Thursday, December 16, 2004
Ursula, You Got Som' 'Splaining to Do!: Review of Earthsea on Scifi TV
Watching the first few minutes of the recent mini-series on the SciFi network based on Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea series of books, my wife and I were not impressed. We had been waiting for it for some time now. Maybe we had been hyped out from the frequent commercials about it on the network. Or because we had both read the series in our childhoods and found LeGuin's world such an interesting creation, we wanted to see what this world might look like visually. Also, there was an essay LeGuin had written a number of years ago that depicted an earlier attempt to turn the books into a movie, which she had courageously passed up because of the studio networks' perverse need for sex and violence and desire to change the essential message of the story. So when within the first few minutes the show finds an Atuan priestess in bed with a Kargide king, one is tempted to wonder, "Has Ursula sold out?"
Actually, as the mini-series went on, my opinion tended to grow more favorable. Especially good I thought were the performances by Isabella Rossellini as the High Priestess at the Tombs of Atuan (is that woman bad in anything?), Danny Glover as Ogion, the main character's mentor-wizard, and the portrayal of the main character's best friend Vetch (missed the actor's name). The main character, Ged, was himself played by a guy perhaps too pretty to be Ged, who I really thought should have had more of an edge. This would be a difficult role to play, though, and at least this guy didn't mess it up too badly. But Vetch's earthy hankering after food, while a little repetitive, provided good earthy counterpoint to Ged's more spiritual problems. The young woman that played Tenar was OK, but it was difficult to know for sure given the limited amount of camera time she got. This might be appropriate, given that in the original books Tenar remains a kind of secretive personality, even though the second book is narrated through her eyes.
One of my wife's main objections was production value. She thought the special effect shot of the capital of Atuan was especially cheesy. But to be fair, computer-generated special effect shots in general make her feel a bit woozy. Overall, though, I did like the "feel" the producers got of the archipeligo's world. I wondered if some of this was shot near Vancouver, B.C. in that much of it reminded me of the San Juan islands that lie in northern Puget Sound between Seattle and Canada.
Another of my wife's objections was plot change. To be fair to the producers, I don't know how you could have put the entirety of even just the first three books into the form of a four hour mini-series. I think she wanted a longer mini-series. She contrasted it unfavorably with the mini-series of Dune that aired on Sci-Fi a few years ago, which was more faithful to the plot of the books.
The two most blatant plot departures from the book involved the Kargide king's attempt to release the unnameable ones and the way the gebbeth plot was resolved. The way Ged just acknowledges the gebbeth as his own dark side was too much of a deus ex machina resolution. Also, a bit too predictable was the Kargide king being destroyed by getting what he wants.
The ending of the mini-series left open the possibility for sequels. Considering the apparently interesting re-make series Battlestar Gallactica, this might not be so bad, however different from LeGuin's original vision it is. But I would recommend just reading the novels themselves.
p.s. Wouldn't LeGuin's novel The Telling make an awesome movie/TV mini-series?
Actually, as the mini-series went on, my opinion tended to grow more favorable. Especially good I thought were the performances by Isabella Rossellini as the High Priestess at the Tombs of Atuan (is that woman bad in anything?), Danny Glover as Ogion, the main character's mentor-wizard, and the portrayal of the main character's best friend Vetch (missed the actor's name). The main character, Ged, was himself played by a guy perhaps too pretty to be Ged, who I really thought should have had more of an edge. This would be a difficult role to play, though, and at least this guy didn't mess it up too badly. But Vetch's earthy hankering after food, while a little repetitive, provided good earthy counterpoint to Ged's more spiritual problems. The young woman that played Tenar was OK, but it was difficult to know for sure given the limited amount of camera time she got. This might be appropriate, given that in the original books Tenar remains a kind of secretive personality, even though the second book is narrated through her eyes.
One of my wife's main objections was production value. She thought the special effect shot of the capital of Atuan was especially cheesy. But to be fair, computer-generated special effect shots in general make her feel a bit woozy. Overall, though, I did like the "feel" the producers got of the archipeligo's world. I wondered if some of this was shot near Vancouver, B.C. in that much of it reminded me of the San Juan islands that lie in northern Puget Sound between Seattle and Canada.
Another of my wife's objections was plot change. To be fair to the producers, I don't know how you could have put the entirety of even just the first three books into the form of a four hour mini-series. I think she wanted a longer mini-series. She contrasted it unfavorably with the mini-series of Dune that aired on Sci-Fi a few years ago, which was more faithful to the plot of the books.
The two most blatant plot departures from the book involved the Kargide king's attempt to release the unnameable ones and the way the gebbeth plot was resolved. The way Ged just acknowledges the gebbeth as his own dark side was too much of a deus ex machina resolution. Also, a bit too predictable was the Kargide king being destroyed by getting what he wants.
The ending of the mini-series left open the possibility for sequels. Considering the apparently interesting re-make series Battlestar Gallactica, this might not be so bad, however different from LeGuin's original vision it is. But I would recommend just reading the novels themselves.
p.s. Wouldn't LeGuin's novel The Telling make an awesome movie/TV mini-series?
