Legend of Earthsea will air at 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday December 13th and 14th on Sci Fi Channel.
By Shawn Sines
The Sci-Fi channel has historically rolled out the big guns every year with their December special events. Last year it gave us the monolithic Taken and a Battlestar Galactica remake.
This year its focus shifts to a beloved fantasy series.
Capitalizing on the public fancy of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films, Sci-Fi chose to adapt the first two of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea novels - A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan.
Fans of the novels should not expect a faithful reproduction of the books but will still find the overall feel of them present. The series does bring a little of the novels' greatness to life on the screen through the good performances by the cast.
Legend of Earthsea focuses on the adventures of a young man known as Ged (Shawn Ashmore) who is growing up to find he has strange magical powers and is destined to become a great wizard. The core of the story is about power, pride and responsibility as Ged makes prideful mistakes and must work to correct those errors throughout his life.
After defending his home village from an invasion of the armies of Kargide, Ged is found by the local wizard Ogion (Danny Glover) and offered the chance to train and develop his powers to their fullest potential. Like all young boys, Ged soon rebels against the teachings of his new master and sets off to a far off wizard school.
Once Ged arrives the film begins to resemble Harry Potter too closely. Ged is befriended by a laid-back country wizard, a plucky female wizard and encounters a conceited wizard of noble blood. Most of the first night of the series follows Ged's development from wild youth to angry young wizard.
Inevitably, Ged and his nemesis Jasper push each other until Ged, in an act of pride, attempts to call forth the spirit of a long dead hero.
This act serves as the focal point in the story as Ged releases an evil creature called a Gebbeth into the world. Up until this point the series does a good job of capturing the essence of Le Guin's original stories.
Once Ged frees the evil spirit, however, the television adaptation strays thematically from the source quite a bit. The main focus of Le Guin's novels surrounds the fact that Ged feels great sorrow for his acts and is humbled in the quest to remove this evil presence from the world.
Unfortunately, in the series the gravity of Ged's humiliation and despair is not intact. Instead, the writers chose to integrate the story of the second novel into the tale and introduce a secondary arc featuring Tenar (Kristin Kreuk of the WB's Smallville), a kind-hearted young priestess who guards the secrets of the Gebbeth and its dark race. Tenar and Ged do not meet until late in the series second night, but from the beginning it is obvious that the two will end up together, saving the world from the Gebbeth.
Fans of the novels will rankle at some of the changes - namely the changes to Ged's character and the modification of the character of Vetch (Chris Guthier). Playing to audiences who are still enamored with the recent Lord of the Rings films, Vetch is rewritten to serve as Ged's Samwise Gamgee.
Also, the Kargath God-King from the second book is simplified and made into the stereotypical British bad guy King Tygath (Sabastian Roche), who prances around chewing up the screen like a cardboard James Bond villain. The shallow villain seems thrown in just for show, since Ged's adversary is truly the Gebbeth and his personal struggle against it.
Fortunately the acting saves Legends of Earthsea. Shawn Ashmore demonstrates that he can play an angst-filled character with some depth and does an excellent job showing the changes that Ged experiences along the way. Kruek's Tenar is wide eyed and innocent and frankly too one-dimensional overall. She makes a fair attempt to breath life into the character but she has no obvious flaws, and as such is dull.
Danny Glover and Isabella Rossellini both turn in strong supporting roles as the mentors of Ged and Tenar. Glover's Ogion is strong, reserved and mysterious and truly serves the mentor role well. The most surprising performance, however, comes from Chris Gauthier and Shawn Ashmore together. Both actors do an amazing job of portraying best friends and share some wonderful on-screen chemistry - far more than Ashmore and Kreuk's
By Shawn Sines
The Sci-Fi channel has historically rolled out the big guns every year with their December special events. Last year it gave us the monolithic Taken and a Battlestar Galactica remake.
This year its focus shifts to a beloved fantasy series.
Capitalizing on the public fancy of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films, Sci-Fi chose to adapt the first two of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea novels - A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan.
Fans of the novels should not expect a faithful reproduction of the books but will still find the overall feel of them present. The series does bring a little of the novels' greatness to life on the screen through the good performances by the cast.
Legend of Earthsea focuses on the adventures of a young man known as Ged (Shawn Ashmore) who is growing up to find he has strange magical powers and is destined to become a great wizard. The core of the story is about power, pride and responsibility as Ged makes prideful mistakes and must work to correct those errors throughout his life.
After defending his home village from an invasion of the armies of Kargide, Ged is found by the local wizard Ogion (Danny Glover) and offered the chance to train and develop his powers to their fullest potential. Like all young boys, Ged soon rebels against the teachings of his new master and sets off to a far off wizard school.
Once Ged arrives the film begins to resemble Harry Potter too closely. Ged is befriended by a laid-back country wizard, a plucky female wizard and encounters a conceited wizard of noble blood. Most of the first night of the series follows Ged's development from wild youth to angry young wizard.
Inevitably, Ged and his nemesis Jasper push each other until Ged, in an act of pride, attempts to call forth the spirit of a long dead hero.
This act serves as the focal point in the story as Ged releases an evil creature called a Gebbeth into the world. Up until this point the series does a good job of capturing the essence of Le Guin's original stories.
Once Ged frees the evil spirit, however, the television adaptation strays thematically from the source quite a bit. The main focus of Le Guin's novels surrounds the fact that Ged feels great sorrow for his acts and is humbled in the quest to remove this evil presence from the world.
Unfortunately, in the series the gravity of Ged's humiliation and despair is not intact. Instead, the writers chose to integrate the story of the second novel into the tale and introduce a secondary arc featuring Tenar (Kristin Kreuk of the WB's Smallville), a kind-hearted young priestess who guards the secrets of the Gebbeth and its dark race. Tenar and Ged do not meet until late in the series second night, but from the beginning it is obvious that the two will end up together, saving the world from the Gebbeth.
Fans of the novels will rankle at some of the changes - namely the changes to Ged's character and the modification of the character of Vetch (Chris Guthier). Playing to audiences who are still enamored with the recent Lord of the Rings films, Vetch is rewritten to serve as Ged's Samwise Gamgee.
Also, the Kargath God-King from the second book is simplified and made into the stereotypical British bad guy King Tygath (Sabastian Roche), who prances around chewing up the screen like a cardboard James Bond villain. The shallow villain seems thrown in just for show, since Ged's adversary is truly the Gebbeth and his personal struggle against it.
Fortunately the acting saves Legends of Earthsea. Shawn Ashmore demonstrates that he can play an angst-filled character with some depth and does an excellent job showing the changes that Ged experiences along the way. Kruek's Tenar is wide eyed and innocent and frankly too one-dimensional overall. She makes a fair attempt to breath life into the character but she has no obvious flaws, and as such is dull.
Danny Glover and Isabella Rossellini both turn in strong supporting roles as the mentors of Ged and Tenar. Glover's Ogion is strong, reserved and mysterious and truly serves the mentor role well. The most surprising performance, however, comes from Chris Gauthier and Shawn Ashmore together. Both actors do an amazing job of portraying best friends and share some wonderful on-screen chemistry - far more than Ashmore and Kreuk's
