Tales from Earthsea is the odd child out of Ghibli films. Directed by Goro Miyazaki as his debut, it has quite an ambitious aura and surrounded by grandness. However, the response from critics alike is mixed. Just exactly is the deal with the film itself?

Synopsis

Something bizarre has come over the land. The kingdom is deteriorating. People are beginning to act strange... What's even more strange is that people are beginning to see dragons, which shouldn't enter the world of humans. Due to all these bizarre events, Ged, a wandering wizard, is investigating the cause. During his journey, he meets Prince Lebannen, a young distraught teenage boy. While Lebannen may look like a shy young teen, he has a severe dark side, which grants him strength, hatred, ruthlessness and has no mercy, especially when it comes to protecting Tehanu. For the witch Kumo this is a perfect opportunity. He can use the boy's "fears" against the very one who would help him, Ged.

Story

A glimpse is enough to make me think how similar this film is to Origins. They have this grandiose epic feeling yet some parts of them are ripped out and left hollowed. Ursula K. Le Guin, author of the original novel series, had complained in the past on how this particular adaptation is an entirely different thing. While bits and pieces found can be traced back to the novels, this work still is a completely new story made by parts of Ursula's first four books of epic fantasy.

I would say, one of its strong points is the atmosphere. Different than most Ghibli's fantasy films, Tales from Earthsea deals with dark side of magic and its consequences. It tells about a land where magic seems to be something that is not the norm and very powerful users of it are dangerous. Reflected on the gloomier themes, the film itself lures you into this vast and endless realms of mythic. The issues touched by the film itself is quite deep about how life is not so precious as you think it is as slavery and death are common in the setting.

However, there are certain issues that this animation fail to notice. First, incoherentness of the fragmentized story. Many people, including Ursula, had said that the film itself is formed through various parts from four books out five in the original series. Along the scenes, we are told many events that takes place before the film even starts and can be found in said books. There is a book completely dedicated to Tenar, Ged's friend and arguably love interest. We are also left almost in the dark about many things such as Ged's past and even the main focus has been shifted to Arren, a character which is featured in the third book. In an attempt to pack a tetralogy into a film with less than two hours worth of running time, it does the job adequate enough but there are so many gaps and holes which hopefully can be filled by reading the books.

The second is a vagueness of point. It starts off promising a grand epic storyline with how the locations are depicted. However, all of that degenerates quickly into a typical saving the world storyline and defeat the powerful evil wizard without any types of reimagining to the genre. The revelation near the ending while surprising, is not really that exciting given how in the film we will immediately notice something odd about the characters.

Lastly, the pacing can be quite slow right from the start. There are scenes which serve only as eyecandies and with no particular activities. The ending in particular can be excruciatingly sluggish because of its preditability.

In short, Tales from Earthsea has the potential to be quite an epic journey, yet it turns out to be quite simplistic and cliched approach to yet another saving the world trope. I would say, this is better than Origins in areas such as world building and somewhat plot twists.

Visual

One of the better aspects of the film. Ghibli successfully takes you to explore the vast and majestic realms of Earthsea, a world crafted by Ursula K. Le Guin. The visual effects are splendid and the backgrounds are very beautiful. I almost feel like I'm watching how life unfolds in the medieval era. How the cities are depicted is quite realistic. Even the farm and the prairie is portrayed as close as they can get to the real thing. There is no complaint from me about the style and cinematography. It is simply gorgeous.

Audio

The redeeming feature of the film. When I'm bored on certain scenes, I just listen to the soundtrack. It is simply wonderful. With its morbid sense of humour such as playing cheerful song in the town scene where slaves are being taken away, the sense of epicness and grandiose are even more amplified with the use of classical music. And the most hauntingly beautiful song is Therru's Song. No wonder Arren sheds his tears while listening to it. The melodies are not really that remarkable but the lyrics are quite powerful, infused with longing and sadness of a certain person and a companion, who left their loved ones away in a journey. The opening theme is also suited to be an entry to such evocative soundtrack.

Characters

A major shift to the cast is Ged. He is shown to be the mentor figure to Arren, even though he is supposed to be the main character. His depiction is quite accurate, though because Ged has darker skin color than most people. Arren and Therru never meet in the novels. Their romantic development is quite simply fabricated. With that said, there are somewhat cringe intimate moments between Ged & Tenar and Therru & Arren near the end which are unavoidable given the nature of their relationship.

There are still even good things left in the characters even if most of them are quite typical.We have usual stock characters such as the comedic henchman. They are all quite shallow if you compare them to Ghibli's films like Laputa and Porco Rosso. There is simply no interesting quirks or traits that make me connect to the characters. One exception is Cob, the main antagonist. He is somewhat an intriguing figure because he is voiced by a woman in his younger form, yet in the English dub he is voiced by Willem Dafoe completely.

Conclusion

Goro Miyazaki seems unable to handle the job his father had done effortlessly because it is his debut as a director. Disappointingly, Hayao Miyazaki's usual brilliant mind is not really shown beneath the mass of cliched tropes. It is quite a well known fact that the two wouldn't speak to each other during the production.

The mixed response coming from the audience can be traced to typical storyline and not so cleverly-written characters. Tales from Earthsea in the end is a movie done enough to be watchable but not as exciting as a usual Ghibli's film.