Legend of Earthsea

[Laurel]

Note that I didn't say that it was a poor television story. I said as a rendition of the story of Earthsea it was embarassingly bad to offensive. Let me also add, after watching the second part, the description of "incomprehensible", given that the story's resolution makes no sense.

I have to agree here- there was a complete lack of understanding at what they made the resolution. It's like they hit the last half hour mark and said here it is, so rush- poof it happened.
More reason to read the books now More insight and understand contained within.

 

[Laurel]

No. There's a small story on her in this week's Entertainment Weekly. Bascially, she said that they totally missed the point of the books, but she didnt' seem to care since the books will last much longer than the t.v. movie.

This makes me happy! That she didn't have anything to do with it, since it would have taken more then just her to fix this one
I'm sure Peter Jackson with Le Guin could do it justice, given quite a few years when he's done with all those other projects

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm sure Peter Jackson with Le Guin could do it justice, given quite a few years when he's done with all those other projects

Only if he can produce and direct one film at a time. Peter Jackson's experience with the LOTR films pretty much proved to him why no one else (mainly those in Hollywood and US) would dare to shoot all three films at once in a period of 14 consecutive months of principal photography. He was crazy to have done it the first time. I doubt he's psycho enough to experience it the second time around.

 

[Nifft]

Well, A Wizard of Earthsea is not quite as long as The Lord of the Rings trilogy... I'll bet he wouldn't need to suffer quite so much.

-- N

 

[Darrin Drader]

I've never been a fan of Ursula K. LeGuin to begin with, so it should come as no surprise that I felt that this was lacking. I'm usually the one standing up for borderline movies, but not this time. I can honestly say that I hated it and can't believe I went back to see how bad they botched it the second night. The only thing I found somewhat entertaining was the dragon, but even that would have been better if it would have ended up skewered while these "world class" wizards taught it the folley of not fearing the power of their mad magic skillz.

Crap.

 

[Truth Seeker]

I've never been a fan of Ursula K. LeGuin to begin with, so it should come as no surprise that I felt that this was lacking. I'm usually the one standing up for borderline movies, but not this time. I can honestly say that I hated it and can't believe I went back to see how bad they botched it the second night. The only thing I found somewhat entertaining was the dragon, but even that would have been better if it would have ended up skewered while these "world class" wizards taught it the folley of not fearing the power of their mad magic skillz.

Crap.

That is what you get, when you try to match wits with a Dragon

 

[Storm Raven]

I've never been a fan of Ursula K. LeGuin to begin with, so it should come as no surprise that I felt that this was lacking.

I estimate that the Legend of Earthsea only had about 15-20% material that could credibly be traced to LeGuin, so whether you like her or not doesn't really impact on the quality of the story told by the miniseries. It does means that the screenwriter did a really bad job translating her work to the screen though.

 

[RedShirtNo5]

Just finished watching on TiVo.

I tried to lower my expectations and to expect that changes would be needed for a TV adaption, but apparently not enough. Sure, it was better than the D&D movie. But it was still horrid. Just about everything philosophically interesting and emotionally resonant about the original was replaced by cliche.

And was the villian taking acting lessons from Alan Rickman? I was actually waiting for the king to kill someone with a spoon.

-RedShirt

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I didn't find it as bad as many of the rest of y'all. As someone else so aptly put it, it wasn't LotR, but it wasn't The Dungeons and Dragons Movie either. It was entertaining enough for a TV movie. I would have been upset had I paid to watch it, but as a Sci-Fi film, a fair evening's entertainment.

That said, though, there were certainly a few things about it that baffled me about the ending, as others have pointed out. I'll use spoiler tags in case some out there plan to watch it for the first time on Sunday.

Spoiler

In the end, Ged recognized the Shadow as the dark part of himself, and absorbed it, thus defeating it. But that concept created some strange waves in the story's plot. Aren't, then, all the Nameless Ones logically the same thing? The dark sides of other people of Earthsea? Ged mentioned that a part of him had been missing, but he'd found it again. And yet, when the Nameless Ones are released, that concept is lost again. They seem to be ravaging monsters only, rather than aspects of the people of Earthsea..aspects they must accept to conquer, just as Ged did.

I tried to piece together the story at the beginning of the series, using the knowledge we glean at the end, again, that the Nameless Ones are the dark side of humanity. The Amulet of Peace, then, somehow allowed people to suppress their dark sides, and eventually after the Amulet was destroyed, the priestess' faith imprisoned the Nameless Ones. But looking at that priestess who was out to kill the Reverend Mother, as well as the conquering King Tygath, it seems clear that humanity is just as dark without its dark side, indeed with its dark side imprisoned behind a pair of really big doors. Shouldn't the warmongering Tygath be impossible so long as the Nameless Ones are imprisoned? Or perhaps only some of the Nameless Ones were imprisoned, and others returned to their hosts, devouring their souls in evil...?

Overall I thought the miniseries was a fun, if fluffy, program. You can't think too much about what's happening, or things start to unravel. But if you don't think too hard and just enjoy the ride, it's all right.

And I liked the dragon. Not only did it completely outclass them power-wise, it was also cunning.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Sorry about the thread necromancy, but, well, I've just had the opportunity to watch this miniseries.


Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I couldn't believe that the story which they had created using the words Ged and Earthsea could actually be as bad as people said.

If only everyone hadn't been so generous about it!

I suppose it isn't well enough known to get a decent treatment (a la LotR), but one can hope, maybe, someday...