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Thoughts on Sci Fi's adaptation of 'Wizard of Earthsea'

I'd forgotten how often we saw Magritte

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Thoughts on Sci Fi's adaptation of 'Wizard of Earthsea'

colubra
7/15/04 03:55 pm
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+1.5: perhaps one of my favorite groups of books ever. Certainly the first fiction I read that was actually aimed at the age bracket I was in.
-1: same screenplay adapter as The Mists of Avalon, which succeeded BRILLIANTLY-- provided that the goal was to make the adaptation even MORE boring of an adaptation of Arthur than Ms. Bradley's original work.
+1: casting Danny Glover as Ogion. Fucking GENIUS.
-1: casting the kind of daft-seeming kid who played Iceman in the Xmen movies as Ged.
+1: Isabella Rossellini as the high priestess overseeing Tenar.
-1: the very disturbingly tight-lipped smile Ms. LeGuin produced on mentioning the series and outlining it, like she was thinking 'I can sell my babies but good FUCKING GOD they can't make me be there when they butcher them'.

Overall- it's very slightly in the plus column.
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  • esmerel
    7/15/04 04:40 pm (UTC)
    What, you thought Mists of Avalon was boring?

    • colubra
      7/15/04 04:41 pm (UTC)
      extremely, yeah. Both as a book and as a film.

      • esmerel
        7/15/04 04:44 pm (UTC)
        I thought it was just me! I tried to read the book and I was just AAAAAAAAAUGH SO BORING so I quit.

    • colubra
      7/15/04 04:45 pm (UTC)
      nope, it was most definitely not just you. :) I know many people who respond to the fact I own the book with 'good christ did you READ this?'

    • torquemada
      7/15/04 04:51 pm (UTC)
      No, Mists of Avalon is WAY more boring than you!

  • scanner_darkly
    7/15/04 05:12 pm (UTC)
    It's been a long time since I read the books, but wasn't Ged dark-skinned?

    • colubra
      7/15/04 05:14 pm (UTC)
      Yeah, all the folk of Earthsea are darker-skinned, save for those who come from the island where the overking used to live. In honesty, that's really glossed-over until you get to the third book: I hadn't realized Ged was probably not a WASP 'till I was like 14.

    • scanner_darkly
      7/15/04 05:56 pm (UTC)
      I have these vague (and possibly wrong) memories of getting to the second book and Ged being astonished that Tenar was so pale, but it's been so long that I could be completely talking out of my ass.

      Of course, now I want to go back and reread 'em...

      • colubra
        7/15/04 06:26 pm (UTC)
        Yeah- folks from the direction Tenar resides in are paler, and folks from the opposite direction get to being darker. I didn't have that parse in the book as meaning 'Ged is darkskinned', but rather as meaning 'Tenar has gotten no sun for a very long time'.
        • (no subject) -

          • colubra
            7/16/04 10:12 am (UTC)
            Yeah- I was picturing skintones in my mind's eye that I'd associate with folks from Mexico and the USA's southwest, in general.
            The kid who played Iceman in the X-men movies? not so much. :)

    • ikkyu2
      7/15/04 07:26 pm (UTC)
      It is the folks from the Isle of Gont particularly who are black-skinned, although you have to read pretty carefully to figure this out - Ms. LeGuin obviously doesn't care much except as an aside. Ogion himself is pretty clearly described as nappy-headed at one point.

      Danny Glover's an excellent choice.

      • colubra
        7/15/04 09:17 pm (UTC)
        Riiiight. Thank you. Clearly been too long since I read the original trio and the short in Wind's 12 Quarters.

        And why I typoed 'short' as 'snort', I'll never know.

  • aceofkittens
    7/15/04 10:37 pm (UTC)
    This hasn't aired yet, right? Or has it? So oblivious...
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