Le Guin: Sci Fi Channel’s Earthsea Sucks
Ursula K. Le Guin doesn’t think much of the Sci Fi Channel’s Earthsea adaptation: A Whitewashed Earthsea – How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books.
3 Responses to “Le Guin: Sci Fi Channel’s Earthsea Sucks”
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December 16th, 2004 at 4:03 pm
Good article, although I thought it was interesting that she focused almost exclusively on the race issue. Wouldn’t an author be just as concerned about plot changes? And nothing really about how race affects the point of the story, other than her general “melting pot” idea. (Reminds me of the terrible SciFi Channel “Children of Dune,” where they 90201-ed the book’s nine-year-old twins into pretty teens, basically tossing the story into the dumper.)
Le Guin also didn’t address the main problem with the SciFi “Earthsea,” which was that it was flat and boring.
December 16th, 2004 at 4:10 pm
Yeah, I was pretty dissappointed with the SciFi’s Earthsea as well. I read it over twenty years ago myself, but still remember it well enough to know how much they changed the story, mashing two books into one movie. Each book was it’s own complete tale, but somehow SciFi made it seem like one. By the last half hour of it, I was too tired to care about watching the ending. I doubt I missed much.
December 17th, 2004 at 5:26 pm
I watched part of a “Riverworld” movie on the SciFi channel, which sucked monkeys. The Riverworld books are pretty damn good, being about an artificially transformed planet with a river zigzagging between impassable mountains, like a maze, and everybody who lived on Earth since caveman days is resurrected there. Main characters include Mark Twain, Richard Burton [the translator of the Arabian Nights, not the actor], Hermann Goering, and a giant. The movie, as far as I could tell, had lost most of the books’ plot and I didn’t recognize any of the characters. Too bad: a real miniseries based on Riverworld and actually following the plot would be pretty exciting. I don’t know if the SciFi channel was responsible for the movie or merely showing someone else’s hackwork.
Sounds like Earthsea got the same treatment. I’ve probably read Earthsea, but so long ago I can’t recall it. I know I’ve read other LeGuin.