Tales from Earthsea

Goro Miyazaki uses the Earthsea name, yet fails to wield its power, in his adaptation of Le Guin’s iconic books.

“Spells should be made only when absolutely needed.”

I first saw Goro Miyazaki’s directorial debut Tales from Earthsea about a dozen years ago, not only after it had first come out. I remember being less than enthralled by it, but thinking little of it. I didn’t know a single thing about the books from which the film took its title, characters and (more or less) plot. Fast forward to now, having finally read (and loved) the four main books in the series, I figured it was worth giving this film another watch.

It’s a film with a bit of a bad reputation. Many people call it Ghibli’s worst film and they could be right. These criticisms were, after all, written before Earwig and the Witch came out. But still, I wanted to see if there was anything of value in this adaptation, and so I put it on with an open mind and a quizzical expression.

The movie takes its main plot from the third book The Farthest Shore, and sees iconic archmage Sparrowhawk (whose True Name is Ged, but we don’t have time to get into all that) investigating a scourge that has hit the land. He meets Prince Arren, who ran away from home after killing his father the king in some kind of berserk state, and together they attempt to discern the cause of this magical disease. Along the way Arren encounters the mysterious Therru, who is being looked after by Ged’s old friend Tenar, and they learn that the scourge is the work of the evil mage Cob.

There’s a fair amount going on in Tales from Earthsea, and that’s probably largely due to the fact that it’s trying to cram two books into a single film. Admittedly, there isn’t a tonne of story in each Earthsea novel, but it’s one of the charms of the books. The adaptation attempts to recreate that feeling at the beginning, but massively stumbles trying to add Therru, Tenar and some of the story elements from the fourth novel.

If we ignore the story and the uninspired character direction – and that’s difficult to in an adaptation of a novel but bear with me – there are actually quite a lot of other things to really like here. The first thing that I noticed, long before even a line of dialogue was spoken, was in how serenely beautiful many of the scenes are. Sure, it’s par for the course for Studio Ghibli by now, but there’s a more muted and earthy palette here that complements the atmosphere and style that Miyazaki is going for.

Similarly, the music is incredible and an absolute delight. Once again breaking from Ghibli tradition, Joe Hisaishi steps away from the composing and gives way to Tamiya Terashima, whose darker tones and heavy orchestral pieces work really well for the Earthsea presented.  This is Tales from Earthsea’s biggest strength: its tone. If the film was just slow scenes of Arren and Ged travelling through the wilderness and talking, it would be so much better. Those scenes are by far and away the best part of the film. As an Earthsea movie, it’s absolute trash. But as a series of unconnected travel scenes, it’s actually not too bad. There’s an atmosphere to it that’s not found in many of the studio’s other works. 

Once things get more action-heavy, that’s where it starts to lose me. It’s easy enough to let lame dialogue wash over you as you appreciate the scenery, but it’s harder to ignore once the story is all there is. Cob’s plan is sort of like what he does in the book, but with considerably less philosophical implications. He wants power, that’s that.  In fact, by messily combining two wholly different stories – Farthest Shore and Tehanu – the movie entirely misses the point of both books. Neither stories’ philosophies get a chance to shine. It’s a crying shame because if there is a studio who could pull off the themes, style and ambience of the novels it’s Ghibli. But hey, it’s still better than that live action series.

Verdict: Not nearly as bad as I’d heard or was expecting, Tales from Earthsea shines in some areas, but completely stumbles where it actually matters.

Overall entertainment: A higher-than-expected 5/10
Violence: 3/10
Sex: 0/10
Faithfulness: 3/10
Orm Embar: Where are ya, pal? And what did they do to Kalessin?
Over in the dub: Sure, Yûko Tanaka’s performance as Cob was good but holy moly it’s worth switching over to English for Cob because Dafoe’s ASMR-level whispering is some A-tier creepy shit.

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Tales from Earthsea (2006)
Also known as: ゲド戦記, Ged’s War Chronicles
Japanese

Director: Goro Miyazaki
Writers: Ursula K Le Guin (sort of), Goro Miyazaki, Keiko Niwa

CAST

Bunta Sugawara – Ged/Sparrowhawk
Junichi Okada – Prince Arren
Aoi Teshima – Therru
Jun Fubuki – Tenar
Yuko Tanaka – Cob
Teruyuki Kagawa – Hare