Public Service Announcement - Earthsea on tonightFollow

The Scifi channel rendition of Ursala K. Leguin's Earthsea series premeirs tonight. Judgeing by the cast, it should be decent. If you like tolkein-esque stuff, you might want to watch.

TiVo'ed
But have this strange feeling it will Suck.
But it has Danny Glover.
Any idea what the premise is for this?

Guess you've seen Smallville too, Dan?

Boo hoo, can't find the Sci-Fi channel.. Maybe there's something good on Hallmark...

Eek, nope.

If anyone knows where to download it (yes, I'm motherfu[/b]cking pirating it, stupid Sky doesn't have the Sci-fi channel), please let me know.

Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea quartet (yes, there are four books, plus a book of short stories, and she's currently working on a fifth book) are among the most influencial and powerful works of fantasy literature since Tolkien.

The books in the series are:
A Wizard of Earthsea
The Tombs of Atuan
The Farthest Shore
Tehanu
Tales from Earthsea (a short story collection)

If you've ever read a single fantasy story and liked it, Earthsea is a must-read. She has done nearly as much to shape the face of fantasy archetypes as Tolkien himself did. I can't say enough good things about it, and I've been looking forward to the TV movie since it was first announced. Hope everyone enjoyed it! And seriously, if you know where I can grab it off the internet, I'm not above bribes.

Well. I saw part one last night. My feelings are kinda mixed on it. Personally, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't had the roomate (who's pretty critical and not nearly as "into it" as I was) basically saying "This is kinda stupid" the whole time.

I liked it simply because it's a retelling of a story that I read and loved when I was a kid. It's kinda unfortunate that the acting is sub par in a bunch of spots (I've really got to blame the writer though since good actors don't usually suck that much unless they've just got really crappy dialogue). Also, some of the cg effects were pretty icky (couple of spots looked about equivalent to the cg you'd see in cut scenes in a video game).

They did some good things and some bad things with the story. In the original series, each book focused on one part of the story. While there were events that overlapped, they weren't mentioned except in the book that dealt with that part. The TV series basically tells them all together in chronological order. So you're given the "main plot" of the whole thing at the beginning, even though in the books, you (or Ged) don't learn about that stuff until the end (in a: "Remember those people Ged ran into back in book one? Now I'm going to tell you how they tie in" kind of way). In a way, that's good since you get the whole picture at once. However, it also means they shortened some aspects of the story significantly (not surprising though since it's a mini-series). In the first book it details Geds life from a young boy with magical gifts all the way through years of training at Roke, and then quite a bit of time being hunted by the Demon thing (again no mention of what it actually was until much later in the series). In the TV series, it's presented as though all of that happens in the span of a few months.

Same kind of thing goes on with the priestesses at Atuan. That's a very long story that develops over years. In the series, Ged comes in long after the problems that are being developed in the mini-series happen. It would have worked better if they'd had done a better job making it seem as though years had passed. Chronologically, the events at the temple probably did happen at about the same times as the events portrayed in Ged's life. The problem is that both are accelerated. I suppose if you never read the series it wouldn't matter. It's just a bit jarring though. I got the impression that Ged was much much older by the time he gets to Atuan, but the high priestess is about the correct age as presented in the TV series.

I can understand why they did it that way. It makes it a much easier story to get into if you haven't read the books. It also allows them to just use the same actors for the parts instead of dealing with them at different ages. It does make the whole thing seem kind of rushed though.

Dunno. I'm reserving judgement until I see the whole thing. So far though I give it a C-. It's worth watching just for the story (which is fantastic). It's just all the other sub-par work around the story that detracts from it.