Studio Ghibli's latest - Tales of Earthsea (plus DVD authoring question)

[Kotatsu Neko]

My copy of this arrived today on R2 (JP) DVD, and while the movie looks great , a lot like Nausicaa in fact, the discs themselves are shockingly poor.

Ghibli releases in Japan are usually awful, but this one is one of the worst yet. The set I have is on 4 discs, 2 of which are dedicated to documentaries which I have yet to watch. (they also have no subtitles) The other two are two copies of the movie.

Disc 1 has the movie in Japanese DD 5.1 and DTS ES, but with no subs. The second disc has the movie again, this time with English subs, but with only 2 channel DD JP audio. Both versions have a picture so massively windowboxed it almost looks like 4:3 letterbox. The transfer is artefact and noise free, but very, very soft. Thankfully there is at least minimal edge enhancement and it's progressive too.

This leads me on to a technical question. How easy would it be to strip the subtitles from the second disc, and burn a copy of the first disc with the subtitles added? Anyone know anything about DVD authoring?

[TommyG]

Where did you get it from kotatsu?

[bootmonster]

assuming both movies are identical in length it shouldn't be too difficult

do this to save the subtitles from the second disc (just make sure to use the save as SUP option, look at the diagrams)

and then follow this guide to put them into the first disc (ignoring the part where you convert the srt file to sup)

[kernow]

WIll a PAL localized copy come out eventually? They are more expensive but my girl likes to get them for the better subtitling, the JP ones are so quick.

[Kotatsu Neko]

Where did you get it from kotatsu?

cdjapan.co.jp

[Kotatsu Neko]

assuming both movies are identical in length it shouldn't be too difficult

do this to save the subtitles from the second disc (just make sure to use the save as SUP option, look at the diagrams)

and then follow this guide to put them into the first disc (ignoring the part where you convert the srt file to sup)

I'll take a look at that tonight. Thanks!

[Kotatsu Neko]

WIll a PAL localized copy come out eventually? They are more expensive but my girl likes to get them for the better subtitling, the JP ones are so quick.

I imagine so, all the other Ghibli films came out here eventually. I haven't had a problem with the subs on previous JP Ghbili discs other than Cagliostro, which used terrible dubtitles instead of subtitles, but if you do want a Western sourced disc it's sure to come out in the US many months ahead of any release here.

The US often gets the best transfers too, but sadly the worst cover art. The transfer on Earthsea as I mentioned is pretty dire, and I really wish Ghibli would hire someone who acually has a clue about these things.

[Atticus]

Didn't know this was out. Thanks for the heads-up. just ordered

[anephric]

I'm a big Le Guin fan (and I could even stand the rubbish Earthsea Sci-Fi Channel miniseries) but I've read that this is uninspired at best and really quite dull at worst. I don't see how Ghibli can do dragons wrong so tell me it's worth a watch...

Incidentally, the director of this, Goro Miyazaki, is Hayao's son.

This is quite interesting:

http://www.kaijushakedown.com/2005/12/new_ghibli_proj.html#comments

It seems Hayao was dead-set against his son following in his footsteps. Ah well.

[Kotatsu Neko]

Yeah I remember reading Hayao was against his son doing this movie. Toshio Suzuki let him do it all the same, which is pretty odd given the standing Hayao obviously has at Studio Ghibli.

I'm hoping Earthsea will be good, it's a Ghibli movie after all and they rarely produce anything less than great. Once I get my subtitled DTS DVD assembled I'll give this a watch.

[paulus]

Tales of Earthsea

This just got a 3 out of 5 rating in my WhatFilm magazine. The reviewer basically said "good first try but your dad doesnt need to worry too much yet".

[Kotatsu Neko]

I watched this at last tonight and was very disappointed. It completely lacked any of the spark or spectacle from Miyazaki Snr's works, with no memorable scenes or characters except for the main villain, who was memorable purely for being annoying. ('it' is a male/female androgynous wizard which mopes around in a dopey way and made me want to throw something at the TV screen)

Visually it borrows very, very heavily from Nausicaa with snippets from Mononoke and Laputa, but only for the characters. The environment is mostly lifeless and unimaginative.

The story, what little there is, makes little sense and is boring throughout. Perhaps the original book was much better, but this was flat as a pancake.

A poor show then and not recommended except for Ghibli completists. Fortunately the next Miyazaki film is from Hayao, so normal service should be resumed.

[anephric]

Le Guin's novels are fantasy classics (indeed, many believe they're the prime source of JK Rowling's "inspiration") so it's not the source material's fault.

[saif]

btw, this is on at the NFT/bfi southbank at the end of July for the Londoners here.

[EvilBoris]

Bought the uk release on monday and watched it last night. I'm going to be blunt, it was rubbish. The story made no sense and didn't bother to explain the most importent things, there was some very poor editing and the animation budget must of been very low by comparison to the other ones as it looked alot like it was made for tv. I was actually quite bored for most of the film and it only picked up towards the last 20 minutes, which again didn't make much sense either. Also half the film seemed to pay a little too much of a homage to Gandalf's scenes in lotr.