Watched both Ghibli 'Castle' movies

I find it a little odd that there are two Studio Ghibli films with the word "Castle" prominently placed within its title, and frankly, it can be confusing until you watch both films, which is exactly what I did.

Having resubbed my Netflix account, I had my queue start again, frontloaded with Ghibli films I never watched (which are most of them).

Castle in the Sky was surprisingly good, and it just shows how amazing Miyazaki is with his style of characterization and world development. Even though the characters look so "normal," they are not only incredibly engaging, but fleshed out in ways that few movies bother with in contemporary "children's" movies, let alone "grown-up" films.

Sure, there's nothing that pushes the bleeding edge of storytelling and children, but I think it certainly says something about how poor storytelling has become in modern day films... no, wait, *hollywood* films.

The closest thing to compelling children characters that's on the level of Ghibli that I've seen recently came out of Europe, which is no surprise. I'm speaking, of course, of Let the Right One In. I can't help but feel that political correctness and the assumption of stupidity is the reason why American "family" films can't be as smart as something like LTROI or Ghibli films in general.

In the behind-the-scenes footage for Howl's Moving Castle, there's a bit where the Pixar localization director who was responsible for Howl's English/US release talked about how different Ghibli's storytelling worked in comparison to Pixar's more coalescing intellectual/communal brainstorming, it all made sense to me.

I had liked Pixar films, but they weren't great. They didn't have that directorial drive and vision that you felt in something like a Ghibli film. The same can be said for a lot of western videogames in comparison to Japanese videogames, or more specifically, a Japanese videogame that has a director put squarely infront of it's name, like Hideo Kojima, Suda 51, Hideki Kamiya, and so forth. Sure, you have people like Sid Mier, Tim Schafer, and "American McGee," but how many AAA western games have a director on the box? None, I'd say.

The famous Valve system of game development (and more specifically, their credits scroll) reflect upon us this idealized system where everyone gets a say, and everyone's workload is shared. Naughty Dog has a similar system, except its in shared criticism. But despite that, Amy Hennig's placement as creative director shows vision, which is something that is absolutely necessary with game development. David Cage's work on Heavy Rain is an even clearer example of western games with a director that has a vision and goes for it.

Metal Gear Solid 2 stands as a contemporary AAA game where the director's vision came through (*mostly) unimpaired. In a lot of ways, its the benchmark for cinematic videogame design giving total directorial control to the director, with every quirk and oddity left in place.

*The events of 9/11 affected the ending of the game, causing for cut content and confusion in storytelling and imagery.

If one thing that both the gaming industry and the animation industry shares, however, is that when there's a changing of director's chairs, there is an utter loss of vision, resulting in a quagmire of confusion and a loss in strength.

Final Fantasy XII is a famous example of a AAA videogame completely losing its vision and purpose mid-development due to the director's leave, resulting in loss in creative authorial impact, as well as confused and rushed ending. It doesn't help any that the game was tampered with by focus testers and higher-up corporate execs to appeal to the female Japanese demographic.

After watching Howl's Moving Castle, even though I felt pretty satisfied, it wasn't as empowering or clear as Miyazaki's other films. Upon reading the Wikipedia entry for this film, everything was made clear:

They originally had another director on-board for Howl's Moving Castle, only for him to suddenly jump ship, requiring Miyazaki to come back from retirement and brought onhand to finish what had been started. Not only that, but the fact that its a world that wasn't entirely his own (as its based on a book of the same name), the division of vision and delivery is made clear.

While I absolutely hate Roger Ebert for his ignorant attacks against videogames, his statement of Howl's Moving Castle being Miyazaki's weakest film is something that I absolutely agree with. It might not be 2 and a half stars bad, but its certainly weak.

But regardless of it all, one thing that is consistent with Miyazaki's films is the score. Howl's musical motifs work wonderously throughout the film, and make me want to pick up the soundtrack.

I, of course, watched both films with the Japanese track with English subtitles, but was surprised by how Pixar tried to manage in voice casting Howl for the English adaption... which was to go from having a lofty, bright-eyed pretty-boy voice, to Christian Bale.

Yes, Christian Bale. He sticks out, and his voice doesn't work when the character has big wide eyes. It just doesn't. He does a great job with the scene where Howl freaks out about his hair, but I just don't buy everything else. Also Billy Crystal for Calcifer? Seriously?

The western dubs are pretty hit and miss for Ghibli films, though I do admit that the "misses" are still at a pretty acceptable level. The fact that they tampered with both the score and localization for The Castle in the Sky's opening 20 minutes is utterly atrocious, though. The film's made more "hollywood" by the insertion of unnecessary music and dialogue, and makes me disappointed.

I'm pretty surprised by how much there was to say about what I learned from watching these films and their behind-the-scenes knowledge, and makes me appreciate good dubs and good games even more. It makes me respect publishers that don't interfere with the creative process for game development, and it makes me question what games and films go "by the numbers" more than anything else.