Gedo senki

Eh, let's just call Tales from Earthsea a case of growing pains for Goro Miyazaki. 

It's not a bad movie. It's just unremarkable in every way. It doesn't have the creativity, emotional depth, or beauty of Spirited Away, the visual wonder of Howl's Moving Castle, the scope of adventure of Castle in the Sky, the lovable characters of Kiki's Delivery Service, or the sheer delight and fun of Ponyo. 

If I had to choose a defining feature for Earthsea, I honestly don't know what it would be. The music is fine, but nothing extraordinary. The character designs and artwork are dangerously close to generic, the story lacks tension and feels almost inconsequential, and the writing is bland. Where's the heart? Where's the humor, the passion, or something that would draw me into the narrative?

I found myself not caring much about what was happening, and more concerned with how much time was left until the movie was over, than anything else. My  expectations for Studio Ghibli are far too high to embrace a movie like this that barely scrapes above mediocrity, and from what I've heard from fans of the Earthsea literature, this isn't the adaptation they were hoping for, either.

I am a huge fan of both Ursula Le Guin and Studio Ghibli but the story and the presentation just weren't all they needed to be. The fragments of story they excerpted from the novel lacked cohesiveness, so the characters' stories were truncated and lost. The art work was true to the beauty of Ghibli. I'm disappointed that I can only give this film a 6 (fair) out of 10. {Animated Fantasy}

I like both Studio Ghibli films and Ursula LeGuin's 'Earthsea' books, but this film did little for me. While the backgrounds and 'set pieces' were striking, as expected in anime from this studio, the realisation of the characters left a lot to be desired, especially Ged who was bland and Cob, who was oddly androgynous. I also found the voices used in the English version either dull (Timothy Dalton's generic 'gentle English lord') or silly (Cheech Marin's hodgepodge of accents). The biggest weakness, however, was the story, which was just boring - by the time things began to happen, I'd stopped caring and was just waiting for the film to end. Pity: LeGuin's 'Earthsea' series could make a fantasy epic to rival the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy or the 'Harry Potter' series, but so far, all we have is a second-rate anime and an awful made-for-TV 'sword and sorcery' romp.

I am a great fan of the LeGuin books, and when I learned that Studio Ghibli was going to be involved in making of the film I eagerly looked forward to its release. I hoped it would make up for the awful SciFi Channel-aired film. The good news in this outing is, there is genuine respect for the source material, even if it is not done genuine honor.

The plot of the film is an amalgamation of elements of several of the Earthsea books, creating a new villain and having characters interact that indeed barely met in the books. While I could not help but feel disappointed by these changes, the film is still visually enjoyable to behold. It does not compare as favorably to Howl's Moving Castle, a story drastically altered from its own source material that still manages to stand on its own as a story.

I could not help but think, as I watched the character Arren develop, why? Why, when there is such wonderful source material, that his introduction came across so muddled and poorly reasoned. I viewed the film with someone who had never read the books, and she really enjoyed it. Despite the film's shortcomings, you generally care for the cast by the end.

I've just come back from seeing this movie in the cinema. Being a devoted Studio Ghibli fan, going to see one of their movies on the big screen was an exciting event for which I had high expectations (I avoided reading any reviews). I am sorry to say that these were not met.

Having never read any of the books this film is based on, a lot of it didn't make any sense. Most of the concepts and character motivations are not given adequate exposition and a lot of things that you think will be resolved and explained as the movie goes on are never expanded upon (or indeed, resolved). Without giving anything away, the main character commits an outrageous action (especially for Ghibli heroes) at the start of the film, but the motivation for said action is not adequately expanded upon and he never really redeems himself (which makes it very difficult to engage with him for the rest of the film). It nearly felt like I was being punished for not being familiar with the source material.

The middle section is very slow moving, in fact nearly all of the action is to be seen at the beginning and towards the finale. Coupled with the lack of exposition on what's actually going on, it seemed like the film was just treading water, waiting for something interesting to happen (and in a 130 minute film, that's a bad thing!).

The ending, while being emotionally rousing and a spectacular set-piece, doesn't really make a lot of sense, as nearly all of the film focuses on a different protagonist than the one that eventually ends up saving the day.

Technically this film is not a patch on Spirited away, Howl's moving castle or Princess Mononoke, in fact the animation is more reminiscent of earlier Studio Ghibli films, such as Nausicaa (however these had wonderful stories to make them instant classics). The only thing that distinguishes it are the lighting effects, which are often superlative.

The music is great and very atmospheric.

Overall I'd have to say that it's worth watching when it comes out on TV, but not good enough to warrant making a trip to one of few cinemas showing it in the UK, or buying it full price on DVD, and this is something that I never thought I'd hear myself say as a die-hard (and now very disappointed) Studio Ghibli fan.

One final thing, this film has no sense of humour. The movie takes itself overwhelmingly serious with none of the "larger than life" magic that people have come to associate with Studio Ghibli.