Le Guin Peeved About Earthsea Miniseries 880
Several readers have written in with unhappy opinions on the Legend of Earthsea miniseries just aired on the Sci-Fi channel. Ursula Le Guin has also chimed in, with a short but highly critical blurb on her website, and now this dissection on Slate.com.
Re:Maybe I should be more familiar, but... (Score:5, Informative)
"highly critical blurb" (Score:4, Informative)
"Earthsea"
11/13/2004
"Miss Le Guin was not involved in the development of the material or the making of the film, but we've been very, very honest to the books," explains director Rob Lieberman. "We've tried to capture all the levels of spiritualism, emotional content and metaphorical messages. Throughout the whole piece, I saw it as having a great duality of spirituality versus paganism and wizardry, male and female duality. The final moments of the film culminate in the union of all that and represent two different belief systems in this world, and that's what Ursula intended to make a statement about. The only thing that saves this Earthsea universe is the union of those two beliefs."
Sci Fi Magazine
December 2004
I've tried very hard to keep from saying anything at all about this production, being well aware that movies must differ in many ways from the books they're based on, and feeling that I really had no business talking about it, since I was not included in planning it and was given no part in discussions or decisions.
That makes it particularly galling of the director to put words in my mouth.
Mr Lieberman has every right to say what his intentions were in making the film he directed, called "Earthsea." He has no right at all to state what I intended in writing the Earthsea books.
Had "Miss Le Guin" been honestly asked to be involved in the planning of the film, she might have discussed with the film-makers what the books are about.
When I tried to suggest the unwisdom of making radical changes to characters, events, and relationships which have been familiar to hundreds of thousands of readers all over the world for over thirty years, I was sent a copy of the script and informed that production was already under way.
So, for the record: there is no statement in the books, nor did I ever intend to make a statement, about "the union of two belief systems." There's nothing at all about the "duality of spirituality and paganism," whatever that means, either.
Earlier in the article, Robert Halmi is quoted as saying that Earthsea "has people who believe and people who do not believe." I can only admire Mr Halmi's imagination, but I wish he'd left mine alone.
In the books, the wizardry of the Archipelago and the ritualism of the Kargs are opposed and united, like the yang and yin. The rejoining of the broken arm-ring is a symbol of the restoration of an unresting, active balance, offering a risky chance of peace.
This has absolutely nothing to do with "people who believe and people who do not believe." That terrible division into Believers and Unbelievers (itself a matter not of reason but of belief) is one which bedevils Christianity and Islam and drives their wars.
But the wizards of Earthsea would look on such wars as madness, and the dragons of Earthsea would laugh at them and fly away...
Toto, something tells me Earthsea isn't Iraq.
I wonder if the people who made the film of The Lord of the Rings had ended it with Frodo putting on the Ring and ruling happily ever after, and then claimed that that was what Tolkien "intended..." would people think they'd been "very, very honest to the books"?
Ursula K. Le Guin
13 November 2004
Re:Maybe I should be more familiar, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, you should be more familiar. Ursula Le Guin is one of the greatest living authors of science fiction and fantasy, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. Her novels include The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, and the EarthSea series. She is also the author of a wonderful interpretation of the Tao Te Ching.
Re:Maybe I should be more familiar, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Ursula LeGuin wrote two absolutely classic SF novels:
The Dispossessed, about an anarcho-syndalicist society formed when the founders of their political movement were exiled to their planet's moon, and whose first visitor to the a couple of hundred years later is the most brilliant physicist in known space: a man who has figured out a very, very important issue in physics (which I will not reveal), and has numerous adventures that illustrate the homeworld's society (and also has contact with an alien ambassador from a very familiar planet).
The Left Hand of Darkness, about an alien ambassador visiting a planet whose inhabitants naturally change sex with each mating season, and so have a very fluid concept of "gender" - and who consider someone who sticks with one sex throughout life to be a pervert. There's some political intrigue, too, and a journey across an ice field.
She's probably most famous for A Wizard of Earthsea and its related books, which formed the basis of the miniseries being critiqued.
Five minutes was enough (Score:4, Informative)
* People throwing around each other's true names (witness the girl talking to Ged).
* A hot-looking Kossil sleeping with some guy.
In the books, you *NEVER* spoke someone's true name out loud. And Kossil was a fat, dumpy, ugly woman who was high priestess of an order that shunned men.
Re:Maybe I should be more familiar, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Not a lot of other posts even mentioned this story.
I figured I'd chime in to point out that The Lathe of Heaven was also converted to a Made-for-TV movie, and I thought the transition was quite well done. Even if not a literal copy of the book, it was still effective at conveying the core concepts and displaying the changes in the world and its people through the shifts in architecture, costumes, technology, etc.
Re:Okay (Score:2, Informative)
Briefly, Earthsea is a world composed of hundreds of islands. The society is non-industrial, but magic is an integral component of everyday life. Women are seen as a lower class, and only men perform magic. Otherwise, the rest of the world is "normal" in our sense, except that dragons are a reality, though their presence is rare.
The books tell tales of a few recurring characters, most notably a wizard named Sparrowhawk (also known as Ged). If the producers of such a series went through all the trouble to proclaim this as based on Earthsea, you would think they would have been more faithful to the books. However, they seem to have written a completely different story, with some small number aspects of the original sprinkled throughout the shows. The end result is something that barely resembles the books and thus loses its uniqueness as a fantasy world.
It seems that the NY Times review (Registration required.) [nytimes.com] of the series is dead on: what is left is a mishmash of various fantasy stories, sort of Harry Potter meets Lord of the Rings meets Hercules meets Star Wars.
Anyone hoping to see a film version of the beloved books is going to have his hopes dashed upon the thorny rocks. Instead a different story is presented, using people with the same names but completely different experiences. Anyone hoping to learn about the books by watching them will be misled into thinking they are shallow cookie-cutter versions of everything else. Imagine if Frodo had "lived happily ever after" when he kept the ring himself to bring peace to the world... even though Tolkien never envisioned such a world.
Undoubtedly, a film producer must change the story presented on screen in order to compensate for the differences between visual and printed media, but this is one of the sloppiest adaptations I have ever seen. Ms LeGuin's comments only underscore my own opinion (or is it the other way around??). Don't watch it, unless you don't care whether the Earthsea movies match the Earthsea books, then it won't matter anyway. --dv
Re:Sci fi "original series" (Score:2, Informative)
You've obviously never seen British (BBC) SciFi. Blakes 7, Early Dr. Who, even Red Dwarf. Cheap, cheap, cheap (yet mostly really good stories).
Re:Google Cache link (Score:5, Informative)
Re:She must be kidding (Score:3, Informative)
However, the gratuitous changes to the storyline, key plot elements, and key characterizations were totally unnecessary and unforgivable.
There is no reason _Wizard of Earthsea_ couldn't have been filmed, and successful, more or less as written.
sPh
HI, MODERATORS. (Score:1, Informative)
When the MAJORITY of the top-level posts are long article mirrors, this makes things somewhat hard to read. Thus by causing the only voted-up posts to be these article mirrors, you are causing the moderation system to have the opposite effect as desired-- reading at score:3 will disappear all the real comments and just leave you with nine copies of the article.
Re:Maybe I should be more familiar, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Daniel
Re:She must be kidding (Score:1, Informative)
I could go on of course but there are sites out there to find more. Don't get me wrong the movies were great and I have them but I view them as something completely unrelated to the book and view the place and character names as mere "coincidence" that they share with the book names.
Flame bait? The original poster should be given at least "Interesting".
My 2 "Yankee Trader" the BBS door games' credits!
(Which I spent on the Galactic Lotto at Earth port of which I own)
Re:LeGuin has a color hang-up (Score:3, Informative)
Le Guin at the Agony Column - Chronolgy (Score:5, Informative)
1. Background: my (non)involvement with this production.
For people who wonder why I sold out to Halmi, or let them change the story -- you may find some answers here.
The producers (not yet including Robert Halmi Sr.) approached us with a reasonable offer. My dramatic agency at that time was William Morris. The contract of course gave me only the standard status of consultant -- which means exactly what the producers want it to mean, almost always little or nothing. The agency could not improve this clause. But the purchasers talked as if they genuinely meant to respect the books and to ask for my input when planning the film.
As I had scripted the first two books myself, with Michael Powell, years ago, and also worked with another scriptwriter to plan his script of the first book, I was in a position to be useful to them. I knew some of the difficulties in carrying this story over to film. And some of the possibilities that could be fulfilled, too, the things a movie can do that a novel can't. It was an exciting prospect.
They were talking at that time of a large-scale theater movie, although the possibility of a TV miniseries was mentioned. They said that they had already secured Philippa Boyen (who scripted The Lord of the Rings) as principal scriptwriter, and reported that she was eager to work on an Earthsea film. As the script was, to me, all-important, her presence was the key factor in my decision to sell them the option to the film rights.
Time went by. By the time they got backing from the Sci Fi Channel for a miniseries -- and Robert Halmi Sr. had come aboard -- they had lost Boyen.
That was a blow. But I had just seen Mr Halmi's miniseries Dreamkeeper with its stunning Native American cast, so I said to them in a phone conversation, hey, maybe Mr Halmi will cast some of those great actors in Earthsea! -- Oh, no, I was told -- Mr Halmi had found those people impossible to work with.
Well, I said, you do realise that almost everybody in Earthsea is 'those people,' or anyhow not white?
I don't remember what their answer to that was -- it may have used that wonderful weasel word colorblind -- but it wasn't reassuring, because I do remember saying to my husband, oh, gee, I bet they're going to have a honky Ged. . .
This was in the spring of 2004. They moved very fast then, because if they didn't get into production, they would lose their rights to the property. Early in this period they contacted me in a friendly fashion, and I responded in kind; I asked if they'd like to have a list of name pronunciations; and I said that although I knew well that a film must differ greatly from a book, I hoped they were making no unnecessary changes in the plot or to the characters -- a dangerous thing to do, since the books have been known to millions of people for over 30 years. To this they replied that the TV audience is much larger, and entirely different, and changes to a book's story and characters were of no importance to them.
They then sent me several versions of the script -- and told me that shooting had already begun. In other words, I had been absolutely cut out of the process.
I withdrew my offered pronunciation guide (so Ogion, which rhymes with bogy-on, is Oh-jee-on in the film.) Having looked over the script, I realised they had no understanding of what the two books are about, and no interest in finding out. All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic MacMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence. (And fai
Re:Since when (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Did you slashdot the nice lady's website? (Score:4, Informative)
Um, I think you must have read a different article/post/something/WTF? She doesn't say anything like that at all!
Here's a copy of what she posted. You show me where she says anything like that:
"Earthsea"
11/13/2004
"Miss Le Guin was not involved in the development of the material or the making of the film, but we've been very, very honest to the books," explains director Rob Lieberman. "We've tried to capture all the levels of spiritualism, emotional content and metaphorical messages. Throughout the whole piece, I saw it as having a great duality of spirituality versus paganism and wizardry, male and female duality. The final moments of the film culminate in the union of all that and represent two different belief systems in this world, and that's what Ursula intended to make a statement about. The only thing that saves this Earthsea universe is the union of those two beliefs." Sci Fi Magazine, December 2004
I've tried very hard to keep from saying anything at all about this production, being well aware that movies must differ in many ways from the books they're based on, and feeling that I really had no business talking about it, since I was not included in planning it and was given no part in discussions or decisions.
That makes it particularly galling of the director to put words in my mouth.
Mr Lieberman has every right to say what his intentions were in making the film he directed, called "Earthsea." He has no right at all to state what I intended in writing the Earthsea books.
Had "Miss Le Guin" been honestly asked to be involved in the planning of the film, she might have discussed with the film-makers what the books are about.
When I tried to suggest the unwisdom of making radical changes to characters, events, and relationships which have been familiar to hundreds of thousands of readers all over the world for over thirty years, I was sent a copy of the script and informed that production was already under way.
So, for the record: there is no statement in the books, nor did I ever intend to make a statement, about "the union of two belief systems." There's nothing at all about the "duality of spirituality and paganism," whatever that means, either.
Earlier in the article, Robert Halmi is quoted as saying that Earthsea "has people who believe and people who do not believe." I can only admire Mr Halmi's imagination, but I wish he'd left mine alone.
In the books, the wizardry of the Archipelago and the ritualism of the Kargs are opposed and united, like the yang and yin. The rejoining of the broken arm-ring is a symbol of the restoration of an unresting, active balance, offering a risky chance of peace.
This has absolutely nothing to do with "people who believe and people who do not believe." That terrible division into Believers and Unbelievers (itself a matter not of reason but of belief) is one which bedevils Christianity and Islam and drives their wars.
But the wizards of Earthsea would look on such wars as madness, and the dragons of Earthsea would laugh at them and fly away...
Toto, something tells me Earthsea isn't Iraq.
I wonder if the people who made the film of The Lord of the Rings had ended it with Frodo putting on the Ring and ruling happily ever after, and then claimed that that was what Tolkien "intended..." would people think they'd been "very, very honest to the books"?
Ursula K. Le Guin
13 November 2004
Re:Authors who... (Score:4, Informative)
It's all about using borrowed money. If you dind't[sic] have to do that, you could retain absolute control.
Well, it is partially about using borrowed money. It is also about a legal system weighted towards the wealthy and without protections for the poor. I don't know anything about Miss LeGuin's financial status when she signed away the rights to her book (and probably simultaneously any future movie or TV series rights) but I seriously doubt even with twice the money a normal publishing house spends on the procedure she could have had her books in stores and available for purchase. You see book stores order from publishers, and are largely uninterested in self-published books or independent authors. If you want to be sold in stores, you have to sign your rights away unless you are absolutely a sure thing to make a whole lot of money (See Stephen King). Even he signed with a major publisher, but since he was a sure thing and a celebrity he could get the publishers to compete for his books.
I understand your point, but I think you are wrong to think it is all about money. If you are wealthy I'm sure you could pay to get your book in stores (very very wealthy). But I doubt you can do so for anywhere near what it costs a mainstream publisher, and I doubt that you will be able to make deals with as many smaller book stores and chains.
In order to address this very imbalance, laws were written to protect the rights of some artists, notably graphic artists, unfortunately the industry works around it by requiring all art to be created as "contract work" where the idea is "legally" the publishers and you are just a contractor doing the grunt work. The system is very, very broken.
Re:Did you slashdot the nice lady's website? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the rest of us read the Slate article [slate.com] that is 80% about how race was a big thing in the Earthsea (and other Le Guin) books.
Re:Since when (Score:1, Informative)
I shut down the nice lady's website (Score:5, Informative)
Please get the article from Google's cache, or any of the mirrors mentioned in this thread.
I'll bring www.ursulakleguin.com back up later.
Jeffry Dwight
Ursula's Administrator (among other chores)
Re:Did you slashdot the nice lady's website? (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously, if the reader is initially distracted by the character's skin tone, that is likely to interfere with the reader's ability to identify with the character. The strategy of letting the reader discoverer a character's differences (which may be as subtle as race or as extreme as species) later on in the story has long been used successfully in SF. Heinlein also used this device for a nonwhite character.
how exactly do whites have the privilege of being colorblind ?
Whites have the privilege of being colorblind because they only rarely have to take into account the possibility that the people whom they have to deal with in their day-to-day existence may be prejudiced against them because of their race.
Isn't is also extreme arrogance to call ethnic imperialism the act of a white author speaking for a non-white people.? The word "ethnic" is a generic term, yet she uses it specifically to target white writers in her statement.
Uh, if you didn't know, Ms. LeGuin is white--the "white author" (singular, not plural) that she is referring to is herself
Re:Since when (Score:2, Informative)
Europeans, as you may have noticed, are white. (I'm talking about the original groupings).
If someone in Africe had decided to do the same, then not surprisingly, I would expect everyone to be black or brown, with different skin tones accorded to the foreign races.
There is nothing creepy or racist about it at all. Do you criticise Asian literature for only having asian characters? African folk stories for having African characters?
I fail to see why the colour of the character's skin in LOTR has ever been an issue for anybody at all. (And my friend, who is Maori (that's a polynesian race from New Zealand)) agrees with me...
Of course - to be honest, I never noticed much about the skin tones of the characters in Le Guin's books either
80-20 Rule (Score:3, Informative)
Anything less than or equal to 20% can use the 80-20 Rule [wikipedia.org]
Quote:
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 Rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that for many phenomena 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. Moreover, among those "top 20" it is also the case that 80% of consequences result from 20% of causes, and so on. Thus, for example, 20% of 20% of 20% is 0.008, or 0.8%, i.e., eight-tenths of one percent, and 80% of 80% of 80% is 51.2%, so 51.2% of consequences come from eight-tenths of one percent of causes.
The principle was suggested by management thinker Joseph M. Juran. It was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of property in Italy was owned by 20% of the Italian population. It is often applied to data such as sales figures (20% of clients are responsible for 80% of sales volume) or organizational productivity applied via aircraft bodies whereby 20% of an aircraft structure provides 80% of the lift (in turn would apply to 20% of individuals in an organization perform 80% of the work).
It your case 80% of what people take away is junk and 20% understand or gain insight.
Re:The Dangers of Adaption (Score:3, Informative)
Another gullible victim. There is no Morgenstern, save Goldman. In the voice commentary on one DVD edition, he tells how he got the title: he asked his daughters what he should write about. "A Princess" said one; "A Bride" said the other.
Re:Maybe I should be more familiar, but... (Score:1, Informative)
I know you corrected the above statement, but you should be aware that Le Guin's science fiction is about as hard as you can get, far more than even Asimov.
Le Guin is one of the few writers who refuses to have Faster-than-Light travel for her characters. As a result, time dilation at near-lightspeed is a major plot element in all of her science fiction stories.
She also anticipated (probably with input from her physicist husband) quantum entanglement, when she invented her "ansible" instantaneous communication device.
Re:Did you slashdot the nice lady's website? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Asimov (Score:3, Informative)
Just a few weeks ago I saw another autobiography, written by Asimov shortly before his death and edited/annotated by Janet. This one seems to be a little more expressive on the human side, although with few facts (natch).
sPh
Re:True names (Score:3, Informative)
I think if you've studied Judiac mythology, you'll find the idea is much, much older.