up with the casting? I've never seen a bigger load of actors who are simply wrong for their parts.

How do they get funding for this stuff? I just don't get it. They should just give me the money instead -- I could have made a better adaptation with my video camera, a plastic swimming pool, and a stick of modeling clay. Unbelievable.

I am a huge fan of the Earthsea books and have been since the 1970s. I was so excited to hear the books were being adapted into a mini-series, particularly now with the CGI possibilities out there. To say this was a huge disappointment is the understatement of my year. Unlike some, my dismay is not because they changed the story from the books - screen adaptations do that all the time, sometimes to an extreme degree like here. But for that kind of adaptation to be good, you still need good casting, good writing, good acting, and good direction. There was none of that here.

Even my husband, who is not a fan of the books, didn't want to keep watching it (we tuned out after about 45 minutes and then looked in twice more for about two minutes each), purely because the script was so wooden (oh, for the lyricism of Le Guin's original prose!) and the line reading by the actors was so poor - it was like watching a high school play without a breakout star. They took what was a subtle, UNIQUE (the operative word to the max) series of books and made it grotesquely derivative - heartbreaking, given how truly original Le Guin's world was. She had no Sauron or Voldemort equivalent in her books (think about it, you fans of the books) - her whole point was there is only the evil that men do. In her Earthsea, no one is completely evil but everyone is capable of evil acts (even Ged). But obviously Hollywood can only deal with external, black and white conflicts - and so it had to invent a big bad villain (with only a glancing association with an original Le Guin character). I started out very nervous about this, because Ged was cast with blond curly hair - but I couldn't have possibly imagined how profoundly awful it would be.

Please, everyone who is reading and writing these comments - don't blame Le Guin. This mini-series has virtually NOTHING to do with her books.

Two-thirds through last night's show--the first half of EARTHSEA--I muttered to my wife, "This is so bad." She said, "So tomorrow you'll be at the computer typing up your gripes to someone." I looked at her indignantly and said something like, "Ah, why waste my time?" Of course, she was right, so here I am. An Earthsea adaptation is long overdue; I'm just so sad that it was done so shabbily, with such an eye (apparently) toward anticipating what the unimaginative masses would like to see, as opposed to the rich, subtle, mystical world that Ursula Le Guin so beautifully created in her great Earthsea novels. I don't have the heart (or time) to break the mini-series down, bit by bit, to show what's wrong with it. Let's just say that the screenwriters, producers, and director insisted on reshaping a great work of popular art into a cookie cutter shape, substituting clichés for subtleties and an "epic" (read Lord of the Rings) war story for what should have been a personal struggle with good/evil. Worst, I suspect that in Part II, tonight, we're all gonna see Ged, whose little cheek scar only adds to his overall "hotness," smooching a princess (the SMALLVILLE babe). This thing is almost as bland as last month's elections. Mr and Ms. Producers, either do Le Guin justice and tell the story right or don't bother!

I have been a loyal fan of Ursula K LaGuinn's Earthsea series for years, and when Sci Fi announced they were making a miniseries, needless to say I was excited. And then the movie began... what a bitter disappointment! I had hoped, with the beautiful and excellent work done on Lord of the Rings, that movie makers and script writers were at last going to be true to an author's vision. What a terrible blow then, when Sci Fi aired Part I of Legend of Earthsea. I did not even bother to watch the second half, for I truly couldn't stomach anymore. I guess the writers and producers didn't even bother to read the books... in fact, I think they borrowed a name here, a place there, threw Ursula K LaGuinn's name on it so they couldn't be sued for plagiarism, and said here you go, an epic retelling of a masterpiece! Maybe they should have stuck with science fiction, 'cause they sure do suck at fantasy! If any of you watched this, "movie" and liked it, I urge you to read the true Earthsea Cycle and then decide. As for me, my faith in the skill and talent of the writers hired by Sci Fi has been badly shaken, and may never recover!

Legends of Earthsea has a quality cast and acting -- though a cast that was largely south Asian or middle eastern might have been truer to the original story -- and also does nice things with settings, sets, and computer graphics, and could be an enjoyable TV movie in its own right, if the viewer were not aware of and comparing it to the original story.

The great shortcoming is the script and storyline, which has mangled the first two books of the Earthsea trilogy -- one of the greatest pieces of writing in the fantasy genre by one of the greatest fantasy and science fiction writers -- into a very mediocre, formulaic fantasy production with a story that bears only a passing resemblance to the original. The story suffers from a peripheral character, the Kargad king, being blown into a major character to provide a central villain, all but destroying the nuance and social complexity of antagonism in the original stories. The original stories have a strong theme of growth through the lifecourse of the central character, Ged. Collapsing the stories together and shortening the time frame has required a number of story changes which weaken this central theme. A number of changes have been made with respect to Atuan that play into a sappy, very unsatisfactory ending.

If you want cheap entertainment this is a good movie. If you want truly great stories, and fantasy reading that offers insight into your everyday life and commentary on the world, read the books instead: A Wizard of Earthsea, Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, by Ursula LeGuin. The later Tehanu continues the story of Ged, but is, IMO, less deserving of praise.