Ursula le Guin doesn't like the TV adaptation of Earthsea

Sword_Of_Geddon said:
Once again, Earthsea is FANTASY not SCIENCE FICTION....lol
Sigh.

LeGuin is a SF writer. She has won the Hugo and Nebula twice for Left hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed. Earthsea was written early in her career as a children's book.
 
Sword_Of_Geddon said:
You didn't say that, I thought you were implying that Earthsea was Science Fiction. I stand corrected
Many people count fantasy as a subgenre of SF. Personally I don't really care, I enjoy a spade, even if it's called a shovel. :)
 
Fantasy is the opposete of Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi is a genre of what COULD happen, where Fantasy is a literature of what CAN'T happen.

Moreso, Fantasy is generally medival with Magic and magical creatures, Sci-Fi is modern or future, with robots or Aliens.
 
Generally used. That doesn't define the genre, however. I agree with your definition, though. A better term for sci-fi would be "speculative fiction".
 
I read "the left hand of darkness" a few summers ago. It was very good, but I suppose she should have forseen the director to take artistic license with it when she signed away the copy-right.
 
She trusted whoever was going to do it in the first place. That person was replaced by another out of her knowledge.
 
Still... she assumed, she got burned, so what...she needs to face the music and not insult what was done to her story. It is different, not bad. I am sure the fans would hate it no matter what.
 
col said:
Sigh.

LeGuin is a SF writer. She has won the Hugo and Nebula twice for Left hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed. Earthsea was written early in her career as a children's book.

It was written early in her career... Check.
Ursula K. LeGuin writes mostly Sci-Fi... Check.
Earthsea is Sci-Fi... Huh? Where do you come by this conclusion? It is very much not Sci-Fi.

Also, she has continued the Earthsea series recently. It isn't only an early carer writing. Check out The Other Wind (Book Five) and the Anthology Tales From Earthsea.

I watched the Earthsea series on the Sci-Fi channel and I must say that it was awful. They did screw up her ideas badly -- I liked very much that only the Kargish peoples, the Scandinavian-esque civilization were pale, the rest a range of colors from southern African in the southern regions of Earthsea to southern European in the north.

They also butchered the storyline and did introduce an unsettling sense of "duality" that wasn't present in the novels. There was never any sign in the novels that the path of the dragons or the humans was correct (though the humans changed their minds at the end of The Other Wind), and the "faith" of the priestesses was a belief in the power of something they did not know to be evil. Certainly no duality there.
 
Japher said:
Still... she assumed, she got burned, so what...she needs to face the music and not insult what was done to her story. It is different, not bad. I am sure the fans would hate it no matter what.

No, it is very bad, even looking at it had I not read the books. Plot holes galore and lame endings for all.
 
Cuivienen said:
It was written early in her career... Check.
Ursula K. LeGuin writes mostly Sci-Fi... Check.
Earthsea is Sci-Fi... Huh? Where do you come by this conclusion? It is very much not Sci-Fi.

Also, she has continued the Earthsea series recently. It isn't only an early carer writing. Check out The Other Wind (Book Five) and the Anthology Tales From Earthsea.

I watched the Earthsea series on the Sci-Fi channel and I must say that it was awful. They did screw up her ideas badly -- I liked very much that only the Kargish peoples, the Scandinavian-esque civilization were pale, the rest a range of colors from southern African in the southern regions of Earthsea to southern European in the north.

They also butchered the storyline and did introduce an unsettling sense of "duality" that wasn't present in the novels. There was never any sign in the novels that the path of the dragons or the humans was correct (though the humans changed their minds at the end of The Other Wind), and the "faith" of the priestesses was a belief in the power of something they did not know to be evil. Certainly no duality there.

What is the evil they were worshiping?
 
Japher said:
That's nice... So?

The facts are still the same. She handed her story over, that's it. Nothing more. If she is going to blame anyone she needs to blame herself. And the racist comments are erased by her having a famous dad.

What of it?

I really don't see where you are going with this Col. You are obviously enamored by this bigot.

"In the film version of this post I shall portray Japher as struggling with the internal contradictions between his sexual inclinations and his strict upbringing that lead him to erupt in angry denunciation of the authors of books he has never read.

I see this as a microcosmic allegory of the contemporary struggle between the forces of fundamentalist religion and uber-liberalism within the American body-politic, which was, of course, the fundamental message intended by the poster."

Hey, this reinterpretation thing is kinda fun, dontcha' think?! :D
 
Why can't this woman just stay quiet and respectful of the adaptation, like Tolkein has in the face of the mutilation of the lord of the rings books?
 
Sword_Of_Geddon said:
Fantasy is the opposete of Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi is a genre of what COULD happen, where Fantasy is a literature of what CAN'T happen.

Moreso, Fantasy is generally medival with Magic and magical creatures, Sci-Fi is modern or future, with robots or Aliens.

This definition is woefully incomplete.

Fantasy and SciFi are closely related, the distinction being in the assumptions allowed. Isaac Asimov, one of the all-time greats of SciFi, once said in SciFi you're allowed only one assumption, and all the rest must be logically extrapolated from there. This includes assumptions that are impossible by all contemporary scientific knowledge - time travel and faster-than-light travel are good examples. By all we know, these COULD not happen, but are still regarded as legitimate SciFi.
In Fantasy, the rules are looser. One defining characteristic is that usually whole worlds are created with no pretense of being literally true or existant. Good authors are distinguished by creating believable worlds with consistent natural laws, though, even if they aren't the ones we know in our universe.

Many of the best fantasy novels do not play in Medieval settings, by the way. Many are sited in the present but stipulate magic, mostly hidden and parallel to the 'seen' world - so-called 'urban' fantasy.
 
On topic: I read the Earthsea books years ago and found them quite good, though not among my favorites.

I haven't seen the mini-series (since it hasn't run in Germany yet), but I feel that, if they actually did change the content in such a way that she feels it no longer represents what she intended, and, worse, now declare they had been true to her intentions, then she has every right to comment on that!

Earthsea is HER invention and intellectual property, just as much as Middle Earth was Tolkiens. She has the right to distance herself from the movie, if she doesn't like the result. And the movie producers certainly have no right to say they were true to her intentions without her endorsement!
 
Japher said:
Still... she assumed, she got burned, so what...she needs to face the music and not insult what was done to her story. It is different, not bad. I am sure the fans would hate it no matter what.

If you're not interested in knowing what the author thinks about how her work was adapted, why do you read her commentary? Why do you feel she should be muzzled? I don't understand your attitude at all...
 
Mr. Do, I like your style.

:D

Renata
 
the only real problem i have with her stament is hert though that "whites' (caucasians" are any sor tof a minority; combien th epopulation of europe and russia, and which are both mostlly caucasian nations, and you have almost a billion people easilyl raised ot that number by europe- but tak einto account that middle easterns, northafricans, and a large amount of south and north americans are all caucaisna and you have the single largest ethnic group on the planet- in other words, only a question of her fact beign wrong and not much else

@Sword of geddon- I remind you, the protestants wernt any better- they rebelled because they thought that the cahtolic shurch had too little control, and what control it had was both ineffectual, and corrupt[/i]
 
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