Tales of Earthsea

[Great Rumbler]

It's a new animated movie from Studio Ghibli and directed by Goro Miyazaki [Hayao's son].



http://www.ghibliworld.com/news.html

If nothing else, it should be many times better than that awful travesty the Scifi Channel foisted on us.

[A Black Falcon]

Classic Ghibli animation, at least...

[Dark Jaguar]

What exactly did the scifi channel do? In my region, the scifi channel is part of "expanded" service and I don't miss it considering the utterly poor quality of their movies (in every possible catagory).

[Great Rumbler]

What exactly did the scifi channel do?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407384/

It LOOKED good, but the story and characters were nothing more than horrible caricatures of their counterparts in the book.

[Dark Jaguar]

Oh, so this is based on a book and that channel already made a movie based on it?

By the way, what country wrote the original book?

[A Black Falcon]

You really don't pay any attention at all to fantasy, do you... the Earthsea books are very well known and have been around for decades... American. By Ursula Le Guin.

[Great Rumbler]

Oh, so this is based on a book and that channel already made a movie based on it?

Legend of Earthsea was "based" on the first two books, while Tales of Earthsea is based on the third with some elements from the fourth.

By the way, what country wrote the original book?

America.

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN...iffin.html

[Dark Jaguar]

No ABF, I really don't pay any attention at all to fantasy. I have stated as much before. Further, not once has that book come to my attention. I can't very well seek out this series if I don't even know it exists to be saught out.

[Great Rumbler]

Earthsea is one of the more well-known examples of American fantasy.

[A Black Falcon]

She also wrote sci-fi, but the Earthsea fantasy series is her most famous.

I've read so much fantasy, and I know that not all authors are known generally, but I'd think the more broadly known ones might be... Le Guin, Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time), Neal Stephenson in cyberpunk (hugely influential... Snow Crash, especially), Anne McCaffery (Dragonriders of Pern), Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth) or Terry Brooks (Shannara) perhaps, etc... not mentioning Tolkien (or C.S. Lewis), everyone knows HIM. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

There are examples of American fantasy?

What I'm basically saying is despite how well known you claim it to be, I have never heard of it, and that's strong evidence it isn't exactly in popular culture just yet.

I have never seen it referenced in Saturday Night Live, the Simpsons, The Daily Show, etc... I have never seen a commercial for it, nor do a large number of web sites speak about it in their daily journals.

This is my first encounter with this thing. Why should I be expected to know of it's existance?

[A Black Falcon]

As opposed to what? I mean, the modern fantasy genre does originate from England really (Tolkien defined it, and changed it from past things such as fairy tales, etc), but... um... yeah... I have no words... well, just this: Given how many fantasy games you play, it's amazing that you know nothing about fantasy books. Same for science fiction. (Final Fantasy <-- Wizardry (and perhaps Akalabeth/Ultima and a few others, but Wizardry was the first truly popular big computer RPG (1979 I believe) that tried to be computer D&D, like they all do ultimately) <-- Dungeons & Dragons <-- Tolkien-inspired fantasy writers (not Tolkien himself so much, from what I understand, as the genre that resulted after his works became popular in the US in the sixties (I seem to recall some interview with Gary Gygax, I think, where he said that it wasn't Tolkien specifically that he was basing it off, but other writers in the genre)) and military wargames (miniatures battle simulation games, a type of game that goes back several centuries at least).)

I have never seen it referenced in Saturday Night Live, the Simpsons, The Daily Show, etc... I have never seen a commercial for it, nor do a large number of web sites speak about it in their daily journals.

The Earthsea books are from the seventies and perhaps eighties I believe, so that's not overly surprising...

Of course, I know in other categories I'm quite ignorant of things (music being the primary one, though TV... SNL for instance? Not sure if I've ever watched a complete episode. And that's because of lack of interest.), but fantasy and science fiction books are one I know quite well and have read for many years... and they seem to tie in so well with fantasy videogames in themes and things... and the same goes for sci-fi in both mediums.

[Dark Jaguar]

So there you go.

If I was talking with someone who isn't a gamer and they didn't know what Final Fantasy was, I wouldn't wonder where they had been for the past 20 years. Final Fantasy is a VERY well known series, TO GAMERS, but outside of that, people don't even know it exists. They know "video games" exist, and Mario has enough of an influence everyone knows about him, and also something about how violent video games are corrupting the youth, and a split opinion on that in relation to whatever their views on free speech vs CORRUPTING INFLUENCE are.

I'm pretty sure "people" are still slowly realizing that people are playing games online, and even slower to pick up that not ALL online games are first person shooters, and slowest of all to figure out that people who play games are normal people like them.

My point is just that something may be well known and have BEEN well known in certain circles, but if someone is completely outside of that circle, they can't really be expected to know about it until it hits the pop culture region.

I'd be surprised if someone had never heard of Lord of the Rings, for example. Though, even there, you have to be a movie watcher (or tune into the various mediums that report on something like that) to know about it. The Amish don't even know reality shows exist.

[Great Rumbler]

There are examples of American fantasy?

H. P. Lovecraft

[Dark Jaguar]

Hewlett Packard?

No, I've actually heard of that author (though I don't even know that person's gender). Didn't HP write a bunch of pseudo intellectual garbage that's about as deep as Eternal Darkness?

[Great Rumbler]

Didn't HP write a bunch of pseudo intellectual garbage that's about as deep as Eternal Darkness?

Pseudo-intellectual? What are you talking about? The man wrote fantasy-horror, much of which is the basis for modern horror authors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

And to the short list of well-known American fantasy writers, I'd also add Robert E. Howard.

[A Black Falcon]

Eternal Darkness was ... 'inspired' ... by H.P. Lovecraft, certainly. And yes, he was a fantasy-horror writer. (Cthulu, the Necronomicon, etc... terms you might have heard somewhere...)

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, I think Cthulu is supposed to make people go crazy go nuts because he looks scary or something.

I admit I'm judging this based purely on how sophomoric the ideas have seemed to me, but I am willing to give it a try. There's got to be some reason the series has so many fans.

[Great Rumbler]

Cthulhu's over a hundred feet tall and one of the Great Old Ones, a race immensely powerful cosmis beings. A bit more than just some scary monster.

Some, though certainly not all, feature the Great Old Ones, one of the Elder Gods, ancient cults, and other abominations, which have set the basis for an entire mythos. And I assure you there's nothing sophomoric about his works. It might seem that way just by reading the absolute basis elements of his stories, but remember he wrote the bulk of his stories over 70 years ago. Not a lot of people were writing those kinds of stories back then. Also, from having read several of his stories, I can tell you that they are very good and definitely creepy. H. P. Lovecrafts stories are what Eternal Darkness tried very hard to imitate, but ultimately it could never be as good.

[Dark Jaguar]

I see. I will eventually look into it. I suppose he's responsible for the "dark terrible god" genre then. It is good to know just who is responsible for this outrage.

[Great Rumbler]

I suppose he's responsible for the "dark terrible god" genre then.

I don't think any of his stories are like that. The Elder Gods and The Great Ones are very abstract, rarely seen, and no attempt is made to explain what their purpose is or what motivates their actions. They are beyond human compresion and this is reflected in the works that they appear in.