Miniseries
I am a big fan of miniseries on TV. It all began when I was little and my mom... or uncle... or someone recorded the Scifi Channel miniseries, Frank Herbert's Dune. I may have watched it when Scifi first aired it, but I don't remember. I do know that I didn't completely fall in love with it immediately. It was a slow-growing love.
I had to see the 1980s version of Dune first and read the books years later before I really loved it. However, what started the love wasn't the miniseries itself, but the sequel miniseries, Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Both are long (nearly 300 minutes), but Children of Dune sparked my imagination and appealed to issues I've gone through in an odd sort of way.
See, in Children of Dune, Paul Atreides goes blind and leaves his twin children to go off into the desert and die. Then, in Part Three, Leto finds his father and there's this really touching moment when Leto says to his father, "How many nights... I have sat on Dune, just like this, imagining a night, just like this, with... with my father. Just the two of us... talking and laughing. And how many nights I have gone to sleep on the cold floor of the sietch, dreaming of his arms around me, sheltering me from everything I was afraid of, everything I could not understand!" In that moment, I fell in love because that's how I felt about my own birth father who I'd never met. There were nights in my childhood that were almost exactly like that and a young James McAvoy managed to speak them in a tone completely serious and in a way that applied to both myself and the deeper levels of the story.
There were and are other parts in both miniseries that are also quite amazing and the best part: the miniseries stick closer to the books in a lot of ways than the movies do. While most movies manage to only get about 50% close to the book in tone, feel and pacing, miniseries have the ability to get about 75% close to the way and feel of the book. Now, these percentages are completely made up, but the Dune movie previously made had so many flaws for me, while the miniseries felt spot-on to me. Yes, there are problems and I am more than aware of them, but I do own those two miniseries and I watch them a lot.
Sometime after Children of Dune aired for the first time on Scifi (before it became Syfy), I discovered that Scifi re-aired all its miniseries during the month of April dubbing it "Miniseries Month". Once I discovered that, I became a regular watcher.
I have seen: The Lost Room, Legend of Earthsea, Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King, Alice, Tin Man, Battlestar Gallactica, Firestarter: Rekindled, Neverland, and Riverworld. I've also other seen other miniseries not on Scifi or originally on Scifi: Dinotopia, Merlin, Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Langoliers, The Tommyknockers, Pride and Prejudice, Cranford, Little Dorrit, The Tenth Kingdom, Terry Pratchett's The Hogfather, Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, and way too many more to list...
Some of the miniseries are excellent, like Alice and The Lost Room. I loved The Lost Room. There was just so much I wanted to see and I couldn't get enough of it because it ended so soon. I mean, what were the other objects? What would happen to the main character now that he was "The Prime Object"? It was awesome. And yet it ended right when it needed to to make that story complete.
One miniseries pissed me off. If you know me well, you know what I'm about to say. If you don't, your jaw may drop in a moment or two.
The worst miniseries I've ever seen. The one that makes me foam at the mouth in anger. The one miniseries that I will not watch even if there is nothing else on unless I am doing something that requires it to be muted. That one miniseries is...
Legends of Earthsea!
Legends of GOD DAMNED Earthsea
It is that bad.
And I blame my grandma for that.
You see, I never would have picked up Ursula K. LeGuin if she hadn't bought the books for me one year for my birthday. Mind you, I didn't love Miss LeGuin's books. They were good, the narrative was nice, but it was just a tad dull for me. I got bored while reading it around the second book and you aren't supposed to be bored while reading a book. There's a rule somewhere against that. I know there has to be some rule against books being boring out there. Though... that would mean that Tolkien and Charles Dickens wouldn't be published... I guess it's mostly because the boringness of a book is subjective. I'm a subject that finds LeGuin boring. Sorry.
The miniseries does get me lively though; lively with anger. I already told you that miniseries have an advantage over regular movies because there's more time to play with. You can get closer to the tone of the book because you have more time to spend on character development and such. You can develop the characters and stick closely to the events of the book and everyone is happy! Children of Dune even proved that you can take two related books (that essentially create a trilogy with the first book that's already a miniseries) and turn them into an excellent miniseries.
So, with all that going for it, why is Legends of Earthsea so incredibly horrible?
The makers of the movie obviously didn't give a damn about anything other than making money. And they'd probably only skimmed LeGuin's books. See, first they decided to turn the first two books into one movie. It worked with Children of Dune, right? Now this would be okay in some ways. Both books were coming-of-age stories with a male and female protagonist respectively. Both books have them learning a role in the world, a person could show the mirror of their development and everything. There would even be a way to tie them together if one were clever enough. Instead, the filmmakers decided to throw everything to hell and make up their own story using elements of the remains of the original books. The result was this awful, alien thing that, while pretty, sucked ass.
I'm a fan of anime and The Fifth Element. I like style over substance at times. It didn't work this time though. 172 minutes of complete crap with pretty scenery just doesn't make up for all the problems. It makes me want to cry, actually. They could've done so much... and they just did terrible.
I don't have a favorite miniseries. The two Dune Miniseries are really excellent, but I mostly like them for nostalgia. Merlin is awesome because it has a young Helena Bonham Carter and Miranda Richardson. Alice is really cool because it does what the Alice in Wonderland movie with Johnny Depp should've done way better. The Lost Room should've become a regular TV series like Battlestar Gallactica.
The Tenth Kingdom is WONDERFUL. If you have not seen that miniseries, go out, find a copy and watch it now. It's 417 minutes of pure, unadulterated awesome that I will someday review in this blog. Five episodes, two hours long each all about a woman and her father who travel into a world where the Brother's Grimm fairytales actually happened where they have to save the kingdom, restore the prince, turned into a dog, to the throne, defeat the evil queen, and get the mirror that transported them to the crazy fantary land back so they can go home. There are ups, downs, moments that make you want to cry, and moments that make you laugh really hard. It's also incredibly quotable. Awesome, huh?
There are even rumors of future miniseries afoot. Peter Jackson bought the rights from Naomi Novik to make her series of books, Temeraire, into miniseries because he loves the idea of mixing the Napoleanic Wars with dragons and he's afraid it would flop in the box office and leave the story incomplete. Awesome? I think so... he just needs to finish The Hobbit first. Then there are rumours that ABC and Salma Hayek will be making a miniseries of Gregory Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. AWESOME! I'm excited for both as I've read both books and I really want to see them as movies. Though I would settle for a movie version of the musical with the latter.
Now, go out and watch a miniseries and prove that useful things do come from sitting on your butt in front of the television!
I had to see the 1980s version of Dune first and read the books years later before I really loved it. However, what started the love wasn't the miniseries itself, but the sequel miniseries, Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Both are long (nearly 300 minutes), but Children of Dune sparked my imagination and appealed to issues I've gone through in an odd sort of way.
See, in Children of Dune, Paul Atreides goes blind and leaves his twin children to go off into the desert and die. Then, in Part Three, Leto finds his father and there's this really touching moment when Leto says to his father, "How many nights... I have sat on Dune, just like this, imagining a night, just like this, with... with my father. Just the two of us... talking and laughing. And how many nights I have gone to sleep on the cold floor of the sietch, dreaming of his arms around me, sheltering me from everything I was afraid of, everything I could not understand!" In that moment, I fell in love because that's how I felt about my own birth father who I'd never met. There were nights in my childhood that were almost exactly like that and a young James McAvoy managed to speak them in a tone completely serious and in a way that applied to both myself and the deeper levels of the story.
There were and are other parts in both miniseries that are also quite amazing and the best part: the miniseries stick closer to the books in a lot of ways than the movies do. While most movies manage to only get about 50% close to the book in tone, feel and pacing, miniseries have the ability to get about 75% close to the way and feel of the book. Now, these percentages are completely made up, but the Dune movie previously made had so many flaws for me, while the miniseries felt spot-on to me. Yes, there are problems and I am more than aware of them, but I do own those two miniseries and I watch them a lot.
Sometime after Children of Dune aired for the first time on Scifi (before it became Syfy), I discovered that Scifi re-aired all its miniseries during the month of April dubbing it "Miniseries Month". Once I discovered that, I became a regular watcher.
I have seen: The Lost Room, Legend of Earthsea, Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King, Alice, Tin Man, Battlestar Gallactica, Firestarter: Rekindled, Neverland, and Riverworld. I've also other seen other miniseries not on Scifi or originally on Scifi: Dinotopia, Merlin, Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Langoliers, The Tommyknockers, Pride and Prejudice, Cranford, Little Dorrit, The Tenth Kingdom, Terry Pratchett's The Hogfather, Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, and way too many more to list...
Some of the miniseries are excellent, like Alice and The Lost Room. I loved The Lost Room. There was just so much I wanted to see and I couldn't get enough of it because it ended so soon. I mean, what were the other objects? What would happen to the main character now that he was "The Prime Object"? It was awesome. And yet it ended right when it needed to to make that story complete.
One miniseries pissed me off. If you know me well, you know what I'm about to say. If you don't, your jaw may drop in a moment or two.
The worst miniseries I've ever seen. The one that makes me foam at the mouth in anger. The one miniseries that I will not watch even if there is nothing else on unless I am doing something that requires it to be muted. That one miniseries is...
Legends of Earthsea!
Legends of GOD DAMNED Earthsea
It is that bad.
And I blame my grandma for that.
You see, I never would have picked up Ursula K. LeGuin if she hadn't bought the books for me one year for my birthday. Mind you, I didn't love Miss LeGuin's books. They were good, the narrative was nice, but it was just a tad dull for me. I got bored while reading it around the second book and you aren't supposed to be bored while reading a book. There's a rule somewhere against that. I know there has to be some rule against books being boring out there. Though... that would mean that Tolkien and Charles Dickens wouldn't be published... I guess it's mostly because the boringness of a book is subjective. I'm a subject that finds LeGuin boring. Sorry.
The miniseries does get me lively though; lively with anger. I already told you that miniseries have an advantage over regular movies because there's more time to play with. You can get closer to the tone of the book because you have more time to spend on character development and such. You can develop the characters and stick closely to the events of the book and everyone is happy! Children of Dune even proved that you can take two related books (that essentially create a trilogy with the first book that's already a miniseries) and turn them into an excellent miniseries.
So, with all that going for it, why is Legends of Earthsea so incredibly horrible?
The makers of the movie obviously didn't give a damn about anything other than making money. And they'd probably only skimmed LeGuin's books. See, first they decided to turn the first two books into one movie. It worked with Children of Dune, right? Now this would be okay in some ways. Both books were coming-of-age stories with a male and female protagonist respectively. Both books have them learning a role in the world, a person could show the mirror of their development and everything. There would even be a way to tie them together if one were clever enough. Instead, the filmmakers decided to throw everything to hell and make up their own story using elements of the remains of the original books. The result was this awful, alien thing that, while pretty, sucked ass.
I'm a fan of anime and The Fifth Element. I like style over substance at times. It didn't work this time though. 172 minutes of complete crap with pretty scenery just doesn't make up for all the problems. It makes me want to cry, actually. They could've done so much... and they just did terrible.
I don't have a favorite miniseries. The two Dune Miniseries are really excellent, but I mostly like them for nostalgia. Merlin is awesome because it has a young Helena Bonham Carter and Miranda Richardson. Alice is really cool because it does what the Alice in Wonderland movie with Johnny Depp should've done way better. The Lost Room should've become a regular TV series like Battlestar Gallactica.
The Tenth Kingdom is WONDERFUL. If you have not seen that miniseries, go out, find a copy and watch it now. It's 417 minutes of pure, unadulterated awesome that I will someday review in this blog. Five episodes, two hours long each all about a woman and her father who travel into a world where the Brother's Grimm fairytales actually happened where they have to save the kingdom, restore the prince, turned into a dog, to the throne, defeat the evil queen, and get the mirror that transported them to the crazy fantary land back so they can go home. There are ups, downs, moments that make you want to cry, and moments that make you laugh really hard. It's also incredibly quotable. Awesome, huh?
There are even rumors of future miniseries afoot. Peter Jackson bought the rights from Naomi Novik to make her series of books, Temeraire, into miniseries because he loves the idea of mixing the Napoleanic Wars with dragons and he's afraid it would flop in the box office and leave the story incomplete. Awesome? I think so... he just needs to finish The Hobbit first. Then there are rumours that ABC and Salma Hayek will be making a miniseries of Gregory Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. AWESOME! I'm excited for both as I've read both books and I really want to see them as movies. Though I would settle for a movie version of the musical with the latter.
Now, go out and watch a miniseries and prove that useful things do come from sitting on your butt in front of the television!
Comments
Post a Comment
Have something to say about this post? Write it here!