Earwig also doesn’t develop or progress much as a character: she rarely thinks about her orphanage buddy Custard (Yusei Saito), though she does sometimes use his name when referring to her talking cat Thomas ( Gaku Hamada). There’s no urgency to Earwig’s studies or development as a witch, no real conflict or ticking clock elements of suspense. Earwig’s tune only changes slightly once Bella Yaga puts her to work, completing menial witchy tasks, but never learning spellcraft fundamentals. She’s got everybody at the orphanage wrapped around her little fingers, so she’s not initially thrilled when she’s adopted by Bella Yaga and her reclusive warlock partner Mandrake ( Etsushi Toyokawa). That said: Earwig is different than Annie, Oliver, and so many other fictional orphans before her, in that she doesn’t seem to care about re-uniting with her mom so much as she wants to control her environment. Earwig and the witch movie#“Earwig and the Witch” isn’t visually dynamic enough to be more than a lumpy cover version of Hayao’s greatest hits, which is especially disappointing since so much of the movie is about the frustration one feels when your parents seem to either not notice or care for you beyond a point. (Even Hayao initially disapproved of Goro’s taking on “Tales from Earthsea,” Goro’s directorial debut, though he later offered some guarded praise: “It was made honestly, so it was good.”) And while being conventional isn’t necessarily deadly, “Earwig and the Witch” is an underwhelming Ghibli retread thanks mostly to its inexpressive 3-D animation style, as well as Goro’s relative lack of animation experience. There’s nothing new about the generic misadventures of plucky orphan Earwig ( Kokoro Hirasawa), the apprentice to stingy witch-for-hire Bella Yaga ( Shinobu Terajima), and the biological daughter of mysteriously absent rocker ( Sherina Munaf). “Earwig and the Witch” is the second Ghibli adaptation of a Diana Wynne Jones novel after “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and is generally similar to other Ghibli films (imagine a more timid “Kiki’s Delivery Service”), so you’d be forgiven for thinking that much of this new movie’s visual style-and narrative beats, character types, and general mood-seems familiar. "Earwig and the Witch" is streaming on HBO Max.The computer-animated Japanese kiddy fantasy “Earwig and the Witch” has a fairly low bar to clear, being a new anime produced by Studio Ghibli, and directed by Goro Miyazaki, son of studio figurehead and anime pioneer Hayao Miyazaki. Perhaps it is time for a larger reassessment. As it stands, "Earwig" is puckish, weird, and unlike anything from studio's past. There were even rumors that Miyazaki's famous father found "Earwig" to be abominable, but the rumors were quelled in a SoraNews interview in 2021. Could a Studio Ghibli film be made in CGI? As it turns out, yes, but not in a way the studio's fan appreciate. Given the critical rejection of "Earwig and the Witch," one may begin to view it as a daring but failed aesthetic exercise. In that sense, the 3D CG approach really worked." If you think about trying to recreate that with hand-drawn animation, the art department would go crazy because it would mean they would have to redraw all of that clutter and small details a million times. However, what we did was, because there are limited locations, we wanted to make sure that each set was high quality, that it was very rich in details. "The original story is about the girl being confined in that house, and dealing with the witch she lives with. That's not to mention Halloween classics like "Mad Monster Party?" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas." "Earwig" was clearly harkening to an established subgenre. Scary horror movies tend to employ the medium well, and the last decade has seen films like "Coraline," Tim Burton's " Corpse Bride" and " Frankenweenie," and the Dickensian " The Boxtrolls" grace screens. Given some of the more recent, high-profile stop-motion animated features released in theaters, "Earwig and the Witch" feels of a piece. I referenced that a lot in creating the visuals." I felt that was quite fitting for what we were trying to do with this project. That was when I referenced stop-motion animation, using a lot of puppets. Whether it's going to be a very photorealistic visual, or trying to find a different path. Studio Ghibli has always done hand-drawn-style animation, so we knew that we weren't able to recreate that through 3D CG, so it was a matter of which direction we wanted to go with. " In terms of the visuals, this being the first 3D CG anime from Studio Ghibli.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |