Tales from Earthsea - Broken Kode • by Khaled Abou Alfa

Tales from Earthsea by Goro Miyazaki (the son of Hayao). File this under "I hadn't heard anything about this until yesterday" sections. This movie seems to have all the right ingredients. It's an adaptation of the great Earthsea story (which I'm a huge fan of). It's being done by Studio Ghibli, who are to me like Pixar, they can do no wrong. Finally it's directed by a Miyazaki, so it's bound to be great right? I was like, oh cool, it's his son doing a movie. That's bound to be interesting.

Then I started thinking, hang on, I've never heard he had a son that was into animation. Seems like there has been a series of in house fighting over the fact that Goro was given this movie to direct. Surprisingly the main instigator to all of this was his own father. Reading around further (article from the latest Little White Lies) shows that the father/son relationship has completely broken down and is practically non-existent really. Honestly, this has kinda taken away from the movie from me. It's not a particularly happy story but alas a new Ghibli movie is always cause for celebration.

The movie is out in cinemas in the UK as of the 3rd of August. Loads of good links over at the wikipedia page. You can read Goro's translated production blog over at Nausicaa.net

Meta . Info

Upon reading Le Guin's response to the new adaptation, it certainly seems more promising than that awful Sci-Fi Channel miniseries (which earned the coveted "The Sci-Fi Channel ruined my books!" remark from Le Guin herself), but there are some interesting points regarding the Hayao vs. Goro Miyazaki mess which I think should be mentioned:
It was explained to us that Mr Hayao wished to retire from film making, and that the family and the studio wanted Mr Hayao's son Goro, who had never made a film at all, to make this one. We were very disappointed, and also anxious, but we were given the impression, indeed assured, that the project would be always subject to Mr Hayao's approval. With this understanding, we made the agreement.

At that time, work had already started on the film: a copy of the poster of the child and the dragon was given us as a gift, and also a sketch of Hort Town by Mr Hayao and the finished version of it from the studio artists.

Work on the film went on extremely rapidly after that. We realised soon that Mr Hayao was taking no part in making the film at all.

I had a very moving letter from him, and later one from Mr Goro. I answered them as well as I could.

I am sorry that anger and disappointment attended the making of this film on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

I am told that Mr Hayao has not retired after all, but is now making another movie. This has increased my disappointment. I hope to put it behind me.
Follow the link to her response above to read her initial review of the film.

James
Hm, I thought I had put that in blockquotes. Oh well. For the record, everything from "It was explained to us that . . ." to "I hope to put it behind me." was quoted from Le Guin's response to the new adaptation.

James
And I just noticed the U.S. release date, "unannounced: 2009 or later". What's the deal, Disney? Does it take that long to get it through customs?

James
I loved Spirited Away and have tried to watch out for Miyazaki's movies so even though this is by his son, i hope to see it on the torrent sites soon if 2009 is indeed the case for us here in the States. Sad that the relationship is non-existent but their little feud aside, i hope this is as good as everyone is saying.

Dustin
Blogroll Dive: 7/23/07...
Here are the highlights from today’s Blogroll dive:
Bryan asked, “[Are you] blogging for yourself or to get comments?”
Khaled discussed the upcoming U.K. release of Tales from Earthsea.
Rick reached yet-another birthday!
Jim shared t...

MacManX.com
The 2009 date has to do with TV-rights (in Japan, I imagine)...I wonder if there's a chance of getting the subbed version she was shown!

James John Malcolm (AkaXakA)

You can also comment as a Tweet.