Fantasy on TV

 

I have heard about something that really accelerated my heartbeat: George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones will come out as a HBO series, and as the first season of the book cycle A Song of Ice and fire! This is really spectacular news since I for one loooove this book deeply (really, one "o" is not enough here) and I always very much enjoy HBO's high standard in terms of polished looks and great storytelling and over all high production values. In my opinion, their work is absolutely comparable to BBC's productions, because it's both extremely informative and visually appealing!

HBO plans on filming 10 episodes in total, starting this year, including one pilot episode which is already finished and I am very curious how this will turn out! The book has around 1200 pages and I hope they won't lose the complexity of the plot in 10 episodes...

 

By the way, I have some dark memories regarding TV adaptations of fantasy classics, and The Legend of Earthsea is on top of my black list. Appalling is the word that comes to mind when I think about this giant waste of broadcasting time. Studio Ghibli's version on the other hand was a surprisingly well written and delivered tale about Earthsea, not wanting to be an adaptation, but rather a story based on the universe Ursula K. Le Guin created..

I am really glad that Mr. Martin now gets a chance to see his works presented on TV, but ideally to a larger audience. I genuinly hope that in their version HBO will do justice to his unbelievably skillful written story. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Ursula K.LeGuin, The Complete Earthsea Cycle
Tales From Earthsea, Studio Ghibli