Kevin's Watch

SoulQuest1970 wrote:Orm Embar

Yevaud

In any case, everything you've mentioned there just about turned my stomach. What a travesty. I'm appalled.

One of the reasons I initially was thrilled to hear Earthsea was to be a miniseries was that Phillipa Boyens was supposed to write the script. Alas, she proved to be unavailable until LOTR was complete. From what LeGuin herself says, this was likewise true of her reaction.

Still, Lathe of Heaven was remade, and let us all recall that LOTR had been filmed before. So I have hopes for perhaps another version of Earthsea might be produced someday...properly. There's even something of a tradition there--ever see the original film version of Moby Dick? To let you know how faithful it was: Ahab gets the girl.

*gag*

Ok, I must be the only one who thought the guys making this movie were trying to remake Earthsea into Harry Potter. IMO, they were overinfluenced by the HP books and movies.

taraswizard wrote:Ok, I must be the only one who thought the guys making this movie were trying to remake Earthsea into Harry Potter. IMO, they were overinfluenced by the HP books and movies.

Oh, no, you aren't the only one! Now as I read the book I thought it was kinda sexist in that girls couldn't go to Roke and demeaning a woman's magic, but still they should be more faithful to the book. As outraged as I was about the view of women in the book, I was still stunned at how changed it was with girls at the school (I think there should be an all girls school lol). It did feel rather Harry Potterish.

It was horrid. Everything was wrong. And now I just read in Gen Discussion that someone is going to do Covenant?? ugh.

Now, now, now--not all adaptations are by definition bad.

The first Lathe of Heaven was excellent, capturing the feel and ideas of the book very well. Most recently Lord of the Rings has proved fantasy can be adapted successfully. Other adaptations that certainly worked (at least IMO)...

Moby Dick (the Ray Bradbury script)
The Maltese Falcon
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Gormenghast
Silence of the Lambs
The Hunt for Red October (they vastly improved on THAT one)
The Stand
The Shining (the mini-series)
Citizen X (okay that was an adaptation of a non-fiction, but still...)
Murder on the Orient Express (the original with Albert Finney)
The Haunting (the Robert Wise film)
The Manchurian Candidate (the original)
The Ring and Ringu

Don't forget Bridget Jones' Diary!

The Sci-fi Channel's response to leGuin's criticising of the adaptation:

We respect Ms. Le Guin's right to voice her opinion and we understand her frustrations. However, adapting two major novels down to four hours of television is highly challenging and requires significant reworking. That being said, we stand by the creative decisions we took in the spirit of her wonderful books and which made our miniseries the top entertainment program on cable over two nights, with over 13 million viewers.

"In the spirit of her wonderful books"? The very thing she was challenging was the fact they had completely ignored the spirit of the original works! Apprently, high ratings = a good adaptation, no matter how little similarity is left to the original work.

Murrin wrote:Apprently, high ratings = a good adaptation, no matter how little similarity is left to the original work.

I'd say the author criticising the hell out it = bad adaptation

Furls Fire wrote:Well, they screwed up Yevaud too. When Ged calls him by his true name, its Orm Embar!!!! UUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!! I turned it off after that.

OMG!!!!! Was that before or after the Marx Brothers rowed by in a canoe?

I'm surprised my Mom watched as much as she did of it. Should have heard her!! She was yelling things like "That is wrong!" "That's not his true name!" "This is making me sick!" LOL!!!

I wish you had a camcorder on her while she was watching!

i havent read the books, but the Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy were really good movies


and so far the Harry Potter books are doin pretty good as movies, cept the 3rd one...but it was still good

I didnt read the books so whatever they did that you guys didnt like, didnt affect me one way or the other. I enjoyed watching it.

Having said that.. I can understand why people wouldnt like it after reading the books. In only rare instances have I liked a movie or mini-series of something I have read.

SoulBiter

since were on the topic of books becoming movies, and people being ticked off...

im really apprehensive about adapting TCTC to the big screen...when i first heard about LOTR, i was ecstatic, and i couldnt wait...i knew the history of the books, all about the books, had seen the animated movies and read the Hobbit...but i hadnt actually read the LOTR series, until the summer before the first movie...that just made it all the more sweet when i saw them...and i was happy...they turned out to be killer movies...

but, i read TCTC before i read LOTR...and that became my favorite series...the first trilogy especially...it was just so great, i loved every minute i spent reading it, and i really got immersed in the whole mythos of TC...i had always thought of what it would be like if it was a movie, and i usually came to the conclusion that id like to see it animated, not live action...live action just has the potential to really screw it up...and threres some pretty messed up things in it which would translate, i think, better to animation than live action because people tend to be view animation in a different way than live action:in animation, theyre drawings, and its not quite the same when toons do stuff than it is when actors are acting scenes...live action tends to be more 'real'(for obvious reasons)...so, as has been discussed in the TC forum, im worried that hollywood will pretty much butcher it and trash it, and i dont want that(i know i speak for everybody here in that respect)


but, at the same time, i cant wait to see it...heheh

I never read the book, but from what I saw in the series, it was the most cliche/stereotypical thing ever.

The acting was alright, but the script was gawdawful *as was the story*

Well, the story in it's entirety might have been good *I only saw 1hour of the series* but all the little plot elements in it were expressed rather poorly.

What keeps amazing me, is that such poorly scripted projects like Earthsea, and SG-1 (good acting, but awful script), recieve twise as much attention as really well scripted shows (like Farscape).

You should definitely read the books, Blue_Spawn--they're marvelous. I didn't see the tv show, but from all the discussion, it sounds like they really screwed up the original story.