Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 19, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2020 Lots of Ghibli chat in the Netflix thread so let's bung it in here instead. I don't have anything else to add aside that I'm glad people are rediscovering Castle in the Sky now because it's arguably Miyazaki's best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted February 19, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2020 (edited) My personal favourite is Spirited Away, as, like most Ghibli films, it's lovely, but also because it appeals to the part of me that loves the intertwining of ancient myth with modern conceits; it also makes me really nostalgic. It's a cliché choice, but I do love Princess Mononoke too - there's something that just feels very epic about it. They utilise the freedom animé gives as a means of really giving that "wide open spaces" feel. To be honest, I haven't seen many Ghibli films that aren't good. There are quite a few that I haven't seen (I've tended to stick to Miyazaki's and Takahata's output), so I daresay there'll be a couple of mis-steps there. I've been meaning to see Your Name for some time now. Edited February 19, 2020 by Carbomb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted February 19, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2020 Watched Castle in The Sky for the first time and it's definitely up there as one of the best. I love Studio Ghibli, but a huge issue me and my wife find is some of the films hit a speed bump halfway through and go 30 minutes too long, or they fill up with filler where nothing happens. Howl's Moving Castle and Pom Poko are the two biggest culprits of this, especially the latter. We almost turned it off because it got so heavy and felt like it was never going to conclude. If I was to do a top 5 for personal favourites (in no order) it'd be: Porco Rosso Castle in the Sky Ponyo Castle of Cagliostro The Cat Returns Ones close to top 5 but need time cutting are My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, and From Up on Poppy Hill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyattSheepMask Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 (edited) My Neighbour Totoro can’t be any more than 90 minutes surely, how much would you cut out? Watched Spirited Away a couple of months after a long time. It’s still a good film on the whole, but the ending does feel a little rushed and there are some CGI effects shots that don’t hold up Edited February 19, 2020 by WyattSheepMask Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted February 19, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2020 20 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said: My Neighbour Totoro can’t be any more than 90 minutes surely, how much would you cut out? Watched Spirited Away a couple of months after a long time. It’s still a good film on the whole, but the ending does feel a little rushed and there are some CGI effects shots that don’t hold up I suppose Totoro is one of the ones that plods doing nothing more than is overlong then as you're right it's only 87 minutes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 19, 2020 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2020 My Neighbour Totoro is one of the most perfectly paced films I've ever seen. I've never heard the complaint that it's too long before, just bizarre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 Laputa was the only Ghibli film I saw as a kid, and it's one of those films that really stays with you for the rest of your life. So rewatching it a few weeks ago was an amazing experience, and once again I blubbed quite a lot, as seems to be the case with these Ghibli movies. It has to have been influenced by Silent Running, right? The motif of the floating garden with the robots looking after it... Not a bad film to take influence from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted February 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 20, 2020 10 hours ago, Loki said: It has to have been influenced by Silent Running, right? The motif of the floating garden with the robots looking after it I've never considered that, or heard any suggestion of it before, but I can see the comparison. Laputa in Gulliver's Travels was a technologically advanced flying island, though, so it may just be coincidence - man's relationship to nature, and where technology fits in that, is a common thread through all of Miyazaki's work. What I do like is that the mining towns in it were influenced by Miyazaki going to Wales during the miners' strike, and how much that inspired the representation of small communities fighting for their place in the world. What I think goes underappreciated about Castle In The Sky is the influence it had on Japanese video games. Joe Hisaishi's score influenced the music of countless JRPGs, the visual aesthetic of mixing magic and pseudo-steampunk technology was an influence on the Final Fantasy series, V and VI especially, but the earlier ones' fixations on airships and magic crystals has an obvious forebear. It was also an influence on the Zelda series, and I suspect that the character design of Dr Robotnik in the Sonic games is influenced by the design of Motro. Totoro I think is perfectly paced. There's a lot of scenes were nothing "happens", but it's a mood piece. The film wouldn't work without them. I've never quite got on with Spirited Away as the canonical "classic", because the ending is pretty out of nowhere. It feels like one of the first examples of Miyazaki really letting a story get away from him and not knowing how to end it - Howl's is even more egregious for that. Mononoke was the first I saw, and will likely always be one of my favourites for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members waters44 Posted February 22, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 22, 2020 (edited) Are any of the Studio Ghibli films not suitable for a 4 year old? We have watched Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro so far and my daughter has loved them both. I’m pretty sure those two are rated U but some of them are PG Edited February 22, 2020 by waters44 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted February 22, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 22, 2020 Just now, waters44 said: Are any of the Studio Ghibli films not suitable for a 4 year old? We have watched Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro so far and my daughter has loved them both. I’m pretty sure those two are rated U but some of them are PG I'd say Princess Mononoke is probably not for someone that young. The violence isn't horrendous, but it's graphic enough for a kid that small. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 22, 2020 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 22, 2020 You probably won't want to show them Grave of the Fireflies tbh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members waters44 Posted February 23, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 23, 2020 Thanks both - I’ll watch Princess Mononoke on my own first then, and yep I wouldn’t have let her watch Fireflies but that’s not going on Netflix as far as I’m aware anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted February 27, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 27, 2020 I love Joe Hisaishi (his output for both Ghibli and Takeshi put him up there as one of my favourite film composers ever), so thanks for that. Hope it's as good as Morricone's at the O2 a couple of years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted March 4, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted March 4, 2020 the second wave of films has been added to Netflix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 Loved Porco Rossi. Loved it. An abrupt ending but otherwise it was just lovely. It's hard to explain the reaction I have to Studio Ghibli films. The closest I can get is that I feel nostalgic for something I've never seen before. Or a nostalgia for childhood or something. The music was brilliant in this film too, and the sound. I suspect a lot of love went into accurate recordings of the right sort of prop plane engines to make it all authentic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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