Tales of Earthsea-Ghibli movie

eddiefb3 · Post by **eddiefb3** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 8:37 pm

Hey everyone. Just bringing open a new topic that interested me.

I knew about the new Earthsea movie bye Goro Miyazaki a while back. Well I eventually put it into the back of my mind. I never watched the Sci Fi version or read the books but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Well it came up in a thought today and I looked it up. Saw the U.S. release for late september 2007. I was going insane thinking it came out and i missed it. Then i read more and found out.....it's been postponed til 2009 when Sci Fi loses the rights...

Really made me mad. I wanted to see this movie! and it had even already been dubbed into english with some top name movie stars.

Well I am not about to wait another 2 years, so i ordered an import copy off amazon. I'm sure its not official but the UK version only plays in UK so i had to get the region free one.

So now i am waiting for it to get here. Hopefully it will be good quality, and its supposed to have both Japanese and English audio.

I promise in 2009 i will buy the authentic English Disney one because I know its not their fault.

Well has anybody seen this movie? either japanese or english? The trailer looked pretty cool. Then again most trailers do.

Comments? anyone?

Penguinton · Post by **Penguinton** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 9:30 pm

Aw man..2009?

That just plain sucks.

I haven't seen the movie myself but I plan too. I heard its not up to Ghibli movie standards for story though. The plot drags and has a few holes or so I heard. The animation looks great and its a Ghibli film so I'm definatly going to buy it!

Sugarflower · Post by **Sugarflower** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 10:31 pm

I watched a high quality fansub of the movie and thought it was a great movie. That's as far as I go cause I know I'll spoil things, lol.

~Sugar

ReiTheJelly · Post by **ReiTheJelly** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:22 am

It was made by Miyazaki's son, so don't be confused by the Studio Ghibli name attached to it.

It's...not very well done, IMHO. I've also heard that Ursula LeGuin was very disappointed with it.

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/GedoSenkiResponse.html

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:23 am

Oh a web page.

eddiefb3 · Post by **eddiefb3** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:20 pm

ReiTheJelly wrote:It was made by Miyazaki's son, so don't be confused by the Studio Ghibli name attached to it.

It's...not very well done, IMHO. I've also heard that Ursula LeGuin was very disappointed with it.

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/GedoSenkiResponse.html

I think I put in my post "Goro Miyazaki". I have not seen the movie yet, so I cannot judge it. But I think it looks pretty cool.

I read that review by Ursula LeGuin last night. It sounded like she was a little disappointed. I believe she said something about it being his movie and not her book, and that it was a good movie. Of course i think anyone might say that to a directors face.

I have not read the earthsea books. I have no idea what the story is about. So I think I would enjoy it regardless of how it compares to the original story or anything like that.

glorff · Post by **glorff** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 4:49 pm

Earthsea would be a hard movie to make like the books, but Howl's Moving Castle differed significantly from the book and was still enjoyable

Penguinton · Post by **Penguinton** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:15 pm

Well I know Miyazaki made the author of Kiki's Delivery Service angry. They didn't like the movie at all. Or so I've heard.

I think the only way to decide if you like the movie is to watch it. So good or bad its a must see for me just because Ghibli is slaped on the Credits.

eddiefb3 · Post by **eddiefb3** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 11:35 pm

Penguinton wrote: I think the only way to decide if you like the movie is to watch it. So good or bad its a must see for me just because Ghibli is slaped on the Credits.

I agree with you completely.

I just finished watching it again. Amazing movie! It was really an interesting movie. It was about as violent as Princess Mononoke, and a lot of the characters in there really resembled the characters of Mononoke.

I think it had a good life lesson in it too like most of the Ghibli movies. It is definitely going into my favorites.

I would completely reccomend this to anyone. Then again as i said before i've never read the original books. So who knows. But the import is cheap about $11 shipped(amazon).

The English Dub version was pretty good too. I really like that they translated the song for it.

Caroline · Post by **Caroline** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 2:19 am

i just purchased a bootleg copy on amazon.com and i am really excited to see it. ive heard more negatives than positives about this film, mostly about the slow pacing. but that wont stop me from watching.

Cenbe · Post by **Cenbe** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 12:49 am

Well, just to present another opinion, I started watching this, then got interrupted about 1/2 way through, and now I'm not even all that interested in going back to finish it, although I suppose I will at some point. I can't imagine feeling like that with Nausicaa, Totoro, Kiki, or almost any other Ghibli movie, even though I've seen them all multiple times.

The art in the backgrounds is gorgeous and the animation is mostly excellent as well, but the story and characters to me were just not compelling, way too stereotypical and shallow. I don't mean to sound too harsh, but I was really hoping to be swept away by that Ghibli magic, and it just didn't happen for me.

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 6:13 am

I saw this movie in the cinema on my birthday last August. It was the English dub and although I wasn't looking forward to that, I thought it worked well.
The Japanese Region 2 DVD came out on 10th July 2007 and the UK edition is due on 28th January 2008. For those who don't want to wait for the US version- if it does come out in 2009, I suggest getting the UK version because it's released by Optimum who have done the range of Ghibli films over here and the quality is respectable. Chances are there will be lots of extras too because we're hungry for these additions on our DVDs. ^__^

As for the story and art of the film I believed it wasn't quite up to the usual Ghibli standard, but then it's not a typical 'Ghibli film' because of the creative team involved. That doesn't matter because the whole product was watchable from start to finish.
Cenbe mentioned how the characters and storyline weren't compelling but I liked the way the characters were stereotypical and the story was a little formulaic and 'slow' (I guess is the word for it). That harks back to traditional Japanese cinema practice, something I identified with and was instantly able to sit back and enjoy.
Throughout the film I was constantly racking my brain to figure out who the voice actor for 'Sparrowhawk' was, it was so familiar and fitted the character- Timothy Dalton, of course... *ahhh*

I read the original Ursula Le Guin books when I was young, but 20 years later I can't remember how the story went! Even so, this film did work as a stand-alone piece and I'd be happy to buy and rewatch it another time.