Why did Hayao Miyazaki Dislike Tales from Earthsea?

[JohnJosephTed]

Honestly. I liked this movie, It wasn’t boring nor stupid. The only thing that shocked me, was when the kid cutted of the hand of main antagonist. It was very detailed, and the fact that there previously wasn’t any scene like this (no blood) was a big shock. The music was beautiful, also the story, characters were great. Besides that, it was nice to have happy ending, not like in most of ghibli’s movies. I enjoyed this movie, and in my opinion, it’s one of the most underrated movies from ghibli studios. Regards

[zion]

Is it possible Hayao saw himself as the king and his son as the prince:
He did say upon walking out from the screening that you shouldn't make a picture with your emotions. The dragons might be prolific animators, and an idealized version of his father.

Probably not, but if I were Hayao and I felt even a shred of guilt, I probably would've seen that lol

[aronsmith]

I really liked this movie and the theme song omg so beautiful. The world is very interesting and so colorful. And Arren is so handsome 😊

[jonathanprudencio]

Studio Ghibli worst movie is better than any Disney movie in 2022

[CoconutmilkFilms]

This was a great analysis of the movie, and a robust look into the complexities of morality in our world. Thanks a lot for making it!

[vilstef]

Goro Miazaki has made a good film. That one is From Up On Poppy Hill.

[dogbert]

Definitely look more into the history of the production. Goro Miyazaki was a professional landscaper and he was pressured by his father to direct this film. Notice that Miyazaki didn't give a member of his animation team a chance to direct this movie. As Brilliant as a director and animator Miyazaki was, he failed to foster the talents of his own animation team, who would have to leave to found their own studios in order to lead their own projects. He is a surprisingly traditional man who tried to force his son to inherit the family business when that son had never shown a desire or talent for said business. While Studio Ghibli lives on as an IP Holder and doing some animation work, they are not the juggernaut they used to be and it's because there was one room for one master creator.

[Sokolva]

I like your discussion on this complicated topic. I watched Goro's "Tales from Earthsea" before I read through LeGuin's series fully years later. Even though I hadn't yet read the books, I had these same issues with the movie, and felt that it had deep flaws keeping it from being a masterpiece of beauty, as Hayao's Ghibli movies have always been. The storytelling and character writing issues run so deep, that despite there being beautiful moments in the story, and gorgeous animation, it ends up feeling incomplete. It takes an entire team to create a movie, and it makes me wish that Hayao could have been there, mentoring his sun and helping him as a director in this project--or if not him, another talented and experienced writer and director. Such aid would have been incredibly valuable, because it takes years of experience to get good at storytelling and editing and refining a story. LeGuin herself spent years honing her craft and learning why things work and why they don't, and she has a very unique and beautiful storytelling sense and style, and worldview revealed in her stories that could have fit Ghibli's style so well.

I think part of the problem here might even be one of arrogance mingled with inexperience. Goro clearly put all of his effort into the project, but instead of choosing one of the Earthsea stories to adapt, and staying true to the characters and making the story beats work for film, which is a huge effort and very difficult task on his own, he adopted to take on the Earthsea project but then use the characters and world of the story to tell his own tale. This could work, especially in the hands of someone who is an experienced writer, or someone who is working alongside experienced writers, but I think that the method he chose was in a way, the worst of both worlds. He took beloved characters and reworked and rewrote them like he was writing fanfiction, and made Prince Arren into his own character with a completely different and unrecognizable arc. I think it would have been easier to simply write an Earthsea novel of his own within the world, making up his own characters entirely and perhaps only having them meet important characters like Sparrowhawk/ Ged, but the way that he choose to use the original characters but ALSO change and alter them into often unrecognizable forms to fit his own story binds him to expectation (the expectations of Earthsea fans) and yet also has him breaking those expectations in awkward ways.

Hayao Miyazaki took on a similar project with "Howl's Moving Castle, " another book that I love and have read. He did change a lot with the novel, cutting out a lot of plot points which wouldn't fit in the story, and adding events and story moments that didn't happen, or reimagining them. What he DIDN'T change was the characters. His depictions of Howl and Sophie are actually quite accurate, in the same way that an actor will bring their own interpretation to the table of a character when bringing them to life for a film, but they are still very recognizable to their book counterparts. There wasn't anything that happened in the film that felt like it betrayed or departed from their characters' core identity or goals. Because of this, though the movie has different focus and somewhat different scenes and conclusions to the book, they end up feeling like they are created in the same spirit and are faithful in a creative, interesting way, adding to the world of the book without betraying it. Hayao Miyazaki actually chose to do an easier thing, in my opinion, than Goro did when it came to adapting a beloved novel--he made sure he really understood the characters, and he stayed true to them and represneted them and their story, while reimagining the events that occur to them in places.

Goro, in deciding to essentially write what feels more like fan fiction which departs and recontextualizes the characters and what their goals and personalities are entirely in order to serve a new story with ghosts of its inspirations, chooses a much harder and more difficult path to write a movie's story, and make it solid and good. He has to now come up with entirely new, amazing characters, good solid motives, and sell these changes to an audience who are familiar with those original characters. The changes have to be so good, and so interesting, that even people who love the original character need to enjoy the new character and accept this as an alternate world that they enjoy. Not only that, because the characters are no longer recognizable to their story counterparts, Goro also needed to come up with interesting character motivations and an entirely new storyline, because different characters move through a story differently and make different decisions.

I'm not trying to blame or attack Goro as a person at all, this is a critique of his choice as a writer, and within the context of the fact that he was given control of a huge and very prestigious movie studio and also book IP BECAUSE of the success of his father, not because of his own. He hadn't built up his experience working with stories like this, he hadn't failed on his own projects and had to prove himself to others as a writer, director, or artist. He hasn't had to write stories in any way, and he was a fan of the Earthsea series, but he has never adapted his own, or anothers story to screen. Yet he was thrown behind the wheel of this enormous project, given what seems to be free rein and almost no guidance, and he did what most writers do when they are writing their own stories for the first time; he wrote derivative fan fiction, exploring his own characters within the characters of an already existing story, and testing out the themes that interested him. Those themes were fear of death and terror of failing, an powerful father whom the son slays and never has to really come to terms with, and fear of oneself and ones death being a major driving motivation for evil. These are all really interesting ideas that haven't achieved a focus yet, and could have worked well and been explored within LeGuin's current stories, had one of them been adapted, but Goro wanted to explore his own ideas and write his own story, I think, and when given the power to do so, he did.

The result is a story which doesn't even come close to matching the excellence of LeGuin's novels, but could have. Nor does it live up to the reputation of one of the greatest and most experienced directors of all time. No surprise. Goro was extremely inexperienced and it shows deeply in his writing. I would like to see more films from him. I just wish the project that had been dropped in his lap to try adapting as a test run with wasn't Earthsea. Its an absolute missed opportunity and wasn't fair to LeGuin. She only accepted having her books adapted (something she had resisted happening in Hollywood for years despite their success, knowing how likely it was to botch it) because she trusted and loved Hayao Miyazaki as a director. To have an entirely new and untested director running the studio and rewriting her book as a kind of fan fiction reimagining is sad to see, when her fans can now only wish it could have been different. It takes so so so many people, so many hours, and so much money to make such a painstakingly animated film. If only the script had been looked over and studied by someone other than Goro, or someone willing to tell him no, or give him suggestions and edits--if even the writer herself had been brought on as a consultant, it could have been so, so much different.

[israel]

I remember I drove over two hours to go see it when this first played, 2 hours! 😂

[benvids]

One of the better Ghibli movies I think. Amazing soundtrack and a good relatable story of an angry young man, which most young men are at some point in their upbringing.

[typhoonthunder]

Man.

Tales From Earthsea was the very last film from Studio Ghibli I ever watched for the first time. As I went through the list of movies on my quest to watch them all, I intentionally left Earthsea unwatched because I hadn't heard good things about it. I eventually buckled and sat down to watch it.
It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but MAN is this a real slog of a film to get through.
The movie's opening is intriguing. Dragons fighting to the death and a group of high government officials worried about the state of the world because the "balance" has been upset. Plus, Arren's introduction is quite striking, leading nicely into Sparrowhawk coming to the rescue. I also really like the ways the world tries to tempt Arren into forgetting his problems. The movie's message is decent as well.
But good lord, I was just dozing off throughout most of it. For the most part we're meandering around boring, plain-ass Earthsea with these stoic, lifeless fantasy archetype characters. Spending time with this tweaking, unstable teenager is really unpleasant and I barely feel anything for him, especially after he faces no consequences for murdering his dad. Cob barely does anything villainous until the last 20 minutes, leaving him a really pathetic and forgettable villain despite some great performances from both the English and Japanese VAs. The fight scenes have such low energy that I was legitimately bored to tears.
Watch Porco Rosso if you want an asshole protagonist who turns good in the end. Watch Princess Mononoke if you want high energy fight scenes and a high stakes plot. Watch Only Yesterday if you want this film's slow pace. Watch Ponyo if you want charming characters, of which this movie has none of. It's not terrible, but I can absolutely understand Miyzaki's dislike towards this film.

[brettemiller]

I tried watching this movie and gave up 30 min in. There was 4 openings: the dragons fighting and the ship, the king and his cabinet then the king gets blasted, the old wizard dude, then the kid comes on the scene. I was so confused and frustrated by this point asking "who is even our main character?!?". then Aaron can't decide on a personality and swings quickly between shy/earnest and EdgeLord, None of his actions in the beginning make any sense and its frustrating to watch. Especially when expecting a Ghibli movie. Goro did much better with From Up on Poppy Hill.

[williamlee]

The movie is a struggle but I believe it was Goro’s first attempt at a full feature length film. And for all the pressure on his shoulders I thought it was fine. What kills me is that with some encouragement he could have improved and blessed us with more films. Instead he lost his confidence and made From up on Poppy Hill which while charming lacks the risk taking of Earthsea which embraced dark themes of anger and morality. For all the humanity his father displays in his films, I believe he could have nurtured his son better. Remember his father cut his teeth making whimsical childrens cartoons for decades before he even wrote and directed his own stuff. I wish Goro would trust his own voice and make more
films but such is Japanese culture.

[toriglory]

Ngl I loved Tales of Earthsea. Its great to me. Even the newest movie his son made was interesting to me. It was only the animation that kinda looked weird, but the story was good.

[SpoonG]

As a huge fan of Earthsea for the last 25 years, I might point out that all the attempts at adaptation (including the horrible tv 2 part adaptation) fail completely to get the basics of LeGuin's messages. There are five huge books and a number of short stories to this world, which describe and detail many aspects of it. The most glaring visual discrepancy is that Ged and all the people from the northern islands are dark skinned, and described with Native American-like features, those from the southern islands (like Arren) are explicitly black and the only whites are the people from the Karg empire (Tenar's home country), who are depicted as alien and "weird" from the islanders point of view - which is why Tenar is gossiped about in her later years in Gont. Also, Tehru/Tehanu is disabled, having half of her body scarred and maimed by having been burned by her bio parents as a child, and this is why the people in Gont (who are ignorant and racist, as we already established) treat her like a monster - and also because she's a dragon, but we get an explanation for that in book 5, it's not just slapped in our face like a level-up.
It's such a shame for this beautiful work to be misunderstood in its core themes and general vibe, just to be treated as a common male hero quest against an external evil (there's nothing wrong with that theme, but there's plenty of other stories with that, why bother changing this one?), instead of the existential journey of this particular kind of humanity towards a better society.

[Anikoxx]

I didn’t realise it would be so scary and violent, as I was watching it with my young kids 9 and 5. I had to cover their faces with a blanket for most of the ending. Ugh Cob’s eyes and arm being cut off was the worst parts I wish I knew about beforehand.

[ZootopiaBlueyFan]

Goro Miyazaki pretty much made Ghibli's equivalent to The Black Cauldron both Earthsea and Cauldron are based on one of the novels and are the black sheep of each animation studio (Before something far worse),
But afterwards Ponyo saved Ghibli's reputation like Ariel saved Disney's.

[puppy_]

Yes exactly!!! I couldn’t have said it better. I definitely think there is some fun to be had with the art direction and dialogue, some stuff is so camp and I love it, but it’s definitely very stiff compared to other Studio Ghibli works.
I really appreciate your perspective on this as it feels very balanced without doing the polarizing thing that art commentators seem to fall into these days.
And I’m intrigued to read the Earthsea books! :)) I’m glad they’re as human as the movie was (unfortunately) unable to be.

[markcasadevall]

If any one wants a good Tales from Earthsea. It’s called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[eavn]

You ever just confess to a girl who despised you until five minues ago that you murdered your father?