Poor Goro. Could there be anything more thankless than taking over a project tailor-made for your genius father, a master of animation renowned for his grace and deep humanity, and attempt to match his best work? When it was announced that Goro Miyazaki, son of anime legend Hayao, was directing the adaptation of
Ursula K LeGuin's
Earthsea novels, you didn't have to be Yubaba the witch to know that it would end in tears.
And so it has.
LeGuin is disappointed, Miyazaki father and son are embroiled in a
public feud, and the movie is a wasted opportunity that can't help but show occasional glimpses of the greatness that might have been. Those glimpses are courtesy of the animators of Studio Ghibli who, in the past, lent their talents and sensibility to classics like
Nausicaa and
My Neighbor Totoro. Their handiwork makes it possible to fool yourself, for long stretches of time, into thinking you're watching a Miyazaki movie -- Hayao Miyazaki, that is.
Tales from Earthsea shows Hayao's trademark realistic touches that give weight and volume. Here are the striking colors, lovable character designs and bizarre creatures, the flying beasts and gooey metamorphoses, as well as the blue skies mottled with fluffy white clouds over windswept hillsides that have indicated Edenic bliss in Ghibli productions as far back as the Heidi TV series.
Given the deceptively Ghibli looks, it takes a while to sink in that a different heart beats underneath the multi-hued surface; the characters' souls aren't as rich and the story isn't as rewarding.
Earthsea looks so much like father's work that the son can't help but look inferior by comparison: missing are the rush of visual invention, the engaging moral ambiguities, and the lovely moments of compassion that elevated
Spirited Away and
Princess Mononoke into some of the best movies ever made.
But even on its own merits,
Tales of Earthsea is a rather thin and unimaginative fantasy story, set in a world that's not fleshed out enough to take on a life beyond what's on the screen and populated by characters we don't understand well enough to empathize with. After an exciting beginning in a wolf-infested desert and a ruined metropolis crawling with slave traders,
Earthsea settles into a domestic idyll. Golden sunsets and songs of loneliness take over the narrative and drain the film of its scale and urgency. Only a few minutes of the final confrontation provide the sense of awe and excitement you'd expect from a fantasy epic.
I'm not familiar with LeGuin's Earthsea books, but the adaptation, however faithful, is a weak mélange of stock genre elements, familiar from every fantasy film you've ever seen: there's a lone prince on the road to find himself, the kindly wizard who helps him along and a father's magic sword that shines with blinding light when drawn. A Dark Lord in a Dark Tower shoots blue death magic from his finger tips and must be defeated to save the world, and there's something called "The Balance" that might as well be called the Force. Motifs and scenes feel like they've been swiped wholesale from The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, but without the specificity and iconic weight that give those movies their power.
According to Wikipedia, Tales from Earthsea does not have a date for US release yet because of licensing problems with the Sci-Fi Channel. The release could be delayed until 2009.
