Hayao Miyazaki is a legendary filmmaker, if there were a Mount Rushmore of great animators Hayao Miyazaki would not only be one of the faces carved into it, his visage would be sitting right next to Walt Disney himself. Now imagine being Hayao's son Goro Miyazaki. For Goro to even attempt to work in the world of animation is a massive burden (which explains why he spent much of his life working as a landscape architect), the constant comparison to his father, good and bad, would make almost anybody uncomfortable and the desire to prove oneself inevitable. While working as a storyboard artist for Studio Ghibli's film Tales of Earthsea, Goro was unexpectedly offered the opportunity to direct the project. Given his lack of experience (Goro had never directed before) one would hope that Goro could see the folly of accepting such a difficult position, unfortunately he didn't.
Hayao Miyazaki was not pleased with his sons decision to helm Tales of Earthsea, he felt that Goro lacked the experience needed to make such an epic film and the two stopped speaking during production. Unfortunately for Goro his fathers concerns turned out to be correct as the film clearly exhibits numerous first time director struggles. This sentiment of inexperience would be echoed by numerous critics as Tales of Earthsea went on to receive very mixed reviews. At the end of the year the film was given the dubious honor of receiving Bunshun's Raspberry Award for "Worst Picture", Goro was also given the "Worst Director" Raspberry. Though Goro's linage undoubtedly played a large roll in the films excessive criticism, Tales of Earthsea ended up being exactly what Hayao feared, an ambitious but ultimately flawed movie directed by a man unprepared to shoulder such responsibility.
The story for Tales of Earthsea was loosely based on the Earthsea novels written by Ursula K. Le Guin. The films beginning is actually pretty engaging with the young Prince Arren - one of the stories main characters - committing a horrible crime and fleeing his kingdom. Now on the run, Arren crosses paths with Sparrowhawk, the Archmage of Earthsea who's trying to locate the source of Earthsea's imbalance (apparently the land is riddled with plague and pestilence). The two strangers soon find themselves traveling together and before long they arrive at Hortown, a city where slavery is legal and human life can be bought and sold. While wandering the city Arren encounters slavers trying to capture a girl his own age, Arren intervenes and saves the girl - whose name is Therru - but she isn't exactly grateful and scolds Arren for saying he doesn't care about life. Soon thereafter Sparrowhawk and Arren take up residence at a farm run by an old friend of Sparrowhawks, Teran. Guess who else lives on the farm? That's right Therru. About this time we are introduced to the films villain, the evil wizard Cob. Cob is obsessed with finding the secret to immortality and is responsible for much of the slavery found in Hortown, he also carries a pretty big grudge against Sparrowhawk. The rest of the movie deals with Arren and Therru's budding friendship, Arren's inner demons and, of course, the final confrontation with Cob. All in all it's not that bad of a story, it just not executed quite right.
The writing of Earthsea has its good and bad points. On the good side I liked the theme of mortality used throughout the film. As humans we are the only creatures on earth who are aware of our own eventual demise, naturally there is a lot of fear and desperation associated with that knowledge. Using this kind of relatable subject as motivation for Cob and Arren was a good call. Philosophical ideas about the gift of knowledge and being afraid to live your life to the fullest versus being afraid of death are also well used and bring the mortality theme full circle. Unfortunately the film confuses itself by introducing the idea of balance with nature. Not only does this subject take away from the movies central theme, it's been done far better by Hayao Miyazaki himself in films like the Princess Mononoke. What exactly are you trying to make here Goro, your movie or your father's movie?
This brings up another problem with the story, Sparrowhawks quest. Sparrowhawk is supposed to be investigating the imbalance of nature in Earthsea, but truth be told the film never really tells us what the hell that imbalance was. Did it have something to do with Cob? Was it related to the Dragons? Has the problem even been solved? I don't know, and that's not a good thing. Speaking of Dragons, Earthsea uses the mythical creatures several times but fails to properly convey their importance, this is especially bad when you consider the movies ending. Without giving anything away, I'll just say that having a climatic twist like the one found in this film needs a lot more setup, otherwise the whole thing comes off as random (which it does in this film). Ultimately the story of Earthsea is just too erratic and the narrative suffers for it. Some ideas are good, others are bad, some are underdeveloped, others are superfluous. In short, the film has some solid concepts but still falls into all the trappings you would expect from an inexperienced director who's trying too hard.
Though aesthetically pleasing (generally speaking) Tales of Earthsea also suffers numerous visual shortcomings. For one the character designs are just too Hayao Miyazaki. Yes, Studio Ghibli has a certain look and it would be unfair of me to call out Goro for something that is common practice. When I say the characters are "too Hayao Miyazaki" though I'm not just talking about the overall style, I'm saying that far too many of the characters look like they were pulled right out of a Hayao Miyazaki film. Cobs first officer, the man who tries to sell Arren narcotics, even the villainous Cob himself look near identical to characters from Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle. I have no idea if this was meant as an homage by Goro to his father, laziness or something else entirely, but given Goro's situation he would have been much better off avoiding anything that remotely resembled his fathers work. To be fair a lot of the blame for this has to go to Studio Ghibli, their misguided effort to push Goro into his fathers shoes was immensely foolish. You can't recreate the magic Hayao Miyazaki founded your studio with by slapping the name Miyazaki on a film and aping the style he uses, doing so was unfair to Goro and reeked of desperation.
Another problem with the films visuals is the lack of detail in Earthsea's backgrounds. Though Tales of Earthsea holds its own fine when compared to most animated movies, the fact that this is a Studio Ghibli production means a higher standard must be met. When you watch a Ghibli film - especially one that stylistically apes Hayao Miyazaki - you expect to be visually blown away. Backgrounds should be insanely detailed, cityscapes meticulous and landscapes epic. While Earthsea tries to live up to these expectation the film just doesn't quite get there. Take Hortown for example. The city is well designed but the brush strokes are just too broad and impressionistic, every time I expected to see a beautifully rendered window sill I got big blocks of color. Interior sections, like Cobs study, should have been jammed full of wizard-like clutter (beakers, books, jars), instead they're practically barren. If I thought this lack of eye-candy was a deliberate attempt to distance the film from Hayao Miyazaki I would be much more forgiving, given the character design situation however this is obviously not the case. This movie is clearly trying to evoke a Miyazaki sensibility and because of that the backgrounds should have been much more intricate and ambitious, instead the whole thing just looks like a lower budget cinematic clone of Hayao Miyazaki's work.
At this time I'm going to pull back and try to focus on some positive things about Tales of Earthsea, after all the movie isn't that bad and I didn't set out to write a damning review. One thing that Tales of Earthsea handles well is action. Battle sequences are all nicely staged, energetic and beautifully animated. CGI is also very good with various lighting effects actually enhancing the film instead of detracting from it. I already mentioned that the stories beginning is engaging but I feel that the point bares repeating. I don't want to reveal what happens, so lets just say that Prince Arren commits an unforgivable crime at the start of the story and flees his kingdom as a result of it. What I like about this is that the mystery behind Arren's motivation keeps you entrenched in the story. Though the possibility to simply dislike Arren exists, the film makes a point to not only show the princes darkness but his goodness as well. This duality keeps you interested in the character as you repeatedly ask yourself how someone with such a kind heart could possibly do something so deplorable. Unfortunately the resolution to this mystery is a little ambiguous and not particularly satisfying, but I still liked the idea and found myself riveted by it for a short while.
At the end of the day Tales of Earthsea is indeed a very flawed film. Does it deserve to be called "Worst movie of 2006"? No, I've seen plenty of animated films that are worse than this and I'm sure I'll come across more in the future. That said, I still think Studio Ghibli deserves admonishment for what happened with Earthsea. Putting an inexperienced director - one whose heritage is more of a burden than a blessing - in charge of an epic story that clearly needed a strong guiding hand was just plain stupid. The odds of Goro being able to usher in a new generation of Miyazaki classics is about as good as Seth Green playing NBA basketball, practically nonexistent. I know Ghibli is desperate to find its creative future, but throwing up hail marys like this isn't the answer. Luckily it looks like Ghibli may have finally found their guy with Hiromasa Yonebayashi, his upcoming film the Borrowers has incredible promise. As for Tales of Earthsea it will be getting a limited theatrical release here in the US in the summer of 2010, a DVD release will follow soon thereafter. Given the films numerous shortcomings I can't give Tales of Earthsea a full recommendation, if you love Ghibli movies then it's worth checking out, but if you're looking for the next great anime to hit the states, you won't find it here.
