Earthsea
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There’s been a lot of talk on other scifi sites about SciFi’s new miniseires Earthsea (due in December, about 2 years late!).
I’m curious if anyone else here is interested in the miniseries or are fans of the book. I haven’t read the series myself, but all the recent talk has piqued my interest.
What’s your thoughts?
i read the Earthsea quartet a few years ago. it was a story that certainly kept me interested until the end, even though i’m more of a fan of the likes of David Eddings and Raymond E. Feist. i’d certainly be interested in this mini series- i’d not even known one was planned. i do hope Sci-Fi puts some effort in. after the likes of Lord of the Rings being translated to the screen, i think the viewing public will be expecting very high standards- not only as far as the story is concerned, but with the actual production itself. you can’t cut corners with fantasy, otherwise the story just won’t translate very well to live action……i hope everyone understands what i’m getting at!!! 🙂
*nods*
Definately required reading for fantasy fans; I agree with snookle (I hate you for making me type that) in that I tend to prefer Feist, Jordan, etc., but I still very much enjoyed the Earthsea trilogy.
I’m looking forward to it, to be sure, but I always worry that things like this will turn out like ABCs “The Magical World of the Leprechauns” or whatever it was that starred Randy Quaid. I’m sure there’s a market for that sort of drivel, but the Earthsea trilogy is practically a classic, and it would be a crime to camp it out for televison.
SJ
Well, I hadn’t even heard of this miniseries– demonstrating the fact that I don’t watch the scifi channel anymore. I like the first three (or four?) of the books in the series so I will check it out.
I saw a pretty good adaptation of one of her other novels, The lathe of heaven, on Aand E, and they did a good job. Hopefully, this will be good too. I agree that many of the newer Scifi productions on that channel have been a disappointment.
I enjoyed Le Guinn’s books muchly (light reading and even lighter books — each one is quite short).
Ursula K. Le Guinn recently wrote an article about the miniseries: “A Whitewashed Earthsea: How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books” –> http://slate.msn.com/id/2111107/
Many, many years ago… when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I read this series. Once.
Once. Do you know how seldom that happens when I own the books? I cannot even remember what happened in them. Which is also unusual for me. All I can remeber about the books is that they were IMHO, at that time, vapid crap.
😉
[quote=”thefrey”] All I can remeber about the books is that they were IMHO, at that time, vapid crap.
:wink:[/quote]
Ouch. 😆
Yeah, I checked it out and found it mildly entertaining. I have not read any of the books so this was my first look at the world of EarthSea. Unfortunately, it lacked originality and came off as a generic “wizards n’ dragons” flick. The wizard school scenes had me thinking Harry Potter the whole time for Pete’s sake.
But judging from the reaction on the Sci-fi channel boards, it was pretty much hated all around.
[quote=”thefrey”]Many, many years ago… when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I read this series. Once.
Once. Do you know how seldom that happens when I own the books? I cannot even remember what happened in them. Which is also unusual for me. All I can remeber about the books is that they were IMHO, at that time, vapid crap.
:wink:[/quote]
Sounds like Eddings new series. 😛
Okay, so maybe there wasn’t much to wreck when it came to “adapting” the books for the miniseries, but it’s the first “fantasy genre of its kind” books I remember reading, and so perhaps I have a softer-spot for them than I should. I was nine when I read them, and it wouldn’t be for another couple of years that I’d read the much better Lord of the Rings.
Now I am certainly much fonder of the Lord of the Rings (having read the books multiple times)… In fact, I still can’t bring myself to watch the movies because I already have such strong mental images of LOTR, and it just wouldn’t jibe with how I imagined it (I saw some of FOTR on a crappy VCD in East Asia which may be another factor for my reluctance).
With the miniseries, I’m not opposed to watching it for the same reasons as LOTR — only because I hear it’s lame. The books were lacking depth (very simplistic), but I thought it was a cool fantastical journey at the time.
Edit: Speaking of dinosaurs (though dragons would be more appropriate to the topic), were any of you fans of Land of the Lost?
It only makes sense that the author would denounce the miniseires after it aired. It was pretty awful. On a sadgeezer.com scale, it gets a 00,003 out of 10. The supporting characters were reading their lines, the plot set up was hackneyed and predicatble, and so much of the story was derivative of other recent movies. It MIGHT have been original at the time of hte writing, but not in 2004. The plot ran like every other crap Sci Fi Channer MOW, with the same poor direction and special effects budget. I’m embarrrased to say that I watched both parts, and considered (a few months ago) to make a section on the site for it.
Oh, and the Sci Fi Channel preview of its 2005 programming lineup, was pretty lame when compared with what it did for Taken, BSG and CoD.
Excellent points, Headgehog.
I’m glad I wasn’t going nuts, It did really suck and from the line-up skiffy is offering, yeesh, we’re in sci-fi hell in the States. I say Fox should have a sci-fi evening and put on their best movies, then sci-fi might listen.
I caught the second half of the Earthsea mini Sunday, the acting and directing were atrocious and the dialogue was so blase and predictable….
“so this is our destiny?”
“If not us, then who?”
Puh-leezzzz…can I have some crackers and wine with that?
It is like Scifi just kind of throws this stuff together…though the new BSG, looks very good and I’m excited for that -was a HUGE fan of the original.(have been avoiding the buzz on the boards here until it airs in the states)
mandara K wrote:
[quote]we’re in sci-fi hell in the States.[/quote]yeah, all I watch is SG-1 and Andromeda….Men In Black was on TBS constantly last week…..
headgehog wrote:
[quote]The supporting characters were reading their lines, the plot set up was hackneyed and predicatble, and so much of the story was derivative of other recent movies. It MIGHT have been original at the time of hte writing, but not in 2004. [/quote]LOTR was kind of the precident of all fantasy quest stories, Eddings, Feist, Le Guin, Moorcock….followed this kind of grand tradition in a way. Any screen adaptation of fantasy is going to derive from jackson’s movie and any other great fantasy films…but to make those homages in a unique way is the trick.
thefrey & Lexxlurker wrote:
[quote]thefrey wrote:
Many, many years ago… when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I read this series. Once.Once. Do you know how seldom that happens when I own the books? I cannot even remember what happened in them. Which is also unusual for me. All I can remeber about the books is that they were IMHO, at that time, vapid crap.
Sounds like Eddings new series. [/quote]
I read and reread Edding’s Belgariad and Mallorean series….but his most recent stuff has been formulaic crap….I concur!!!
I’ll take Tanith Lee’s Tales from the Flat Earth anyday….and do quite regularly….not quite the same type of quest motif, but I love her work.
I enjoyed watching earthsea, but one thing that seriously deflated the plot was reformulation of the priestesses as another set of “good guys”. So the wizard and the priestesses are in opposition because of a misunderstanding of how to do good??? In the book the priestesses are in the service of dark god or spirits, perform human sacrifices and are only allowed to see males that are eunichs. The young teenage priestess is already complicit in the unpleasant deaths of some prisoners sent as a sacrifice, and she almost kills ged too. The book is about being her being redeemed (or redeeming herself by helping the wizard) from a situation where she is serving evil.
I am not sure why the TV show sanitized the priestesses, maybe to be more politically correct, I am not sure. I did like the production values and the actors that they chose.
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