Legend of Earthsea (later shortened to Earthsea) is a two-part television fantasy miniseries produced for the Sci-Fi Channel by Hallmark Entertainment in association with Bender-Brown Productions, which aired in 2004. It is loosely based on the Earthsea novels by Ursula K. Le Guin. The teleplay was written by Gavin Scott, and the series was directed by Robert Lieberman. Legend of Earthsea is an American-Canadian co-production that was filmed on location in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Combining the plots of the first two Earthsea novels, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, the story 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, Isabella Rossellini, Sebastian Roché and Chris Gauthier.
Legends of Earthsea aired over two consecutive nights in December 2004. It received generally negative reviews from both critics and fans of the original novels, and it was heavily criticized for its numerous deviations from them. Even so, it won seven Leo Awards and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects. Le Guin stated that she had been cut out of the creative process for Legends of Earthsea and that she did not approve of the miniseries.
Contents
Plot
In the land of Earthsea, a young wizard named Ged has visions about a girl and doors opening. Meanwhile, King Tygath wants to rule the land and release the Nameless Ones, demons from whom he hopes to learn the secret of immortality. He sends men to attack Ged's village, in search of the wizard of prophecy (Ged). Ged learns his first spell from an elderly woman. When the invasion comes, Ged uses a mist spell and lures the invaders over a cliff, saving the village. However, Ged also falls off the cliff.
Tygath tries to convince High Priestess Thar to release the Nameless Ones, but she refuses. She is poisoned by Rosa, her attendant who has been tricked by the king's lover, Kossil, every time she has tea.
A magus named Ogion arrives at Ged's village and revives Ged. He tells Ged his true name and takes him for training, but Ged is too impatient; he is sent to the magic school on Roke. There he meets the bully, Jasper, and befriends a student named Vetch. Ged shapeshifts into a hawk to show off. Jasper then challenges him to raise a spirit from the dead, leading him to accidentally release a Nameless One. The demon attacks Ged before being driven away by the Archmagus, who tells him that this Nameless One will hunt Ged down and try to possess him, using Ged's power for further destruction. Ged must go somewhere in hiding until he can find its true name and destroy it.
With the help of Jasper, King Tygath takes control of the magic school. He throws a knife at the Archmagus, apparently killing him and making Jasper the new Archmagus.
With the help of Ogion, Ged confronts the Gebbeth and attempts to drown him using a rock, however, it escapes with Ged's likeness and voice. Ged's impersonator becomes a murderer, and Vetch, a magus himself, chases Ged until he realizes Ged is not possessed by the Gebbeth and they decide to hunt it together.
They are attacked by the dragon, Orm Embar, but Ged uses the dragon's true name to bind him and ask three questions. He wastes his first question, but with his second, he learns the Gebbeth's location. The dragon tells him where to find the two pieces of the Amulet of Peace, which when reunited would save Earthsea, but Ged could have asked the true name of the demon.
Cast
Production
The series was produced by Hallmark Entertainment in association with Bender-Brown Productions. It was adapted by Gavin Scott (The Mists of Avalon) from the Earthsea novels for executive producers Robert Halmi, Sr. (Merlin, Gulliver's Travels, Animal Farm), Lawrence Bender (Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction) and Kevin Kelly Brown (Roswell).
The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Critical reception
Reviewing the miniseries, the book The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy claimed that Legend of Earthsea "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 website's review of "Legend of Earthsea" states "Earthsea feels exactly like tv filler. In the books, Ursula Le Guin expended a great deal of time creating a world with a depth and culture, but nothing of this survives in the mini-series". The review added that Legend of Earthsea was "shabbily and indifferently directed", and that the dialogue was "dreadfully clunky and often excruciatingly bad".
Author's response
Le Guin, author of the novels on which the miniseries is based, was not involved in the development of the material or the making of the production. She has written a number of responses to the handling of this adaptation of her works, including "A Whitewashed Earthsea" and "Frankenstein's Earthsea." She noted that when she sold the rights to Earthsea, her contract gave her "the standard status of 'consultant'—which means whatever the producers want it to mean, almost always little or nothing". Le Guin has accused the Sci-Fi Channel of having "wrecked" her books and of having removed the "crucial element" of race from them. She asserted that when she reviewed the script for the miniseries, she "realized the producers had no understanding of what the books are about and no interest in finding out. All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence".