La prophétie du sorcier

Overlong and ultimately unsatisfying mythical nonsense. The cast are strictly average and Kreuk is as typically bland as ever (check out TV series Edgemont for her best role). Canadian actress Jennifer Calvert is amazing as always and here gets a meaty leading role as an aide to the main villain. Katharine Isabelle features only briefly as the wizard friend's beautiful sister (and then spends her role looking a bit shifty as if she might fancy the main wizard, though this is never played out). Nothing else makes any impression. The music, set, costumes are all there but make little impact. Watch this to discover a true (and undervalued) actress (Jennifer Calvert) but not for a good time.

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!

I had read Ursula K. LeGuin's response to some statements made by the director and I expected it to be bad. What I saw was horrendous. This is, to my mind, one of the best fantasy series ever written. This adaptation of it only resembles it in the location it was set and the names of the characters.

I have seen a couple of posts to which I must respond:

1) Comparing this to other works such as Dune and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant miss the mark. While both of those series were great, A Wizard of Earthsea precedes them. Moreover, the best of the series was the last two books, unlike most other most similar series (was it Frank Herbert that said "every good trilogy is five books, at least"?

2) Changing the race of the characters misses an integral part of the statement made by the author. I know she hates it when people read meanings into her works, but given that the book was written in the middle of racial unrest in the '60s a statement was made, intended or otherwise. The "good guys" were the dark skinned peoples and the "bad guys" were the tall, blond white peoples (yes, I know it's no where near that simple, but the basic idea stands).

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.

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.