I absolutely adored the Earthsea books. The characters were engaging, the storylines full of just about everything you could want in a fantasy series. We had magic and mystery, strange gods and even stranger creatures. The stories follow the wizard Ged, one of the greatest of all time, through his adventures as he not only finds himself, but manages to save the land of Earthsea in the process. I read the books almost back to back and the stories flowed smoothly into one another.
The "movie" is actually a Sci-Fi Channel mini-series, but I watched it on DVD so it seemed like a very long movie. Now the movie is not quite the same as the book...well let's just face it, it's nothing the same. Try and imagine someone reading all of the Earthsea books to you at the exact same time. That's right, all the books seem to be happening simultaneously. They also leave out some of the biggest and most important scenes because they must not have fit into this mangled timeline.
Once I realized that the movie was not going to be like the books, I made every effort to put the books out of my mind and just enjoy a good movie. Unfortunately I couldn't quite do that. There is very little character development because of this and when they did manage to change it was so sudden that they may as well have turned into a different person in a matter of seconds. If I hadn't read the books, I would have been completely lost. There is no explanation of why people are doing what they are doing or who they even are.
These books could have some major potential if they had been presented correctly. I hope someone does it some day.
