Unrelated Movie Post

[forsyth]

I finally saw Howl's Moving Castle the other night, and... honestly, I wasn't that impressed. It probably didn't help that I had read the book already, but my friends who were watching it with me hadn't read the book, and they weren't that impressed either.

It started out pretty good, then it went off into this war tangent, and then melodramatic love, and at one point there was time travel, I think, and it was just weird. Not really the cool kind of weird, either. And there were gratuitous airships. I'm an airship junkie, and these were cool, but I'm not quite sure why there were funky fish-like airships flying around bombing the crap out of everything. Well, I know WHY, but I'm not sure why the plot needed it. The war was mentioned VERY briefly with a "A neighboring nation's prince is missing and blames us! They're going to go to war!" line in a background conversation you could easily miss. It wasn't really necessary, and wasn't in the book, which was a lot more of a fairytale and character development thing.

I've come to suspect a lot of anime is about World War II, even when it's not. I think that's part of why Steamboy and Howl's Moving Castle both went into the "lots of people die, but not everyone, and not the main characters, hurrah!" style of happy ending. World War II in Japan was a lot different than WWII in the US. They're the only country that ever got nuked in war. (As opposed to all the ones nuked for testing) They lost, completely, and had their empire, their army, and a lot of other things taken away. And they were the aggressors, forced to admit their wrong. That's a lot different than the American experience. And makes a good reason for valuing narratives of survival amidst destruction, and that sort of thing. But even so, it's not always necessary, and can hurt the narrative. Like here. Or maybe that's just my American cultural bias talking. But I enjoyed all of Miyazaki's other movies I've seen. Well, I had to wonder "WHY do they always blow up the awesome source of ancient knowledge?" in one, but that's a failing in lots of fantasy.

Japan hasn't been involved in a war since. In the US, the defining wars are WWII, and Vietnam.

Comments

[leticia.livejournal.com]

Don't worry. WWIII will redefine everything that's left afterwards.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Aren't you little miss cheerful?

[leticia.livejournal.com]

Yep!
I have years worth of food and artesian well water, am shielded by mountains from the worst zones, and the rain water comes off over the pacific and will hopefully be reasonably low on fallout.
I'll miss you all, though.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Miyazaki's got a thing for archaic and/or odd flying machines and for antiwar statements, so he puts them in nearly everything he does. Usually it works, but usually he's not adapting somebody else's story.

Howl's was pretty, but far from Miyazaki's best work.

Steamboy, on the other hand, was a complete pile of shit. Cool visuals, but I wanted to kill all of the main characters. Especially that bratty, whiney rich girl. I was pissed that she lived. The central "philosophical" question of "is science about making everybody happy, or blowing things up?", with Dad and Grandpa representing each side, was utterly retarded. And if they wanted anybody to consider either one, they probably shouldn't have made it so both elder Steams were obviously completely off their rockers. The main character's dialogue was 99% "wha?" and "huh?". Good god, I want that hour or so back...

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Steamboy was good, for about the first...third or so of it. Until it turned to Dad and Grandpa screaming at each other and the plot ground to a halt. I so wanted to like that movie.