Earthsea - Review

[Strithe]

Slate has an interesting article from Ms. Le Guin

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

I find it interesting when artists knowlingly make business deals and come out with mock outrage when Hollywood changes their works. She could have always elected not to sell the rights to her book, especially if she was so concerned about certain core concepts. Artistic integrity aside I don't see her complaining about the check they wrote her.

From my point of view, I've never really cared about the ethnicity or gender or orientation etc. of the characters in books I've read. What usually matters to me is if the characters and/or story are compelling in some way, not whether or not the characters resemble me physically. Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that I'm a German/Italian/Russian/Czech mutt.

I haven't read LeGuin's books, although I've got a copy of Wizard of Earthsea I've never got around to reading. Of course, if you follow her article it seems that the only central theme to the Earthsea books is that they don't have Caucasians in them, so maybe I'll pass.

She may want to climb down from the pedastal too, she's hardly the first author to write about multiracial characters in Fantasy or Science Fiction. H. Beam Piper had mixed-race characters in his far future stories & novels, which were published about 10 years before the Earthsea novels.

As far as the miniseries series goes itself, I taped it Sunday night and watched about the first hour or so. My initial impression is that it has decent acting and good visuals. The storyline.... nothing spectacular but at least it's watchable and fairly entertaining. At least it's not the Shatneresque-overacting and late-80's-video-game-look-CGI craptacular that was Dungeons & Dragons (a film that is only out-badded by such horrors as Space Hunter and Metalstorm: the Destruction of Jared-Zin).

 

[Squire James]

From my understanding of the Earthsea trilogy, names were - um - kinda important (um - FREAKING CRUCIAL). When they couldn't even get the main character's name right, I had trouble taking the rest of the story very seriously. It's like Peter Jackson deciding that Sam would be the Ringbearer and Frodo would be a snooty aristocratic sidekick.

That being said, the story was okay, even good at times. It showed about as much similarity to its source material as the "I, Robot" movie, though. I'd almost say more "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" made it into the movie than "Earthsea", and it didn't belong there.

 

[Rhialto]

You know, while her tone was rather unfortunate, I'd say the casting problems represents the entire problem with the series--two books which boldy reversed fantasy's traditional color-coding, are converted into a show which is yet another example of the code. The miniseries subvert the entire tone of the Le Guin's books to make a completely generic work.

 

[WayneLigon]

I find it interesting when artists knowlingly make business deals and come out with mock outrage when Hollywood changes their works. She could have always elected not to sell the rights to her book, especially if she was so concerned about certain core concepts. Artistic integrity aside I don't see her complaining about the check they wrote her.

Apparently she was very cautious about making such a deal; I'm sure she knows more than a few other authors who have been burned. She simply trusted the wrong people. She wasn't the first and won't be the last. They pulled a bait-and-switch on her, promising one writer and delivering another plus the obvious studio finagling. I'd say it's certainly not 'mock' outrage; it must be very painful to watch a work that you've poured your heart and soul into for decades misrepresented before millions of people that now and forever afterwards will always have that impression of your work.

 

[Strithe]

Apparently she was very cautious about making such a deal; I'm sure she knows more than a few other authors who have been burned. She simply trusted the wrong people. She wasn't the first and won't be the last. They pulled a bait-and-switch on her, promising one writer and delivering another plus the obvious studio finagling. I'd say it's certainly not 'mock' outrage; it must be very painful to watch a work that you've poured your heart and soul into for decades misrepresented before millions of people that now and forever afterwards will always have that impression of your work.

I might be more forgiving if she were a younger author with little real-world experience. This is a mature, educated woman who has dealt with "Hollywood" before. Maybe she should have spent some time actually watching typical Sci-Fi-Channel fare instead of believing what some media exec told her (that's always a bad idea). And in any case her books are far from "ruined", you can still get the Earthsea books in their orignal form with all the original ideas intact. You can't say the same thing for, say, the original Star Wars Trilogy. If anything even the "whitewashed" Earthsea may be a good thing for what she seems to be trying to do because an audience that otherwise might not ever have heard of her books at least knows they exist.

The point I was trying to make is that, just going by the essay, the only thing I got that made her books distinct is that they don't feature Caucasians. From comments here that's obviously not the case, and I think she would have been better off talking about more specifics of what makes Earthsea special than harping on one facet and the fact that she feels betrayed.

Let's face it, even the most well-intentioned adaptation effort is going to undergo some degree of metamorphosis when it put into the film/video medium. The beauty of books is that you get the work directly from the writer, filtered only by the editor(s).

Movies & TV shows have way too many egos involved. You not only have the director & script-writer(s), but you have producers who think that their ability to dump money into TV projects suddenly makes them experts on art. Then you have all the rest of the "talent", actors, costume designers, set desginers, casting directors, etc. who all have their own paticular ideas and agendas with regards the work. The only time you avoid having a mess is in these situations is when one individual has the clout, ego, and stamina to keep things on-course as possible.

That really is the difference between a decent adaptation of a book, such as the Lord of the Rings movies, and a movie that bears little if any resemblance to the source material.

 

[Storminator]

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.

blah, blah, blah

Not sure how you missed that.

I didn't miss it. That's pretty much exactly what I said.

It hit all the major points of the books, but completely missed the depth of the stories.

See?

Maybe you should try to be less deliberately antogonistic.

PS

 

[Storm Raven]

I didn't miss it. That's pretty much exactly what I said.


See?

Nope. Using the names of things, but having them relate to completely different things isn't "hitting all the high points of the books". It's "making stuff up and attaching a familiar name to them". Completely different.

You missed it.

Maybe you should try to be less deliberately antogonistic.

It is spelled "antagonistic", and maybe you should reconsider what you mean by "hitting the high points", since that means something other than "calling something different by the same name".

 

[Storminator]

It is spelled "antagonistic", and maybe you should reconsider what you mean by "hitting the high points", since that means something other than "calling something different by the same name".

Maybe what I meant was

... but completely missed the depth of the stories.

Obviously I misjudged your post. That has now been rectified.

PS

 

[Nifft]

See? This made-for-TV hack-job is so bad, even people who agree that it's a real stinker will fight to the death for their vision of specifically how stinky it was, and who said that it was stinky first.

"Amulet of Peace" my ... elbow. Yeah.

-- N, hoping Penguins do indeed have elbows

 

[Mystery Man]

Ursula K. Le Guin - My color scheme was conscious and deliberate from the start. I didn't see why everybody in science fiction had to be a honky named Bob or Joe or Bill. I didn't see why everybody in heroic fantasy had to be white (and why all the leading women had "violet eyes"). It didn't even make sense. Whites are a minority on Earth now—why wouldn't they still be either a minority, or just swallowed up in the larger colored gene pool, in the future?

Who the hell says honky anymore?