Hayao's Moving Castle
Jul. 14th, 2005 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianSeattle folks: The last show (9:35) at the Metro every day is subtitled. You even get ticket stubs that say "HAURU NO UGOKU", though they couldn't fit "shiro" onto it.
I may have to see the dub at some point too. Though, Billy Crystal as Calcifer? I fear it.
The fairy-tale world in the movie is much less self-aware. Book-Sophie is fixated on being a failure because she's the eldest, and other roles are definitely there too. Plus, there's a whole fairy-tale progression when she sets off to seek her fortune, and we circle around the concept at other times too.
That's part of the thing that bothered me most about the movie: Just where the hell is Sophie's magic? That is NOT a separable plot element.
Movie-Sophie's family is vastly simplified, and there's no sense of flux in their living arrangements. I suppose I can see cutting that, even if it does lead to problems, particularly the complete lack of incluing about Howl's and Calcifer's situation. (Cutting the sisters' importance -- and Martha altogether? -- meant cutting Howl's lady-killer persona, which is what kept bringing up the heart issues.)
Movie-Michael (apparently "Markl") seems to be about six years old. An odd choice, but in keeping with the simplification of Sophie's family, since one of the things his teenageness does is allow him to court Martha-as-Lettie, who's much less present in the movie.
The reconfiguration of door destinations actually worked very well for me. I've never liked the present-day Wales parts of the book much anyway, and animating them would've probably been really confusing.
So many of the little incidents are gone. No star-chasing, no sneaking around after Howl when he's courting, only a little cooking. The thing I said right after the movie was that Miyazaki has made so many slow, quiet, lovely movies that we know he can do it beautifully -- so why on earth would he take out slow-building character stuff and put in the exploding things? Howl-as-creature was awfully compelling, I suppose, but the story worked with heartless courting too. Maybe it's something the screenwriter did.
The movie completely added a bit in which the Witch of the Waste loses her power and becomes part of the household, as well as a war in progress which was only threatening in the book. I found the way the war is stopped at the end a little more ambiguous than![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coffee_and_ink did, but only because I was actively looking for an interpretation in which maybe Madam Conflation Suliman wasn't orchestrating the whole thing. (My optimistic interpretation was that maybe with the Prince back part of the reason for the war is gone -- aha, rushthatspeaks says the original dialogue supports that some -- plus if Howl behaves himself instead of fighting it'll all be lower key, so they can actually stop things.)
Another movie add: Sophie's curse is by no means static. It's off when she's sleeping, which lends credence to the book's ending where we hear that she's maintaining it herself, and varies a lot when she's awake, mostly departing when she's especially happy. I want to look for other correlations, so I'm afraid I'll have to attend a second showing.
And, I have to admit, movie-Howl struck right to the utter-infatuation-with-anime-characters target that I didn't think was still inside me, joining that one guy from Star Blazers and Max from Robotech in the strange limbo where that character can do no wrong. (Other individuals haven't come that close for me since those from before high school, though in thinking about it I've concluded that I love entire shows with similar intensity sometimes, especially Cardcaptor Sakura, and some written and drawn characters.) I do not feel at all that way about book-Howl, and I've never totally understood why he and Sophie would want to torture each other on a permanent basis even though I could see the shape of their interactions being okay for them. Sophie in particular does awful privacy-invading things, and I would throw her out of my castle in a minute, even if she were interestingly enchanted.
Okay, what have I forgotten? Nausicaa.net doesn't have a script or movie outline up yet, so I know I've missed things. And what did you think?
(And do readcoffee_and_ink's post linked above, which is notable for being by someone who knows the novel very well and saw lots of problems I didn't fully notice. Here it is again. Interesting points at Mumpsimus, too.)
I may have to see the dub at some point too. Though, Billy Crystal as Calcifer? I fear it.
The fairy-tale world in the movie is much less self-aware. Book-Sophie is fixated on being a failure because she's the eldest, and other roles are definitely there too. Plus, there's a whole fairy-tale progression when she sets off to seek her fortune, and we circle around the concept at other times too.
That's part of the thing that bothered me most about the movie: Just where the hell is Sophie's magic? That is NOT a separable plot element.
Movie-Sophie's family is vastly simplified, and there's no sense of flux in their living arrangements. I suppose I can see cutting that, even if it does lead to problems, particularly the complete lack of incluing about Howl's and Calcifer's situation. (Cutting the sisters' importance -- and Martha altogether? -- meant cutting Howl's lady-killer persona, which is what kept bringing up the heart issues.)
Movie-Michael (apparently "Markl") seems to be about six years old. An odd choice, but in keeping with the simplification of Sophie's family, since one of the things his teenageness does is allow him to court Martha-as-Lettie, who's much less present in the movie.
The reconfiguration of door destinations actually worked very well for me. I've never liked the present-day Wales parts of the book much anyway, and animating them would've probably been really confusing.
So many of the little incidents are gone. No star-chasing, no sneaking around after Howl when he's courting, only a little cooking. The thing I said right after the movie was that Miyazaki has made so many slow, quiet, lovely movies that we know he can do it beautifully -- so why on earth would he take out slow-building character stuff and put in the exploding things? Howl-as-creature was awfully compelling, I suppose, but the story worked with heartless courting too. Maybe it's something the screenwriter did.
The movie completely added a bit in which the Witch of the Waste loses her power and becomes part of the household, as well as a war in progress which was only threatening in the book. I found the way the war is stopped at the end a little more ambiguous than
coffee_and_ink did, but only because I was actively looking for an interpretation in which maybe Madam Conflation Suliman wasn't orchestrating the whole thing. (My optimistic interpretation was that maybe with the Prince back part of the reason for the war is gone -- aha, rushthatspeaks says the original dialogue supports that some -- plus if Howl behaves himself instead of fighting it'll all be lower key, so they can actually stop things.)Another movie add: Sophie's curse is by no means static. It's off when she's sleeping, which lends credence to the book's ending where we hear that she's maintaining it herself, and varies a lot when she's awake, mostly departing when she's especially happy. I want to look for other correlations, so I'm afraid I'll have to attend a second showing.
And, I have to admit, movie-Howl struck right to the utter-infatuation-with-anime-characters target that I didn't think was still inside me, joining that one guy from Star Blazers and Max from Robotech in the strange limbo where that character can do no wrong. (Other individuals haven't come that close for me since those from before high school, though in thinking about it I've concluded that I love entire shows with similar intensity sometimes, especially Cardcaptor Sakura, and some written and drawn characters.) I do not feel at all that way about book-Howl, and I've never totally understood why he and Sophie would want to torture each other on a permanent basis even though I could see the shape of their interactions being okay for them. Sophie in particular does awful privacy-invading things, and I would throw her out of my castle in a minute, even if she were interestingly enchanted.
Okay, what have I forgotten? Nausicaa.net doesn't have a script or movie outline up yet, so I know I've missed things. And what did you think?
(And do read
coffee_and_ink's post linked above, which is notable for being by someone who knows the novel very well and saw lots of problems I didn't fully notice. Here it is again. Interesting points at Mumpsimus, too.)
