The year was 1997, the 20th anniversary of the greatest trilogy ever to come to theaters. To celebrate the momentous occasion, LucasFilms re released the original Star Wars Trilogy with new and spectacular CG effects. I remember attending the midnight showing of A New Hope and the two subsequent movies. The excitement was palpable. Finally I was able to see the movie series that started when my father was a young boy, finally I was part of the revolution that took the science fiction community by storm. It wasn't long after the special edition of Return of the Jedi was in theaters that I saw the first previews for Phantom Menace. This was surely my trilogy, it was surely made just for me. Over the next several years I attended the midnight showing of every Star War movie to be released.
It's been 5 years since the last Star Wars movie and since then there has been enough Star Wars related media to keep me happy. Today we live in a new age, with Clone Wars in syndication, two new Star Wars video games being released this year and the news of a remastered 3-d version of all six of the movies coming to theaters soon. It all feels so familiar.
In fact, there is a reason why it feels so familiar, perhaps a formula that Lucas has cooked up for a new generation? Which is why it was almost not surprising when I saw the news yesterday.
IESB.net has announced a very credible rumor that George Lucas plans on working on a new trilogy after the release of the 3-d conversions. According to the site, Lucas plans to begin working on the series in 2012, to be finished around 2015 which coincides with the final 3-d conversion. The series will not involve the Skywalker family or have anything to do with the live-action series currently in development.
Details are limited right now, yet we can all keep our fingers crossed and hope it's not another dead-end rumor to pull attention to the current Star Wars universe.
A great tragedy has happened in the world of entertainment. On August 24th 2010, Satoshi Kon, director and animator of such great films such as Perfect Blue, Paprika and the TV series Paranoia Agent, died in his home of pancreatic cancer. Satoshi Kon was only 46 years old and was currently working on a project called The Dream Machine. I think I speak for everyone that has seen any of his movies when I say that he was one of the most brilliant anime directors and that his understanding of psychology, philosophy and aesthetics eclipses any directors of his time. It's saddening to lose someone like this, yet on his death bed, Satoshi made arrangements to give his last words even to his fans.
After his death, his family released a final blog entry that he had written to his fans, his loved ones and the crew of his final project. His blog was far from happy, yet it did have it's own optimistic tone. He likens death to a "hop over there", saying that he truly thinks his wife will send him off in the best way possible. He makes several references to his movies and has such a humble tone that truly seems as if he is talking to anyone who wants to listen.
He did; however, mention that his greatest regret was the production of his newest project The Dream Machine with Mad House Studios and how he worries about the crew. He says that he "wrapped his arms" around the production throughout every detail and that because of this he fears his idea was not passed on well enough to finish the project. He does say that he has faith in Maruyama, his partner at Madhouse, and that he is certain Maruyama will continue the project "bravely".
Satoshi Kon's most recent work Good Morning
Satoshi Kon finishes his blog with these final words:
"So, Everyone who stuck with me through this long document, thank you. With my heart full of gratitude for everything good in the world, I'll put down my pen.
If you don’t keep up with Marvel comics, let me fill you in. Within the last few years there was a mutant registration act causing a Civil War amongst Superheroes and Villains, Captain America died, the planet was taken over during an alien Skrull Invasion and the only person who could save It was Norman Osbourne, the Green Goblin. Osbourne somehow became the leader of the Avengers and by connection, the world. Eventually his Dark Reign was over when, through a series of strange stories, Steve Rogers (Captain America) comes back to kick some ass. Even though Rogers is back, he refuses to wear the Captain America uniform, letting his replacement James Buchanan Barnes, AKA “Bucky” don the costume and shield. Which brings light in to our current era, the Heroic Age, in which things are restoring themselves slowly, the Avengers are steadily starting to band back together and life is looking good. Caught up? Good.
With the new era, 8 new series and 6 new miniseries have been released ushering in the Heroic Age. One of which is Black Widow, written by New York Times Bestselling Author Marjorie Liu and drawn by Daniel Acuña, fairly new to the comic book industry. Centering around Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) the series begins to call her character in to question, while also questioning how much her fellow Avengers would believe her if she was accused of doing…….well what she always does, spying.
The series starts off with Natasha being sedated in the middle of a sidewalk while a surgeon cuts her abdomen open and removes a chip. This chip has been implanted for years and it’s been used to gather information on nearly every superhuman in existence. The government is the first to find this out and they call the Avengers in to help, even though they claim to be on her side, doubt grows abundant amongst the group. Her current lover, the new Captain America, James Barnes and Logan (Wolverine) are amongst her most outspoken supporters yet it doesn’t take long for the CIA, police and the Avengers themselves to join the hunt to find her.
The series is well written, trying not to spend too much time on any one item, jumping around as she hops throughout the country trying to find who exposed her deepest secret, while also providing a lot of back story you most likely have missed because……really who follows Black Widow Origin stories? The art is sexy, sleek and surprisingly minimalist, having very few inked lines, relying on painted figures. All in all, it’s worth checking out, there are plenty of twists and turns. Whether you like Black Widow or not, It’s a good story that might define the character in a completely new light.
I had first heard about this movie when someone mentioned to me that Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro Miyazaki was about to make his first movie. Hayao himself being the director of classics like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away has earned a spot as being one of my favorite directors. It was a few months later that I had heard that the movie was going to be based on the Earthsea series by the science fiction/fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin. My excitement rose even higher at this, having read the Earthsea series. The preliminary news I heard about it was wonderful as well, it was doing great in the box office in Japan, making over seven million dollars on opening weekend. I was absolutely elated by the time I had heard that Studio Ghibli had hired Willem Dafoe to play the lead villain of the movie. So, I put aside time, turned the lights on dim and grabbed a bucket of popcorn.The movie picks up very fast with a ship being tossed around in fierce waters. The outfits and design of the ship echoed that of which Le Guin had hinted at in her books. The Celtic music picks up as the ship is about to be overturned and you see two majestic white dragons rising from the water and dancing about in the clouds, the dancing soon turns to rage as one of the dragon severs the head of the other from his body.
The next scene is a meeting of politicians sitting in front of the King, telling him of the dragons that were spotted off shore and how his son is missing. The King is very distressed and sets off by himself down a long corridor. The king hears steps, turns around and sees nothing. Then an assassin reveals himself and pierces the king through the heart. The king calls out that the murderer was his son, Arren.
With patricide out of the way for Goro, he moves on to wrecking more staples of the Ghibli Studio legacy. Hayao himself was known for designing wonderful creatures, whereas always had a basis in creatures in our world, had distinguishing qualities that made them whimsical, mysterious and often magical. Goro Miyazaki decided to go for another approach......realistic, droningly witless and fairly unimaginative. This is becoming quite a trend for Goro.
I would like to mention that I am not even commenting on the distinct and numerous plot holes, errors, dead-ends and meaningless dialogue that is in this film especially compared to the deep-thinking universe expanding stories of Le Guin. Quite frankly, the only thing incredible about this story is that they were able to take Le Guin's story and universe and chop it up in to something so streamline and silent that it is hardly recognizable. It gave a taste in my mouth comparable to discount sushi.
This Kind
There were a few crowning achievements of this movie, Studio Ghibli remained to give wonderful backgrounds to the piece, yet what they put considerably less attention to was character movement. That is unless it was directed towards Lord Cob, the movies antagonist. Let me say that Lord Cob was one of the best parts of the movie, Dafoe delivered every line in the movie with a whispering effeminate growl that was equal parts enticing as it was disturbing. His movement, his hair movement and later on his magical ooze (there isn't a better way to explain it) was animated very well.
There were a few interesting story themes, yet instead of being hidden under a layer of fantasy story-line, they were announced, said blatently, practically screamed throughout the last forty-five minutes of the movie.
Like I mentioned, the movie was released in Japan and made quite a bit of money, even stayed on the top of the box-office for 9 weeks, but it must have been a slow season because the movie that took its number one place was X-Men: Last Stand.... The movie was then released on the thirteenth of this month in America, only going to 22 theaters across the country.
Ursula Le Guin commented on the movie after seeing it, saying that the content was changed to "drastically changed" and that it didn't represent her books at all. She later made a comment to Goro personally that "It isn't my book, it's your movie, it's a good movie". Ghibli then used part of this quote on the company website to advertise the movie.
The Ghibli name is what drew everyone in towards this movie, it's what gave Le Guin the confidence to sign the rights of her book, it's what gave this movie such an expensive budget, perhaps everyone thought they were getting the father, but didn't find anything worth keeping when they found the son.
And with that, Goro adds quite possibly the only dark chapter in Studio Ghibli's Legacy.
