Le Guin Fans Weigh In, And It's Not Pretty

reviews at imdb.

i made it through two pages of comments and it's uniformly thumbs down:

TheAscender:

To sum up, don't see it. Don't even give it a second glance. Anyone associated with this atrocity needs to have their head handed to them on a magician's staff. If you want to see an Earthsea worth seaing (a pun on the level of the Sci Fi production), get the books. Or borrow mine; but you'll have to wait a few days as I read them again to regain the enchantment.

Daniel:

The mini-series detaches the characters from almost any sense of motivation, turning them into pieces passionlessly moving about in something akin to a bad D&D adventure.

PaterPotato:

The story has not been changed, but discarded, and a hackneyed Swords & Sorcery 'epic' put in its stead. Ged's solitary search for understanding is replaced by a buddy flick, with Vetch now providing comic relief. In a curiously inconsistent approach to political correctness, women are introduced to Roke, but the black characters are played by white actors, with only one notable exception.

... snip ...

This would-be LOTR/Harry Potter comes across more as Dungeons and Dragons.

Donald Roy Airey :

This mini-series is a waste of time. My overall reaction after watching the opening segment is that you couldn't have placed more clichés in the movie if you had been trying to make a parody. In fact, if you had given the actors instructions to ham it up a little, it could be called "Not Another Fantasy Adventure". Now some may argue that it's unfair to review a four hour movie after just the first two hours, but my conscience compels me to warn others: This is an empty story that doesn't contain a single original thought. Everything is predictable.

We have Luke/Harry Potter/Ged meeting Obi Wan Kenobi/Gandalf and being sent to Hogwarts. While at Hogwarts, Luke/Harry Potter/Ged meets the generic, fat, comic relief sidekick. Later, Dumbledore/Gandalf/ Archmangus is killed by the generic, twisted bad guy King/General because Malfoy/Jasper is a traitor (and not a single wizard saw it coming). We have the sisterhood from Dune and elements of Lord Foul's Bane in the indestructible beast that is controlled by knowing its name.

This is a good movie to watch if you are hooked up to a life-support system and you've already seen every movie and television show ever made. This story is also a good idea for people who've never read a book or seen a movie and want to jam the entire fantasy genre into a single four hour sitting.

there are eight pages of comments so far.