OK, now I want you to read the quote from Miyazaki (who directed this film): http://imgur.com/gallery/60fev
After reading that quote, please answer both of the following questions:
- How does what happens in Princess Mononoke relate to the quote I had you link to above? Do you agree what Miyazaki says in the quote? Why? How does that quote help you better understand what is happening in this film?
- What did you think of the dubbing of this film? Usually, Disney puts a lot of money and time into casting and directing the voice acting of Miyazaki's films. Do you think they did a good job with this one or would you rather we had watched it with subtitles? Explain.
Once reading the quote from the link, Princess Monoke made more sense than what i already had in mind. Miyazaki's work doesn't go by the typical American animated film. Instead of portraying females as the weak and hopeless, he made them strong and willing to fight without second thought. That was exactly what the girl from the wolf pack was. She wanted to kill the lady head of Iron Village even if it means that she will die trying to do so. Also the prince went through the journey of being a hero. Not in the sense that he needed strength in order to defeat evil, but rather just standing up for other people. He had the chance to stay at his village since his people wanted him too. Instead he went off and was said to never return from what i remember.
ReplyDeleteNow that i'm thinking about it, i do agree what Miyazaki is saying. In our minds when we think of the word "evil" we imagine this big bad force. Since we think something is "bad" is not a good thing we think that we should get rid of it. However Miyazaki thinks differently, instead of getting rid of evil you should balance it out with good. Which i totally agree since you need both bad and good for them to coexist. Without a bad or a good there wouldn't be either. That is why i agree with him, its kind of based on the idea of Ying-Yang type of thing. I didn't have any bad thoughts towards the dubbing. It was interesting to see a film with dub since we usually watch with subtitles on. So i do think that they did a good job with dubbing.
This made more sense to what was happening to this film. Some charterers in the story thought that the gods were evil and should be killed, while the prince and the princess thought differently and wanted to stop their doings. Which wraps things together because like in the quote said, you need to see the good in the bad and also seeing the bad in the good. You might at first saw that people who were trying to kill the gods were good and they were just trying to live. Towards the end of the film however it portrayed them as bad people trying to kill these gods that aren't bad at all.
Ashton Bowers
ReplyDeleteI can understand what miyazaki is talking about and I agree with him. although it is fun to see a movie about just good vs bad and the good guy wins while getting the helpless girl who is just pretty, it get's really boring. ya women are supposed to be genetically less physical but that doesn't mean that they can't do anything for themselves except be good looking, and they still can be stronger than men. also in this movie there wasn't good vs evil, everyone had their point of view on what was right and wrong. the animals hated humans for tearing their forest down and killing them, and the humans wanted to expand and had to eliminate the gods to make it easier. it wasn't just humans against the animals, there were even humans fighting each other.
As for the sub over subtitles I have to go with dub. I do like the original voices that go along with the movie, but reading subtitles makes it hard for me to see what's going on in the background and I less enjoy the movie, but if the movie had a crappy dub then I would rather read the subtitles because annoying voices are much worse. dubs are only an option to me if they actually make them good and fit in which I feel this movie did greatly.
I love how you said Genetically by the way, and it's true that the evil and good were different since they all had good intentions but how they executed on the idea is what went to hell.
DeleteI agree with how he mentions that his concept of how men don't need to be the tallest, strongest, most intelligent, etc. They can be anybody with the heart to continue on with their struggle. But I also feel that just because it's a "new" concept to Americans, that it's really well liked. I feel that if the roles were reversed, there would groups of people to still admire and standby the structural plot points. I'm not bad-mouthing on people who enjoy the "Classic-Disney" plot structure or "Mizayaki" plot structure, I'm stating that there would be groups liking it just because it's foreign or new.
ReplyDeleteMiyazaki says that doesn't believe in the "typical" girl, who's weak and useless. And he states that clear with having strong female characters in his film. Del Toro said in an interview that he loves anime, and he shares the same view on Female Roles which is also shown in his movies as well.
Personally, I believe that there truly is no evil because in other peoples eyes, He/She could be saint. Like when Hitler was in power or Stalin even though they killed people, they still some them as hero. Even with wars going on today, Americans try to do the "right" thing to other nations, but those nations mostly view us as being in the way. There will always be right and wrong in choices you do.
Well Jon and I actually saw this film in our Japanese class about two years ago, so we have now watched it in both Japanese and English. I don't remember much about the Japanese language of the film but they poured their heart out to get the emotion set just right. The English version really lacked in that category. The voice of Ashitaka really felt like it just read the lines, he couldn't hit the marks that needed to be expressed the most. The same for Jigo but I honestly felt that Billy Bob Thornton could of pulled it off, but didn't connect with the character enough.
Well in that quote it talked about how you can't really conquer evil and that there isn't all good. I feel like the film we watched portrayed this very well because there wasn't a "good guy" or "bad guy". there was just everyone and they all had there bad points and there good points.
ReplyDeleteanyway to continue what i was saying. he also talked about how the protagonist of the movie doesn't need to be a physically strong, young man. As the movies shows the princess is, well obviously, a girl.
ReplyDeleteas for dubbing it i think they did a good job, they picked a good cast i think but i would have preferred watching it with subtitles. That is just because i just enjoy hearing in the way it was originally.