I posted my feelings about Howl's Moving Castle a month ago, in the Nausicaä thread. Here are the highlights:
LeeZion:I don't know, I got spoiled by watching Miyazaki's later films before I got a chance to see Nausicäa, so it doesn't stand up all that well. The animation looks a lot more flat, and the colors more muted.
The story is good. But when seen side-by-side with
Princess Mononoke, which came about 15 years later, it seems that Mononoke is the film that Nausicaä
wanted to be.
Moiche:Definitely, Nausicaa is one of my favorites. Exemplifies Miyazaki's innocence & environmentalism themes to an extent even greater than My Neighbour Totoro or Princess Mononoke. Contains genuine moral ambiguity and honest to goodness adult happenings (there is a whole whack of people who die in that movie -- unlike Princess Mononoke where it's mostly the animals who get it). The spore forest scenes & Ohmus were beautiful, and the Pieta at the end was extraordinary (and shamlessly plagiarized by the Wachowskis at the end of the Third Matrix movie).
I don't know, I got spoiled by watching Miyazaki's later films before I got a chance to see Nausicäa, so it doesn't stand up all that well. The animation looks a lot more flat, and the colors more muted.
I had the opposite reaction: watching Nausicaa recently only brought to mind how shallow Miyazaki's last offering (Howl's Moving Castle) was in comparison. Beautiful, but absolutely superficial and pandering. I was so disappointed. A war that ends at a whim, and not one but two Prince Charmings that are saved by a kiss? Give me my Ohmus please.
LeeZion:watching Nausicaa recently only brought to mind how shallow Miyazaki's last offering (Howl's Moving Castle) was in comparison.
Yes, Howl could have been much better. Before the movie came out, I read the book by Diana Wynne Jones and, unlike the movie, it made
sense. I kept wishing the movie had been more like the book.
In the book:
1) There is no war.
2) The Witch of the Waste has two other victims — the King's brother, and the King's wizard Suliman. One is turned into a scarecrow and one is turned into a dog (I forget which is which). Sophie saves them both.
3) It's Sophie's sheer force of will that undoes the spell on them, although she doesn't understand it at first. She is terrified of the scarecrow, not realizing that she was the one who breathed life into it by talking to it.
4) The Witch of the Waste, like Howl, made a pact with a fire demon and gets her power from it. Unlike Howl, she has had been with the fire demon so long that it has already destroyed her. Once Howl kills the Witch of the Waste, he then has to fight her fire demon.
5) Lots of other subplots — Sophie has two sisters, and not just one.
6) All this is told in a narrative that turns the conventions of the fairy tale upside down, at the same time it pays tribute to them. The book and movie versions of The Princess Bride did the same thing.
The book was much better, and I strongly recommend it. The movie was very good at the start but ceased to be coherent after a while. To me, the flick fell apart at about the same time the castle did.
But I still think Mononoke trumps Nausicäa.
Moiche:Let's agree to disagree. Admittedly, both the Japanese public and Miyazaki himself far preferred Mononoke (Miyazaki was ashamed at the "miracle" that occurs at the end of Nausicaa because it is religious and he isn't, but he couldn't find any other way to resolve the situation.) And the technology, quality of the coloring, dubbing are all far superior in Mononoke.
That being said, I was bitterly disappointed at the end of Mononoke: with the ease with which Eboshi killed Shishi Gami, with the fact that she ultimately survives to rebuild Iron-Town, with the way Ashitaka and San's relationship was left in the end (she's going to live in the forest, and he in the city. Yep that's really going to work. Someone should tell the boy about the success rate of long-distance relationships).
Nausicaa on the other hand contains two of my favorite scenes in cinema: when Princess Nausicaa placates the Ohmu at the beginning (which is just beautiful), and the resurrection scene at the end. I honestly don't know how you can watch that end scene without feeling like a better person because of it. Nothing in Mononoke affected me like that.
trolley:Noone has mentioned Spirited away. That film was ten shades of awesome.
LeeZion:Just about everything from Miyazaki and studio Ghibli is awesome, although some films are awesome-er than others. I really loved Whispers of the Heart, and I loved The Cat Returns.
Taken together, Mononoke, Pom Poko and Nausicäa can be seen as a trilogy of environmental destruction — past, present and future.
