Earthsea

Starring:Shawn Ashmore, Kristin Kreuk, Isabella Rossellini, Danny Glover, Sebastian RochÃ©, Chris Gauthier, Jennifer Calvert, Mark Hildreth, Alan Scarfe, Alessandro Juliani, John Tench, Heather Laura Gray, Erin Karpluk, Dave 'Squatch' Ward, Mark Acheson, Betty Phillips, Katharine Isabelle, Richard Side, William Samples, Anthony Holland (II)
Director: Robert Lieberman
Studio: Lions Gate
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Originally broadcast as Legend of Earthsea in December 2004, the Sci-Fi Channel's four-hour miniseries of Earthsea rides the coattails of the Lord of the Rings trilogy with its quest-driven story of humble blacksmith Ged (Shawn Ashmore), a wizard-to-be who is mentored by the magical Ogion (Danny Glover) as he seeks to preserve the realm of Earthsea from the evil King Tygath (Sebastian Roché). Ged's adventures lead him to the priestess Tenar (Kristen Kreuk, from Smallville) and with secrets shared by High Priestess Thar (Isabella Rossellini), they gain the power to prevail over Tygath. As presented by Robert Halmi Sr. (producer of Merlin, Gulliver's Travels and several other fantasy miniseries), this skeletal rendering of Earthsea boasts a wealth of digital effects and semi-lavish set design, but Ashmore's lack of charisma hampers a production already fraught with problems. It provoked the wrath of fantasy fans and a firm rejection by author Ursula K. Le Guin, who had watched helplessly (she wasn't involved or consulted) as her classic novels A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan were racially "whitewashed" (in Le Guin's words) nearly beyond recognition. As TV fantasy goes, Earthsea is admirably ambitious, but best enjoyed by those with no awareness of the classic books it is very loosely based on. --Jeff Shannon

Description

Based on Ursula K. Le Guin's multiple award-winning classic tale comes this richly imagined epic mini-series. In the magical world of EarthSea, the Amulet of Peace has ensured harmony between humans and dragons for centuries. But when the Amulet is broken and a piece of it disappears, it's up to a neophyte wizard to restore balance and stop a nefarious king from conquering EarthSea's islands.

Customer Reviews:

Not that bad for a Sci-Fi Channel movie.......2007-05-30

Maybe I've just learned to keep very low expectations for anything the Sci-Fi Channel produces and I did expect to loathe this movie. Instead it had moments of charm, a few small laughs (not always intentional) and some good acting. It has been a very long time since I read the books but I did recognize that several key things were omitted, glossed over or barely touched on. But that was also true of Lord of the Rings when they omitted one of my favorite characters, Tom Bombadil.

Comparing this film to the Lord of the Rings is very unfair since almost nothing does compare to those epics. I'd rather compare it to the David Lynch version of Dune - so different as to hardly resemble the book other than place and character names and events. If you can manage to overcome those differences you can enjoy either movie, though I'd have to say Lynch's Dune is immensely better than the Earthsea movie.

If they did take liberties with the souce material, that's hardly new, no matter how regrettable it is. Every author has experienced this when their material goes to celluloid. I can't imagine how Heinlein would have reacted to the way they mangled Starship Troopers, yet that movie was entertaining enough despite that.

Overall, for a rainy day movie when there was nothing else on tv I found this to be adequate. Just don't expect anything like the books and remember, it's a Sci-Fi Channel production and they're responsible for some monumentally bad films. This isn't one of them fortunately, at least in my opinion and it has forced me to dig out my dog-eared copies of the original Earthsea books again.

Extremely dissapointing.......2007-05-08

If you are a fan of the books and expecting anything even remotely resembling the source material, step away from the keyboard now. Do not buy this DVD. It will anger you beyond words.

If you are looking for a rainy day, made for TV time killer, it's probably worth the $10...barely. In a nutshell the acting is serviceable (at least by the leads), the effects passable, the plot predictable and familiar, but the dialog is painful and the casting is absolutely horrible.

I am a huge fan of the books and bought this without reading the reviews first. Suffice to say that I wanted to throw my TV out the window within a half hour. But I was determined to watch it end to end, and once I was able to emotionally separate the original story from what I was watching, it became ... bearable.

All things considered, I can't recommend that anyone shell out their hard earned money for this product when so many vastly superior alternatives exist. If I didn't love the Earthsea books, it might have warranted two stars. As is, I can barely give it one.

Abomination.......2007-04-26

Imagine if Uwe Boll had made the Lord of the Rings trilogy instead of Peter Jackson. That's about the quality of film you get here. This pathetic effort to bring Ursula Le Guin's first two Earthsea books (A Wizard of Earthsea / The Tombs of Atuan) to the small screen is an abomination, a disgrace, and in insult to the author in every way. Any thinking person who has respect for the original works will have nothing to do with this production. Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books rank among the greatest works of fantasy ever written. They are also among the most unique and intellectual. The Sci-Fi production turned those books into generic fantasy that any hack could have written. There may be one compelling reason to see this production: It will show you exactly how not to adapt a book to film. It also might tell you something about how dumbed down American culture has become, that the people behind this production thought an eviscerated version of Le Guin's books were all the public could handle.

Why do I react so negatively to this production? Here are the major reasons in outline form:

1. Race is a central theme of LeGuin's Earthsea books. That theme was totally removed from the movie for no apparent reason. It would be like removing languages from Tolkien's work. In the books, the only white people in Earthsea are the Kargs. Everyone else is non-white, which is how Le Guin constructed her world for very specific reasons. She has called this production a "whitewashing" of Earthsea, and I personally think it was a gutless decision on the producers' part to do so.

2. The stories have been altered arbitrarily to create a generic adventure / fantasy movie at the expense of the book's main themes. Gender is also an issue in Le Guin's writing, and it not to be found here. Ged's entire maturation experience (a huge theme of the first book) is made meaningless by the plot changes in this movie. He never has to pay the price for what he does. The lesson that there is a price or a reaction for everything you do is largely forgotten. The producers show now respect for the book by rearranging seemingly small details at will. They even get Ged's name wrong! His true name is Ged, not Sparrowhawk.

3. Even in technical terms this is a bad film. The acting, with maybe the exception of Danny Glover, is wooden. The dialog is unnatural. The settings are generic. The effects are substandard (the dragon is nearly laughable). The characters (not Le Guin's...the film's) are not believable and give the audience little reason to care about them.

I could go on, but you probably get the idea by now. Look up Ursula Le Guin's personal website, and read what she has to say on the subject. She says it far better than I can.

Imploding magic.......2007-04-17

Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books are full of magic, mystery, philosophy and intensely powerful storytelling.

But you wouldn't know it by this lackluster adaptation. Instead, "Earthsea" aspires to be "Harry Potter" in a medieval "Lord of the Rings" setting, with two plots mishmashed haphazardly into one, shoddy special effects, laughable action scenes, and some seriously wooden acting.

Rebellious, impatient Ged (Shawn Ashmore) attracts the attention of the wizard Ogion (Danny Glover) when he magically rescues his village from raiders. He joins Ogion as an apprentice, but soon proves too impatient -- and so Ogion sends him to the wizard school on Roke, where Ged soon proves to be one of the most gifted pupils. But his pride and anger become his undoing, when he accidentally summons a foul demon.

Meanwhile on the island of Atuan, the High Priestess (Isabella Rossellini) is slowly wasting away, and she hastily selects her successor, teenage Tenar (Kristin Kreuk). What no one knows is that the king of the Kargides is having her poisoned, and his priestess lover is trying to find a way into the labyrinth below, where the dangerous Nameless Ones are kept. To save all of Earthsea, Ged must brave its most terrifying dangers.

"Earthsea" basically is two books' worth of plots crammed together, but not well -- the entire tone is changed to "Harry Potter in Middle-Earth," with the plucky wizard pupil on a roadtrip with his funny chubby buddy against the forces of evil. The entire time at Roke just reeks of Hogwarts.

Even if judged purely on its own merits, "Earthsea" is still a disaster -- the direction is clunky, and the special effects are amateurish at best. Moments that should have been brilliant, such as Ged's climactic confrontation with the Gebbeth, fall flat. By the time we get to the drippy, sentimental climax, the entire plot spirals into a Disneyesque lovefest that is nothing short of nauseating.

And the script isn't much better. In fact, it's simply atrocious, full of unintentionally hilarious moments (a lisping dragon), deus ex machinae, a surprisingly silly demonic threat, and horribly written cliched dialogue ("So this is our destiny?" "If not us, then who?"). When Vetch and Ged dress up as Kargides to fool an idiot commander, you know the movie has hit rock bottom.

It doesn't help that Ashmore and Kreuk are tolerable actors at best, but they get progressively more wooden as the plot continues. They're only saved by the greater talent of the other actors -- Chris Gauthier is lovable AND smart as Ged's best buddy, and Glover and Alan Scarfe are given too little to do as some paternal old wizards. (And Amanda Tapping has a split-second cameo)

Isabella Rossellini deserves special credit as High Priestess Thar. I'm not sure what an actress of her caliber is doing in a movie like "Earthsea," but she saves every scene she's in -- she's warm, kindly, wise, powerful and devastating in her disapproval.

The Sci Fi Channel tried to have it all in "Earthsea," but ended up with a muddled mess that tries to be everything, and ends up with nothing. Cliched, cutesy and only redeemed a little by some good acting.

I thought this was a GREAT story........2007-03-26

I don't know why so many people didn't like this movie. I thought that it was a great movie that was mixed with Harry Potter, The Mysts of Avalon, Merlin and Krull. I loved the story and I thought that the story was very straight forward and easy to understand. I also didn't think that it was predictable. Sorry guys, I don't agree with the rest of the reviews. I recommend this movie to anyone that likes SciFi Channel movies and to anyone that likes fantasy movies as well.

Average customer rating:

Tales from Earthsea
Starring: Tales from Earthsea
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Average customer rating:

Not that bad for a Sci-Fi Channel movie
Extremely dissapointing
Abomination
Imploding magic
I thought this was a GREAT story.

Earthsea
Starring: Shawn Ashmore , Kristin Kreuk , Isabella Rossellini , Danny Glover , and Sebastian Roché
Director: Robert Lieberman
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B000787YUE

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Not that bad for a Sci-Fi Channel movie.......2007-05-30

Extremely dissapointing.......2007-05-08

Abomination.......2007-04-26

Imploding magic.......2007-04-17

I thought this was a GREAT story........2007-03-26

Average customer rating:

Tales from Earthsea
Starring: Tales from Earthsea
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

[6 Movies on 4 DVDs] Captain Courageous / Voyage of the Unicorn "The Complete 3 Hour TV Mini-Series" / Beneath the 12 Mile Reef / Captain Kidd / Mutiny / Legend of Sea Wolf

Average customer rating:

[6 Movies on 4 DVDs] Captain Courageous / Voyage of the Unicorn "The Complete 3 Hour TV Mini-Series" / Beneath the 12 Mile Reef / Captain Kidd / Mutiny / Legend of Sea Wolf

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Miniseries | Television | Genres | DVD | Video

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