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A very long rant about Studio Ghibli and Howl's Moving Castle
I saw Howl's Moving Castle with friends last night and wow, way to ruin a good book!
In the case of stories from one medium adapted to another, I am not, by any means, a canon purist. I loved both of the X-Men movies, for example, even though they essentially tossed out the comic-book canon and utterly reinvented some of the characters. I knew that a lot of things had been changed for this movie, so I wasn't even expecting it to follow the book that closely, and I also had high hopes for it because it's Miyazaki ... but MAN, that book got reamed.
**BIG SPOILERS FOR BOOK AND MOVIE**
The most frustrating thing about the movie is that it lost most of what made the book so good, and didn't really replace it with anything decent (aside from some beautiful visuals ... but I want a movie to be more than a pretty face). The war subplot could have been developed quite well, and is a natural outgrowth of some plot elements from the book, but instead it was dreadfully ham-handed and wrapped up into a neat little bow at the end. (Everybody just decides to stop fighting? WTF? Worst. Ending. Ever.) A lot of the revelations from the book are stuffed into the last 10 minutes of the movie with no real explanation at all (Movie: "Oh, and by the way, the scarecrow's a prince!" Audience: "The hell?"), but the explanations probably wouldn't make much sense anyway, since most of the buildup wasn't there either.
Howl made so much more sense as a character in the book. Inserting the war subplot in the movie, and having him be all cool and heroic fighting the planes, completely throws off the character. In the movie, he seems to shift randomly from heroic to cowardly/petulant and back again. In the book, his behavior is totally consistent -- he's petty, arrogant, charming and fairly up-front about the fact that he's a complete coward unless he either doesn't have time to think about it, or can convince himself that he's doing something completely different (or, in one case, just get drunk). In the movie, he goes through the mysterious black door to fight; in the book, what's behind the black door is the place where he goes when he can't take the magical world anymore and needs to unwind in a place where things make sense. (A place where things make sense to a Welsh college student, that is ... not necessarily to Sophie!)
Speaking of Sophie ... aargh. Unlike Howl, at least Sophie's movie version wasn't inconsistent as a character (and, actually, I liked the way that her age is used literally in the movie to represent her state of mind) -- but she was just *such* a neat character in the book, so phenomenally stubborn and practical and so utterly, utterly unromantic that she herself doesn't realize she's in love with Howl until very nearly the end of the book. Movie!Sophie spends the last half of the movie as a weepy dishrag, crying out for Howl and following him around and talking about how much she loves him.
Not to mention that the movie completely eliminated Sophie's magical ability, but I guess this isn't surprising because it also eliminated most of her spine, and her ability to cause things to happen is largely reliant on her massive willpower. Without that, though, a lot of the events in the movie just seem to sort of ... happen. Why does movie Sophie have the ability to restore Howl's heart without killing both him and Calcifer? Movie!Calcifer says that only Sophie can do it and thus leaves you with the implication that "true wuv" must be responsible (gag). In the book, obviously, it's because of Sophie's ability to will things into being -- if she really believes that Calcifer and Howl will survive, then they will, and nobody else can do that.
Overall, the movie took a wry, funny, down-to-earth book that deliberately mocks some of the self-serious cliches of the fantasy genre, and twisted it around into an overwrought love story with a ham-handed "let's all get along" message. Rather than having to fight the witch for Howl, Sophie tames her by hugging her and convincing her to do the right thing. Rather than overcoming his natural cowardice and standing up to the Witch at the last minute to protect his Earth family and Sophie, Howl is a daredevil war hero who fights in a grand explodey battle scene to defend Sophie from warplanes. Rather than being an awkward and stubborn teenager who vies (amusingly) with his supposed master Howl for Lettie's affections, Michael is a cute little kid who clings to Sophie's skirts and tells her he loves her (gag, again). So many fun and clever things from the book were gone ... the photocopied John Donne poem that becomes both a spell and a curse, Sophie's complicated relationship with her family, Howl/Howell's backstory as a ne'er-do-well college student who stumbles into a magic world where he's actually *cool* and good at something for a change, Howell's obvious affection for his niece back on Earth. And while I could deal with losing these wonderful things if we got something wonderful in return, the fact that they've been traded for a sappy love story and an over-the-top antiwar message kinda gets my back up. Plus, a ton of the extra plot things in the movie were never explained at all. What was up with the witch's shadow creatures? I thought of them as sort of "essence of distilled hate", but they were never explained and just vanished and were never mentioned again when she got aged. Where did the black door lead in the movie? It appeared to lead into the middle of the war zone at first, and the thought crossed my mind early in the movie that it might actually be the future. Then when Sophie goes after Howl, it leads into his memories and the past. It's a deus ex machina door, is what it is ... it just takes the characters whereever they have to be for the plot to work.
There *were* a few things that I liked about the movie. Calcifer, unlike any of the other characters, was perfect. There were some gorgeous visuals; the castle alone was worth seeing (and a good example of one of the few things in the movie that was completely different from the book and yet ... WORKED). There were some hilarious moments with the dog. Howl and Sophie's physical appearance was very nicely done -- it was a little startling to have Howl so effeminate and pretty-looking, when he isn't even supposed to be that handsome in the book, but it was certainly nice to look at. I also liked his transformations -- they were just the right combination of cool and ghastly.
But the rest of it ... BLECH.
In the case of stories from one medium adapted to another, I am not, by any means, a canon purist. I loved both of the X-Men movies, for example, even though they essentially tossed out the comic-book canon and utterly reinvented some of the characters. I knew that a lot of things had been changed for this movie, so I wasn't even expecting it to follow the book that closely, and I also had high hopes for it because it's Miyazaki ... but MAN, that book got reamed.
**BIG SPOILERS FOR BOOK AND MOVIE**
The most frustrating thing about the movie is that it lost most of what made the book so good, and didn't really replace it with anything decent (aside from some beautiful visuals ... but I want a movie to be more than a pretty face). The war subplot could have been developed quite well, and is a natural outgrowth of some plot elements from the book, but instead it was dreadfully ham-handed and wrapped up into a neat little bow at the end. (Everybody just decides to stop fighting? WTF? Worst. Ending. Ever.) A lot of the revelations from the book are stuffed into the last 10 minutes of the movie with no real explanation at all (Movie: "Oh, and by the way, the scarecrow's a prince!" Audience: "The hell?"), but the explanations probably wouldn't make much sense anyway, since most of the buildup wasn't there either.
Howl made so much more sense as a character in the book. Inserting the war subplot in the movie, and having him be all cool and heroic fighting the planes, completely throws off the character. In the movie, he seems to shift randomly from heroic to cowardly/petulant and back again. In the book, his behavior is totally consistent -- he's petty, arrogant, charming and fairly up-front about the fact that he's a complete coward unless he either doesn't have time to think about it, or can convince himself that he's doing something completely different (or, in one case, just get drunk). In the movie, he goes through the mysterious black door to fight; in the book, what's behind the black door is the place where he goes when he can't take the magical world anymore and needs to unwind in a place where things make sense. (A place where things make sense to a Welsh college student, that is ... not necessarily to Sophie!)
Speaking of Sophie ... aargh. Unlike Howl, at least Sophie's movie version wasn't inconsistent as a character (and, actually, I liked the way that her age is used literally in the movie to represent her state of mind) -- but she was just *such* a neat character in the book, so phenomenally stubborn and practical and so utterly, utterly unromantic that she herself doesn't realize she's in love with Howl until very nearly the end of the book. Movie!Sophie spends the last half of the movie as a weepy dishrag, crying out for Howl and following him around and talking about how much she loves him.
Not to mention that the movie completely eliminated Sophie's magical ability, but I guess this isn't surprising because it also eliminated most of her spine, and her ability to cause things to happen is largely reliant on her massive willpower. Without that, though, a lot of the events in the movie just seem to sort of ... happen. Why does movie Sophie have the ability to restore Howl's heart without killing both him and Calcifer? Movie!Calcifer says that only Sophie can do it and thus leaves you with the implication that "true wuv" must be responsible (gag). In the book, obviously, it's because of Sophie's ability to will things into being -- if she really believes that Calcifer and Howl will survive, then they will, and nobody else can do that.
Overall, the movie took a wry, funny, down-to-earth book that deliberately mocks some of the self-serious cliches of the fantasy genre, and twisted it around into an overwrought love story with a ham-handed "let's all get along" message. Rather than having to fight the witch for Howl, Sophie tames her by hugging her and convincing her to do the right thing. Rather than overcoming his natural cowardice and standing up to the Witch at the last minute to protect his Earth family and Sophie, Howl is a daredevil war hero who fights in a grand explodey battle scene to defend Sophie from warplanes. Rather than being an awkward and stubborn teenager who vies (amusingly) with his supposed master Howl for Lettie's affections, Michael is a cute little kid who clings to Sophie's skirts and tells her he loves her (gag, again). So many fun and clever things from the book were gone ... the photocopied John Donne poem that becomes both a spell and a curse, Sophie's complicated relationship with her family, Howl/Howell's backstory as a ne'er-do-well college student who stumbles into a magic world where he's actually *cool* and good at something for a change, Howell's obvious affection for his niece back on Earth. And while I could deal with losing these wonderful things if we got something wonderful in return, the fact that they've been traded for a sappy love story and an over-the-top antiwar message kinda gets my back up. Plus, a ton of the extra plot things in the movie were never explained at all. What was up with the witch's shadow creatures? I thought of them as sort of "essence of distilled hate", but they were never explained and just vanished and were never mentioned again when she got aged. Where did the black door lead in the movie? It appeared to lead into the middle of the war zone at first, and the thought crossed my mind early in the movie that it might actually be the future. Then when Sophie goes after Howl, it leads into his memories and the past. It's a deus ex machina door, is what it is ... it just takes the characters whereever they have to be for the plot to work.
There *were* a few things that I liked about the movie. Calcifer, unlike any of the other characters, was perfect. There were some gorgeous visuals; the castle alone was worth seeing (and a good example of one of the few things in the movie that was completely different from the book and yet ... WORKED). There were some hilarious moments with the dog. Howl and Sophie's physical appearance was very nicely done -- it was a little startling to have Howl so effeminate and pretty-looking, when he isn't even supposed to be that handsome in the book, but it was certainly nice to look at. I also liked his transformations -- they were just the right combination of cool and ghastly.
But the rest of it ... BLECH.
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I had a similar reaction to Steamboy. Visually *oh, wow* but the story was as thin as rice paper. *sigh*
I'm very nervous about V for Vendetta. The reviews aren't promising. *Goes to the DVD rack and looks fondly at the LOTR set* -thank you Peter Jackson. But...
-we need to talk about that battle of Helm's Deep.
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I kind of suspected Sophie had a power like that [she did keep doing things she shouldn't of been able to do, like mess with the curse, control Calicfer etc.]. Mabye Miyazaki felt it should be understated.... same thing with the ties to the real world, which might of been a bit much to squeeze into an already lengthy movie.
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The portrayal of the war was an odd juxtaposition of British and Japanese perspectives. Some elements were common, but the people being shocked by a battleship returning damaged and the theme of war being a pointless activity driven by the whim of the king seem especially Japanese. FOr the British, who were forced into WWII, you wouldn't expect war to be portrayed as being so frivolous.
Also, I don't think Miyazaki, fantastic storyteller that he is, is well equipped to tell a story that revolves around Western-style children growing up. He doesn't really like kids and has very little patience for them. He's a devoutly traditional Japanese man and the Japanese concept of childhood is quite different from the western one. There is a level of compassion for youth and a tolerance to let children screw things up their own way and learn from their own mistakes that doesn't seem present in his moveis.
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I did notice, though, that the overall portrayal of war in the movie is as something that just *happens* ... sort of like a natural disaster. You're going along minding your own business, and suddenly you're in a war. And if the people at the top decide to stop having a war, then the war just stops. War is not in any way a means to an end; it's just a thing unto itself, a one-word concept. Very top-down, very Japanese, like you're saying. Maybe the reason it rings false to me is because I'm used to thinking of war as being a more chaotic, less hierarchical thing.
Also an interesting point about Japanese vs. Western childhood. I dunno, though ... while it's true that most of his characters tend to conform to Japanese behavior ideals, I don't think Miyazaki is necessarily incapable of doing Western children. The girl mechanic in "Porco Rosso" was tough and cheeky and all the things that Sophie *could* have been if he hadn't taken her down a different path. It is true that his kids tend to be usually much more docile and servile than we think of as being normal for children, though... I hadn't really thought about it that way.
If it comes to that, though, it's pretty rare for kids to act like kids in Western entertainment, too. Especially animated movies, in spite of the fact that they're supposed to be *for* children. Dunno if you've seen "Lilo & Stitch", but one of the things I loved about that movie is that the little girl acts like a very realistic four-year-old who is having some emotional issues. She's neither an ultra-cutesy, obedient little kid, nor is she a total brat -- just a believable child.
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I've decided after watching the movie that I don't even really want to compare it with the book - they're too totally different things. Judging the two pieces as separate works of art I prefer the book, I think, and that saddens me in a way because I love the works of Studio Ghibli. You hit so many of the things that I missed from the book, and I honestly ache that Sophie's utter determination to not be charmed by Howl was removed. And you're right that in some spots (the moment where Markl embraced Sophie, for instance) that really DID make me gag and/or roll my eyes. All in all the movie wasn't that true to the book - it just took sort of the same premise and ran in an entirely different direction with it. To be perfectly honest though (and I feel a little silly admitting this) I did enjoy the movie. The animation was as lovely as ever (the scene where Howl moved Calcifer? Beautiful.) and Howl's transformations fascinated me - I would have loved it if they played more with that concept. And there needed to be more Calcifer. <3 He was so great. The line where he told Sophie that he needed something of hers - her eyes, her heart, but something - that gave me a little turn. I enjoyed that.
But basically I do agree that it's not as good as the book. The interesting ideas that were introduced were underdeveloped, and, well... I just don't know what else to say. I think that about sums it up. It was honestly quite shocking to see how deeply Miyazaki... twisted... the story. I keep wondering why. Is it just that there were things in the book that they felt couldn't be easily portrayed in a movie? Was it presumed that the movie would be too long, and wouldn't hold audience interest, if they didn't include everything? I don't know. Miyazaki doesn't shy away from complexity, I think; looking at, say, Princess Mononoke he can obviously do very subtle, thoughtful, non-formulaic movies. Here he just... didn't. In the long run I think I'll be glad to have the movie, but in the contest between the movie and the book... the book wins. No further questions.
It does make me wonder what the adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea will be like, though. Maybe that plot will translate a little better to being a movie; it seems somewhat more straightforward.
On an off-topic note: hey, guess what! I just got the latest Blade of the Immortal this week. It's goooooood. =)
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About the movie ... I really don't think there's anything wrong with liking it. It was visually very beautiful, and there were definitely things I liked. (Calcifer!) In the end, though, the saccharine-ness spoiled it for me, especially compared to the book. I think I could have dealt with that aspect of the movie a lot better if the book hadn't been so ... well, cynical isn't really the right word, but, I guess, unromantic? About as unromantic as you can get in a fantasy romance, anyway. ;) And that was a big part of its charm -- here you had this completely prosaic girl without a romantic illusion in her head, and this guy who's a total ass (if a charming and likeable ass) and they fall in love. Then the movie turns it into a pretty straightforward "Oh, my hero!" love story and I just ... had a big problem accepting that. I was expecting to have things cut out of the book and switched around. I could have dealt with that. It's the fact that what they ended up with was, in my view, so much *less* ... so much less than the book, and so much less than it could have been.
And, yeah, it was doubly disappointing because it was Miyazaki and I haven't felt in the past that his movies had so much trouble walking the line of realistic vs. sentimental. Have you seen Porco Rosso? Now why couldn't this movie have had the same funny-serious-cynical-fairy-tale tone as that one? Sigh... I remember finding out that Studio Ghibli was going to do the movie, and being all excited because I thought that it would be done *right* -- even if it didn't match the book very well, it would be a really good movie. But I didn't really like the movie, and that saddened me.
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I've been reading the summaries of later books, and it sounds like Doa and Ikkaku will be sticking around for a good while, at least. That makes me happy because Doa seems pretty cool. <3 I can nix the rest.
Yeah, the movie. Oh, the movie, the movie, the movie. I like it while still being utterly disappointed by it, and only after having hacked it off in my mind from having any more than a vestigial connection with the book. =( I miss the slightly self-mocking feel to it as well - the movie takes itself utterly seriously... and as a result I ended up rolling my eyes quite a bit. Alas! >.>
I haven't seen Porco Rosso, although I am interested in it. I want to see the one with the girl and the magical cat as well; that one looks cute. I've discussed the film with several of my friends who have also seen it, and we generally agree that it isn't THAT great a job of portraying the book. Alas... at least there are many other excellent Miyazaki films to enjoy.
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"Kiki's Delivery Service" -- that's the one with the cat. I liked it, but of all the Miyazaki movies I'd seen up to that point, it was probably my least favorite (HMC now having taken that honor ;) ) ... it was a lot more of a "kid" movie than most of Studio Ghibli's output tends to be. Also, the English voice of the cat kinda grated on me a little bit -- not that it wasn't well acted, like all of the Disney dubs of the Ghibli movies, but the particular voice actor wasn't enjoyable, for me, to listen to. It was certainly worth seeing, though.
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And the war stuff being so tacked-on...made it feel like the movie really was written by someone who had read the book once about 10 years ago and didn't really remember any of it clearly (except for the bit with the green ooze tantrum, but then that is pretty unforgettable) so filled in the forgotten parts with an old script of some other movie.
And next up is EarthSea. Verra curious about that one...
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Regarding Howl's appearance in the book ... I don't remember exactly, but it seems like Calcifer kept referring to him as "plain" (although that just could be Calcifer being Calcifer) and Sophie's main comment on his appearance when she first met him was that he had a long, angular face with striking eyes -- more of an interesting face than a handsome face, was my general impression. I imagined him as one of those people who is definitely sexy but not particularly attractive ... if that makes any sense.
On the other hand, *that's* the kind of purist thing that I'm really not a stickler for; I don't mind if the production crew changes a character's appearance as long as they still have the right feel for the character. But if you're going to completely change them into a different person in all ways, what's the point of trying to have it be that character in the first place?
I hate to be one of those people who nitpicks every little change from the book, because those people usually drive me crazy. ;) But in this case, it was, to roughly paraphrase what you said ... not so much that they *changed* the book, as that they just didn't really *get* the book at all. And even if you completely forget the book (which I kept trying to do) and think of it as an original work that happens to share a few superficial features with the book, I didn't feel that the movie held together that well as a story.
From what I've heard, Earthsea got totally butchered by the Sci-fi Channel production, so the Ghibli one will probably be better than that, at least. ;) Luckily in this case, it isn't a book that I have much emotionally vested in -- I've only read two of the books, and it was a long time ago.
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