I went to a local cinema on Friday evening with my boyfriend, and we wathed the new Studio Ghibli film Tales From Earthsea (or Gedo Senki).
It's based on a series of books by Ursula K. Le Guin who I remember my dad mentioning before as a SF writer. I haven't read any of her work though. Apparently she wasn't entirely happy with the film, and I knew that the film had not been well received in Japanese reviews either. I decided to go to see it anyway because it's rare to see subbed anime in the cinema.
It was alright, not nearly as terrible as I was led to believe it would be. But then, I haven't read or feel any attachment to the original books, and my expectations for the film were low (due to the reviews and perhaps because I don't think Ghibli movies are better or more special than other anime movies).
I got this feeling that the storytelling was being affected by that thing where the makers don't explain something big because they think thay're too cool. ¬_¬
It still has the old Ghibli cliche of *befriend weird things!* and *heroic girl!*, but in this film they're both the same character and she's not the main character, but I get the feeling she'd like to be.
It also has the *be environmentally friendly* ethic, as always.
It was a Goro Miyazaki film, rather than his father's work, though I noticed at the end of the film that it said the film was "inspired by" a Hayao Miyazaki manga called The Journey of Shuna / Shuna no Tabi.
So this film tried to serve two masters. Perhaps that was another of its problems.
