Tales form Earthsea

On one level this is a perfectly passable piece of anime. Unfortunately it's got the Earthsea license and so I'm watching it and comparing it to some of my favourite books. On the one hand this engenders a hell of a lot of goodwill, on the other there's a lot to live up to. The films main problem is, as Le Guin herself has said

Much of it was ... incoherent. This may be because I kept trying to find and follow the story of my books while watching an entirely different story, confusingly enacted by people with the same names as in my story, but with entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies.

The film just doesn't fit anywhere in the Earthsea chronology or the world that I know. The 'Big Bad' is deeply unimaginative, I mean it's basically Mumm-ra, and where the books have a coherent and deeply thought out reality the film is largely composed of fantasy cliches. There is also a dreadful scene where Tehanu sings a really bad song.

There are some good points: The scenes of the archipelago extending into the distance are beautiful and the film's deliberate and even pace is true to the books particularly when the soundtrack isn't overwhelmed by the vaguely celtic LOTR-esq score. I find myself really wanting to like this film but it's just disappointing. I think this is how big Star Wars fans must have felt after watching the prequels.

Ursula Le Guin's response to the film

IMDB