Wizard of Earthsea (Sci Fi channel pertrayal)

2aMageing · December 17th 04, 18:22

Did anyone catch it this past week? I downgraded my cable like a couple weeks before hand (bright boy.....at least I caught The Librarian before most of my channels went away) and I am incredibly curious how well the first film/tv version of the insightful book turned out???

Sindatur · December 17th 04, 18:24

I'm not at all familiar with the Earthsea novels, so I found it fairly enjoyable. Ursula K. Leguin, however, was not in the slightest bit impressed

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-m...17/11.00.books

2aMageing · December 17th 04, 18:43

Ah. Thanks for the author's perspective....that's valuable. From the previews I was not totally thrilled.....I like Glover but I don't see any way he could pull off Ogion the Silent with his particular set of acting tools....and it looked a bit like they might focus too much on ...the isle of O I think it was and the romance that really wasn't there in the book....bit of a crush at the wizards school but really unfulfilled in the book. I am guessing they sacrificed the "growth of Ged" heart of the books for a more "sexy" story to sell people. Just guessing as I missed the boat entirely.

But you liked it? Not the classic Sci Fi channel Allegator flop type movie?? I guess they did do a solid job on the Dune treatments.

Sindatur · December 17th 04, 18:56

Yes, there Mini Series (not neccessarily true to the source material) have been pretty darned decent if looked as as an individual project, rather than compared to the source material (I've never read Dune either, but liked the Scifi Channel ones, better than the original Dune Movie). Taken and Battlestar Galatica were both pretty good too, although I didn't like the way Starbuck was played by a woman, yet, still written exactly like Dirk Bendict's character. If they'd written her as a strong woman, I would've been OK with Starbuck's Sex-change operation.

PillowRock · December 17th 04, 18:57

I didn't see any of it. However, all of the reactions that i have read have been negative. There seemed to be a fair number of people who started to watch it and couldn't stand to stay for the end of part one (much less the whole two nights).

2aMageing · December 17th 04, 19:19

Quote:

Taken and Battlestar Galatica were both pretty good too, although I didn't like the way Starbuck was played by a woman, yet, still written exactly like Dirk Bendict's character. If they'd written her as a strong woman, I would've been OK with Starbuck's Sex-change operation.

Yup. I had the same difficulty with the Starbuck portrayal. It wasn't natural. It was a woman stuffed into a male character instead of a woman playing a woman with realistic masculine traits.

Quote:

I didn't see any of it. However, all of the reactions that i have read have been negative. There seemed to be a fair number of people who started to watch it and couldn't stand to stay for the end of part one (much less the whole two nights).

Yah, I had caught wind of some not even liking it enough to see it through.....but I have some concern that these are the same people who didn't like sitting through the Lord of the Rings FOTR, and I would not want to use these as a guauge of the quality .....but maybe that does not apply here since alot of those would probably not be tuned into the Sci Fi channel anyway. The first book of the trilogy was amazing or at least a good read depending on where you come from.....so there is no excuse for the movie/mini to not beable to bring SOMEthing worth watching.....I guess it all rides on the screen writers and director....and maybe their funding, although I have seen fine work done on a shoe string before....

Bab5nutz · December 17th 04, 21:06

I haven't seen it either - and it could be a long time before it gets to my country. But I have been on another website where there are people have seen it, and I have read LeGuin's own reaction to it. To sum it up. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! And from what I have read, that was pretty much my own reaction to it as well.
It sounds as if they have totally butchered it. SPOILERS!!!! Ie, the character of High Priestess Arha/Tenar seems to have been changed. In the book she is a rather prickly, proud, often arrogant young woman/girl [she's about fifteen-sixteen years of age] She does change in the course of the book, as she slowly begins to realise that the Gods she has been raised to give blind allegiance to are not what they seem. And in the end, she must make a difficult choice SPOILERS END!!!!
From what I have read, they seem to have turned her into a sweet teenager, who becomes romantically involved with Sparrowhawk. WTF?!!! In the book, he is a good deal older than her, and more a father-figure than anything.
And then there is the race aspect. Most of the characters in the Earthsea books are not white - it's made pretty clear, although not made a big deal of. They're mostly dark-skinned or Black even. Tenar/Arha might possibly be white, as she is described as being pale-skinned [oddly enough, she is played by Alice Kreuk who is half-Asian], but apart from that, they're all quite dark.
But in the series, apart from Danny Glover, and Kreuk, the actors all seem to be white.
I think I might be steering clear of this one.

2aMageing · December 17th 04, 21:35

Well that IS disappointing. Yah, she was no wideeyed kid in the book to be sure.....she was raised a high priestess and was suitably arrogant about her "faith" in the book. I would say there is some "between the lines" in the book that they could end up romantically connected.

(and if a person can find the far after the fact fourth installment, Tehanu I believe it is called, it is WELL defined, but that book IMHO does not fit the pattern of the trilogy and I thing Guin lost the concept between The farthest Shore (#3) and Tehanu (#4) )

But that was another concern....with glover as the token dark skinned person. As I recall most of the ligt skinned peoples of the book resided to the north east and were norse like with light hair to match their light skin, rather barbarian, and periodically aggresive.

Disappointing, but not all that surprising.

RW7427 · December 17th 04, 23:40

I watched Earthsea when it was on the other two nights. From the previews I saw of it and from what bit I saw on their website about it, I expected more from it than what there actually was. Inspite of that, I still liked it. I'm thinking about picking up one or two of the Earthsea novels now.

G Kar of the Kha Ri · December 18th 04, 00:47

I've been wondering when someone around here would post something about this. Having said that... I slowly stopped caring about it over time, and never bothered watching it except for a little I caught Tuesday night while playing WarCraft III. Needless to say, I didn't pay much attention.