EARTHSEA

[jaina27 0]

I have recently seen a promo for a new miniseries on Sci-Fi called "Earthsea." It looks interesting to me and I was wondering what everyone here thinks about it. It is said to air December 13, 2004 @ 9PM.

 

:) Nifty link--> http://scifi.com/earthsea/

 

Synopsis:

Click For Spoiler

An angry, headstrong youth, whose magical power could rival that of the greatest wizards....

 

A beautiful young priestess, introduced to evil....

 

A warrior king who wields words and weapons with equal force....

 

All on a world of islands and incantations, mystics and maidens, prophesies and power. All on EARTHSEA.

 

The SCI FI Original Miniseries Earthsea will premiere as a two-night television event in December 2004. The four-hour coming-of-age fantasy stars Shawn Ashmore as the young mage-in-training Ged; Kristin Kreuk as the priestess Tenar; Isabella Rossellini as High Priestess Thar; and Danny Glover as the master wizard Ogion. Produced by Hallmark Entertainment in association with Bender-Brown Productions, Earthsea is written by Gavin Scott (The Mists of Avalon) for executive producers Robert Halmi, Sr. (Merlin, Gulliver's Travels, Animal Farm), Lawrence Bender (Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction) and Kevin Kelly Brown (Roswell).

 

Adapted from Ursula K. Le Guin's award-winning Earthsea novels, this epic fantasy follows the tale of a reckless youth destined to become the greatest sorcerer that the mystical world of Earthsea has ever known. When the difficult and rebellious Ged discovers the extent of his magical powers, he seeks to master the ancient arts — and his own impulses as well. As he journeys to manhood, he will combat dragons, fall in love, cross death's threshold and ultimately wield the power to reunite a planet.

 

Frequently mentioned in the company of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth and C.S. Lewis's Narnia, Earthsea is thought to be one of the great fantasy creations. Le Guin, beloved by readers of all ages, has received accolades including five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards and the National Book Award. The Earthsea books have been translated into 16 languages, with millions of copies in print.

 

Click For Spoiler

 

GED

 

 

TENAR

 

:) :) :)

~Jaina

Edited October 19, 2004 by jaina27

[WEAREBORG4102 0]

sounds like The Knights of the Round Table....

[Cougar 0]

Probably just a copy of LOTR

[DrWho42 13]

Haven't seen the mini-series or read the books yet...

But I think some fans may take interest of this article:

A Whitewashed Earthsea

How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books.

Written by Ursula K. Le Guin.

[Theunicornhunter 2]

I didn't particularly care for the miniseries. I thought Ged was an arrogant whiner. Tenar was okay but not exceptionally appealing. The honored "Mother" was far to easily deceived for someone allegedly suspectible to spiritual strength and knowledge. The plot just did't make sense to me, it seemed haphazard and rambling.

 

I read the article at Dr. Who's link and while the author stated the miniseries had little relevance to her story she concentrated mainly on the fact the characters should have been of various races rather than predominantly white. While I can understand that is a major insult - I don't think having the characters played by actors of other races would have changed the plot and logic lapses this series displayed. In fact I am quite curious what the plot was supposed to have been.

[Miss Satoire 0]

The mini-series was awful. Ged too much of a whiner, he whined some in the books, but not nearly as much as in the mini-series.

 

If you get a chance, read the books... they're so much better!

[Spockstellaiter 0]

Of course hollywood murdered the plot, is anyone surprised? the only movie made from a book that I can think of that is faithful is LOTR, that's what made it such a smash hit, and it wasn't like the author of earthsea said, a movie based on sex and violence

[Jack_Bauer 1]

I read this book in grade 7. I absolutely hated it.

[mj 7]

I read the article at Dr. Who's link and while the author stated the miniseries had little relevance to her story she concentrated mainly on the fact the characters should have been of various races rather than predominantly white.  While I can understand that is a major insult - I don't think having the characters played by actors of other races would have changed the plot and logic lapses this series displayed.  In fact I am quite curious what the plot was supposed to have been.

293999[/snapback]

 

I watched the series also because I was curious about something I had never read, but my sister had read the series and loved it!

 

I also read Ursula Leguin's (sp) article complaining about the filmmakers' changing the color of her characters.

 

I have only read one of Leguin's books, The Lathe of Heaven. I liked the book, and one thing I did like is that there were different races. She played around with it a little, at one point having everybody gray in color. But the main thing I liked was the main plot, a man struggling with the fact that his dreams changed reality, another evil man trying to exploit this gift, and an alien presence. It was a good story.

 

Leguin's rant is the rant of an artist whose work has been used contrary to her intent. I think every artist must accept the fact that once his/her work is out there, it will be viewed, interpreted, and used in ways contrary to what they may have wished. In particular, Leguin was dealing with people out to make a buck ( she, in fact, did sell the rights...to make a buck). She never was in a position to control what they did after she sold the rights, so she should not have been surprised.

 

Still, I appreciate her taking the time to explain a little of the motivation behind her writing. I admire her deliberate intent to be inclusive of people who she recognized, at the time when she was doing this writing, as being often excluded. If I was a regular reader of her work, the quote below could have been talking about me, because all the years I read scifi, I felt this way.

 

I have heard, not often, but very memorably, from readers of color who told me that the Earthsea books were the only books in the genre that they felt included in—and how much this meant to them, particularly as adolescents, when they'd found nothing to read in fantasy and science fiction except the adventures of white people in white worlds. Those letters have been a tremendous reward and true joy to me.

 

However I also know that my sister, who was a regular reader of Leguin, and Tolkien, (and everybody) would not have written such a letter, because she was too caught up in the myriad of creatures that populated scifi and fantasy worlds to care much about the color of a few measly human beings. She and I were impacted differently by this sort of exclusion. What I remember that she told me about Earthsea was the idea of having a true name, and the power in using a true name. She talked about that idea, not about what character was what color.