I must down to Earthsea again,

[lsanderson]

The Son of the Anime Master Begins His Quest for Honor
By CHARLES SOLOMON

KOGANEI, Japan

FOR Goro Miyazaki the summer ended on a bittersweet note. This 39-year-old filmmaker had the pleasure of seeing his first movie, the animated feature “Gedo Senki,” or “Tales From Earthsea,” blossom into the biggest hit of the summer in Japan, as it rose to the top spot and took in more than 7.3 billion yen (about $61.4 million) by the end of September.

But even his success brought inevitable reminders that he is, after all, the other Miyazaki. His Oscar-winning father, Hayao, regarded by many critics as the greatest director working in animation today, has earned much more with his own hits. Ursula K. Le Guin, author of the popular “Earthsea” novels, on which the new film was based, went out of her way to make the distinction on her Web site, calling the father “a genius of the same caliber as Kurosawa or Fellini.” She went on to complain about the liberties Goro and his new film took with her work.

“Of course a movie shouldn’t try to follow a novel exactly — they’re different arts, very different forms of narrative,” she wrote. “There may have to be massive changes. But it is reasonable to expect some fidelity to the characters and general story in a film named for and said to be based on books that have been in print for 40 years.”

So the younger Mr. Miyazaki can be forgiven a bit of weariness. “Sometimes I wish hadn’t entered the same profession as my father,” he said, speaking through an interpreter during an interview at Studio Ghibli, headquarters of the Hayao Miyazaki and the director Isao Takahata, in this suburb of Tokyo. “I realized for the first time how difficult it is to be the son of Hayao Miyazaki. If I weren’t involved in animated filmmaking, I would just have a simple, quiet, normal life.” More

Comments

Re: Good Old Yuck LeGuin

[jbru.livejournal.com]

She's discussed the SciFi miniseries on her website before and explained the process in which she was told she'd have input on the script but was only given the final version. For all her talent, she doesn't have the current star power to demand the kind of creative control Rowling had over the Harry Potter films.