Well their top directorial talent is retired (and even if it's another fake retirement like his last two, he's too old to do too much more) or dead. Miyazaki's films seem to be more popular and well known than Takahata's (personally Grave of the Fireflies and The Cat Returns are the only Takahata films I've seen), but both men were the heart of the studio. Goro Miyazaki has improved since his debut but is still nowhere as talented nor as visionary as his father.
Also The Boy and the Heron was quite a letdown for me for Miyazaki's final film. I understood the point he was trying to make, that the films he made were his attempt at creating a perfect world, but the malice in his own heart made him unable to accomplish his vision. But the rest of the film didn't really seem to be built around that message, it seemed like an afterthought for the final scenes where the great-uncle is trying to pass the mantle on to him.
In any case, Princess Mononoke is my favorite film of all time, and the closest that Miyazaki (and Studio Ghibli) ever got to perfection. If you haven't seen it you should absolutely check it out.
> personally Grave of the Fireflies and The Cat Returns are the only Takahata films I've seen
You owe it to yourself to watch the Tale of Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語). It might be his best film, and quite possibly one of the best ever produced by Ghibli.
Takahata was robbed of the Oscar that year which went to...Big Hero. Ugh.
Between Kaguya and Grave of the Fireflies, Takahata had two of the best films ever made, in any category, and never got an Oscar.
Oscar judges don't watch the movies they judge. They usually just ask their children about them, or go by general "vibes" or choose by which one has more "diversity", etc.
It's based on a short story published by Akiyuki Nosaka [1] which was based on his own experiences, and in general, the fate of many children after the war [2].
As far as I can tell, the movie was a faithful re-enactment of the story, which itself was only slightly removed from the author's own experiences. War is fundamentally depressing, and the only thing you could reasonably call "oscar bait" was the choice to make the movie at all. Others might call it brave -- particularly when you realize that it was released at the same time as Totoro. The brilliance of the film was that it used "kids animation" to portray the misery of war in a way that I don't think any other movie ever has.
It was a fundamental re-imagining of the scope of the medium, and the deep irony of a comment like the GP is that the entire reason it gets dismissed is because it pushes the boundaries of animation far beyond what is usually deemed acceptable.
Miyazaki plays metaphorical footsie with themes like death and pain and obligation -- and maybe he's more successful because of it -- but Takahata just takes them head-on.
Nausicaa is my favorite for several reasons. It may also be the most significant as it is technically not a Ghibli but the movie that lead to the creation of the studios.
As I've gotten older, I have grown to understand that while a lot of these films are popular for good reason (and are extremely good!) some of the best films, objectively to me, are some of the 'quietier' ones.
I'd say that Up On Poppy Hill is probably my partner and I's favorite Ghibli film. It's 'small' and 'quiet' in that the scope is a single town, and there's nothing super fantastical about it. Every time I watch it I see and hear something new. This is definitely Goro's best film as a director at Ghibli.
The film that hit me the hardest though is The Wind Rises. If you are a married man this is a film that will absolutely effect you emotionally. There are some films that are targeted as extremely specific audiences and this is one of those. I think everyone can enjoy it, but there's a handful of scenes that are so specific that I connected with so directly that I could feel every moment that Miyazaki was trying to convey at that exact time.
There's another film that is definitely more biased to adults, that is Only Yesterday. It's probably the slowest paced film that Ghibli has made, however it's one that's stuck with me so thoroughly. Especially the final few scenes, which only when they're over do you realize was something like 15-20 minutes with maybe a handful of dialogue lines. This is also another non-Miyazaki film that is extremely good.
Cat return isn't directed by Takahata. Neither is the predecessor Whisper of the Heart, so I'm not sure which film you are thinking of, or if you've only ever watched one of his films.
I agree that The Boy and Heron wasn't a very good film. It honestly felt like an imitation.
How are there that many of us? It really is a spectacular film.
> equally good both in sub and dub.
The dub has decent voice acting, but is plagued with changing the meaning of several scenes. Kaya is Ashitaka's little sister, not betrothed. They inserted fart jokes. Moro's voice is significantly different [1]. Also, Neil Gaiman was involved in the localization. I've never been a fan of his.
There was also a really great anecdote about Miyazaki winning out over Harvey Weinstein [2]. "No Cuts!"
Back when I was a kid, I bought Miramax's old Princess Mononoke marketing site [3]. I still have it floating around, I think.
i also was surprised at this and don't exactly remember one, but i were to guess, its one of the scenes of Jigo (short squat guy in sandals) eating porridge and laughing too hard maybe?
It's at the introduction of Ashitaka, Eboshi, Toki, and Gonza at Iron Town. They used it to add levity to the situation, I guess? It was entirely pointless and stupid.
edit: Actually, it was from the scene with Eboshi, Gonza, and the women talking about the threat from the emperor around the 1:17:00 - 1:18:00 mark. Right before Ashitaka wakes up in the cave and talks with Moro. It's comedic effect to get the women to laugh at the supposedly-tough Gonza.
It's meant to be either a fart or someone blowing a raspberry, but none of the characters mouths are moving. I think it's clearly meant to be the former.
I just watched the English and the Japanese versions and only the English dub has it.
I need to watch this again. It's such a good movie.
I don't think I have the willpower to check it myself, I never ever saw it it in the US dub - and I don't think I want to. But thanks for the clarification.
> I need to watch this again. It's such a good movie.
I recently just threw the whole of Art Of Mononoke Hime to my wallpaper folder, and it's a treat. May I indulge you for the same?
Inserting a fart joke when it wasn't in the source is quite low. But there are even more lower hanging things the American distribution did, so it's not the ultimate for sure.
I'm the same vein, though, wasn't Disney essentially Walt (and Roy) as well? Disney (the animation studio) went through a nadir between the death of Roy in 1971 before the start of the "Disney Renaissance" with The Little Mermaid in 1989 brought them back to form. I see no reason that Studio Ghibli couldn't eventually find outsized success after the death of Miyazaki.
It did die with Walt. They walked back a lot of his plans for the parks. They don’t make movies like they made in his era any longer. It is all CGI and live action lately. And after a certain point you have to wonder if there has been a significant loss of institutional knowledge on how to make a lot of those old hand made animations.
Walt Disney died in 1966. There were less but still many notable traditionally animated films (or films which blended some modern technology with hand drawn cels) since then.
The Jungle Book - 1967
Little Mermaid - 1989
Beauty and the Beast - 1991
Aladdin - 1992
Lion King - 1994
It's likely more a question of what you grew up with. When I was a kid I remember heavily disliking many of the earliest Disney animated movies like Pinocchio/Dumbo/Bambi but I absolutely adored the animated Robin Hood, Sword in the Stone, etc.
Jungle Book - Walt Disney was involved with this, they started animating in 1965.
Rest of the films you mentioned - The Disney Renaissance the parent parent’s comment mentioned - starting with The Little Mermaid in 1989, and it seems generally accepted this lasted for 10 years?
That's skipping 30 years of Disney history. The company certainly went into a creative slump after Walt died, but they got back into form with what is generally called the Disney renaissance[1] in the late 80s starting The Little Mermaid.
The Lion King is pretty much a flawless film. And that came out 28 years after Walt Disney died.
It’s worth mentioning that boneheaded moves by Disney (defunding animation because computers exist) let to a mass exodus to Pixar, which did plenty of excellent work before Disney acquired it.
On the one hand, yes, but also consider that game animation is fundamentally different from cinematic animation. It often has to be modular and loopable, but that also means that much of it can be treated like anime's "sakuga" stock footage (high quality, because it's going to be seen a lot). Cuphead was also something of a passion project, and the studio insisted on studying and replicating the older techniques to the best of their ability.
Basically, reverse engineering that process is probably a more expensive undertaking than most studios are willing to take. Look also at the Cuphead animated series, which was animated like a modern production (sadly).
It's obviously not the same, but I totally disagree with "It did die with Walt". For example, I think Aladdin is one of the best movies of all time, period. Granted, a huge part of that is the genius of Robin Williams, but to create a film that has both parents and their kids doubled over in laughter is no easy feat. But it still had great animation, a great story, great songs, etc.
[producer and director] had written the role of the Genie for Robin Williams, but when met with resistance, created a reel of a Williams's stand-up animation of the Genie.
The directors asked Eric Goldberg, the Genie's supervising animator, to animate the character over one of Williams's old stand-up comedy routines to pitch the idea to the actor. The resulting test, in which Williams's stand-up about schizophrenia was translated to the Genie growing another head to argue with himself, made Williams "laugh his ass off", and convinced him to sign for the role.
Williams's appearance in Aladdin marked the beginning of a transition in animation to use celebrity voice actors rather than specifically trained voice actors
Yes, it was. But Disney was always much more dilluted and commercial anyway. And modern Disney is nothing like Walt's era Disney, it's similar to the post-Miyazaki Ghibli decline I predict - those few films from back in the 90s aside.
>I see no reason that Studio Ghibli couldn't eventually find outsized success after the death of Miyazaki.
There are notable Studio Ghibli films that were not made by Miyazaki such as Grave of the Fireflies, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and When Marnie was There.
All of those were in my opinion excellent films and similar in style to ones made by Miyazaki, and I think fans of Miyazaki's work will also enjoy them.
Miyazaki is not unique. Shinkai for example is part of a younger generation that does not fall behind and he has even been called the new Miyazaki (although he dismisses it). Talent per se does not die with a single person, especially not in a field with so many enthusiastic followers. And Ghibli in particular already has access to a lot of talent in other domains beyond writing and directing.
The passing of Satoshi Kon really hurt the advancement of anime. Both from the fact that it felt like Kon was really becoming a powerhouse as well as the people who were learning from him.
Definitely! What amazing films he could have made in all these years. I'm not really an anime fan, but Miyazaki and Satoshi belong to my all-time favourites.
Oh, I'm going to say something which will rustle even more feathers than this!
Don Bluth was far superior to Miyazaki. Also, Miyazaki was a poor father and his kids movies sucked (i.e. tales of the earth sea) because he was basically forced into following in his dads footsteps.
It really is unfortunate that this went the way it did --- I'd dearly love for Earthsea to have a film version worthy of the fact that it was one of the first books to ask the question, "Can there be fantasy which is not a retelling of _The Lord of the Rings_?" and to answer with originality and a deep insight into what fantasy has to say about human nature.
I love Secret of NIMH, All Dogs Go To Heaven, etc. but let's not whitewash over history. He also did "A Troll in Central Park".
For every mediocre movie like Earthsea, there's also fantastic movies like Porco Rosso, Spirited Away, Naussica, etc - all of which I watched as a "kid".
They both had their highs and lows. Seems rather pointless to try and bench them against each other.
Even the "Bad" bluth films are excellent. Rock a doodle do is a solid 8.5+/10 and I straight up think critics who leave that film with a bad rating are deluded.
Porco Rosso literally reuses music, animations, etc from his other films. I enjoyed the film because a fascist pig cassanova was a fascinating premise - but it's very much derivative.
I bench them against one another because my partner is obsessed with Miyazaki and finds Bluth films to be mundane in comparison. Miyazaki has far more cultural capital today than bluth - which is absurd since more Americans grew up watching the land before time than they did watching anything Miyazaki made.
Shinkai is an one trick pony whose one and only plot is teenage longing and whose one and only visual language is coating everything in a shiny glittery glow so he can hide the emptiness of his movies under it. His works are nothing but one aesthetic remade and remastered over and over, but sadly plenty of people do not engage with works of art beyond their aesthetics and here we are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not talent (I wouldn't take the words ethos and artistry to describe talent). Miyazaki is known to be a control freak. For better or worse, as long as he's involved, it's his way or the highway.
I do wonder why Hosoda isn't in the same conversation. His themes are sometimes a bit less... decisive than Miyazaki's, but the animation quality and passion for exploring intimate, interpersonal stories is there.
Edit: The downvote is a lot less helpful than an explanation.
No, you're right, he definitely belongs in the conversation. Wolf Children is on the same tier as the best Ghibli films. But to reach Miyazaki's level it's not enough to hit a home run, you have to do it at least four times in a row.
Ghibli is a production vehicle which was put in place to allow Takahata and Miyazaki to make and release their own movies.
The studio also coproduced an interesting movie of Dudok de Wit and produced an awesome one by Kondo, a correct one by Morita and some unequal ones by Goro Miyazaki.
It’s a midsized company employing plenty of producers, animators and other specialists. It could stop with Miyazaki retirement. It could keep going on making other movies which might or might not be as good as the Takahata and Miyazaki’s ones. Neither solution is inherently better.
But, no, Ghibli isn’t Miyazaki. The idea makes as much sense as talking about a Studio Ghibli style while Takahata made movies which were widely different from one another.
> The studio also coproduced an interesting movie of Dudok de Wit and produced an awesome one by Kondo, a correct one by Morita and some unequal ones by Goro Miyazaki.
Can you elaborate here? Is Kondo, Yoshifumo Kondo's Whisper of the Heart? Is Morita, Hiroyuki Morita's Cat return? I thought Cat return was a pretty bad movie by any account, but I'm also not sure what you mean by it being "a correct one".
Yes, indeed, both are Ghibli movies. Whisper of the Heart is by all accounts a very successful movie and a critic darling. The cat return while not a masterpiece is an overall ok movie - I think pretty bad is harsh.
Anyway the key point is that there is more to Ghibli that Miyazaki and even Takahata in the same way there is more to Miyazaki than Ghibli.
i don’t think studio ghibli should shut down just because miyazaki retires. great studios outlive their founders—their spirit and vision can be passed on, refined, and kept alive through new talent.
look at apple: steve jobs defined it, but the company kept going and still carries his legacy. ghibli could do the same. miyazaki shaped its soul, but that soul doesn’t have to vanish with him.
it’d be a real loss to the world to never see anything new from ghibli again.
The ghibli image generation meme was clearly responsible for a significant portion of openai’s growth to being a $300 billion company. If altman didnt throw ghibli at least a few hundred million for that, ghibli should sue openai.
The meme is likely to have profited both Studio Ghibli and OpenAI, as the studios probably got some publicity for it, without direct competition as Ghibli is not in the business of drawing memes.
Either way, it probably doesn't amount to much, it was just a fad.
My Neighbor Totoro is a family favorite in our household. My wife loves it. We even play the soundtrack in the car and in our backyard. We also greatly enjoy the Ernest & Celestine movies. We are waiting for the show to make it to a streaming service for us to try that.
I hope the next generation of Studio Ghibli isn't afraid to further explore the "Miyazaki universes" he envisioned. I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so, even if they drop the ball.
I'm grateful for the work these people have done to entertain so many with heartfelt animations.
> I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so
Disgusting take.
If indeed Ghibli goes with Miyazaki, then let it go. Sometimes art is just done and that's a concept as a culture we have so much friction with. If a game isn't updating, it's dead. If a movie isn't getting a sequel, it's dead. If a studio stops creating it's treated like some kind of loss, as if the beautiful things it's already made aren't good enough because there can't be any more.
Not every movie needs sequels, not every "universe" needs to have every corner of it documented and turned into subsequent works. For fucks sake just let stuff be finished, and that attitude comes with a bonus feature where maybe creatives won't be constantly burning themselves out under the demands of every audience.
I genuinely can't fathom the sort of person who is like "this artists' work moved me and elevated me as a person, but I guess if they die I can use shitty image gen programs to see more of what they might've made." Gross. Just gross.
That's rough. And somehow reeks like it's inspired by that old clip of Miyazaki trashing the procedurally generated 'monster' animation. You're intentionally misinterpreting what the OP wrote. "I guess if they die I can use shitty image gen programs" versus "I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so" are very different takes.
I do agree with you that we should be able to not try to create a sequel of a sequel of a remake, and let things pass. But isn't a lot of what Disney et al are doing specifically because their movies take a lot of resources to pull together, so end up playing it safe in the worst possible way?
What's your opinion on sampling, when it comes to music?
> "I guess if they die I can use shitty image gen programs" versus "I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so" are very different takes.
Miyazaki's art is Miyazaki's. If another artist were to come along and imitate his style, especially after he is gone, that is still not Miyazaki. That is whomever's that is's style and it's disrespectful of both to call it Miyazaki.
And, more to the point, all the AI generated garbage Ghibli crap makes the point better than I ever could. Look at it. It's dead. It looks like the right thing, and it mostly gets it all right, but you just know in your heart that it's not correct. It lacks intentionality which is a pretty universal critique of AI art (since an AI model, by definition, can't have intentionality) but it's one that triples down in potency when associated with something so widely beloved.
> But isn't a lot of what Disney et al are doing specifically because their movies take a lot of resources to pull together, so end up playing it safe in the worst possible way?
... yes? Was this meant as a counterpoint to what I said or a corroboration? I genuinely can't tell, the lead-in is phrased like you're going to disagree and then you cite the exact same (awful) example of how BAD this is.
> What's your opinion on sampling, when it comes to music?
As with most things, it depends. I think the Ghibli AI slop has a lot more in common with Vanilla Ice than, say, Hung Up by Madonna.
> Miyazaki's art is Miyazaki's. If another artist were to come along and imitate his style, especially after he is gone, that is still not Miyazaki. That is whomever's that is's style and it's disrespectful of both to call it Miyazaki.
Yes, but also no. Miyazaki’s art style is distinctive and certainly stands out, but it’s also very clearly a “mass produced” thing. In that I mean a team of animators are all creating frames of art in the Miyazaki style that are obviously not drawn by Miyazaki, but we call them Miyazaki art because they’re conglomerated into a single work under his direction. The question is how many frames of a movie have to be personally drawn by Miyazaki in order for something to be a Miyazaki film? If he directs the art and movie, but doesn’t actually draw anything himself, is that still a Miyazaki film? Is that “disrespectful” to him? More specifically, is the art style what makes a film a Miyazaki film or is it the world, the ideas and the individual human moments that are chosen to be drawn that make the film?
> If he directs the art and movie, but doesn’t actually draw anything himself, is that still a Miyazaki film?
Yes. You seem to be oscillating between thinking I'm talking about the frames he actually draws versus the movies he creates with the assistance of his various teams. It's both. That's part of why I am saying that once Miyazaki is gone, by definition, there will be no more Miyazaki movies, because there is no Miyazaki anymore.
Now, that's not to say that AI enthusiasts won't try and make them, they almost certainly will. I can't fathom why else you'd be working on this tech. However if you have so little creatively to say that you must reanimate the hand of a master so far your better that you'd need a rocket just to pick his pocket, then IMO you have already demonstrated your, and by extension, your works, lack so spectacularly that even you already know it sucks.
I can't separate this ongoing issue from the fact that so many of these super pro AI people are explicitly STEM guys (and it is mostly guys too) who have no background in the humanities, and this is going to sound mean but: it fucking shows. There is no appreciation for the artist. There is no value to creativity. Making things is seen by these people not as a thing they have to do lest the ideas burn holes in their skulls until they die; it's simply the first thing that needs to be done so you can sell shit.
I know so many artists who work jobs they loathe to come home and create for audiences they have made, and they make a pittance off of because the money is not and was never the point. They create because they can't not create. The AI bro is the polar opposite: they do not create, because they can't. They have nothing to say. All their ideas are Nostalgia Critic-grade "what if batman met mario" stuff.
It would be completely disrespectful to call it Miyazaki's. It's absolutely not. If you sample a Stevie Wonder song, you can't call yourself Stevie Wonder. Everyone knows who Stevie Wonder is, and the same goes for Miyazaki.
The AI generated Ghibli crap definitely makes a point, but not your point imo. The AI generated Ghibli stuff that was trending some time ago was a meme rather than anything anyone would expect to take as actual art. Like people ordering portraits from Fiverr in a specific style.
> Was this meant as a counterpoint to what I said or a corroboration?
The point I was making is that an actually talented artist with an actual story to tell, could make a movie that they would've not been capable of getting out without the help of AI or other modern tools. Which is the opposite of the Disney process. Meaning, modern tools empower solo and indie artists, be it Blender or generative AI.
If a person is not able to tell when something is not visually good they're probably not a talented artist, when we're talking about an inherently visual medium. I don't think tooling changes this. People who are talented in using samples when in comes to music can wade through hundreds of possible options to find the perfect thing to sample, and combine several very short snippets of audio into a whole. Why wouldn't the same apply here?
The disagreement here is: I think you're making a straw man argument, where the example usage of generative AI for art is one where people were making a meme. If someone actually thought they should be taken for a serious artist after generating a Ghibli meme image, I agree that would be mad. Let alone comparable to Miyazaki. That would be comical. Creating meaningful art was not the point of the Ghibli AI slop memes, which makes it a bad example in this context.
I think Vanilla Ice is a good example in that people definitely did not think he was a great artist or made emotionally meaningful music, even at the time. I'm pretty sure his value was in being entertaining and maybe catchy. But we do agree on the fact that it is still possible to make good music using samples, without having to actually play each of the instruments and record them.
And yeah, I just don't get this. If you want this sort of never ending, never permitted to end media system you can have it, Disney is right there, with Star Wars, with it's live action remakes, with it's Marvel. Like it's comical how many juggernaut IP's they own that just churn out the very definition of content.
And that's not to say all of it's bad, Andor is quite incredible, Wandivision combined it's tropey comic book story with genuinely heart-wrenching writing from House of M, and I could cite many other examples. But the vast majority, especially after Endgame, has just been completely forgettable, disposable shows and movies that are famously mediocre and disliked specifically because they have nothing to say, no point to make, and simply exist to occupy space on the Marvel treadmill.
And to have that desired from Studio Ghibli is just... full body shudders man.
> I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so, even if they drop the ball.
Seems you completely miss the point of Miyazaki's work. You can watch a video of Miyazaki watching an AI generated animation and see what he think about generative "art"[1].
That video you linked was hilarious. Oh how I wish more people would have Miyazaki’s way of thinking.
I don’t mean that they should necessarily have his exact same opinions on things. I mean that they should think through things and approach them in the same process and manner that Miyazaki does.
I hope fewer people evaluate animation techniques like Miyazaki did in that presentation. Likening a fantasy zombie character's movement to a disabled person and calling it an affront to life itself validates the exact look and feel the animation team was going for. Though he posits this as a negative for no logical reason that is offered.
This is dramatic of me to say, but I can sincerely claim that anyone in my division that pulled something like this would be demoted or let go. If for nothing else than evaluating a technical product using and only using emotional language.
in the world of art, people who care more about technical product rather than emotion tend to make disposable art that does not resonate across generations
I like what Miyazaki did, but I don't think his way of thinking is the one true way. Sure, generative zombies have no place in his idealized past, but they have places in other film and media. I think Miyazaki was wrong in his judgement.
Well their top directorial talent is retired (and even if it's another fake retirement like his last two, he's too old to do too much more) or dead. Miyazaki's films seem to be more popular and well known than Takahata's (personally Grave of the Fireflies and The Cat Returns are the only Takahata films I've seen), but both men were the heart of the studio. Goro Miyazaki has improved since his debut but is still nowhere as talented nor as visionary as his father.
Also The Boy and the Heron was quite a letdown for me for Miyazaki's final film. I understood the point he was trying to make, that the films he made were his attempt at creating a perfect world, but the malice in his own heart made him unable to accomplish his vision. But the rest of the film didn't really seem to be built around that message, it seemed like an afterthought for the final scenes where the great-uncle is trying to pass the mantle on to him.
In any case, Princess Mononoke is my favorite film of all time, and the closest that Miyazaki (and Studio Ghibli) ever got to perfection. If you haven't seen it you should absolutely check it out.
> personally Grave of the Fireflies and The Cat Returns are the only Takahata films I've seen
You owe it to yourself to watch the Tale of Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語). It might be his best film, and quite possibly one of the best ever produced by Ghibli.
Takahata was robbed of the Oscar that year which went to...Big Hero. Ugh.
Between Kaguya and Grave of the Fireflies, Takahata had two of the best films ever made, in any category, and never got an Oscar.
I know the Oscars are prestigious, but I can’t think of a single film in my top fifty favorites that won one.
For me, they are a contrarian indicator.
Oscar judges don't watch the movies they judge. They usually just ask their children about them, or go by general "vibes" or choose by which one has more "diversity", etc.
https://variety.com/2025/film/awards/oscars-viewing-requirem...
Grave of the fireflies can be described as depressing Oscar bait.
I believe the reason Miyazaki's movies are so popular is because there is at least hope in them.
I think that’s unfair; it’s semi-autobiographical
It's based on a short story published by Akiyuki Nosaka [1] which was based on his own experiences, and in general, the fate of many children after the war [2].
As far as I can tell, the movie was a faithful re-enactment of the story, which itself was only slightly removed from the author's own experiences. War is fundamentally depressing, and the only thing you could reasonably call "oscar bait" was the choice to make the movie at all. Others might call it brave -- particularly when you realize that it was released at the same time as Totoro. The brilliance of the film was that it used "kids animation" to portray the misery of war in a way that I don't think any other movie ever has.
It was a fundamental re-imagining of the scope of the medium, and the deep irony of a comment like the GP is that the entire reason it gets dismissed is because it pushes the boundaries of animation far beyond what is usually deemed acceptable.
Miyazaki plays metaphorical footsie with themes like death and pain and obligation -- and maybe he's more successful because of it -- but Takahata just takes them head-on.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies_(short_...
[2] https://thoughtmight.com/movie/grave-of-the-fireflies-misinf...
Sure. So?
Are you next going to tell me it’s not the kind of movie that gets festival prizes?
And deny me the right to be tired of this kind of movie?
Besides you ignored that i was hypothesising why the Miyazaki movies are more popular in your rush the defend the depressing masterpiece.
It's either Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Lauputa, or Kiki's Delivery Service for me. Depending on the phase of the moon.
But yeah, there are not many directors like Miyazaki or Kubrick left.
Maybe I could count Céline Sciamma to the same company. I wish she would make a new movie soon.
Nausicaa for me, I feel like that movie is criminally underrated among his catalog.
Totoro is certainly a close second though.
Is it really underrated? That's a shame then.
Nausicaa is my favorite for several reasons. It may also be the most significant as it is technically not a Ghibli but the movie that lead to the creation of the studios.
I thought Nausicaa was ok, but I'd read the entire manga before ever watching the film snd the changes from the manga were just too drastic for me.
Porco Rosso is my favorite Ghibli/Miyazaki film.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balconettes
2024.
She's been at it nearly 20 years. True creativity has limits.
Should put that to my watchlist. The trio of Tomboy, Girlhood, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire are some of my all time favorite movies.
As I've gotten older, I have grown to understand that while a lot of these films are popular for good reason (and are extremely good!) some of the best films, objectively to me, are some of the 'quietier' ones.
I'd say that Up On Poppy Hill is probably my partner and I's favorite Ghibli film. It's 'small' and 'quiet' in that the scope is a single town, and there's nothing super fantastical about it. Every time I watch it I see and hear something new. This is definitely Goro's best film as a director at Ghibli.
The film that hit me the hardest though is The Wind Rises. If you are a married man this is a film that will absolutely effect you emotionally. There are some films that are targeted as extremely specific audiences and this is one of those. I think everyone can enjoy it, but there's a handful of scenes that are so specific that I connected with so directly that I could feel every moment that Miyazaki was trying to convey at that exact time.
There's another film that is definitely more biased to adults, that is Only Yesterday. It's probably the slowest paced film that Ghibli has made, however it's one that's stuck with me so thoroughly. Especially the final few scenes, which only when they're over do you realize was something like 15-20 minutes with maybe a handful of dialogue lines. This is also another non-Miyazaki film that is extremely good.
I completely agree. I adore the Ghibli classics, but the three you mentioned are my personal favorites for much the same reason.
Cat return isn't directed by Takahata. Neither is the predecessor Whisper of the Heart, so I'm not sure which film you are thinking of, or if you've only ever watched one of his films.
I agree that The Boy and Heron wasn't a very good film. It honestly felt like an imitation.
For some reason my brain was remembering The Cat Returns as being directed by him, my bad
Mononoke is also my favorite film. It's also (imo) one of the few animes that is equally good both in sub and dub.
> Mononoke is also my favorite film.
How are there that many of us? It really is a spectacular film.
> equally good both in sub and dub.
The dub has decent voice acting, but is plagued with changing the meaning of several scenes. Kaya is Ashitaka's little sister, not betrothed. They inserted fart jokes. Moro's voice is significantly different [1]. Also, Neil Gaiman was involved in the localization. I've never been a fan of his.
There was also a really great anecdote about Miyazaki winning out over Harvey Weinstein [2]. "No Cuts!"
Back when I was a kid, I bought Miramax's old Princess Mononoke marketing site [3]. I still have it floating around, I think.
[1] https://www.out.com/film/2022/8/24/meet-japanese-drag-queen-...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/f4BgE1kdTGQ
[3] http://www.princess-mononoke.com/ (not SSL, whoops!)
> They inserted fart jokes
Whaaa? Can you provide any details?
The fondness of Americans of anything butt-related is well known but this is something penultimate.
i also was surprised at this and don't exactly remember one, but i were to guess, its one of the scenes of Jigo (short squat guy in sandals) eating porridge and laughing too hard maybe?
It's at the introduction of Ashitaka, Eboshi, Toki, and Gonza at Iron Town. They used it to add levity to the situation, I guess? It was entirely pointless and stupid.
edit: Actually, it was from the scene with Eboshi, Gonza, and the women talking about the threat from the emperor around the 1:17:00 - 1:18:00 mark. Right before Ashitaka wakes up in the cave and talks with Moro. It's comedic effect to get the women to laugh at the supposedly-tough Gonza.
It's meant to be either a fart or someone blowing a raspberry, but none of the characters mouths are moving. I think it's clearly meant to be the former.
I just watched the English and the Japanese versions and only the English dub has it.
I need to watch this again. It's such a good movie.
Oof
I don't think I have the willpower to check it myself, I never ever saw it it in the US dub - and I don't think I want to. But thanks for the clarification.
> I need to watch this again. It's such a good movie.
I recently just threw the whole of Art Of Mononoke Hime to my wallpaper folder, and it's a treat. May I indulge you for the same?
https://archive.org/details/artof-mononoke/ArtofMononoke_013...
How is it penultimate? Did you mean a different word?
The dub is good, but Moro's Japanese voice actor makes the subs superior every time.
Studio Ghibli is Miyazaki.
It goes with him. Maybe not as a business name, but as an ethos and artisty, yes.
I'm the same vein, though, wasn't Disney essentially Walt (and Roy) as well? Disney (the animation studio) went through a nadir between the death of Roy in 1971 before the start of the "Disney Renaissance" with The Little Mermaid in 1989 brought them back to form. I see no reason that Studio Ghibli couldn't eventually find outsized success after the death of Miyazaki.
It did die with Walt. They walked back a lot of his plans for the parks. They don’t make movies like they made in his era any longer. It is all CGI and live action lately. And after a certain point you have to wonder if there has been a significant loss of institutional knowledge on how to make a lot of those old hand made animations.
Walt Disney died in 1966. There were less but still many notable traditionally animated films (or films which blended some modern technology with hand drawn cels) since then.
The Jungle Book - 1967
Little Mermaid - 1989
Beauty and the Beast - 1991
Aladdin - 1992
Lion King - 1994
It's likely more a question of what you grew up with. When I was a kid I remember heavily disliking many of the earliest Disney animated movies like Pinocchio/Dumbo/Bambi but I absolutely adored the animated Robin Hood, Sword in the Stone, etc.
Jungle Book - Walt Disney was involved with this, they started animating in 1965.
Rest of the films you mentioned - The Disney Renaissance the parent parent’s comment mentioned - starting with The Little Mermaid in 1989, and it seems generally accepted this lasted for 10 years?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle_Book_(1967_film)#...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Renaissance
That's skipping 30 years of Disney history. The company certainly went into a creative slump after Walt died, but they got back into form with what is generally called the Disney renaissance[1] in the late 80s starting The Little Mermaid.
The Lion King is pretty much a flawless film. And that came out 28 years after Walt Disney died.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Renaissance
It’s worth mentioning that boneheaded moves by Disney (defunding animation because computers exist) let to a mass exodus to Pixar, which did plenty of excellent work before Disney acquired it.
Makes you wonder what company of the years ahead will be assembled from those let go today in the name of AI.
Art-wise, that renaissance ended 25+ years ago.
> wonder if there has been a significant loss of institutional knowledge on how to make a lot of those old hand made animations
No need to wonder: there has been, and basically all Disney 2D animation, even what little they do for the cinema, is outsourced overseas.
Wasn't Cuphead done in the traditional hand-animated style, using many of the original techniques?
On the one hand, yes, but also consider that game animation is fundamentally different from cinematic animation. It often has to be modular and loopable, but that also means that much of it can be treated like anime's "sakuga" stock footage (high quality, because it's going to be seen a lot). Cuphead was also something of a passion project, and the studio insisted on studying and replicating the older techniques to the best of their ability.
Basically, reverse engineering that process is probably a more expensive undertaking than most studios are willing to take. Look also at the Cuphead animated series, which was animated like a modern production (sadly).
It's obviously not the same, but I totally disagree with "It did die with Walt". For example, I think Aladdin is one of the best movies of all time, period. Granted, a huge part of that is the genius of Robin Williams, but to create a film that has both parents and their kids doubled over in laughter is no easy feat. But it still had great animation, a great story, great songs, etc.
Robin Williams movies are in their own category. Disney doesn't get to take credit for his achievements IMHO.
Here's something i didn't know:
[producer and director] had written the role of the Genie for Robin Williams, but when met with resistance, created a reel of a Williams's stand-up animation of the Genie.
The directors asked Eric Goldberg, the Genie's supervising animator, to animate the character over one of Williams's old stand-up comedy routines to pitch the idea to the actor. The resulting test, in which Williams's stand-up about schizophrenia was translated to the Genie growing another head to argue with himself, made Williams "laugh his ass off", and convinced him to sign for the role.
Williams's appearance in Aladdin marked the beginning of a transition in animation to use celebrity voice actors rather than specifically trained voice actors
Yes, it was. But Disney was always much more dilluted and commercial anyway. And modern Disney is nothing like Walt's era Disney, it's similar to the post-Miyazaki Ghibli decline I predict - those few films from back in the 90s aside.
>I see no reason that Studio Ghibli couldn't eventually find outsized success after the death of Miyazaki.
Oh, it's not success I fear they wont find.
There are notable Studio Ghibli films that were not made by Miyazaki such as Grave of the Fireflies, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and When Marnie was There.
All of those were in my opinion excellent films and similar in style to ones made by Miyazaki, and I think fans of Miyazaki's work will also enjoy them.
I adore "The Secret World of Arrietty" and "When Marnie Was There". I hope Hiromasa Yonebayashi gets to direct more of Ghibli's movies.
Yes, but they were under the Miyazaki era
Miyazaki is not unique. Shinkai for example is part of a younger generation that does not fall behind and he has even been called the new Miyazaki (although he dismisses it). Talent per se does not die with a single person, especially not in a field with so many enthusiastic followers. And Ghibli in particular already has access to a lot of talent in other domains beyond writing and directing.
It's such a shame that Satoshi Kon died so young. Crazy it's almost 15 years already.
The passing of Satoshi Kon really hurt the advancement of anime. Both from the fact that it felt like Kon was really becoming a powerhouse as well as the people who were learning from him.
Gotta reference this amazing film essay (2015!) on Kon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz49vQwSoTE
Definitely! What amazing films he could have made in all these years. I'm not really an anime fan, but Miyazaki and Satoshi belong to my all-time favourites.
Just FYI that should be "Miyazaki and Kon", Satoshi is his first name.
D'oh, I meant to write "Satoshi Kon". But thanks for pointing it out.
Oh, I'm going to say something which will rustle even more feathers than this!
Don Bluth was far superior to Miyazaki. Also, Miyazaki was a poor father and his kids movies sucked (i.e. tales of the earth sea) because he was basically forced into following in his dads footsteps.
Folks who are curious about the Le Guin angle on _Tales of Earthsea_ should read:
https://www.ursulakleguin.com/adaptation-tales-of-earthsea
It really is unfortunate that this went the way it did --- I'd dearly love for Earthsea to have a film version worthy of the fact that it was one of the first books to ask the question, "Can there be fantasy which is not a retelling of _The Lord of the Rings_?" and to answer with originality and a deep insight into what fantasy has to say about human nature.
I grew up with both Miyazaki and Bluth films.
I love Secret of NIMH, All Dogs Go To Heaven, etc. but let's not whitewash over history. He also did "A Troll in Central Park".
For every mediocre movie like Earthsea, there's also fantastic movies like Porco Rosso, Spirited Away, Naussica, etc - all of which I watched as a "kid".
They both had their highs and lows. Seems rather pointless to try and bench them against each other.
Even the "Bad" bluth films are excellent. Rock a doodle do is a solid 8.5+/10 and I straight up think critics who leave that film with a bad rating are deluded.
Porco Rosso literally reuses music, animations, etc from his other films. I enjoyed the film because a fascist pig cassanova was a fascinating premise - but it's very much derivative.
I bench them against one another because my partner is obsessed with Miyazaki and finds Bluth films to be mundane in comparison. Miyazaki has far more cultural capital today than bluth - which is absurd since more Americans grew up watching the land before time than they did watching anything Miyazaki made.
Earthsea was directed by another Miyazaki, namely Hayao's son Goro.
Wasn't Totoro a kids movie? I loved that movie.
I think GP meant "his kid's movies", as in movies directed by Goro Miyazaki, the son of Hayao Miyazaki.
Definitely. Lots of Ghibli films (and anime in general) aren't really targeting an age demographic the way the west would.
Kiki's Delivery Service, Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Arrietty, etc. are all watchable at any age.
Even the more mature films like Princess Mononoke would be unlikely to garner more than a PG rating.
I like both Miyazaki and Shinkai, but they are really quite different both visually and thematically, and each unique in their own way.
Sure, it’s conceivable for Ghibli to be successful again with a new talented director, but it won’t be Miyazaki’s nor Takahata’s Ghibli anymore.
Shinkai is an one trick pony whose one and only plot is teenage longing and whose one and only visual language is coating everything in a shiny glittery glow so he can hide the emptiness of his movies under it. His works are nothing but one aesthetic remade and remastered over and over, but sadly plenty of people do not engage with works of art beyond their aesthetics and here we are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So he's the Japanese Nicholas Sparks?
or Wes Anderson
Talent per se, no. Stubborness to a vision and resistance to commercial dillution, however, often does.
Not talent (I wouldn't take the words ethos and artistry to describe talent). Miyazaki is known to be a control freak. For better or worse, as long as he's involved, it's his way or the highway.
I do wonder why Hosoda isn't in the same conversation. His themes are sometimes a bit less... decisive than Miyazaki's, but the animation quality and passion for exploring intimate, interpersonal stories is there.
Edit: The downvote is a lot less helpful than an explanation.
No, you're right, he definitely belongs in the conversation. Wolf Children is on the same tier as the best Ghibli films. But to reach Miyazaki's level it's not enough to hit a home run, you have to do it at least four times in a row.
Just like, I guess, Pixar is gone for all practical purposes - IMHO of course.
largely seems driven by a somewhat relentless case of perfectionism, like many renown artists
Some comments here are kind of weird.
Ghibli is a production vehicle which was put in place to allow Takahata and Miyazaki to make and release their own movies.
The studio also coproduced an interesting movie of Dudok de Wit and produced an awesome one by Kondo, a correct one by Morita and some unequal ones by Goro Miyazaki.
It’s a midsized company employing plenty of producers, animators and other specialists. It could stop with Miyazaki retirement. It could keep going on making other movies which might or might not be as good as the Takahata and Miyazaki’s ones. Neither solution is inherently better.
But, no, Ghibli isn’t Miyazaki. The idea makes as much sense as talking about a Studio Ghibli style while Takahata made movies which were widely different from one another.
> The studio also coproduced an interesting movie of Dudok de Wit and produced an awesome one by Kondo, a correct one by Morita and some unequal ones by Goro Miyazaki.
Can you elaborate here? Is Kondo, Yoshifumo Kondo's Whisper of the Heart? Is Morita, Hiroyuki Morita's Cat return? I thought Cat return was a pretty bad movie by any account, but I'm also not sure what you mean by it being "a correct one".
Yes, indeed, both are Ghibli movies. Whisper of the Heart is by all accounts a very successful movie and a critic darling. The cat return while not a masterpiece is an overall ok movie - I think pretty bad is harsh.
Anyway the key point is that there is more to Ghibli that Miyazaki and even Takahata in the same way there is more to Miyazaki than Ghibli.
One day you will read the headline “Hayao Miyazaki has died.”
And you know that will also be the end of Studio Ghibli. Whatever comes next under that name, will only be a shadow of what it once was.
Unfortunately the article does not really explore its own title, just implying it could happen since, Miyazaki is old.
We are all left to hope that Ghibli's studio keeps going even after Miyazaki stops.
archive link
https://archive.is/RcD0w
Studio Ghibli is Miyazaki.
It goes with him.
[dead]
Well the style has been destroyed by the grifters.
On to the next one.
i don’t think studio ghibli should shut down just because miyazaki retires. great studios outlive their founders—their spirit and vision can be passed on, refined, and kept alive through new talent.
look at apple: steve jobs defined it, but the company kept going and still carries his legacy. ghibli could do the same. miyazaki shaped its soul, but that soul doesn’t have to vanish with him.
it’d be a real loss to the world to never see anything new from ghibli again.
The ghibli image generation meme was clearly responsible for a significant portion of openai’s growth to being a $300 billion company. If altman didnt throw ghibli at least a few hundred million for that, ghibli should sue openai.
The meme is likely to have profited both Studio Ghibli and OpenAI, as the studios probably got some publicity for it, without direct competition as Ghibli is not in the business of drawing memes.
Either way, it probably doesn't amount to much, it was just a fad.
It was a big deal for like about a week. It has died down now.
My Neighbor Totoro is a family favorite in our household. My wife loves it. We even play the soundtrack in the car and in our backyard. We also greatly enjoy the Ernest & Celestine movies. We are waiting for the show to make it to a streaming service for us to try that.
I hope the next generation of Studio Ghibli isn't afraid to further explore the "Miyazaki universes" he envisioned. I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so, even if they drop the ball.
I'm grateful for the work these people have done to entertain so many with heartfelt animations.
> I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so, even if they drop the ball.
Ugh...
If you were grateful for their work, you wouldn't wish for AI to "generate" soulless facsimiles of that work to drown people in.
> I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so
Disgusting take.
If indeed Ghibli goes with Miyazaki, then let it go. Sometimes art is just done and that's a concept as a culture we have so much friction with. If a game isn't updating, it's dead. If a movie isn't getting a sequel, it's dead. If a studio stops creating it's treated like some kind of loss, as if the beautiful things it's already made aren't good enough because there can't be any more.
Not every movie needs sequels, not every "universe" needs to have every corner of it documented and turned into subsequent works. For fucks sake just let stuff be finished, and that attitude comes with a bonus feature where maybe creatives won't be constantly burning themselves out under the demands of every audience.
I genuinely can't fathom the sort of person who is like "this artists' work moved me and elevated me as a person, but I guess if they die I can use shitty image gen programs to see more of what they might've made." Gross. Just gross.
That's rough. And somehow reeks like it's inspired by that old clip of Miyazaki trashing the procedurally generated 'monster' animation. You're intentionally misinterpreting what the OP wrote. "I guess if they die I can use shitty image gen programs" versus "I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so" are very different takes.
I do agree with you that we should be able to not try to create a sequel of a sequel of a remake, and let things pass. But isn't a lot of what Disney et al are doing specifically because their movies take a lot of resources to pull together, so end up playing it safe in the worst possible way?
What's your opinion on sampling, when it comes to music?
> "I guess if they die I can use shitty image gen programs" versus "I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so" are very different takes.
Miyazaki's art is Miyazaki's. If another artist were to come along and imitate his style, especially after he is gone, that is still not Miyazaki. That is whomever's that is's style and it's disrespectful of both to call it Miyazaki.
And, more to the point, all the AI generated garbage Ghibli crap makes the point better than I ever could. Look at it. It's dead. It looks like the right thing, and it mostly gets it all right, but you just know in your heart that it's not correct. It lacks intentionality which is a pretty universal critique of AI art (since an AI model, by definition, can't have intentionality) but it's one that triples down in potency when associated with something so widely beloved.
> But isn't a lot of what Disney et al are doing specifically because their movies take a lot of resources to pull together, so end up playing it safe in the worst possible way?
... yes? Was this meant as a counterpoint to what I said or a corroboration? I genuinely can't tell, the lead-in is phrased like you're going to disagree and then you cite the exact same (awful) example of how BAD this is.
> What's your opinion on sampling, when it comes to music?
As with most things, it depends. I think the Ghibli AI slop has a lot more in common with Vanilla Ice than, say, Hung Up by Madonna.
> Miyazaki's art is Miyazaki's. If another artist were to come along and imitate his style, especially after he is gone, that is still not Miyazaki. That is whomever's that is's style and it's disrespectful of both to call it Miyazaki.
Yes, but also no. Miyazaki’s art style is distinctive and certainly stands out, but it’s also very clearly a “mass produced” thing. In that I mean a team of animators are all creating frames of art in the Miyazaki style that are obviously not drawn by Miyazaki, but we call them Miyazaki art because they’re conglomerated into a single work under his direction. The question is how many frames of a movie have to be personally drawn by Miyazaki in order for something to be a Miyazaki film? If he directs the art and movie, but doesn’t actually draw anything himself, is that still a Miyazaki film? Is that “disrespectful” to him? More specifically, is the art style what makes a film a Miyazaki film or is it the world, the ideas and the individual human moments that are chosen to be drawn that make the film?
> If he directs the art and movie, but doesn’t actually draw anything himself, is that still a Miyazaki film?
Yes. You seem to be oscillating between thinking I'm talking about the frames he actually draws versus the movies he creates with the assistance of his various teams. It's both. That's part of why I am saying that once Miyazaki is gone, by definition, there will be no more Miyazaki movies, because there is no Miyazaki anymore.
Now, that's not to say that AI enthusiasts won't try and make them, they almost certainly will. I can't fathom why else you'd be working on this tech. However if you have so little creatively to say that you must reanimate the hand of a master so far your better that you'd need a rocket just to pick his pocket, then IMO you have already demonstrated your, and by extension, your works, lack so spectacularly that even you already know it sucks.
I can't separate this ongoing issue from the fact that so many of these super pro AI people are explicitly STEM guys (and it is mostly guys too) who have no background in the humanities, and this is going to sound mean but: it fucking shows. There is no appreciation for the artist. There is no value to creativity. Making things is seen by these people not as a thing they have to do lest the ideas burn holes in their skulls until they die; it's simply the first thing that needs to be done so you can sell shit.
I know so many artists who work jobs they loathe to come home and create for audiences they have made, and they make a pittance off of because the money is not and was never the point. They create because they can't not create. The AI bro is the polar opposite: they do not create, because they can't. They have nothing to say. All their ideas are Nostalgia Critic-grade "what if batman met mario" stuff.
It would be completely disrespectful to call it Miyazaki's. It's absolutely not. If you sample a Stevie Wonder song, you can't call yourself Stevie Wonder. Everyone knows who Stevie Wonder is, and the same goes for Miyazaki.
The AI generated Ghibli crap definitely makes a point, but not your point imo. The AI generated Ghibli stuff that was trending some time ago was a meme rather than anything anyone would expect to take as actual art. Like people ordering portraits from Fiverr in a specific style.
> Was this meant as a counterpoint to what I said or a corroboration?
The point I was making is that an actually talented artist with an actual story to tell, could make a movie that they would've not been capable of getting out without the help of AI or other modern tools. Which is the opposite of the Disney process. Meaning, modern tools empower solo and indie artists, be it Blender or generative AI.
If a person is not able to tell when something is not visually good they're probably not a talented artist, when we're talking about an inherently visual medium. I don't think tooling changes this. People who are talented in using samples when in comes to music can wade through hundreds of possible options to find the perfect thing to sample, and combine several very short snippets of audio into a whole. Why wouldn't the same apply here?
The disagreement here is: I think you're making a straw man argument, where the example usage of generative AI for art is one where people were making a meme. If someone actually thought they should be taken for a serious artist after generating a Ghibli meme image, I agree that would be mad. Let alone comparable to Miyazaki. That would be comical. Creating meaningful art was not the point of the Ghibli AI slop memes, which makes it a bad example in this context.
I think Vanilla Ice is a good example in that people definitely did not think he was a great artist or made emotionally meaningful music, even at the time. I'm pretty sure his value was in being entertaining and maybe catchy. But we do agree on the fact that it is still possible to make good music using samples, without having to actually play each of the instruments and record them.
In Passing - Lisel Mueller
How swiftly the strained honey of afternoon light flows into darkness
and the closed bud shrugs off its special mystery in order to break into blossom
as if what exists, exists so that it can be lost and become precious
Beautiful piece.
And yeah, I just don't get this. If you want this sort of never ending, never permitted to end media system you can have it, Disney is right there, with Star Wars, with it's live action remakes, with it's Marvel. Like it's comical how many juggernaut IP's they own that just churn out the very definition of content.
And that's not to say all of it's bad, Andor is quite incredible, Wandivision combined it's tropey comic book story with genuinely heart-wrenching writing from House of M, and I could cite many other examples. But the vast majority, especially after Endgame, has just been completely forgettable, disposable shows and movies that are famously mediocre and disliked specifically because they have nothing to say, no point to make, and simply exist to occupy space on the Marvel treadmill.
And to have that desired from Studio Ghibli is just... full body shudders man.
> I know that AI will make it possible for others to do so, even if they drop the ball.
Seems you completely miss the point of Miyazaki's work. You can watch a video of Miyazaki watching an AI generated animation and see what he think about generative "art"[1].
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZ0K3lWKRc
That video you linked was hilarious. Oh how I wish more people would have Miyazaki’s way of thinking.
I don’t mean that they should necessarily have his exact same opinions on things. I mean that they should think through things and approach them in the same process and manner that Miyazaki does.
I hope fewer people evaluate animation techniques like Miyazaki did in that presentation. Likening a fantasy zombie character's movement to a disabled person and calling it an affront to life itself validates the exact look and feel the animation team was going for. Though he posits this as a negative for no logical reason that is offered.
This is dramatic of me to say, but I can sincerely claim that anyone in my division that pulled something like this would be demoted or let go. If for nothing else than evaluating a technical product using and only using emotional language.
> If for nothing else than evaluating a technical product using and only using emotional language.
Yeah, wouldn't want emotions to get in the way of... movies and TV people connect emotionally to for their entire lives...
in the world of art, people who care more about technical product rather than emotion tend to make disposable art that does not resonate across generations
I like what Miyazaki did, but I don't think his way of thinking is the one true way. Sure, generative zombies have no place in his idealized past, but they have places in other film and media. I think Miyazaki was wrong in his judgement.