ghibli, earthsea, and his dark materials
just learned that studio ghibli has animated the Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin, and will probably be showing it in Japan by July. Hayao Miyazaki's son, Goro, was at the helm this time. Some people are miffed though because of the color blindness in the preview posters showing a white Ged (Le Guin has written him with reddish brown skin). Seems that Le Guin herself was outraged about this issue before when she commented on the SciFi Channel mini-series version shown two years ago.
I have high hopes for the movie though but not at all expecting it to be faithful to the story, much less to the ethnicity of the main characters. case in point: Howl's Moving Castle. I enjoyed watching it but in my mind I totally treated the anime movie version and the book as two different stories. Otherwise I would have been horribly disappointed with the anime.
it has been a long time since i read the series, (given to me by Zara!^^), so the details are hazy. I only remember that Ged (the wizard-in-training character conceived by LeGuin way before Rowling ever dreamt of Harry) was a head strong character. I also remember that I was a bit disappointed with "Tombs of Atuan" because the focus of the story is not on him anymore, hehe. I probably should watch the adaptation before I reread it again so I won't be too critical.
...and an added bonus! Okada Junichi (of the group V6) will also be lending his voice to one of the characters (Arren). yey!
on other related news, heheh not really related but just also along the lines of books being adapted to the big screen. Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy is also being made into a movie, slated to be shown tentatively on 2007. Chris Weitz (the younger half of the brothers to be blamed for "American Pie" and also the director of "About a Boy") will be directing, well at the moment he is, who knows who it's going to be tomorrow since apparently there have been a lot of changes. We know how it goes, nothing's final until it's final.
I was surprised to learn though that there are already plays based on the books. (If you ask me I think Iorek looks more like an overgrown weasel than a bear here, yikes)
Anyway, I just finished book 2 and gearing up for the next (and final) adventure in "The Amber SpyGlass".
Gah! I wonder how they'd interpret Lyra's Oxford. I love how Pullman was able to make me believe in Lyra's world and yet still be anchored in reality by Will's. If handled by a good production team I think it will make for a visually appealing adventure movie. and hopefully they won't botch the story too much. It would be interesting to see how they'd handle the stark contrast between the different worlds and beings. the philosophical side of it presents some pretty controversial ideas and might not sit well with some people, I'm guessing most of that will end up on the cutting room floor.
posted by julie @ 5:15 PM
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