I know he's retiring but this geriatric tripe is such a huge disappointment. I never thought I'd ever be bored stiff sitting through a profoundly unremarkable film by this truly unrivaled colossus of animated cinema. It's just bland, which is probably the worst you can say about any creative effort.
No he made a marvelous movie. Just because you didn't like it means nothing except to yourself. Opinions are just that and not relative to anyone else's experience. Sorry if his subject matter wasn't up to your standards.
shareI'm gonna have to agree that this movie was bland, but I'd like to actually give reasons why.
First and foremost I felt that there was a big disconnect between the first and second half of the movie, with the first half we really don't get any personality development or well defined sense of time. It just sort of moves scene to scene, there's no way you could find yourself caring for the characters at this point and the only interesting developments are his dreams, which are few and far between.
The second half of the movie feels like an extremely typical anime trope, falling in love with this girl who is dying. He mentions he pretty much loved her at first sight, but you could've fooled me because there was no emotion in the entire first half. Still, this romance creates some of the best scenes in the movie, but this should have been the beginning of the movie. I mean why should we care about this bed stricken girl who's only character trait is that she paints? If this plot had been developed the movie could have been good.
My next issue is with the soundtrack, including the voice acting. I watched the Japanese version and the voice acting was so atrocious and out of place that it removed any sense of immersion from the movie. I mean really, you cast a 60 year old man who's never voice acted before to voice a ~20 year old kid? Even the rest of the cast was mediocre, but at least they were believable.
The music of this movie was also by far the weakest Joe Hisaishi score I've heard, it had a few moments of brilliance but overall the main theme was just not all that interesting and left something to be desired.
My final issue on this film is the animation. Sure it's Miyazaki's typical gorgeous animation, but in this case I feel like the animation could have been done by any director in the Ghibli studio, it doesn't have the usual polish I expect from Miyazaki checking every single panel to make sure it's exactly as he wants it. What I'm saying is that I don't feel like Miyazaki was as involved as he used to be, and the animation, particularly the characters themselves, seemed to suffer. You could've told me this movie was made by Goro Miyazaki and I wouldn't have questioned a thing, it just didn't give me the same feeling that Hayao Miyazaki movies usually do.
Overall this resulted in a rather bland, although still decent movie. You put 'Hayao Miyazaki' in front of something and you expect it to be brilliant, this movie disappointed.
Overall this resulted in a rather bland, although still decent movie. You put 'Hayao Miyazaki' in front of something and you expect it to be brilliant, this movie disappointed.
Hideaki Anno as Jiro was ridiculous. It was like a single character's lines were replaced by an amateurish fandub - completely unbelievable.
I have to completely agree with your points. It seems to me that many people liked the movie because they projected something of themselves into the story. The incoherence of the romance shouldn't even be up for debate. Nahoko is a completely undeveloped character that takes up too much of the runtime.
There are serious problems with the character's animations, especially the movements, but there are also quite a few of the magnificent scenes one expects from Ghibli.
The best thing for me were the amazing sound effects that provided a stark contrast to the sophisticated flight machines.
After all it is human beings who are behind every engineering effort.
Still a disappointing experience, but at least not a complete failure.
I agree with each of your points (except I found the animation to be beautiful all throughout). I expected a well-written human story from this movie but there's not much to it besides utterly bland characters and bad pacing. It's like someone fed the keywords into a robot and it produced a script, with Hideaki Anno doing his best to sound as bored as possible.
shareI thought it was the least of his films, though it did have moments of greatness. Though the director does do fantasy better than reality. The director is obsessed by flight as evidenced by his previous films, so I can understand why he chose this as his swan song.
Nah I liked it. I watched it the second time just a while a go and liked it more than the first. My least favorite of his would be either Kiki's or Ponyo. He ended on a great note, and it is the best movie of 2013 for sure.
Human kind can not gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange. -Alphonse Elric
Your least favorite is one of my most beloved films: Ponyo. So really, it does come down to personal preference. I can explain all day long why I think Ponyo is one of his finest animated films ever (and one of the finest animated films of all time), but that won't change anyone's mind. We like what we like, though there is objective criteria that we can (to some extent) use to measure the excellence of a given film. For example, the quality and beauty of the animation. That being said, I still want to make a case for why it's one of my favorites.
The child characters are absolutely spot on in terms of realism. Both children move and act so very much like children of that age. The scene where Ponyo first arrives at Sôsuke's house, bounding around the room, being wrapped in a towel and snuggling in it is just perfect. That scene alone makes the movie. Plus, the voice acting (in the Japanese and English versions) is wonderful and again, so realistic. The music is grand and captures the aquatic theme brilliantly. But the relationship between Sôsuke and Ponyo is where it elevates the picture from mere excellence to classic status. The way they talk, interact and love unreservedly is perfectly portrayed, there isn't a single false note in the film. That's my opinion, anyway.
His finest film, in my opinion, would be a toss up between Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle.
"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus
There is a possibility that When Marnie was There (more resent work) is the last Ghibli movie. After that the studio plans to stop animating. I found the news on Tumblr and I'm really upset
No more Ghibli for the fans....
You speak for yourself it seems.
My kids, who are generally less accommodating of more low key character studies loved every minute of this.
Is it Spirited Away or Tororo? No. It's a fictional biopic of a person who was a massive influence to Japan. God forbid someone create a piece of entertainment that doesn't live up to your lofty standards.
It is not one of my favourite Ghibli films, but to call it the worst is definitely an exaggeration.
It is a lot more realistic, and except for the dreams, it focuses on every day life. It might be less attractive for some than a cute Totoro or the magical world of Spirited Away, but that just makes it different, not worse.
In the beginning there was nothing, and it exploded.
To be fair they're all poor to mediocre but this one in particularly was especially boring. The animation was amazing but everything else was weak.
shareWhat, you prefer Dragon-Ball-Z?
shareWell of course, unlike The Wind Rises DBZ is actually good.
shareDBZ! Oh yeah! I remember my son loved that when he was a little boy, he used to insist that we run home from school quickly when it was on. I used to tease him by pretending to think that Vegeta must be a vegetarian - or even a vegetable.
He also loved Pokémon, and I must say I preferred that - more conversation and even some human feeling, less people hitting each other on the head with rocks. But a seven-year-old doesn't discriminate that much.
He grew up, of course.
He has great taste . Then again who doesn't love DBZ, after all it does have an incredibly high rating of 8.9 on here compared to The Wind Rises which only has a 7.9 .
It's nowhere even close huh! I guess it's because people know that The Wind Rises is boring as sh!t I suppose .
Well, I doubt that he watches it now, he's a grown man. But I know such things still have their very enthusiastic young fans. Bless.
shareThey do indeed just like with Miyazaki's kiddie films like Ponyo, that old riveting tale about the fish with a human face that turned into fish/human hybrid with chicken legs who can only say it's name like a Pokemon.
I hear that was all the rage with little Japanese children under 5 years old .
Indeed; a charming children's film about kindness and compassion, a recurring theme; Tonari no Totoro could come under the same heading.
Miyazaki makes films for a variety of audiences. Porco Rosso was made specifically for 'tired businessmen', according to the director, and Kaze Tachinu is designed for a similar audience - adults who enjoy a human story, and perhaps who share his love of flying. Other works have an environmental message - Mononoke no Hime, Nausicaa, Pom Poko. It's a mistake to think that all anime is meant for children.
Well you were the one to bring up how a show that features impalement, beheadings, beatings, nudity and constant death and violence was for kids .
Ponyo was not charming, it was a idiotic film about a kid who befriends a ugly retarded Fish/Human/Chicken mutant. Like with this movie it had fantastic animation and little of anything else. It didn't have much of a plot, it didn't have any likable characters and it wasn't funny, interesting or entertaining.
That's your beloved DBZ? Yes, it's liked by little boys, bang bang you're dead, playground stuff.
I was attempting to have a civilised conversation, comparing different types of anime. Never mind.
It's not "liked" by little boys it's LOVED by little boys . According to this site users between 18-29 and 30-44 faaaar prefer DBZ to The Wind Rises. Which is surprising because the latter where they play with paper aeroplanes seemed so much more mature right?
I was attempting to have a civilised conversation
The reason is that rather than come up with a decent story, he used his last movie to tell the world "what he always wanted to say" - that the Japanese were only victims in WWII and did no wrong.
What a despicable old git. Good riddance. And hopefully his company will go under to with the rest of the Japanese economy. Unless that society gets rid of their "old guard" (i.e. fascists), there's no hope.