The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula Le Guin was one of my favourite novels when I was younger. Imagine my trembling excitement and anticipation when I heard that Studio Ghibli, whose film Naussica ranks in my top ten films of all time, was going to make a film adaptation! I'm sure a similarly great cry of joy arose amongst the fantasy literates of the world when this announcement was made. I was so happy, I think I wet my pants a little.
I have only just seen the Studio Ghibli film, Tales of Earthsea, putting off the inevitable after hearing news that Le Guin herself didn't like it, and negative comments about it from hardcore Ghibli fans. I read Le Guin's essay first, and I thought she might have been too harsh with Ghibli, who in my eyes, could do no wrong (okay, could do very little wrong, since they did make Spirited Away). I really wanted to find out for myself the truth about this film.
They say curiosity killed the cat.
In hindsight, I should have just poked a chopstick in my eye - it would have hurt less.
Oh. My. God. It was abysmal and tortuously bad.
There is a random ramble of things I found wrong with this film (I'll edit this post into niceness later):
The storytelling is just not there. My gentle readers, at the risk of pushing you far past your sarcasm comfort zone, I must say - the storytelling was so non existent in this film, the plot so confusing, the motivations so confounding and the point of the film so incomprehensible, that it makes the violent, meaningless and totally misplaced offal that was Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill look like a well-made film.
There was no characterisation, plot developments were made at random, nothing ever happened for a good reason, and everything about the film was preachy and overdone, else skimmed over and ignored, making the whole film an excerise in confusion.
There is no real sense of wonder or discovery, as with My Neighbour Totoro or Naussica in the Valley of the Wind. Where is the beauty of the cities and islands of Earthsea? Where is man's mastery of the land and the air, and a sprawling, magical majesty of Le Guin's world? Furthermore, where is the serenity of pace, poignancy of subject matter, and simplicity of form and of story we have come to know and love with Ghibli?
Le Guin said:
The characters are likewise terribly executed. They are nothing like the characters in the book, and while this in itself was not a bad thing, they are not interesting at all, with mere sketches of personality and a few distinguishing features thrown in to help you remember who is who. Ged in the film is not the Sparrowhawk, Archmage of Roke of the Earthsea books. The Ged of this film as some kind of doppleganger, a pale imitation with the same superficial semblance, but none of the soul that makes Sparrowhawk a true hero. Throughout the film, I was horribly reminded of the cardboard cut-out characters of David Eddings, but even his books had far more memorable and fleshed out characters.
Even the original Japanese voice acting seemed rushed and unrefined, with both Cob and Therru's voices being downright annoying. For the first time ever for a Ghibli film, I will say that I enjoyed watching the film more with the English dubs on than in the original Japanese.
Worse - the film seems to have been edited beyond comprehension, into something resembling a Daft Punk music video - a series of images that seem profound, but are really empty fronts for nothing at all.
Le Guin said:
This is the primary crime that this film has propagated is a malaise that runs deep through Ghibli's latest offerings:
I have only just seen the Studio Ghibli film, Tales of Earthsea, putting off the inevitable after hearing news that Le Guin herself didn't like it, and negative comments about it from hardcore Ghibli fans. I read Le Guin's essay first, and I thought she might have been too harsh with Ghibli, who in my eyes, could do no wrong (okay, could do very little wrong, since they did make Spirited Away). I really wanted to find out for myself the truth about this film.
They say curiosity killed the cat.
In hindsight, I should have just poked a chopstick in my eye - it would have hurt less.
Oh. My. God. It was abysmal and tortuously bad.
There is a random ramble of things I found wrong with this film (I'll edit this post into niceness later):
The storytelling is just not there. My gentle readers, at the risk of pushing you far past your sarcasm comfort zone, I must say - the storytelling was so non existent in this film, the plot so confusing, the motivations so confounding and the point of the film so incomprehensible, that it makes the violent, meaningless and totally misplaced offal that was Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill look like a well-made film.
There was no characterisation, plot developments were made at random, nothing ever happened for a good reason, and everything about the film was preachy and overdone, else skimmed over and ignored, making the whole film an excerise in confusion.
There is no real sense of wonder or discovery, as with My Neighbour Totoro or Naussica in the Valley of the Wind. Where is the beauty of the cities and islands of Earthsea? Where is man's mastery of the land and the air, and a sprawling, magical majesty of Le Guin's world? Furthermore, where is the serenity of pace, poignancy of subject matter, and simplicity of form and of story we have come to know and love with Ghibli?
Le Guin said:
"Much of it was beautiful. Many corners were cut, however, in the animation of this quickly made film. It does not have the delicate accuracy of "Totoro" or the powerful and splendid richness of detail of "Spirited Away." The imagery is effective but often conventional."As for the scenery - the quieter scenes on the farm - includes a lamb that might possibly be the cutest little mutton chop to ever grace the silver screen. As a dragon lover though, the forms of the film's dragons were disappointing, to say the least. These dragons rank upon Steven's Dragon-cool-o-meter at the same level as Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern, and are nowhere near as awesome as the the wyrms of Dragonlance or Dragonheart's Draco.
The characters are likewise terribly executed. They are nothing like the characters in the book, and while this in itself was not a bad thing, they are not interesting at all, with mere sketches of personality and a few distinguishing features thrown in to help you remember who is who. Ged in the film is not the Sparrowhawk, Archmage of Roke of the Earthsea books. The Ged of this film as some kind of doppleganger, a pale imitation with the same superficial semblance, but none of the soul that makes Sparrowhawk a true hero. Throughout the film, I was horribly reminded of the cardboard cut-out characters of David Eddings, but even his books had far more memorable and fleshed out characters.
Even the original Japanese voice acting seemed rushed and unrefined, with both Cob and Therru's voices being downright annoying. For the first time ever for a Ghibli film, I will say that I enjoyed watching the film more with the English dubs on than in the original Japanese.
Worse - the film seems to have been edited beyond comprehension, into something resembling a Daft Punk music video - a series of images that seem profound, but are really empty fronts for nothing at all.
Le Guin said:
"The moral sense of the books becomes confused in the film. For example: Arren's murder of his father in the film is unmotivated, arbitrary: the explanation of it as committed by a dark shadow or alter-ego comes late, and is not convincing. Why is the boy split in two? We have no clue. The idea is taken from A Wizard of Earthsea, but in that book we know how Ged came to have a shadow following him, and we know why, and in the end, we know who that shadow is. The darkness within us can't be done away with by swinging a magic sword."As for themes and thematic symbolism - there were none, at least none that made sense. We're watching Ghibli, not Evangelion, so I expect plots to connect and actions to have motivations.
This is the primary crime that this film has propagated is a malaise that runs deep through Ghibli's latest offerings:
"I think the film's "messages" seem a bit heavyhanded because, although often quoted quite closely from the books, the statements about life and death, the balance, etc., don't follow from character and action as they do in the books. However well meant, they aren't implicit in the story and the characters. They have not been "earned." So they come out as preachy. There are some sententious bits in the first three Earthsea books, but I don't think they stand out quite this baldly."i.e. That shit don't make sense, brother. Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away are equally guilty of this crime. Having your characters say profound statements about the truth of the world, the nature of good and evil, the facts of life and death is all well and good, but talk rings more than hollow when the action has nothing to do with, well, anything even remotely connected to the themes the character's dialogue is pushing.
"But in the film, evil has been comfortably externalized in a villain, the wizard Kumo/Cob, who can simply be killed, thus solving all problems. In modern fantasy (literary or governmental), killing people is the usual solution to the so-called war between good and evil. My books are not conceived in terms of such a war, and offer no simple answers to simplistic questions."
Deus Ex Machina. The poor storyteller's false idol. If you like this film, then good for you - though I highly suggest that you go educate yourself on the development of fantasy in the last century or so, on film and on paper.
Ms. Ursula Le Guin, I couldn't agree more - they ruined your book. Goro Miyazaki, what have you done? Please, please, please don't make anymore films, ever.
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