Legends of Earthsea
I love Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea books and looked forward to the Sci-Fi channel’s production with excitement and dread. We all know what happens when good books get turned into movies. The title “Legends of Earthsea” hinted at the changes.
If I’m remembering the books correctly (and please correct me if I’ve got them out of sorts), they did the first and second book all in one go. The result: a watered-down version of some great story telling.
My main complaint is that the story lacked any real emotion. They managed to completly flatten the emotions of the stories.
I remember reading A Wizard of Earthsea for the first time and how I couldn’t put it down. The scene of Ged first uses his power to hid the villagers of Ten Alders from the Kargs, for example, had me wondering what would happen. In the movie, however, I could have wandered off for a snack. “Oh look, some guys in helmets are attacking. Oh good, it’s all better now.” There was no increase in pace; no increase in tension; no increase in emotion. Just scene after scene, all the same.
As for the special effects, I didn’t really have high hopes for those. And they didn’t dissapoint. (To be fair, the effects were better than I expected. Though most of the landscapes looked like video games.)
It certainly could have been worse, and I wasn’t really expecting better. It’s just too bad they didn’t involve Ms. Le Guin.
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ugh, it was AWFUL! they gutted the story, put in garbage, and tried to sell it as the real thing. It was so bad that I literally couldn’t bear to watch the second half after viewing the travesty that was the first half.
I’m beyond disappointed.
Comment by Kristen — Thursday, 12/16/2004 @ 12:39 pm
See, I’m not beyond disappointed because I actually expected it to be worse. I was expecting “Merlin” bad, or “Dungeons & Dragons” bad. To me this was merely boring.
Do you remember the books better than I? Was it just the first two books, or did they cover all four?
The one thing that really annoyed me (providing my memory works) was the brooch. Brooch?! It was a ring damn it! (I believe Ms. Le Guin describes it as an arm ring.)
Comment by Tim — Thursday, 12/16/2004 @ 5:40 pm
I should have gone in with low expectations, I suppose; I’ve been spoiled by the wonderful LotR adaptations.
In preparation for the miniseries, I reread the first two books and am a quarter of the way through the third. The miniseries covered the first two books only, and loosely at that.
And you are correct, the item was supposed to be the Ring of Erreth-Ekbe, and Ged repaired it and put it on Tenar as an arm band.
Comment by Kristen — Friday, 12/17/2004 @ 10:30 am