Tuesday, December 14, 2004

URSULA, MEET ANNE RICE

Ursula K. Le Guin doesn't much like the Earthsea miniseries. So I guess I can feel better that I can't see the damn thing on tv here in Montreal!

I suppose it shouldn't matter what she thinks, since I don't believe in "faithful" adaptations to most works. The first obligation of an adaptation is to deliver the essence of the book, and that may mean doing terrible things to the story of the book, since movies are short stories, not novels, in narrative scope. But I've always liked her soul. So I guess it matters more than when Anne Rice complained that Tom Cruise was wrong for Lestat -- and then decided he was right.

Something about miniseries these days. They get so ponderous. Or is it that only ponderous books (Children of Dune) get miniseries-ized? A miniseries has to be event television, and suitable for a DVD release.

On British TV you'll see very short runs of a series -- say 6, 8 episodes. But they're formatted as episodic series. Which means I suppose that the writers have to go to all the trouble of nailing the template without the reward of being able to bang out a few scripts on the run. That seems like a lot of trouble for not much. I do like Coupling but why only 6 at a time?

10:18 PM

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