Tales From Earthsea

[kyektulu]

I am so excited.

I found a little treasure online yesterday.

A new animated version of Ursula Le Guin's 'Earthsea' has been made in Japan, it is due out there soon.

As soon as I find out when it is available over here I will let u guys know.

Here is a link to a short trailer:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SAAnGlakbYg

[Thadlerian]

Yeah, made a thread about this a couple of weeks ago: [url=http://www.chronicles-network.com/forum/9689-earthsea-trailer-minor-book-spoilers.html]Here[/u].

I made some comments on the appearance of the skin colour of the characters, but otherwise it seems it'll be a great movie.

[kyektulu]

Sorry didnt know.

[Thadlerian]

OK, now I've seen it. Anyone else? Opinions?
(give me yours, and I'll let you hear mine - and I'm in two minds, so don't draw any conclusions )

[GOLLUM]

If you're talking about Studio Ghibli's production then yes I saw it. In fact I visited Studio Ghibli in Japan during WorldCon to get a first hand view of the production techniques enmployed in making their films. Very interesting stuff.

As far as the movie goes I liked certain aspects of the film but not others. It was far better than that TV production they trawled out but it's less than perfect. I would give it 3 stars out of 5 vs. the TV production 1 star max.... I don't know what LeGuin's thinks of the Ghibli production but I wouldn't think she would be over the moon with it.

I read these books incl. Tehanu many years back so my memories are a little vague. Therefore I can't really go into hard details vs. book until I reread it.

[williamjm]

I saw it last summer, I had fairly mixed feelings about it as well. The animation quality was good (although not Ghibli's best), and it was an entertaining film, but I felt the plot was a bit muddled, some things weren't explained very well and it never really seemed to adequately explain why the protagonist stabbed his father at the start of the film.

[GOLLUM]

For those interested Le Guin's own viewpoint after watching the film...


As my son and I could not go to Tokyo for the premiere of the film, Studio Ghibli very kindly brought us a copy, and gave us a private screening at a downtown theater on Sunday August 6, 2006. It was a joyful occasion. Many friends with children came. It was entertaining to get the kids' response. Some younger ones were rather frightened or confused, but the older kids were cool with it.
After the screening we went to have dinner at my son's house. Elinor the corgi behaved with great propriety, while Mr Toshio Suzuki did headstands on the lawn.
Mr Goro Miyazaki asked me just as I was leaving, "Did you like the movie?" It was not an easy question to answer, under the circumstances. I said: "Yes. It is not my book. It is your movie. It is a good movie."
I did not realise that I was speaking to anyone but him and the few people around us. I would have preferred that a private reply to a private question not be made public. I mention it here only because Mr Goro has mentioned it in his blog.
So, in the spirit of everything being public all the time for fifteen minutes, I will give a fuller report of my first response to the film:
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.
Much of it was exciting. The excitement was maintained by violence, to a degree that I find deeply untrue to the spirit of the books.
Much of it was, I thought, incoherent. This may be because I kept trying to find and follow the story of my books while watching an entirely different story, confusingly enacted by people with the same names as in my story, but with entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies.
Of course a movie shouldn't try to follow a novel exactly — they're different arts, very different forms of narrative. There may have to be massive changes. But it is reasonable to expect some fidelity to the characters and general story in a film named for and said to be based on books that have been in print for 40 years.
Both the American and the Japanese film-makers treated these books as mines for names and a few concepts, taking bits and pieces out of context, and replacing the story/ies with an entirely different plot, lacking in coherence and consistency. I wonder at the disrespect shown not only to the books but to their readers.
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.
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.
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. Though I think the dragons of my Earthsea are more beautiful, I admire the noble way Goro's dragons fold their wings. The animals of his imagination are seen with much tenderness — I liked the horse-llama's expressive ears. I very much liked the scenes of plowing, drawing water, stabling the animals, and so on, which give the film an earthy and practical calmness — a wise change of pace from constant conflict and "action". In them, at least, I recognised my Earthsea.