Can Hayao Miyazaki Save Disney's Soul? 548
IronicGrin writes "Even hard-core House of Mouse apologists have to admit that Disney's Feature Animation division has lost its way. After a half decade of pathetic failures (Atlantis) and epic disasters (Treasure Planet), the company shut its fabled Orlando 2D animation studios last year and announced that it was jumping on the computer animation bandwagon. A big motivation for the move to CGI was, of course, the Magic Kingdom's tenuous relationship with Pixar--the source of all of Disney's recent animated hits. But Disney is overlooking a better example of just what its toon team has been doing wrong...right under its nose.
Howl's Moving Castle, which opened this weekend to rapturous critical acclaim, is the third masterpiece from Japan's Studio Ghibli that Disney has released theatrically. Today's New York Times has a feature by A.O. Scott [reg required, blah blah] calling Miyazaki the "world's greatest living animated-filmmaker"; meanwhile, last Thursday, I wrote a column for SFGate.com on why Disney animation, 3D rendered or not, is doomed to irrelevance if it fails to (re)learn some basic lessons from Miyazaki and his cohorts at Ghibli. What do you think? Is Disney destined to fade to black, or can a little Ghibli flavor (mmm....Ghibli) get it back on track?"
I'll go for... (Score:5, Funny)
Any company that can justify stealing from the public domain with no intention to return anything to it has clearly not only drawn up a contract with satan but has also disputed the subclauses, delivered the first two goats, renegotiated paragraph three and taken the whole legal department on a field trip to hell to learn new techniques.
Re:I'll go for... (Score:4, Funny)
If Walt were still alive... (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a minute...
Re:I'M AN OPEN PROXY! BAN ME! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If Walt were still alive... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:If Walt were still alive... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you think they power their theme parks?
They've hooked a generator to his casket and produce mega-walts of electricity!!
Just to stay on topic, compare the last 5 or so movies from Disney studios (the ones they've done in house) with the last 5 from Ghibli. They may make more money, but they're largly soulless cookie-cutter creations.
One word why Disney is history: Totoro!
Re:"Howl's Moving Castle" ruined with dubbing (Score:5, Funny)
I can't imagine what such a note would say that would drive the point home, unless it went something like this:
They've turned Moosylvania into a cartoon gulag (Score:3, Funny)
creed was on the soundtrack for treasure planet (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Will Anime last? (Score:3, Funny)
Eeeek! This guy liked Hudson Hawk... and they still let him write movie reviews?!
holy shit (Score:1, Funny)
I'd buy that cartoon.