The idea that Ghibli as a major production concern would outlast Hayao Miyazaki was obvious nonsense, and you can almost feel the relief of Goro.
Certainly Miyazaki has succeeded in keeping the wheels on long enough that there’s a cadre of people out there that have a deep psychological investment in preserving the legacy.
It won’t be Miyazaki’s Ghibli, but it could be something.
If I see Miyazaki on a poster, I’m going to be interested. There’s been enough Ghibli without him that I know the studio isn’t magic, it’s him. Not saying the non-Miyazaki stuff is terrible, but certainly not the same quality.
Source: I did just that this past New Year.
What did your itinerary look like?
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-09-05/tokyo-...
Weird, I felt the opposite vibe. When I spent 3 weeks during spring over there, as a tourist, it seemed like there was endless stuff to do, see and enjoy. "Touristy" Japan feels like a theme park in itself. And for "proper" theme things, we only did Ghibli Museum.
Don't forget there's also a Ghibli Museum and you have to book in advance.
Maybe you're thinking of TeamLab Planets in Toyosu. It's a must-see too.
Either way. It wasn't "him". It was "them". Their rivalry drew out their best work.
Everybody knows about Grave of the Fireflies, but a few years ago I discovered the more subdued Only Yesterday and found it impressive. It stirred emotions, a true animated movie for adults.
I also enjoyed Princess Kaguya a lot. The art style alone is very different from Miyazaki's style (which I love, of course).
I don’t think there will be a Ghibli analog to Farscape by Henson Productions - quite different in tone and story but still somehow just a bit similar to The Dark Crystal.
https://cinema.wisc.edu/blog/2016/09/06/when-nausicaä-became...
Seems to cover it.
Ghibli can stay an icon of a glorious past area, in good hands.
If we are unlucky, someone will use the brand name to start producing (en masse) garbage, selling it to Netflix, and Netflix will be pushing garbage low-quality, hi-speed cartoons.
I would really hate to see the Ghibli version of "rings of power"
maybe one day I’ll forget watching the first third of The Hobbit in 3D
The screenshots from Blade Runner 2 and Dune do look cool though.
But I think he meant for there to be a final one to follow it, and so it closes off somewhat unsatisfactorily.
(Possible spoiler:)
I was a little surprised in my last read through how small a part Duncan Idaho played until I got to the second book and remembered
The Brian Herbert books are very bad.
The SciFi channel had zero budget and it showed; but I think they stuck to the book a lot better; but I don't think I'll ever rewatch them, because the visuals are so bad.
Anyway --- we can always treat adaptations as inspired by rather than based on. I, Robot is a fun action film that name drops the three laws, but is otherwise unconnected to the book. The song retains the name, as they say.
To be honest, it didn't stand a chance with me: BR2 is a movie that didn't need to get made. Someone else in this thread called it "fanfiction", and that's what it is: technically very well made, but pointless fanfiction nonetheless.
But if I had a slightly open mind about it, the inclusion of old Deckard, the chew-the-scenery overacting of Jared Leto (and actor that is always hard to like), and that ridiculous "I'm the best" Luv -- which is miles behind the marvelously inspired Roy Batty -- were the final nail (nails?) in the coffin of this trainwreck of a movie.
The only saving graces are set design, K and the implications about Joi and her mass-produced but convincing displays of affection. The rest of the story is pointless and most of the characters are unlikable and badly acted.
Again, no movie would have satisfied me. I think the very concept of a Blade Runner sequel is wrong and a mistake; but Hollywood must march on, I guess.
I agree Ford and Leto were distractions to the detriment of the film. Would have been fine as an independent original film and not blade runner although the reflections of the original did help highlight the themes.
I do agree there were some good questions asked by the film (just not anything to do with Wallace's "vision" -- boy did this ruin the movie for me!).
> Would have been fine as an independent original film and not blade runner
Yes. I would have received this way better had it been an original film with echoes of Blade Runner (so I would have been spared, for example, the ridiculous execution of clone-Rachael) instead of an official sequel.
I can accept "I'm a director who admires Blade Runner and want to do a film that is a homage to it", but cannot accept "I want to do Blade Runner 2".
For the record, I think Villeneuve is a good director and also think this was a genuine attempt at doing something good. It just happens that it was a bad idea, doomed to fail.
Aliens and Terminator 2 are beloved by fans, but most sequels seem to be either overt cash grabs, or a director trying and failing to recapture what made the first movie special.
> Again, no movie would have satisfied me. I think the very concept of a Blade Runner sequel is wrong and a mistake; but Hollywood must march on, I guess.
I hope out hope that a very special directory/writer team could pull off something wonderful, but in practice you're probably right.
The "fanservicy" stuff in this movie fits really well with the rest of its themes. It's not like Indiana Jones 5 or Star Wars 9, where the directors are just pulling back old characters in the hopes that you'll overlook shoddy writing because you like the characters. K is a well-developed character, without a sense of purpose, identity, or agency, caught in the crossfire of cartoonish and 1-dimensional characters who are just using him to advance their cause. The reprisal of old characters, and the eccentricity of other characters, all of it adds to the feeling that K doesn't belong.
There's so much more that I want to say about it but I'm worried about spoiling the movie to people who haven't seen it. I'd recommend it to anyone remotely interested in it.
I do like K and I agree with you his lack of agency and his helplessness is a plus. Gosling does a good job, too. And Joi is an interesting reflection on manufactured feelings and appealing to consumers who all think they are special.
But seriously it's hard to defend the other, cartoonish characters, who constantly ham it up to 11. Contrast, you say? Maybe.. but you cannot have a movie of bad actors (or good actors acting badly) and expect me to enjoy it.
Also, Roy Batty is so much better an antagonist than Luv (or anyone else in BR2, really) that it hurts. Luv and Wallace are seriously the worst in this movie; every second of Wallace is painful to watch.
Harrison Ford didn't seem particularly inspired, either.
The story is pointless. The movie aimless. The visuals and acting and directing absolutely stunning. As lovely as it was to look at, I'd just like my 3 hours back. The original movie was a somewhat campy but beautiful film-noir sci-fi detective thing that actually didn't take itself that seriously, despite being aesthetically quite serious. The new thing took itself way way way too seriously.
But Dune 1 is amazing. Highly recommended, and I'm a deep Dune nerd (... but not the Brian Herbert crap, that's not Dune) for decades.
It's not the "same" as the book -- it lacks a lot of what's there -- but it's enough of the book and amazing in its own right that it's absolutely worth the experience.
The second one was too, and though it was quite different in tone, I liked both.
Good news about Dune! It's actually a good movie. It's both close to the book and makes the right calls in changing what needs to be changed for the big screen. It looks amazing, too. Give it a chance.
Bad news about Blade Runner 2: it's not good. It looks good, but the movie is pointless and jarringly bad acted at times (Jared Leto, enough said). And I say this as someone who absolutely loves Blade Runner, so I'm not one of the naysayers who found it "boring". It's not boring -- it's bad and pointless. Someone here called it "fanfiction", and that's what it is: fanfiction by a very competent director who doesn't truly understand the source material.
Animation style—eh, it changes, cartoons have been getting more stylized/less detailed since, like, the 80’s. It turns out characters don’t need a million belts and pockets to be compelling, haha.
Theme-wise, Steven Universe is pretty well received.
Yet, here he is in a cutesy setting where rarely anyone is brooding, and somehow it just works. It even feels more true to his character, as the lightness of his personality and others is even more contrasted to the seriousness of the situations they face (similar thematically to old school Teen Titans perhaps), and also makes the argument that Earth influenced him for the better as a child much more compelling.
The stakes are high, but goodness and strength of character prevails. Best animated version I've seen so far.
Then, don’t see it.
Fans need to stop enabling these awful reboots: by withholding their wallets. These IP vampires are only motivated by money, and if we give them money as a reward for milking past franchises, then they will continue to do it.
The entire feedback loop for the media industry has been perverted by tech companies and Venture Capital vampires, and it wasn't in a great place before.
In the case of movies, once you have a ticket or purchase it or even rent it, they've got your money and have learned the lesson that people will pay, regardless of how you felt about what you watched or whether you intend to boycott future productions.
In general, though, I do try to send the signal that I'm not personally a garbage dump for low effort content, by doing a few things:
- No "guilty pleasure" watching of things that I'd prefer didn't exist, i.e. junk reality TV
- Actively avoiding clicking on things that have clickbait titles, especially if they're part of an algo-feed
- Read reviews / get reviews from friends first
- If a streaming show is bad, stop watching ASAP. Stopping at episode 2/10 is a reliable signal for Netflix et al.
And if there's something great that's come out, I'll check it out after a couple of years when the reviews have settled down and all of the parts (I'm looking at you, Dune) have come out.
The point is it doesn’t matter anymore. Someone can take the name and make mass produced garbage, you don’t have to watch it. Ghibli doesn’t mean anything. Let it go. People care too much about keeping everything exactly the same.
This hit hard. Disney bought Lucasfilm. Look at Indiana Jones 5, I don't think anyone ask for it, but Disney made it and it's a major flop.
I think it must be kind of like desecrating a corpse. Maybe watching someone dig up and do something prolonged and unthinkable to the body of your dead grandmother can't undo all the lovely years you had together, but if witnessing that act enraged you, you might find that suddenly every time you see her photo or visit her grave you're reminded of what you saw and that it upsets you all over again.
They may believe that, but it's not true.
Sequels and prequels need to add more drama and action, so happily ever after never ends up being all that happy.
Lucas was at the helm for Return of the Jedi, Star Tours, and the three prequels. I think we can't lay the blame for the Holiday Special on him, but that certainly happened too. There's the Ewok tv movies too, which thankfully I've never seen.
Even if all the Disney Star Wars films are crap, they're just continuing the trend. I prefer to simply believe there are two Star Wars films, and let others believe what they want to believe.
I do think, though, that sequel can make a story worse pretty easily. For example, the combined story of the Star Wars sequels, prequels, and originals is simply worse than the originals alone. When you just watched the originals, you could imagine your own Clone Wars, they could be whatever cool thing you want. Dropping neat-sounding hints and letting the audience fill in the gaps with whatever cool thing they imagine is a classic storytelling technique get a free feeling of depth. Replacing that cool thing the audience imagined with trade negotiations makes the story worse.
Similarly, character arcs are a thing. The protagonists usually win and end up in a happy place, at least in a non-grimdark universe like Star Wars. Making a sequel that says: Actually Luke Skywalker spent the rest of his life failing and ended up as a miserable old grump makes his story arc worse.
You can just watch the original movies and ignore the rest of course, it is after all fiction so getting the whole story doesn’t really matter. But these are huge releases that get lots of press, and I think it is unrealistic to expect fans to just ignore them.
But for new movies to make old movies worse used to be an uncommon attitude I think. I remember in the 90s and 00s, lots of movies had really shitty sequels, often straight to DVD, but nobody talked about these cash grabs ruining the original movie. For instance Aliens 3, Alien Resurrection and then all the AvP crap... some people like these (I think Aliens 3 is defensible FWIW) but a lot of people really don't. Still, nobody talks about Alien or Aliens (e.g. 1 & 2) being ruined by the later movies. Aliens 3 is frequently criticized for the way it killed well-liked characters from Aliens, but that doesn't stop people from still enjoying Aliens. People just choose to ignore Aliens 3. And why shouldn't they, because Aliens 3 is canon? That's just a legal IP relationship, that doesn't matter.
And Disney has dozens of straight-to-vhs/dvd cashgrab sequels of their classic animated movies, people who don't care for them just ignore them and they aren't said to ruin the originals. There used to be a general understanding that sequels are very rarely good, people were pleasantly surprised when it was otherwise and nobody said their life was ruined by a bad sequel. Because who cares about cannon in animated disney movies?
I've seen Lucas's Clone Wars, but if I watch the original Star Wars I'm not compelled to relate it to the Clone Wars movie. By simply choosing to ignore it because I don't like it, I free myself to imagine my own clone wars.
I think new movies ruining the originals is some relatively recent cultural phenomena that was brought on by internet culture's obsession with canon. The existence of popular sites like wookiepedia both evidence it and drive it. If I'm wrong and it's not an overabundance of respect for IP laws that is the root of this, then why isn't bad fanfic also said to ruin the original?
Nowadays studios really lean into the idea of establishing an expanded universe and canon, since then it becomes a recurring revenue stream and all that. So, I wonder if this is an aspect of that trend, just a different way people tell stories and, as a result, consume them.
I think people ignore 90’s disney cash grab sequels mostly because they were so garbage that they didn’t get integrated into the cultural zeitgeist (and also, people who loved Lion King when it came out were too old to care about the sequel).
Stuff like the Star Wars prequels is not quite at that level of badness, might be marketed toward everyone, so it enters the general conversation about the movies. Of course, it is possible to not engage in that stuff, but then, I guess people who are talking about Star Wars in 2023 are interested in the whole thing, right? You can only think about 3 movies for so long, haha. So, I bet lots of people saw them movies, have fond memories, and then moved on, but they aren’t talking about it anymore.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releas...
It is the age old problem of recognizing the canon.
You mix other experiences into the soup and he'll say it's ruined.
It's true that his experience has been changed and it's also true that we are allowed to change his experience of the Star Wars brand.
The positivity/negativity of people's reactions is a red herring. They are both valid.
The real danger is when people try to gaslight people who have had a bad experience and then try to fuse/melt people, into yet another new Star Wars themed experience.
It makes you stop wanting to feel anything positive about the brand entirely.
It shouldn't be so difficult to get older generations and younger generations to watch the same product and come off with a positive experience.
Star Wars doesn't do it though, they fragment off the older generations into niche media, trying to recapture the past.
Goro even stated that he only got to know his father through his films since Hayao was never around.
Goro was raised by his mother, who quit pursuing her dream of working as an animator in order to raise him.
Adapting books to film is really, really hard, as is animating, and directing, etc.
Le Guin was critical of the movie, for valid reasons, but I don't think she hated it. Which, being fair, is an accomplishment.
in what way is it any of our business?
in what way what a father does or doesn't leave to his son can be used to determine how much he loves or doesn't love him?
Goro is a 56 years old man, he's beyond middle age, he lived more than half of his life already, why are you treating him like a small defenseless child?
If I created something and I wanted that thing to die with me, the love for my children wouldn't in any way stop me.
Legacy and honor are much more important than nepotism for some.
Also, he's saving Goro from being "the son of Miyazaki that was never good as the father" forever.
He's Goro. He's a different person. He made his own choices regardless of who the father is and owes him nothing.
That's a gift if you ask me.
Anecdotes of 1 are meaningless other than fun stories to share.
I've never been a Jiro fan though, there are many sushi makers in japan that can be considered artists in their craft, but their cultural impact is mehh at best.
Studio Ghibli, both Miyazaki and Takahata, on the other hand...
What I meant is that sushi is still something that we consider a Japanese thing, we know that masters of sushi are Japanese, Jiro being famous only reinforced that notion.
On the other hand Studio Ghibli forced the western industry of animation to recognize their greateness, we awarded them prizes, and now in the west we make products that look and feel like anime and manga. We do not think of Japanese animation of "something for kids", we treat them like Disney.
Comic conventions are full of cosplayers dressed as manga/anime heroes.
Youngsters make meme based on manga, American studios make live actions and animation shows of anime and manga.
It's been a complete game changer, either we like it or not.
or maybe he thinks that Ghibli should not survive him, which is in his full rights.
Goro can open his own studio if he wants to.
What's wrong in being honest?
Goro works are clearly inferior to his father's works on many levels.
He's no amateur, that's for sure, but he's no master either.
Among the best Japanese animation artists, he's probably average.
He's no Takahata, Oshii, Otomo, Anno, Watanabe, Hosoda by a long shot.
Hayao worst rated works on Rotten Tomatoes are "The cat returns" and "The wind rises" and I completely agree on that, with a rating of 88%.
Goro worst is "Earwig and the Witch" that I have not watched with a 28%, "Tales From Earthsea" that I've seen and did not like much with 38% and the best is "From Up on Poppy Hill" with 87%, which was good, but not "Spirited Away", "Princess Mononoke" or "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" good.
And Nausicaa itself is not as good as a movie as the manga, that is an order of magnitude better!
Have you ever read or heard about the 3 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart children that survived?
No?
You are not the only one.
I see him as a concerned father.
"Don't put yourself in the position of being judged in the very competitive field of Japanese animation, because your works are not as great as you think they are"
It's like being the son of Michelangelo.
Of course everyone of us tells kids that their terrible drawings are sooooo goooood, but they are terrible.
Now, Goro was already 40 years old when his first movie came out.
That's a gross misrepresentation of what happened.
He was asked and he answered honestly.
End of story.
Who cares? Goro works are generally not good if compared with the works of his father, like a 5 years old drawings compared to their parents' drawings.
But this is not the school's play that every parent hates but attends because their children (they assume) care so much about it (I, for example, hated it and never wanted my parents to come and see me fail at something I was never good at and never liked), if you don't like the movie of some director, you can walk away and say "I did not like the movie", nobody dies, nobody should cry.
I sincerely wish more fathers did that, so we would be spared so many bad movies!
There's nothing wrong in being not equally skilled as your parents at something, but for the love of God, why are people so upset about what Miyazaki had to say about the works of his son and (BTW) be completely right about them?
Is it some form of projection with their own father?