I absolutely love almost everything from Miyazaki, but I wonder what's it like to work with/for him. This short trailer makes it seem he's probably a difficult man... like all great authors, I guess.
That doesn't change the fact that he has told amazing stories. He is an amazing creator, and has made some of my favorite films. But the hurt in those folks' faces as someone they idolized called what they did 'an insult to life itself'... It was ugly behavior.
Perhaps it was neither of the two? From a recent Dwango event, the team has shown that they have reflected upon it (if you watch the event, they mentioned a few times that they have been scolded by Miyazaki and even conducted an interview with him[0]) and develop a pretty interesting game called ARTILIFE[1] (tldw; MMO tamagotchi?). Overall it was a good turnaround, I think.
My point exactly. Miyazaki offered them genuine feedback ("a dose of reality") and they, to their credit, apparently acted on it. It was hardly, as the OP posted, "ugly behavior"; if anything, it was "beneficent behavior".