Some Words

I had heard for some time about an animated Earthsea movie. Le Guin was not very happy with it. It was supposed to be directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Then, at the last minute, his son directed it. Miyazaki was supposedly not happy with this development. The whole storyline of the production is a bit muddled when it comes to who did what when.

This, unfortunately, turned out to be the case with the movie as well. I hunted it down because curiosity got the better of me. Now I somewhat wish I hadn’t. The movie is like the plots of every Earthsea book put into a blender, then reconstituted into a dull porridge. The entire plot of the first novel is warped a little and given to a supporting character. The second book is a footnote in what is nominally the third book. I generally try to be supportive of changes made to adapt things to the screen, but this is totally out of hand. I seriously cannot follow what is going on because I get distracted by how randome characters from random books keep cropping up. The first book would have been a fine movie, had they wanted to make it.

They also change Sparrowhawk to a very tan white guy, which I don’t get. I cannot tell what lightening the color of the skin gains the plot.

Sadly, I am left with this. That’s two recent adaptations, both of which make the main character white for no reason, and both of which fail.