Le Guin unhappy with TV Earthsea

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

The trouble is, marketing is what marketing does - it sells a product the best way it can. Of course, marketing doesn't always work, and sometimes even back-fires. Ultimately, though, high-brow does not sell as well as populist.

They should - but someone somewhere has to justify the spending of a few million dollars. Saying it "might" sell is never going to be good enough - the bankers want evidence that a strong targeted marketing base is tapped into.

I think to make the distinction of how a television or cinema piece of work is damned to be either bubblegum or a fine steak dinner (bare with me, I am typing this before heading out for a bit to eat ) is being a bit black and white. The television adaptation of Earthsea doesn't need to devoid of any artistic strengths to be widely successful. In fact, it is reasonable to assert that a series that is able to bring something fresh and original to the table (ah!) while keeping intact the popular and familar aspects would be far more successful than if it relied on only the former.

Also, let's not forget the role of marketing. Marketers are there to successfully channel a product to the right target groups, not create the product. That seems to be the problem with visual entertainment: marketers believe they should overstep their educated role. Keep the story writing to the story tellers. For a marketer to believe that he/she is more skilled at writing well received yet worthwhile entertainment than a writer---a famous one in this case---is arrogant at best. They should have faith in a "product" that has already proved itself through decades of noteworthy book sales.

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Aaarrghh!!! You just shot yourself in the foot here, in my opniion - Shrek2 is a marketing feast run by bankers for bankers, based on realms of pie-charts and market research studies. Pixar is more concerned with innovation and story-telling, rather than being "hip".

You just showed that the marketing suits were doing their job properly.

Compared to Disney, Shrek and the sequel did break the profit profile. It was not all that subtle about taking stabs at Disney's approach and tradition either. Remember the parody of the Disneyland scene? It sums up the thesis behind the whole project.

Maybe Pixar is more concerned with innovation and storytelling now, but not during the Finding Nemo era. This isn't Pixar's fault, mind you. It was a Disney story, a Pixar visual masterpiece. Ignore the great animation and take a closer look at the story only. It is generic. What is even worse, Disney itself has already sold us a form of this story many times before. I am not implying that Shrek didn't have its fair share of pie charts navigating the productions, but it certainly took more artistic chances than Disney would ever let one of their creative team members suggest and still keep his job.

Speaking of Finding Nemo's direct competition in some fields, let's not forget that it was Spirited Away, not the Disney-Pixar project, that won the Oscar. The only involvement Disney had in the American release of Spirited Away was selecting the English voice actors, otherwise the company only distributed the film. As cutting edge as Pixar's work may have been in Finding Nemo, it just didn't have the core story to warrant a "Best Animated Film" nod.

If a marketer can't figure out how to effectively use an Oscar award as a selling point, then the person should really think about getting into a new line of work.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by dwndrgn

I like Kelpie's point here - if you want a story that is geared for the lowest common denominator, with no risks or chances taken, nothing out of the ordinary or interesting, why choose Earthsea in the first place? It was chosen (IMO) because of it's previous popularity and consistent sales. That series has been out for ages and still sells without any trouble at all. So, they chose it because it is a good story with a large audience already attached to it. That throws Brian's 'marketing' idea of 'not taking risks' out the window because they chose it specifically because it was already a familiar story with a large built in audience.

Yes, but my argument would be is that they need the prior reputation of the work even to get any funding to begin the project. However, funding usually comes with strings - not least "Give us a maximum return on our buck" - hence how such projects are always in danger of getting watered down.

Ultimately, it probably requires a personality of force in production in the first place - Jackson was probably able to maintain a lot of integrity for Lord of the Rings precisely because he was a successful individual in the industry - but even then, he ended up bowing to the marketers by highly exaggerating the importance of the Aragorn-Arwen love interest in the overall story, and still had teen-panding moments - extreme sports on shields in Two Towers comes to mind as an example.

So I guess the lesson is - if you want to maintain integrity in a novel adaptation, you need someone with real clout on your side and who believes in your story in the first place.


EDIT: As for McMurphy's points - certainly not all marketers are going to be good marketers, and they certainly shouldn't be writing a script. But the tools of the marketers are often there to fulfill the will of the funders. It's pretty infamous for large film productions to suffer pressure from studios to modify and rewrite scripts to keep the bankers happy.

As for Pixar vs Shrek franchises - they were targeted at different audiences, so it's harder to compare - Pixar were probably writing forst for the older child (under 12's) whilst Shrek were probably tapping into a more teen market, with pop songs by pop artists gracing the soundtrack.

Disney are only the distributors for Pixar, by the way, and Pixar's majority shareholder I believe is Steve Jobs - the maverick innovator behind Apple.

Bottom line - we ourselves are the people the marketers are trying to feed as consumers.

And, true, there's not enough niche marketing of mentally demanding adaptations.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I suspect that Jackson's two female collaborators may have had something to do with playing up the Arwen/Aragorn love interest; in which case it was probably a personal artistic choice not a corporate one. The studios, as I understand it, were more interested in making Arwen into a warrior princess type.

Of course it's easy to justify anything we happen to like as an artistic choice, anything we don't like as mere pandering to the masses, but sometimes isn't it just possible that any "pandering" being done is simply to the director/screenwriter/corporate lackey's OWN bad taste? I'd bet money that Peter Jackson thought that surfboard/shield sequence was the coolest thing ever. He is clearly a man with a mighty artistic vision -- at the same time, he is just as clearly, in many ways, a very young teenager at heart.

[Cailleach]

She may have a point, I don't know. I've never read her books. I've seen Earthsea and didn't find it all that bad. Of course there were glitches, but hey, I'm a fantasy fan.

I found the acting good and the story refreshing, but there were many aspects that I found too typical for a fantasy world. Common in everyone. And the black and white view on the world was basically annoying, but like I sad, can't have everything.

Of course there's also the fact that a book and a movie made of a book are two entirely different things. I mean LeGunn wrote it and therefor it is more or less perfect in her mind. She's the only one who truly understands her books and seeing as she had little contact with the producer...yup can see a big hole there.

So there are things you can do in a book, because you have the thoughts behind it, which you, in turn, miss on screen or can't set out on on screen....

Anyone follow me?

[Lacedaemonian]

I am downloading this having missed it on TV. I have not read any of Le Guin's books so I hope not to be disappointed. Perhaps I will read her work as a consequence of watching this. Anyway regardless of how bad this series may be, I will treat them as seperate works.

[Winters_Sorrow]

I saw it a few days ago.
It's not a patch on the books but then it takes essentially 4 novels and turns them into 3hrs with adverts so how can it be??
I thought it was far too rushed from beginning to end but it was watchable.
It would have fared better on the big screen with a sensible budget though

[Lacedaemonian]

I was entertained by it. I wish that there was more epic fantasy movies out there. I suppose I have to content myself with the big budget historical movies.

[AaronAgassi]

The link seems to have changed.

[Scott Grady]

This article may not be the original one, but it appears to be on the same theme.

See "A Whitewashed Earthsea: How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books. By Ursula K. Le Guin"

As a new user of this forum I'm not allowed to post a link. So let me just say that it is on slate.com and /id/2111107/

In case the full article does not linger for long at that link, or you can't get to that page due to lack of a coherent URL, I'll reproduce a bit of it here to give the proper flavor ...

"I don't know what the film is about. It's full of scenes from the story, arranged differently, in an entirely different plot, so that they make no sense."

"When I looked over the script, I realized the producers had no understanding of what the books are about and no interest in finding out. All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence."

"Most of the characters in my fantasy and far-future science fiction books are not white. They're mixed; they're rainbow."

"I have heard, not often, but very memorably, from readers of color who told me that the Earthsea books were the only books in the genre that they felt included in—and how much this meant to them, particularly as adolescents, when they'd found nothing to read in fantasy and science fiction except the adventures of white people in white worlds. Those letters have been a tremendous reward and true joy to me."

[Nesacat]

I love the Earthsea books. They are one of my first introductions to fantasy and so have always held a special place. I've read and re-read them over the years and was therefore quite excited when I heard about the mini-series being made.

It was the most dissapointing thing. All the wonder and magic and complexity of the books had vanished. It was as if everything was happening on fast-forward mode. It was all in all a very annoying and aggravating experience. Perhaps it might have been better done given a larger budget and more hours and closer collaboration with the writer.

If the aim is to make something 'for the masses' then as Teresa pointed out, there are many such tales available and one of those should be choosen. It's a shame to pick a work like Earthsea and then reduce it to a shadow of it's original self.

Like Brian however, I do hope that the mini series leads more people to the books as has happened with both Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

[judge_mel]

It's certainly interesting hearing Le Guin complain about her series being re-imagined, while she herself has reimagined her world and its characters with her second Earthsea trilogy. I guess she feels that she's the only one morally allowed to tinker with her work. Considering how late in her career that she sold the rights, she should have known better.

As it was, the series was certainly more conventional than the books, and therefor less interesting, although not as awful as Ursula suggests, but that's par for the course of the sci-fi channel. They prefer to water down anything they get their hands on.

[andrew.v.spencer]

If you sell the rights, you sell the RIGHTS. That's what they bought and paid for, and you sell it to them. If you want creative control or input then it should be in the sale contract. One should not be surprised what new owners do with their own property.

But yeah it was lame, Sci-fi channel hand knitted movies are usually lame.

[Teresa Edgerton]

But if you read the article, Andrew, you'll see that they made a lot of promises at the time they bought the rights, promises they didn't keep. In addition, the contract did call for her to come on board as a consultant, and then they seem to have completely ignored her input.

I think if someone has been lied to and misled they have a right to complain, even if they made some money off the deal, and even if the lies are not such that they have any legal recourse.

[Saltheart]

Though it's well and true, she gave rights, she gave her rights out of trust. She expected them to atleast keep some of the core themes of Earthsea, as well as not twisting things around till it loses what sets it apart. Her trust was broken. What sort of a reaction are you expecting? A cheery doodle-dum? What if Harry Potter became emo, smoked marijuana, and had sex with everything that moved? Would Rowling say, "How sweet! I don't mind, not the slightest bit. No siree, I should've expected this."

Yes, legaly I may give over something to you, but if I give it out of trust I certainly hope you won't break it because you are legally entitled to do so. The whole reason I gave it to you was because I trusted you to use it well and take care of it. If you break it, it is within my rights to feel angry.

[Robert M. Blevins]

For those of you who don't know Ursula K...she is a real nice lady who lives near Portland, Oregon. She answers all snail mail, and if you send a request, she will send you (free) five little color postcards with renditions from the front covers of some of her books.
A real classy lady, indeed.
I don't have the link handy, but it's easy to find her official website on google. Contact information for Ms. Leguin is there.