On Howl's Moving Castle

[seamusog]

In one day, I read the book and watched the Miyazaki movie. The book is wonderful. The movie not so much. Perhaps I should not have watched the movie immediately after reading the book. Or maybe I should have watched the movie first. I thought it was rather weak and it practically killed the wonderful characters from the novel. I knew that there

Comments

[neocloud9]

IIRC, she was.

[seamusog]

I kinda got that feeling from the carefully-worded comment she made.

[neocloud9]

I don't blame her, either. The changes Miyazaki made to the first half of the story were okay, but after that it stopped being an adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle and started being "Miyazaki's reasons for opposing the Iraq War."

[seamusog]

The ending of the war was kind of lame too. I mean Madame Suliman just suddenly states, call the Prime Minister and let's end this idiotic war. I wonder what kind of statement Miyazaki was trying to make with that.

[seamusog]

Yeah, I probably would have enjoyed it better if I saw the movie first.

I think with LOTR there had been enough separation from the time I read the books and the time I watched the movie. With Howl's, I watched the movie literally after I read the book. And I had fallen very much in love with the characters in the book. I wanted to see Howl's vanity and silliness and Sophie being a cantankerous old woman and I wanted to see their arguments. *sigh*

With LOTR, the one part I hated the most and which still makes me groan is that lengthy draaaaaammaaaatic prolonging of the scene with the women and children while Helm's Deep is being attacked. (I still love the movies though.)

[crystalwren_fic]

Actually, I had completely the opposite experience with both versions of Howl's Moving Castle. I found the book to be shallow, weak and gimmicky, and I found- and still find- the movie to be quite beautiful in just about all aspects. I guess it comes down to personal taste.

[seamusog]

Perhaps. Though I do normally love Miyazaki's work. I did watch this in the dub version and I usually dislike dubs. I should try to watch in the original Japanese. (I like Billy Crystal, but I think his voice actually took away from the character.)

Out of curiosity, did you watch the movie first?

[crystalwren_fic]

Yes, I did and I also watch the dub over the Japanese. I think the dub is quite good, all things considered, even if they did decide to give a bunch of people American accents. :P You're right in that Billy Crystal does not really fit into the rest of the cast, though.

I did like the first half of the book but then they go to earth and he's Welsh and a footy fan and...urgh. I rarely like cross over books (although there are a number of notable exceptions). It's either in our world or theirs. Pick one and stick with it!

[mugen_edamame]

Howl in the book was the love of my young life years and years ago when I read it, and I was greatly disappointed by the movie.

If it had been anything but an adaptation, it's pretty decent.

Since it was supposed to be based on one of my most beloved books of all times, I... raged, a little, while watching it. In no way did it do any of the characters justice, and I think Sophie in particular was short-changed. In the book she's really tough, capable and practical (and awesome), but was some sort of a mouse in the movie. It was pretty miserable for me.