Sci Fi Channel Plans 'Earthsea' Miniseries 308
Gumpy writes "The Sci-Fi Channel has started producing a TV miniseries based on the first two books of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series. The Earthsea miniseries is supposed to start on the Sci Fi Channel in December 2004."
What about Riverworld?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
Woah... How was "The Lathe of Heaven"...? (Score:3, Interesting)
Prepare for disappointment (Score:5, Interesting)
Never really clicked for me (Score:3, Interesting)
Not sure why. I like the Lathe of Heaven and think The Ones Who Walk Away from Oomlas is one of the best short stories ever written. If I had cable, I'd probably watch it out of curiosity. But since I don't ... oh well.
Re:Prepare for disappointment (Score:3, Interesting)
The first one, especially, is a kind of Once and Future King with a touch of Harry Potter (though of course it predates H.P.). I'm thinking about the old wizard tutoring Ged a la Merlin, before sending him off to wizard school.
The whole way to make this successful would be to concentrate on character and philosophy. These were the most enjoyable parts of the book, as I recall.
I still remember being fascinated with the idea that Ged, having transformed himself into a bird to effect an escape, might lose himself in the bird's nature and not be able to transform himself back. (The old wizard eventually had to lend him a hand.)
Television might have a hard time carrying this off without a lot of boring exposition. (Of course, well-written dialog and charismatic casting would avoid all that.)
Re:And a recent interview (Score:5, Interesting)
Appropriate indeed. I always wondered why "Friends" left me feeling "unclean". Now I know it was the living dead laugh-track.
Or David Schwimmer's acting abilities....
Re:Fantasy, SciFi (Score:2, Interesting)
Fantasy doesn't try to really have things make sense they just tell you that a thing works, they do not explain it.
Science Fiction often bases it's marvels on actual theory of the modern day, expanding upon it's fantastical possibilities.
Nanotechnological devices repairing a person's wounds are a little more believable than a man chanting a bunch of words than putting his hands on a would and it being healed.
Also, most Fantasy makes sides Black and White and Science Fiction uses more Grays.
This is not of course completely true with all books called Fantasy or Science Fiction, some think anything set in a almost medieval psudoeuropean setting is Fantasy and anything in the future Science Fiction.
Re:Prepare for disappointment (Score:5, Interesting)
You should be aware that Ursula LeGuin has an evil twin, Skippy. Quite a lot of her books were in fact written by Skippy.
For example: the original Earthsea trilogy was written by Ursula LeGuin, and is wonderful. Tehanu, on the other hand, was written by Skippy.
Likewise, The Eye of the Heron is by Skippy, The Lathe of Heaven is by Ursula. The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness are collaborations, however.
Basically, while Skippy is not necessarily a bad writer, she's so concerned about pushing her message that the plot suffers immensely. Tehanu just doesn't fit in Earthsea: but instead of designing a new world were the message could fit comfortably, Earthsea got twisted until the message could be wedged in somehow. In my opinion I think the book's terrible. (The huge deus ex machina at the end is just clumsy, too.)
But when Ursula manages to keep Skippy under control, she can be fabulous. You didn't like The Left Hand of Darkness, but I love it. There's a message, but it fits so beautifully...
Re:What about Riverworld?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
As for the Hecules / Xena: WP -> Riverworld reference, I can sort of see that. Kevin Smith (the one that played Aries on Hercules and Xena, not the cool one) was playing a warlord in much the same way he acted on both Olympian shows. The "bad guys" also sort of looked like a batallion from Hercules or Xena: WP.
But in my opinion, that's where it ended. Like I said, I've never read the books, but it appeared to be pretty good. It was more of a group dynamic than Herc Xena, where those 2 shows focuses on 2-and-only-2 characters 98% of the time. While the astronaut was the main focus, you can easily see how the rest of the eps focus mroe on the larger group that got away on the boat (though probably more on like 7 of them: alien, Mark Twain, little girl, British girl, etc).
I mean, in my mind, that's exactly how I'd imagine the scenario given to us. People "wake up" to this lush, green world. Obviously, there's no known tech or infrastructure in place, so they'd need to go the whole "old-school" route; with bamboo, forges, etc. Heck, for a a good chunk of the population, that was probably the norm when they were alive anyway.
Re:Hate to be a Cassandra (Score:4, Interesting)
P.S. You're not a Cassandra if people believe you.
-Carolyn
STOP AT THE 3rd BOOK!!! (Score:1, Interesting)
I always thought... (Score:4, Interesting)
Space combat, political intrigue, charismatic lead character.. how can you go wrong?
Unless Disney got a hold of it, of course.
Re:STOP AT THE 3rd BOOK!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Le Guin makes a sudden shuddering stop with Ged in a bad spot and a Dragon drops from sky to end the story.
Considering that the stories are based on AmerIndian folktales, dropping a Greek ending on you makes a bad ending.
Re: Discworld Mini-series (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, someone has already done that. The Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music have both been done as animated mini-series. I've seen the latter, and it's quite fun. I didn't care much for the style of animation, but the voice acting is wonderful.
You can get them at Amazon.com [amazon.com] (and no, it's not a referral link).
Race... (Score:3, Interesting)
She never does specify a definate race, but all of her main characters are described as brown, red, or dark skinned. There may be a question as to what race Ged actually is, but he is definately not white.
Re:Hate to be a Cassandra (Score:3, Interesting)
Earthsea, on the other hand, was written more like a modern story and less like an ancient epic. They've got a real opportunity here, a great work by a master storyteller. I hope it works out.
LotR is not really written like an ancient epic either. I know, I've read the Kalevala and the Illiad and, of course, Beowulf. Although imbued with the spirit of the ancient epic, LotR is totally unlike any of them.
The key to LotR's difficulty is its elaborately non-linear structure, the parallel pieces of which are finely and accurately dovetailed together with scenic details in a way a movie goer can't be expected to follow. If a characer looks at the sky and notes the phase of the moon, it is not a throw away scene, but a clue to chronology. It's a very skillful way of letting the careful reader in on details that the charcters are not privvy to without lots of exposition.
With respect to the language used, Tolkien is much more careful than he is usually given credit. He doesn't put archaic speach into characters' mouths willy nilly. Elrond speaks archaicly, because that's how an immortal who learn your language hundreds of years ago would sound. On the other hand as TA Shippey points out, Saruman speaks exactly like a modern politician; the fact that he speaks this way has signficance.
In any case while the dialog in the movie is somewhat different (lines are often moved to different characters), the movie pretty much proved that its archaism is not a cinematic problem. The only place where the dialog felt awkward was when it was forced into performing some script writing function ("Now the battle for Helm's Deep has ended..." etc.).
Re:Not a trilogy. (Score:3, Interesting)
The A Wizard of Earthsea, Tombs and Furthest Shore cluster together as a story about the career of a single character (Ged). The later books, developed 20 years later, focus on different characters, different themes and are done in a different style. Probably the best way to think of them is as a trilogy with two sequels.
Dont count on it... (Score:2, Interesting)
reviews, and a query about creative control (Score:3, Interesting)
I would be surprised if Le Guin sold the film rights without retaining tight creative control... Or did she sell them a long time ago, before she became famous enough to be able to set her own terms?
Danny.