I saw Howl’s Moving Castle today. It was fairly good apart from not bearing any resemblance that I could see to the book on which it is supposedly based. Oh, and the whole theatre burst out laughing every time the turnip prince talked. Sad, really, since I think he was supposed to look charming. Or something. But he needs a better wig.
Seriously, though, what the hell happened to the plot? Where is Mrs Pendragon’s quest? Why was there a war? Why is Howl so booooring and what happened to his family, etc, etc, what did anything that happened after the first 20 minutes of the movie have to do with the original plot and why are all the characters Bizarro versions of themselves? Man. I’d heard the movie was different from the book but I thought they meant “a few things are cut out”, not “Miyazaki took the characters from the book and made a completely different movie with them”. The plot wasn’t even very good. It made no sense. And the scene at the end with the wizard Suliman saying “Yes, let’s put an end to this foolish war” after a whole 2 seconds of thought while cheesy Japanese music played was… well, it was cringe-worthy. I mean, is it just me or did the film neglect to explain why they were fighting in the first place? Plus Howl and Sophie were changed into something like an older version of Haku and Chihiro and just nothing like they used to be basically. The characters and their relationships were changed, the plot was changed, the ending was changed, themes and events central to the book were tossed out and new ones inserted… it just feels kinda wrong.
I’m not a purist. I’m not one of those people who wave their arms wildly and scream “BUT IN THE MOVIE ADAPTATION, PILKINGTON’S CARDIGAN IS TWO SHADES OF OCHRE TOO PALE!” But I read the book several years ago and these changes are still really, really hard to ignore, especially since this new plot… isn’t very coherent. I don’t want to sound like I hated the movie, because it was okay. But it wasn’t what I’d expected from Miyazaki, and it wasn’t what I expected from the book.
Man, the movie was terrible.
I was so excited when I heard about it, because Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite authors, and Howl’s Moving Castle is one of my favorite books, and Miyazaki is one of my favorite filmmakers. But it was horrible watching it, just painful.
They robbed Sophie and Howl of their (considerable) personalities. The green slime scene makes no sense given the characterization of Howl from earlier in the movie, but it fits in perfectly with his persona in the book. Watching the movie, you just think, “what the hell is going on?” when you see him freak out. Sophie becomes just another big-eyed, big-mouthed generic Miyazaki heroine–not that I have anything against Miyazaki heroines in general, but Sophie had such a distinctive and interesting personality in the book and she just got washed out to nothing in the movie.
And no, you’re not crazy about the Wizard Suliman scene. It was embarrassingly bad. And don’t even mention the other scene–everyone in the theater burst out laughing when the scarecrow turns back into the prince and says "I’m the lost prince that everyone has been looking for! It makes total sense in the book, with the hunt for the various lost pieces of Prince Justin, but it comes out of nowhere in the movie. The only time they really mention the cause of the war is when Sophie is walking past some men in an alleyway discussing newspaper headlines, about two minutes into the movie.
And what happened to Wales? And Miss Angorian? The Witch of the Waste was such a wonderful villain in the book. Did they even mention John Donne in the movie at all?
And Markl? MARKL? His name is MICHAEL, and he’s fifteen! Not five!
sigh… I could go on and on. But basically, yeah, I agree with you–I really expected more, and better, from this movie.
I figured the Wales stuff was taken out because it was way too complex. The war was the simple substitute.
I did feel that they didn’t have nearly as much personality; Sophie became a sort of Japanese grandmother, like you get in Totoro–nice, but not Sophie. Howl wasn’t very Howly either, and I too was annoyed by Markl.
But I managed to enjoy it anyway, though it was completely unlike the book. Oh well.
I haven’t seen it yet, so this is just theory, but the director, Hiyao Miyazaki, is one of the greatest geniuses working in film today. But he’s almost always been his own writer–his genius lies as much in the imagination of his stories as in the way he brings them to the screen. I wonder if he just put “too much” of himself into the movie, rather than just closing his eyes and throwing it up onto the screen without any creative input?
Maybe Miyazaki did an adaptation of the Japanese translation of the English book. May be far-fetched, but I know that when I read books by Haruki Murakami (or any other Japanese author, for that matter) in English, they just seem somehow disjointed. Whatcha think? I’ll have to ask my Japanese fiance.
I heard that Dianna Wynne Jones had seen the movie and enjoyed it, although she said it was quite different from her story. So I went to see it, figuring it’d be good even if it was different. But I was a little disappointed, for mostly the same reasons as everyone here, and do think Miziyaki should stick to doing his own stuff. I love both Miziyaki’s and Wynne Jones’ stories, but I don’t think they’re necessarily a good mix.
Interesting theory. I was wondering if he’d read and adapted the English book, despite being rather lacking in English skills and just made up the parts he didn’t understand or something.
I have great respect for Miyazaki films, but be warned: Howl’s Moving Castle isn’t Miyazaki at all, it is a horrible, horrible, piece of hastily-patched work. It combines the worst of the Studio Ghibli “cute” style (think Totoro minus the context of childhood wonder) with a slow and incomplete plot in a visual world where “cuteness” doesn’t really fit in.
I haven’t read the book it was adapted from, but I doubt it would have helped my enjoyment of this film - and I have little doubts the book is far superior to the film.
This was a letdown considering his previous Masterpiece, Spirited Away.
A friend who is a Miyazaki-phile says that there are rumours that there is precious little Miyazaki in this production - apparently one of Miyazaki’s proteges was handed the project. AFAIK this is just a rumour but I think it is a fairly plausible explanation: you do see Miyazaki’s skill pop up frequently, but this could be due to the student imitating the master, or the master dropping in to make the occasional contribution.
And the demon… goodness, the demon. Worst representation ever of a demon or other spiritual/magical entity. I would expect something so bad from a run-of-the-mill piece of crap anime on daytime television, but certainly not from a Miyazaki feature.
I really loved the film, but what I read of the book was stodgy neo-traditional fantasy written in a very condescending “fairytale” style. Irritating. Give me the movie any day.
