For the lack of having anything better to do, I decided to plow through all 3 hours of this sorry excuse for television (I know, it's supposed to be 4, but I discounted the ads). I bet I know why they put so much into marketing this so-called "Earthsea miniseries." Things that are great do not need to convince people that they are great. On the other hand, things that aren't do, because if everybody's first impression would be their most lasting, it would not be a good one. So the hype was there to provide this good first impression to buffer what was to come.<br /><br />Allow me to start with the acting. I've watched student- and home-made movies that have more convincing acting than this. Let's start with the scene when Ged and his father spot this attack on their village. They shout loudly as these soldiers pass beneath them. Then, Ged's father notices the soldiers and says something like, "Go warn the others." Right, so Ged runs off, leaving the father standing there looking at his feet as his son goes off into danger. I couldn't help but laugh.<br /><br />A scene or two later, these soldiers begin charging a bunch of townsfolk who are simply standing in the middle of the road with something in hand, waiting to be mowed down. The soldiers, charging uphill of course, look like their armor's winding them. I could almost see them huffing and puffing as they reach not a foot away from the mass of villagers. Suddenly, a cloud flys into their face, and even though everybody is only a foot away, they looked like they were taking the opportunity to catch their breath before finishing those last twelve inches.<br /><br />Cut to a few minutes later after a cheeze chase scene that looked like a crowd had found something strange and was moving cautiously towards it. So this wizard comes along and brings back to life a dead guy in front of a whole town. What do the people do? Stay silent and whisper to each other when the wizard and his newly-reincarnated step aside to talk of course!<br /><br />Next is the voice acting. For about two hours, I thought the main character's name was Gant or something along those lines. How many ways can Ged be butchered? Watch it and see! Granted, it got better towards the end. But for the first half hour or so, I couldn't make heads or tails over what some of these people were saying. It wasn't as if they were speaking with any emotion either. The voice acting was either flat, forced, or unintelligible. On the bright side, there were a few scenes where it was tolerable, and some where it was actually convincing. If only I could say that about the whole movie...<br /><br />I don't expect much in terms of cinematography or costumes, sets, props, etc. from a television series like this, so I expected nothing incredible. Of note however, is the mangling of the "CG" in the movie. As somebody else said, replace the CG with clay, and it would have been just as good, if not better. There's this talk about releasing a "shadow," but what it looked like was an imp or some winged demon. If that's a shadow, then so am I.<br /><br />Now, let me work on the screenplay. Before I get to the story, allow me to say that the dialogue was uninspiring and about as emotionless as the acting. Of course, it would be logical that with bad acting came a bad script, and without question, most of the lines in the script either did not have the emotional impact by using what I call "weak" words and constructions, or simply did not make any sense with regards to what was happening. To give a good example, later on in the "series" (who in their right mind calls a two-part show a "mini-series" anyway?), somebody just finishes saying no upon the pain of death to one person when this character suddenly seems too afraid of dying to reject the next person wanting the same thing. Oops, must have wanted to live after all...<br /><br />Finally, I've arrived at the good stuff: the storyline. If anybody reading this wants to know how far this storyline has deviated from the books, go to official boards of this movie (quite easy to find actually) and read up on what was changed. I, having not read the books, did not see the movie with such a bias, and thus was not influenced by their contents. And yet, I still have nothing good to say. Let me put it this way, if I took every cliché out of this show, I think all I would have left would be a bunch of clowns talking to each other with only the last syllables of their gibberish loud enough to be heard. So all the clichés with their predictable conclusions have to be put back in before an intelligible line could be uttered. If I wanted to watch brainless drivel like this, I would tune instead to the WB. But even if everything else was perfect, it still wouldn't have been good. It wouldn't be half as bad, granted, but still not yet good either.<br /><br />For one, there was no sense of time. Echoing what others stated before me, it seemed like the whole thing took place over a series of days. They obviously said something about weeks, but it felt like everything could have happened within the span of one. Without a sense of time, there wasn't even so much as a sense of development and growth in the characters. And so things that were supposed to be emotional, and were acted out as an emotional scene, albeit poorly, undoubtedly invoked a sense of bewilderment instead. <br /><br />Along the same lines, the storyline was supposed to convey an epic feel. However, it not only fell short, but was missing several key ingredients. First, it felt like one long "monster-of-the-week" television show. The conclusion (after the climax) was about all of two minutes long. For another, many of the loose threads were left hanging. Granted, it largely revolves around one central figure. However, an epic's side characters are nearly as important as its main characters, and they have their own stories, even if it is one never told. Their actions must count. This certainly was a monster-of-the-week show in that people came and went with almost no consequence. Here, they did their thing, interacted with the main character and maybe left a mark upon him (in this case, this was blatantly untrue), and that was that. <br /><br />Then, there were the plot holes. Forget that this was supposed to be a reference to a larger work. These plot holes were not pieces of the world left out because of time and budget constraints. If this "shadow" wanted to devour its summoner, why did it initially flee? If "Dumbledore" (actually named archmagus in the show) was so powerful, why didn't he just wipe out the attackers while they were at sea? He did say he wanted to prevent the loss of lives. Wait, maybe he couldn't because the evil king was on board one of the ships, and the king needed them to advance the plot. What happened to their staves when Ged was caught? One would think he disappeared them, but that possibility was already ruled out a moment before. Which reminds me, why were they not being chased inside, and why did those inside not hear them when they entered and quickly slammed the door shut? Let me just say that if this was even partially true to the original story, many of these issues would have been thoughtfully resolved one way or another, since they would have been addressed in the original story.<br /><br />There are moments...every so often, I would catch a glimpse of the real world behind this shadow, the real Earthsea that this work only pays lip service to, and I would wonder how great the world of Earthsea truly is supposed to be. I hear this is supposed to be like a "Starship Troopers," and that gives me hope.<br /><br />Well, if this movie has done one good thing, it certainly has inspired me through its deficiency and overall suckiness (OK, not a word) to actually go read the books. I would suggest everybody else do the same as well.