XPost: rec.arts.anime.misc   
   From: anyone4tennis@hotmail.com   
      
   In article <87veq6ctt0.fsf@catnip.gol.com>, Miles Bader    
   wrote:   
      
   > Ping Kuo  writes:   
   > > which the end credits of the movie implies, yes, all you said is true,   
   > > but there is also the power of left things unsaid and let your   
   > > imaginations to do the works.  not to mention of keep thing focus on   
   > > what is essential, as human attention span tend to waver after two   
   > > hours.   
   > >   
   > > another example would be Harry Potter Goblet of Fire, novel vs. movie,   
   > > they were talking making two films for that one book in the beginning.   
   >   
   > Sure, the limitations are in part inherent to the medium.   
   >   
   > It's weird though, because my sense is that unlike his other movies,   
   > somehow he doesn't quite pull off Nausicaä the anime.  Two constant   
   > feelings I had during the movie were (1) "hey slow down go back I wanna   
   > see more of that!" or (2) "Huh?  WTF was that??"   
   >   
   > The movie felt like there was a lot of stuff that was left sort of   
   > unexplained -- but that really _should_ be explained for the reader to   
   > understand what's going on.  I.e., the missing stuff wasn't simply   
   > background detail, where "unexplained" is often very satisfying (because   
   > as you say, it acts to help the viewer's imagination fill out the world).   
   >   
   > As it happens, I read the manga first, so I'm not really sure if a   
   > first-time viewer of the movie would feel the same way -- it could   
   > simply that I was viewing it expecting all the magic of the manga, and   
   > it was simply the comparison that made me disappointed in the movie.   
   >   
   > On the other hand, it could be that by working on the longer more   
   > detailed (first half of the :-) manga first, Miyazaki didn't do as good   
   > a job on the movie.  I imagine that the process of working out a movie   
   > storyline from scratch is very different from cutting down an existing   
   > story to fit the constraints of animation; clearly Miyazaki is very good   
   > at the former, but ... I think there's a strong temptation when doing   
   > the latter to make an overly complex plot that tries to preserve all the   
   > details of the original as unsatisfying little snippets.   
   >   
   > It would be interesting to hear the opinion of someone who saw the movie   
   > first and _then_ read the manga...   
   >   
   > [I've been much happier with Miyazaki's other movies: they somehow seem   
   > much more "whole".  Though one of the charms of his work is the highly   
   > detailed and interesting background worlds, he's very careful to keep   
   > them as _background_, with the main foreground elements of plot and   
   > character kept fairly simple.   
   >   
   > Oddly enough, I've never seen the movie "Tonari no Totoro" -- but I've   
   > read the _novelization_!  I'm kind of afraid to see the actual movie   
   > now... :-]   
   >   
      
   It's a good story. Unabashedly aimed at kids, though as are most of his   
   other works (except Nausicaa, perhaps) and was the one movie that   
   enabled him to concentrate on what he wanted to do. Although I don't   
   like modern Disney at all, they did do a good job in the voice-overs. I   
   have two versions of Tenku no Shiro Laputa and the Disney sounds much   
   more natural (maybe simpler?)   
      
   I've been using Tonari no Totoro and Majo no Takkyubin DVDs in my   
   English classes for listening/writing. Most of my students are very   
   familiar with the stories. They have proved very popular and I'm working   
   on Kurenai no Buta, Tenku no Shiro Laputa and Howl no ugoku shiro.   
   These movies split nicely into 6 or 7 parts.   
      
   If anyone's interested in a copy of my screenplays/worksheets, let me   
   know here (not hotmail).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)