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squeequegJust got back from seeing Howl's Moving Castle with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thomascantor.
The animation is stunning, the moving castle itself is perfect, and much of the movie held me spellbound. However, there's a major problem with the end: specifically, there's a plotline that gets tied up way too quickly, and any understanding of it is dependent on one line of dialogue that gets overheard early in the movie. Normally, heavy foreshadowing irritates me, but this could have been made a little better with just a few references to this dilemma before it's abruptly solved. Still, it's a problem no matter what, and it smacks too much of a deus ex machina.
It's been a little while since I read the book, so I don't know how much it departs from the story. Quite a bit, I think. I think one reviewer has called it "a fantasia on the book," and that seems to be an accurate description.
I admit I may be overly willing to forgive Miyazaki for any flaws in the movie. I didn't read the novel until after I heard the movie was coming out, and so don't have as much of a bond with it as I might have if I read it during adolescence. (It's a good novel, too, and I'd recommend it -- but it might be best not to read it just before or just after seeing the movie.) But Miyazaki's was the first anime I saw that actually made an impact on me (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, when I was sixteen. These days I like the manga better, but I still have a soft spot for the movie). He's my standard for good anime.
And despite the ending, this movie still drew me in, showed me wonders, and told a beautiful story. Compared with a lot of movies out there these days, that's pretty good.
We were seeing the dubbed version (forgot to check the times for the subtitled version), but it wasn't a bad dub. There were a few problems (asthomascantor put it, times when the characters were speaking breathlessly in order to get their entire line in), but on the whole it seemed pretty good. I'm curious as to what the subtitled version would be like. Also, I would now pay just to hear Christian Bale talk. Mmm.
thomascantor. The animation is stunning, the moving castle itself is perfect, and much of the movie held me spellbound. However, there's a major problem with the end: specifically, there's a plotline that gets tied up way too quickly, and any understanding of it is dependent on one line of dialogue that gets overheard early in the movie. Normally, heavy foreshadowing irritates me, but this could have been made a little better with just a few references to this dilemma before it's abruptly solved. Still, it's a problem no matter what, and it smacks too much of a deus ex machina.
It's been a little while since I read the book, so I don't know how much it departs from the story. Quite a bit, I think. I think one reviewer has called it "a fantasia on the book," and that seems to be an accurate description.
I admit I may be overly willing to forgive Miyazaki for any flaws in the movie. I didn't read the novel until after I heard the movie was coming out, and so don't have as much of a bond with it as I might have if I read it during adolescence. (It's a good novel, too, and I'd recommend it -- but it might be best not to read it just before or just after seeing the movie.) But Miyazaki's was the first anime I saw that actually made an impact on me (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, when I was sixteen. These days I like the manga better, but I still have a soft spot for the movie). He's my standard for good anime.
And despite the ending, this movie still drew me in, showed me wonders, and told a beautiful story. Compared with a lot of movies out there these days, that's pretty good.
We were seeing the dubbed version (forgot to check the times for the subtitled version), but it wasn't a bad dub. There were a few problems (as
thomascantor put it, times when the characters were speaking breathlessly in order to get their entire line in), but on the whole it seemed pretty good. I'm curious as to what the subtitled version would be like. Also, I would now pay just to hear Christian Bale talk. Mmm.
