The tale of how Tales from Earthsea came to be is an interesting one. In fact, I find it more interesting than the film itself. American author Ursula K. Le Guin published her first story from the fantasy world of Earthsea in 1964 and the series that followed became a worldwide phenomenon. When a work of fiction becomes so beloved, filmmakers will soon follow. Le Guin received countless requests for the rights to adapt her stories, which she repeatedly refused to anyone. Particularly when a Japanese animation director named Hayao Miyazaki, whom she had never heard of, expressed interest in the stories.
As time went on, Le Guin softened to the idea of letting her stories be adapted on film. By the early 2000’s, she had also come to love the work of Hayao Miyazaki. She granted Studio Ghibli the rights to adapt her work into an animated film and simultaneously allowed Hallmark Entertainment to create a live-action miniseries as well.
Within Studio Ghibli, there was turmoil surrounding the production. It had been Hayao’s dream to make an Earthsea film for many years, but he was tied up with Howl’s Moving Castle and pre-production on Ponyo. Studio head Toshio Suzuki didn’t want to wait and gave the project to first-time director Goro Miyazaki (Hayao’s son). The father and son didn’t speak again until after the film debuted.
Goro Miyazaki’s adaptation is based on the third and fourth books of the series, but also takes quite a departure from the written work. The film was released in Japan in 2006 and did well at the box office, remaining the number 1 movie for four straight weeks and was the fourth highest grossing film of the year. However, Japanese audiences had very mixed reactions to the film. Le Guin was vocal about her disappointment with the departure from her books and fans blamed Goro’s lack of experience for making one of the weakest Studio Ghibli films.
By the time this film was made, Disney had begun to decrease the gap between the Japanese and American releases of Studio Ghibli films, particularly because they were now co-financiers of all Studio Ghibli films (their name is on the opening card of this film). However, Le Guin’s contract with Hallmark gave them exclusive rights to the books for five years and Disney’s domestic release had to be delayed until 2010.
Disney’s dub was directed by Gary Rydstrom (his animation directorial debut, Strange Magic, is now playing nationwide). A few big names were cast, including Timothy Dalton, William Dafoe and Cheech Marin. Due to the MPAA PG-13 rating, Disney chose to release it on a limited theatrical run to just 5 theaters in 2010. It was finally released on DVD in 2011, but the Blu-Ray had to wait until after Japan had released the film in HD (which happened later that same year). Since the film was not well received, Disney was in no rush to release it in HD. It arrives on February 3rd along with two better titles, Porco Rosso and Pom Poko.
The plot of Tales from Earthsea isn’t complicated, but the film makes it hard to follow. Dragons and humans have remained separate for centuries, but their return to the land of humans is a bad omen. Resources have become scarce and humans have turned against each other. Ged (aka Lord Archmage Sparrowhawk) is on a journey to find out what is behind all of this chaos and takes with him an apprentice named Arren, a troubled prince. As their journey progresses, the evil wizard Cob is discovered to be the cause of their problems and he has secret plans to use Arren for evil.
The execution of the plot is poor, adding useless moments to fill two hours and not explaining anything in great detail, assuming all viewers have read the books (I haven’t). It’s not terrible, but it’s not particularly good either. The best part of the film is the visuals (it has some breathtaking animation) and the score. But for any fan of Studio Ghibli, I recommend checking it out. If for no other reason than to see their own The Black Cauldron, which is the closest comparison in Disney’s animated cannon.
Video
The Blu-Ray presentation of Tales from Earthsea is flawless, which is to be expected from a release generated from a digital source. Compared to the DVD, it adds greater detail and colors become much more vivid. This film features a dynamic palette, ranging from very bright to very dark, and it is well displayed on this disc.
The DVD is an exact clone of the 2011 release. It looks as good as the film can on DVD, but the Blu-Ray improves the image quality so much that it’s worthwhile to upgrade.
Audio
The Blu-Ray offers three audio options: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, and Japanese 6.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. My ears couldn’t detect a big difference between the mix on the Japanese and English tracks, so the presence of a 6th speaker (and absence of a 7th) seems odd.
The DVD offers both English and Japanese in 5.1, but is missing the French track.
For those that prefer to watch these films in Japanese with English subtitles, you will be pleased to know that the Blu-Ray faithfully preserves the English subtitle translation from the DVD (as opposed to the dubtitles issue that is found on some of Disney’s Studio Ghibli Blu-Rays).
Bonus Features
Disney has added quite a few bonus features for this release that were not found on the previous DVD version.
- Original Japanese Storyboards (1 hour 55 minutes) – The complete storyboard film is presented in widescreen with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
- Original Japanese TV Spots and Trailers (10 minutes) – Six trailers are presented in Japanese with English subtitles.
- The Birth Story of the Film Soundtrack (1 hour) – Presented in Japanese with English subtitles, this feature is also called “Video Diary Volume 2” according to the subtitles and is all about how Tamiya Terashima was selected to write the score and what his inspirations were, as well as an examination of each instrument used.
- Behind the Studio: Origins of Earthsea (4 minutes) – Toshio Suzuki talks about how the film came about and animation historian Charles Solomon weighs in on the design aspects of the film.
The DVD repeats only one of the bonus features found on the Blu-Ray, but adds two interactive features that were dropped.
- Behind the Studio: Origins of Earthsea
- Enter the Lands – From a menu map, you can select different “lands” (films) and learn about each of them (a way to introduce viewers to other Ghibli films). As Disney was re-releasing the films on DVD, they were supposed to continue adding to this feature. But it ended soon after so only a handful of Ghibli films can be accessed.
- Studio Ghibli Trivia Challenge – Within the “Enter the Lands” feature, selecting Tales from Earthsea starts a trivia challenge. For the most part, the answers can’t be found anywhere else on the disc making it confusing.
Menu & Packaging
Tales from Earthsea is housed in a standard-sized Blu-Ray case. Both discs are found on either side of the case’s interior and both feature cover art (the DVD is an exact clone of the 2011 release). The case is housed in a foil embossed slipcover that matches the style of the other Studio Ghibli titles Disney has released on Blu-Ray (and mostly mirrors the DVD release as well). Inserts include a Disney Movie Rewards code and a flier for Disney Movie Club.
The menus on both the Blu-Ray and DVD are similar, but different. Both feature a beige cloth background with a larger image on the cloth and three smaller ones overlapping with scenes from the film, but the images and font of the title are different between the two.
The Blu-Ray disc opens with an anti-smoking PSA starring Fowlfellow from Pinocchio (no other trailers). Selecting “Sneak Peeks” from the menu plays the exact same PSA again. The DVD opens with ads for Cars 2, The Lion King Diamond Edition, an the same anti-smoking PSA from the Blu-Ray.
Final Thoughts
Tales from Earthsea is not a great film, but it does have some beautiful animation and moments of excitement. It has quite a bit of gore and I don’t recommend it for young kids, but if you’re a fan of Studio Ghibli you should probably see it. It’s a testament to the fact that no studio is immune to becoming out of touch with their audience and there’s no better way to view it at home than on Blu-Ray. The addition of some lengthy, worthwhile bonus features makes it easy to justify the upgrade from DVD to Blu-Ray for fans of the film.