The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is something I just knew I had to get out of the way: Syfy's Earthsea. It's 173 minutes and 5 seconds long, and I'm just going to say it's the longest movie I ever intend to cover for the Project. Like many of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy adaptations that end up bad enough for the Project, I haven't read the originals. Hell, the only LeGuin I remember reading is "Omelas."

• The audio is so shit on this DVD that I had to turn the volume up to about 66 just to be able to understand what's going on. Then again, it just seems like a normal Sci-Fi epic.
  
• Something I was able to find out in my research, however, is that most of the characters in the original were some variety of... ethnic. There's only one major character in the original books who could be considered white, but here, that's straight-out reversed: everybody but Danny Glover is white. Him and the only token white character from the books, because she's Asian now.
  
• Well, that was easy. Ged's fighting a battle against a not-Viking suicide squad and all he has to do to defeat them is lure them to a cliff they can jump off of.
  
• I think this was made as a response to the network's hugely successful miniseries adaptation of Dune, but it  looks like somehow, the only thing they learned from it was that medieval-looking (with non-negligible Moorish influence) adaptations of Sci-Fi classics are good. Evidently, the fact that the Dune adaptations were about as faithful as they could get on a low budget didn't register as important.
  
• So, people have secret names that make them powerful? Are they working on Cats rules?
  
  
  Also strange that they apparently reversed Ged's/Sparrowhawk's names.
• Okay, it turns out that this sort of concept is extremely common in folklore, but that doesn't mean it makes sense.
  
• I have no idea why it's happening, but the fact that the words in the text are glowing green looks interesting. Not sure why it's making the floor move like Bugs Bunny's tunneling underneath it, though.
  
• Is it weird that it takes until about 36 minutes into a movie called Earthsea for us to get much into the sea? One'd think there'd be more nautical shit in a  series with that title.
  
• This is the only scene I've actually liked in this movie so far:
  
  
  Well, that and maybe the scene with Ged wrestling with the girl in a meadow.
• Jesus fuck, does Dubledore have a damn good reach extender.
  
• Now I want to know if any magician has ever tried to grow a tree instantly, and have doves pop out of the fruit that grows out. That sounds like something a Vegas magician would do. Or maybe a Branson magician.
  
• "I'm yelling at a bird." This is when this Josh Gad-looking motherfucker decided that he was making something really fucking stupid.
  
• Is there any reason that Not-Draco would have to be the one to rat on Sparrowhawk? Was he even being subtle when he was flying across the great hall? Or are there sparrowhawks who speak English in this universe?
  
• Somehow, I get the impression that the original book didn't have a bad guy that looked exactly like Voldemort.
  
• And after losing attention for fuck knows how long, w e finally get something interesting: a dragon fight. At least it does until we get a good look at it, somehow taking the worst aspects of cheap CGI and some janky-looking motion.
  
• In absolute fairness, at least Ged has some interest in at least going on an adventure, even if he's too stupid to do it right. Still better than last week's hero.
  
• Fuck, this ending is like a version of Fight Club without any of the violence, is it?
  

Sorry if you were expecting something huge; I'm not too familiar with LeGuin's work and this adaptation of her work is fucking boring. Next week probably will be Elf Quest/Homeward this time.