By Elvis's rockin hips how could Scifi channel get "Earthsea" so damn wrong!?! Hello everybody I am about to live up to my geeky thing here, and give you a laundry list of what Scifi did wrong.

--- Spoiler Alert! ---

1) Well first off, Scifi started this downward spirial many years ago when they canceled Farscape.
2) In the books Geb was Black, infact everybody on the islands was. Le Guin didn't make a big deal about it because she was trying to make race not important, cuz it was so important in Tolkien.
3) Geb's secret name was Geb, and his name everybody called him was Sparrowhawk. Why the hell did they reverse it, it's freaking lame! Maybe because Geb just doesn't sound all that interesting or mystical.
4) The Priestesses in the books were not good people, they were very very bad. That Smallville's girl character was the high preist of the Labyrinth where the old ones were said to live and lurk. In fact she kills a man in the second book. This is one of the HUGE problems in the movie, because essentially the books are about redeption. Geb in the first book when he becomes a man in a very creepy and Freudian way. The Priestess in the second one... I never read the thirds cuz I suck. But yeah it's a major theme and they just take a leak all over it.
5) The island of Roke has some major magical mojo all over it that means it cannot get attacked. The winds actually turn your boat the other way. In fact Geb is actually really safe on that island because that critter he let loose cannot come back and get him.
6) What the HELL was up with that army! They weren't major players in the first two books.

It's just wrong wrong wrong. Now I'm not saying you have to make a movie EXACTLY like the books, because that is just silly. However, you have to have respect for the themes in the books to make it work well. Like Lord of the Rings (BTW I'm watching Return of the King Extended Edition right now suckers!), they don't follow the books at all in many many ways, but the LoTR movies stay true to the spirit of them. Earthsea didn't have respect for the themes, because they screw up so many of the major ones. The racial theme for one, totally screw it up, and the redeption thing, totally frelled. Bastards, all of them... save for Peter Jackson he knows what is going on. Hopefully he can catch lightening in a bottle twice with King Kong.

A review of the LoTR Return of the King Extended Edition coming soon I think.