Legend of Earthsea, on Sci-Fi
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Caution: spoilers I guess?
Later renamed simply "Earthsea". This miniseries based on books by Ursula K. LeGuin, which, alas, I have not read. No doubt they were better than the miniseries. Not that I disliked it. Indeed, I enjoyed it well enough, I guess. Let's see. There's this guy named Ged (Shawn Ashmore) whose father is a blacksmith, but Ged has always had visions, and he wants to become a wizard. And he's taught by some mysterious woman who doesn't remember who she is. Then he goes off with this wizard named Ogion (Danny Glover), but his ways of teaching are far too slow for Ged's taste, so instead he goes to a wizard school. There he makes a friend named Vetch (Chris Gauthier), and makes an enemy named Jasper (Mark Hildreth); the latter gets him to do some dumb things, including accidentally releasing an evil thing into the world. So Ged has to leave the school while this evil thing- which has now become a more powerful evil thing called a Gebbeth- hunts him. Until Ogion tells him to become the hunter.
Meanwhile, this girl named Tenar (Kristin Kreuk), who Ged has seen in his visions, is a priestess in an order which has long been keeping a bunch of nameless evil things locked up. There's another priestess, Kossil, who is plotting to take over the position of high priestess from the current one, Thar (Isabella Rossellini), who she tricks a girl named Rosa into poisoning, slowly over time. Kossil is the lover of King Tygath, who is slowly taking over all of Earthsea by conquest, but he needs Kossil to find out the incantation to release the evil things, because they both think the things will grant them immortality.
He is also aware of a prophecy that someday a wizard will put together this old broken amulet which will ruin all his plans, so he has people out searching for the wizard, who is of course, Ged. Eventually Ged teams up with Vetch, who has graduated wizard school, to try and find and stop the Gebbeth. In the course of their search, they learn about the amulet. So, their new quest leads them to the island of the priestesses, where Ged meets Tenar, who has been imprisoned by Kossil. And then more stuff happens and everyone lives happily ever after. I guess.
Yeah, I'm really pretty sure the books must be better. And I seem to recall most fans of the books having a very negative reaction to the miniseries. So whatever, I'll probably never watch it again. But it did have a cast I really like.