Combining the plots of the first two Earthsea novels, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, the story follows Ged (Shawn Ashmore), a powerful but reckless mage-in-training, and Tenar (Kristin Kreuk), a young priestess, who are drawn together in a battle against an ancient race of demons known as the Nameless Ones.

Le Guin stated that she had been cut out of the creative process for Legends of Earthsea and that she did not approve of the miniseries.

In the land of Earthsea, a young wizard named Ged has visions about a girl and doors opening.

Meanwhile, King Tygath wants to rule the land and release the Nameless Ones, demons from whom he hopes to learn the secret of immortality.

The dragon tells him where to find the two pieces of the Amulet of Peace, which when reunited would save Earthsea, but Ged could have asked the true name of the demon.

It was adapted by Gavin Scott (The Mists of Avalon) from the Earthsea novels for executive producers Robert Halmi, Sr. (Merlin, Gulliver's Travels, Animal Farm), Lawrence Bender (Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction) and Kevin Kelly Brown (Roswell).

[1] Reviewing the miniseries, the book The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy claimed that Legend of Earthsea "totally missed the point" of Le Guin's novels, "ripping out all the subtlety, nuance and beauty of the books and inserting boring cliches, painful stereotypes and a very unwelcome 'epic' war in their place".

In the books, Ursula Le Guin expended a great deal of time creating a world with a depth and culture, but nothing of this survives in the mini-series".

The review added that Legend of Earthsea was "shabbily and indifferently directed", and that the dialogue was "dreadfully clunky and often excruciatingly bad".

[3][4] Le Guin, author of the novels on which the miniseries is based, was not involved in the development of the material or the making of the production.

[5] Le Guin has accused the Sci-Fi Channel of having "wrecked" her books and of having removed the "crucial element" of race from them.

She asserted that when she reviewed the script for the miniseries, she "realized the producers had no understanding of what the books are about and no interest in finding out.

All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence".