Earthsea (also known as Legend of Earthsea) is a two-part television fantasy miniseries produced for the Sci-Fi Channel and aired in December 2004. It is loosely based on the Earthsea novels by Ursula K. Le Guin, combining the plots of the first two books, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Tombs of Atuan (1971). The teleplay was written by Gavin Scott, and the series was directed by Robert Lieberman. It is an American-Canadian co-production filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Overview
The miniseries follows Ged (Shawn Ashmore), a powerful but reckless mage-in-training, and Tenar (Kristin Kreuk), a young priestess, who are drawn together in a battle against an ancient race of demons known as the Nameless Ones. The cast also features Danny Glover as Ogion, Isabella Rossellini as High Priestess Thar, Sebastian Roché as King Tygath, and Chris Gauthier as Vetch.
The story introduces an original villain, King Tygath, who seeks to release the Nameless Ones to gain immortality. Ged accidentally releases a shadowy demon (the Gebbeth) during a magical duel at the school on Roke, and must hunt it while Tygath conspires with the priestesses of Atuan. The plot culminates at the Tombs of Atuan, where Ged confronts the Gebbeth and the Nameless Ones.
Episodes
The miniseries consists of two episodes, airing on consecutive nights (December 13–14, 2004), with a total runtime of approximately 172 minutes (originally 45 minutes per episode in some broadcasts, or 88 and 84 minutes in the complete version).
Production
The series was produced by Hallmark Entertainment in association with Bender-Brown Productions. Executive producers included Robert Halmi Sr., Lawrence Bender, and Kevin Kelly Brown. The music was composed by Jeff Rona.
Critical Reception
The miniseries received generally negative reviews from critics and fans of the original novels. It was heavily criticized for its numerous deviations from the source material. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy stated that it "totally missed the point" of Le Guin's novels, "ripping out all the subtlety, nuance and beauty of the books and inserting boring cliches, painful stereotypes and a very unwelcome 'epic' war in their place." The Moria review described it as "shabbily and indifferently directed" with "dreadfully clunky and often excruciatingly bad" dialogue.
Despite the negative reception, the miniseries won seven Leo Awards and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects. It holds an IMDb rating of 5.7/10.
Author's Response
Ursula K. Le Guin was not involved in the development or production of the miniseries. She wrote several public responses, including "A Whitewashed Earthsea" (Slate, December 2004) and "Frankenstein's Earthsea" (Locus, January 2005). She criticized the producers for removing what she called the "crucial element" of race from the story—in her novels, the people of the Archipelago (including Ged) are described as having dark skin, while the Kargish people are light-skinned. The miniseries cast predominantly white actors in the lead roles, a decision Le Guin condemned as "whitewashing." She stated that the producers "had no understanding of what the books are about and no interest in finding out," and described the adaptation as "a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence."
