Tales From Earthsea

Tales From Earthsea is a drama fantasy Japanese anime movie. It was directed by Gorō Miyazaki (the son of Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki), written by Keiko Niwa and Gorō Miyazaki, edited by Takeshi Seyama, musically composed by Tamiya Terashima, distributed by Toho, produced by Toshio Suzuki, Tomohiko Ishii and Studio Ghibli, and starred Junichi Okada, Bunta Sugawara, Aoi Teshima and Yūko Tanaka. It's based on a series of fantasy books called Earthsea which were written by Ursula K Le Guin and one volume watercolor-illustrated graphic novel called The Journey of Shuna which was written by Hayao Miyazaki.

Plot
In the mythical land of Earthsea, a mysterious force threatens to plunge humanity into a state of destruction and chaos. In order to combat this force, a powerful wizard named Sparrowhawk seeks the source of his world's imbalance, and along the way rescues a runaway prince named Arren. When Sparrowhawk's powers begin to weaken, he and Arren must join forces with a former priestess and her daughter to defeat an evil foe whose quest for immortality will destroy Earthsea.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The film is another one of those generic and forgettable medieval films with hardly any unique elements to make it more intriguing. The premise sounds good, but it is later dropped and the film focuses too much on the relationship of the main characters. Honestly, it's as if the producers had seen the Spongebob episode "Dunces and Dragons" (released the same year as this movie) and wanted to make it into an anime movie because yes.
 * 2) This film is completely inferior to many other films made by Studio Ghibli, as it lacks the charm and charisma that made Studio Ghibli films so special in terms of animation, direction, story, characters, setting, and soundtrack. It's so dull in fact that even some of the Studio Ghibli films with more serious tones and stories end up having more levity than the entirety of this one.
 * 3) Unmemorable soundtrack. Which is unacceptable due to how one of the most praised and memorable aspects (of which they are many) of many Studio Ghibli films are they're soundtracks. They flow perfectly well with the scenes that they play over and help the audience become immersed into the world that the movie sets up. But here, while the music technically fits the scenes that they're present in, it's still painfully forgettable and doesn't immerse the audience in the world that the movie sets up (well, what little world it does manage to set up, a problem that will be discussed in much greater detail in the following point).
 * 4) The world in this movie, Earthsea, is unbelievably dull since it only consist of generic towns, castles and several plains. Not helped by the fact that the worldbuilding in this movie is absolutely terrible. As not only is there almost nothing that sets it apart from fantasy worlds in other movies, but the movie never gives the audiences the smallest sense of how the world works/functions.
 * 5) Sub-par animation, even for mh:greatestmovies:Studio Ghibli standards. The most we ever get from this aspect is the beginning, where it tells the audience about dragons that inhabit Earthsea, but even then the rest of the film does absolutely nothing with that. As dragons are never seen nor mentioned at any other point in the film. And in other moments the world of Earthsea is said to be suffering, but that's never actually demonstrated or used in the story either.
 * 6) False Advertising: Even though a dragon is on the cover of the movie, they contribute nothing in the movie since they only briefly appear in three occasions (and two of them are on the ending of the movie); they could have taken them away and the movie would be the same.
 * 7) One-dimensional and dull characters who are little more than standard magical world character stereotypes. And unlike in other films made by mh:greatestmovies:Studio Ghibli films, there isn't a single moment in the movie that shows some greater depth in any of the characters or gives the audience care for them.
 * 8) *Arren is a bland protagonist and arguable the worst character in the movie due to his motivations, because he killed his father (a king) for literally  no reason  (even he admits he was a great man), and it´s never explained why he wanted to escaped home.
 * 9) **Let´s remember that at the beginning of the movie the king was busy for the hard situation of the kingdom since the latter´s crisis, so the regicide affected severely the kingdom. Also, why he didn´t tried to get the sword otherwise?
 * 10) *Ged is the elderly and wise mentor to Arren.
 * 11) *Therru is the love interest for Arren.
 * 12) *Tenar is the mother figure to Therru.
 * 13) *Cob is the big bad evil sorcerer who's motivation is also downright nonsensical and incomprehensible (as with most of the characters in the movie).
 * 14) The respective reasons why Therru hates Arren and later started liking him are absurd.
 * 15) *Therru tells Arren she hates him because "she hates men who doesn´t value life" despite he saved her without waiting nothing.
 * 16) *Therru started liking Arren just because he cried whe he listened her singing.
 * 17) Lord Cob is an generic villain, with your typical "i want eternal life", and really without any characterization.
 * 18) There's lots of Deus ex Machinas, such as during times when Sparrowhawk has to save the protagonist.
 * 19) The character designs are uninspired.
 * 20) This movie was the directorial debut of Gorō Miyazaki, the son of Hayao Miyazaki, which tainted the legacy of the latter, and of Studio Ghibli in general.
 * 21) Poorly drawn, uninspired backgrounds.
 * 22) The story is incredibly unfocused, all over the place, and seems like it lacks direction, which would make sense because it was the director's first film. There's also little to no real worldbuilding.
 * 23) Shallow and generic ending where Arren bids Therru and Tenar goodbye and balance of the world is revealed to be restored at the last minute.
 * 24) It is never explained neither how magic works, Arren's motivations, why the stolen sword couldn't unsheathe until the end of the movie, the reason why Therru was considered a witch by the soldiers nor about the "other" Arren.
 * 25) The fact Therru only used her powers at the final battle and not even a little before can be considered as both a Deus ex Machina and a Diabolus ex Machina.
 * 26) At the beginning of the movie, it is explained about the imbalance in the world, thing who is somewhat ignored with the running of the movie.
 * 27) The concept of Arren and Therru having real names it´s pointless and it´s just a desperate attempt to make a plot twist, and a forced plot twist is not the best of ideas...
 * 28) The Latin Spanish dub could be better.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Admittedly, Sparrowhawk is the only cool character in the movie.
 * 2) Both Japanese and English dubbings are great with the presence of movie actor Willem Dafoe.
 * 3) While most of the time the animation is sub-par by Studio Ghibli standards, there are a few moments when you see sparks of great animation.
 * 4) The movie have a nice message about eternal life and how death give value to life, though it could been executed better.
 * 5) The ending, while generic, is pretty nice in terms of the visuals and animation present in it.

Reception

 * Tales From Earthsea has a 41% "rotten" rating and a 46% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a 2.9/5 on Letterboxd, a 6.5/10 on the International Movie Database (IMDB), a 7.12/10 on MyAnimeList, a 3.5/5 on AnimePlanet, and a 68.26% community approval rating on Kitsu. It was the lowest rated Ghibli film on Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd until Earwig and the Witch (also directed by Goro Miyazaki) came out, which holds a 33% and a 2.1/5 on both sites respectively.

Trivia

 * When first seeing it, Goro's father, Hayao Miyazaki, walked out of the theater out of disappointment later stating about his son that, "He's not a man yet".
 * This was the lowest rated Studio Ghibli film until Earwig and the Witch was released.

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