Earthsea - Review

[Truth Seeker]

Ratings and $$$$$

Well, someone is laughing...all the way to the bank.

See here.

 

[WayneLigon]

Slate has an interesting article from Ms. Le Guin

A Whitewashed Earthsea: How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books.

 

[Krieg]

I'm sorry, did she say "honky"?!

Interesting that she seems far more concerned with the color of the actor's skin than with the butchery of her story.

 

[Starman]

Judging by the article, I don't think she really watched the series. I think she just saw a bunch of white guys and got upset.

Starman

 

[NTZ]

Taped Earthsea in order to watch it this weekend. So far I have only been able to choke down a half hour of it, but I will try to watch more of it. At least until I get to see Kristin Kreuk.

When I stopped watching it this morning guess what was on tv? The Dungeons and Dragons movie! :\

NTZ

 

[Krieg]

When I stopped watching it this morning guess what was on tv? The Dungeons and Dragons movie! :\

I watched that again this morning as well. I hadn't seen it since it first came out on DVD and thought I'd give it one more chance just to make sure I wasn't overly critical originally.

Nope. It still sucks. Hard.

 

[Storminator]

I thought it was pretty ordinary. It hit all the major points of the books, but completely missed the depth of the stories. Very superficial treatment, even in places where it didn't need to be.

The scenery was stellar. I really liked Kossol. She was completely different than I pictured her, and her motivations and many of her actions were changed, but she captured the feel of the character.

Does anyone else think that ToA, as written, would have made an amazingly bad film? And now! 20 minutes of a lone character thinking to herself in a pitch black labyrinth! No sounds! no visuals!

PS

 

[Storm Raven]

I thought it was pretty ordinary. It hit all the major points of the books, but completely missed the depth of the stories. Very superficial treatment, even in places where it didn't need to be.

I can't figure out how the miniseries hit all of the major points of the books, given that about 80% of the material put on the screen was cut from whole cloth, and the remaining 20% was a jumbled mess that bore little relation to the source material.

 

[Storminator]

I can't figure out how the miniseries hit all of the major points of the books, given that about 80% of the material put on the screen was cut from whole cloth, and the remaining 20% was a jumbled mess that bore little relation to the source material.

Warriors in the mist, Ogion, Gont, Roke, the Doorkeeper, Osskil, Havnor, Jasper, Vetch, Yarrow, the Labyrinth, Usenames & Truenames, names as power, dragons and dragonlords, the broken amulet (previous owner lost at sea), Kargide raiders, lots of sailing, the Gibboth.

Not sure how you missed all that.

PS

 

[Storm Raven]

Warriors in the mist, Ogion, Gont, Roke, the Doorkeeper, Osskil, Havnor, Jasper, Vetch, Yarrow, the Labyrinth, Usenames & Truenames, names as power, dragons and dragonlords, the broken amulet (previous owner lost at sea), Kargide raiders, lots of sailing, the Gibboth.

Not sure how you missed all that.

I didn't miss it, I just noted that their use in the television version bore little to no relationship to their use in the books. Yes, they got some of the names the same, but most of the characters who had those names had little in common with the versions from the books.

The Doorkeeper, for example, did we ever find out he was the Master Doorkeeper? Or why you had to give him your name to enter (and have his help to leave)? The labyrinth went from being a place of power for the nameless ones, to their prison, hardly even close to the same thing.

Given that the Khargad story line was basically invented from whole cloth (every scene that Tygath showed up in was new), and the position of the Khargad as "an invading plague" was a radically different take on their place, that's one of the three storylines that has no relation to the books.

Given that the Atuan storyline was radically different, and the only thing they kept the same was the existence of the labyrinth (but changed its purpose) and radically changed every character (including Arha/Tenar, Kossul and so on), eliminated the temple of the Godking, and inverted the entire storyline, there's another third of the movie that has almost no relation to the books. (By the way, why did they, given their retention of the true names idea, eliminate the concept of Arha, whose name had supposedly been taken from her)?

Given that the Ged/Sparrowhawk story was altered so that the Gebbeth (which was a different creature from what it was in the books) was now the same as the nameless ones from Atuan, and the resolution of the quest made no sense (and now apparently imbued Ged with super strength). And Jasper, and Vetch, and Roke were all oddly altered (in most cases so they fit with the nonsensical Tygath storyline). I still can't figure out why they reversed Ged/Sparrowhawk's names. And there was no mention of dragonlords, only that Ged could talk to Orm Embar, in a conversation that was, once again, entirely made up for the miniseries.

And your invocation of the "broken Amulet of Peace" as a similarity doesn't work. The Ring of Erreth-Akbe wasn't an amulet of peace, and it wasn't part of "binding the nameless ones" or whatever the (incomprehensible) resolution in the miniseries was. And it wasn't something the priestsesses of Atuan wanted, but rather something they intentionally broke in half.

Given that the televised version bore such little relation to the books in so many ways, I'm not sure how you think that it "hit the high points". They used the same names in some places, but by and large, those names were attached to things that had nothing in common with what they had previosuly been attached to. The miniseries didn't hit the highlights from the books, it aped the books with hollow imitation at best.

Not sure how you missed that.