Miyazaki Hates Modern Animation

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]AP: Miyazaki says he can't stand modern animation
In the age of digital animation and computer special effects, Hayao Miyazaki is a purist. The 67-year-old Oscar-winning master animator known for his hand-drawn movies said in a newspaper interview Sunday he hasn't seen any of the major digitally animated films in the last two decades. "I can't stand modern movies. The images are too weird and eccentric for me," Miyazaki told Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post in an interview to promote his latest movie, "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea." Miyazaki said his recruits are tested in a boot camp where mobile phones, iPods and other electronic devices are banned. "Young people are surrounded by virtual things," Miyazaki was quoted as saying. "They lack real experience or life and lose their imagination. Animators can only draw from their own experience of pain and shock and emotions." But the president of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli, a former Disney executive, was quoted as saying the studio is open to computer animation. "I don't shut the door on digital technology either," Koji Hoshino said. "Just because 'Ponyo' was 100 percent drawn doesn't mean we're stuck with that approach. My job is to come up with the best approach to make the most of Ghibli and try to come up with those untapped opportunities."

[Buraku]

That guy is so far up his own ass its unbelievable.

I've done some CAD and graphics many, many years ago and during my teens and later years I was still like a big kid watching the latest Aladdin and today I'll view as many Dreamworks or Anime movies as much as possible so I feel the right to comment on this industry. Miyazaki is a great talent but as a person he's is just so full of it. Don't get me wrong because I do love his movies, Tonari no Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Kaze no tani no Naushika but after watching about about 3 of them films they suddenly start to repeat themselves and its the same tired old message repeated again and again

What Miyazaki fails to understand is people do not pay tickets to be arthouse critics. People do not go to the movies to watch the traditional mix of paint on screen and people do not go to the movies to count the brushstrokes. They go to the movies to be ENTERTAINED and most of the people are parents taking their kids to the theater
Miyazaki does create great work
but does Miyazaki create any of this arthouse stuff? No! He also is in this industry to make a buck.
Does he create zonked out shit like Phil Mulloy's adult, bizarre, nasty, comical brutality?
Can he create living brush strokes like Yuri Norstein's amazing animations
Or beautiful onscreen calligraphy like Ron Hui's 3-d paintings (no graphic yet its still 3d)
Or Joan c Gratz wonderful mix of ink,chalk ones and sublime oils.
No he's just like any other great classical animator trying to claim some uber artistic merit but he's behind the times and is using something old school and predictable and selling the world something very commercial. Miyazaki is constantly supported by a big team and big studios
Miyazaki telling us he hates the commercial nature to modern animation would be like Madonna telling us she hates raunchy pop music.

Miyazaki comes up with all kinds of ridiculous statements I remember one time he stated the children of Japan should only be allowed watch 2 movies per year. What a dick! obviously this is someone who never had to baby sit his kids and his Wife like a good traditional Japanese must have been doing all the running around.

I watched Wall*E, it was a Pixar movie supported by Disney. It was one of the best movies I had seen in a long while.

All computer animated, all 3-d and probably 10 times better than Miyazaki's last movie
Go Disney!

[Adhesive]

What a wind-bag. He hasn't seen a single CGI movie in the last 20 years but he's somehow an expert on their quality. I love it when old farts mask their technophobia in the argument that increased stimulus reduces creativity. And what are "real experiences in life" anyway? I assume he means experiences identical to the ones he lived through...which is pretty myopic for a supposed visionary.

[bolt_krank]

"I can't stand modern movies. The images are too weird and eccentric for me,"

Because none of his movies are eccentric at all - they're all images you see day to day right ?

[prolly]

there's certainly a lot of cgi in those two "ghiblies" shorts that ran a few years ago.

[Hokgwai]

I agree on some points with Miyazaki.

I think these days CG animation is being overused in my opinon. Don't get me wrong Wall-E and Ratatouille, but I feel that the industry is seeing CG as the new answer-all to animation.

I think there is more of an organic process to tradional hand drawn as opposed to moving around a "cyber-puppet" .

I say make more effort in pushing ideas rather than just the technology.

[Hokgwai]

typo...

I meant to say Wall-E and Ratatouille were spetacular looking and incredibly well animated films......


but on that note.....

Ratatouille was orginally to be developed as a traditionally hand drawn film. Could Wall-E and Ratatouille still be as well recieved if they weren't done in CG but done in traditional hand-drawn animation??


....I think if you say the answer is "no", then definetly people have become too dependent on CG as a method or "the answer" of doing animation.

[soulboy]

I think Disney, Pixar etc is boring sentimental American rubbish. They repeat the same old shite too and always with a happy romantic ending in every movie.

I have never seen a Disney movie at the cinema since I was about 7 when I end up watching one its because I am sat on an airplane bored shitless and desperate for something to break the monotony and everything else is even worse.

He is entitled to his opinion and I would watch any of his movies than many other movies.

Sorry if Wall-E was one of the best movies you have seen in a while then I feel sorry for you.

That guy is so far up his own ass its unbelievable.

I've done some CAD and graphics many, many years ago and during my teens and later years I was still like a big kid watching the latest Aladdin and today I'll view as many Dreamworks or Anime movies as much as possible so I feel the right to comment on this industry. Miyazaki is a great talent but as a person he's is just so full of it. Don't get me wrong because I do love his movies, Tonari no Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Kaze no tani no Naushika but after watching about about 3 of them films they suddenly start to repeat themselves and its the same tired old message repeated again and again

What Miyazaki fails to understand is people do not pay tickets to be arthouse critics. People do not go to the movies to watch the traditional mix of paint on screen and people do not go to the movies to count the brushstrokes. They go to the movies to be ENTERTAINED and most of the people are parents taking their kids to the theater
Miyazaki does create great work
but does Miyazaki create any of this arthouse stuff? No! He also is in this industry to make a buck.
Does he create zonked out shit like Phil Mulloy's adult, bizarre, nasty, comical brutality?
Can he create living brush strokes like Yuri Norstein's amazing animations
Or beautiful onscreen calligraphy like Ron Hui's 3-d paintings (no graphic yet its still 3d)
Or Joan c Gratz wonderful mix of ink,chalk ones and sublime oils.
No he's just like any other great classical animator trying to claim some uber artistic merit but he's behind the times and is using something old school and predictable and selling the world something very commercial. Miyazaki is constantly supported by a big team and big studios
Miyazaki telling us he hates the commercial nature to modern animation would be like Madonna telling us she hates raunchy pop music.

Miyazaki comes up with all kinds of ridiculous statements I remember one time he stated the children of Japan should only be allowed watch 2 movies per year. What a dick! obviously this is someone who never had to baby sit his kids and his Wife like a good traditional Japanese must have been doing all the running around.

I watched Wall*E, it was a Pixar movie supported by Disney. It was one of the best movies I had seen in a long while.

All computer animated, all 3-d and probably 10 times better than Miyazaki's last movie
Go Disney!

[Midwinter]

The 67-year-old Oscar-winning master animator known for his hand-drawn movies said in a newspaper interview Sunday he hasn't seen any of the major digitally animated films in the last two decades.

That's right, it's easy to pass judgement on something when you know fuck all about it.

[6810]

WTF?

WHy all the defense of digital? For fuck's sake, genuine, handmade shit is rare as all hell these days.

By hand made I mean not on a computer. I mean the stuff with imperfections, made by people who can fix problems in real time, by calculating in their head, by getting their hands dirty...

Am I the only one here that prefers to play into an all-tube amp, who digs hand painted/screen printed t-shirts over digitally printed and slow food over fast food?

I ain't denyin' digital's good points, whether in engineering, research or virtually any creative endeavour - even if my preference is for analog, hands on and hands dirty.

But in this day in age where it seems we're always switched on, resonating with the electromagnetic vibes from computers, games, cell phones, hybrid car batteries etc... I think Miyazaki has a point - SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!

[Captain Japan]

[Midwinter]

The problem I have with this is that once you strip his movies of all that sentimental nonsense, you're left with utter crap. Princess Mononoke had a great beginning only to end up going into Akira territory with its WTF ending. Spirited Away didn't fair any better with all its metaphysical dream-like bullshit either. Then there's Kiki that ended on an anti-climax, Totoro which I still don't really get other than the "awwww it's cute" factor, and that movie about the pig and his plane. I've upset my fair share of locals when asked what I think of Miyazaki and I'll stand by those guns. Nice designs, but his story telling is total arse. At least Wall-E made you think with its surprsing commentary on our consumer driven society. The only thing that Totoro had me thinking was where I had left the keys.

[hundefar]

Miyazaki is just an old fart. He wants the good old days before the black ships came and Japan embraced western culture and lost themselves. Really, he makes me vomit.

[Catoneinutica]

Miyazaki is just an old fart. He wants the good old days before the black ships came and Japan embraced western culture and lost themselves. Really, he makes me vomit.

Yeah, it really is just the same old whine, same old bottles. "Our Japanese studios don't have the budgets and can't afford the fancy-pants workstations of Pixar and the other big bullies - but we Japanese have something you Westerners will never have: monozukuri (ignoring the fact that 3D rendering, etc, is every bit as labor intensive in its way as the old method)."

It's like saying, we may not have fancy-schmancy printing presses, but we don't care because we value the intimacy and immediacy of traditional scroll-writing, and besides, we have lots of great scribes who'll do gobs of sabisu zangyo (i.e., we can steal their time and attribute it to "cultural factors").

[Level3]

I love the illogic.

To rephrase him...

"I hate all those movies that I never watched because they looked so fake and artifcial when I watched them, so I never watch them, because they suck. Did I mention I never watch them? But I know they suck. I only like MY movies, because nothing teaches you about 'real life' like whiling away your entire life drawing pictures of fantasy worlds, strange animals, and magic while raking in shitloads of cash."

Yawn. Vaguely analogous to the Monty Python sketch of the writer and his coal-mining son.

Imagine when the current primitive 3-D movie-making software evolves into something so flexible that anyone could produce a 90-minute animated movie ALONE on a PC with no animation skills at all. The Miyazakis of the world trying to maintain control and enforce monastic ideals on younger minds will fade away into insignificance.

[Kuang_Grade]

I think the "cannot forget for the rest of their lives" bit is a little arrogant in that it is very possible that a young kid will feel the same way about "Akira" or "Appleseed" in thirty years.

I think this is spot on. I recently watched TRON, and judging as an adult, it is really a poor film, but the light cycle scene still makes me feel the same way I did when I saw it as a kid. And then, the awesome tanks and recognizers show up too!
[yt]-3ODe9mqoDE[/yt]

Just because one remembers something fondly from childhood, that doesn't mean its actually good.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/movies-dumbed-down.php?page=1

[Adhesive]

WTF?

WHy all the defense of digital? For fuck's sake, genuine, handmade shit is rare as all hell these days.

By hand made I mean not on a computer. I mean the stuff with imperfections, made by people who can fix problems in real time, by calculating in their head, by getting their hands dirty...

Am I the only one here that prefers to play into an all-tube amp, who digs hand painted/screen printed t-shirts over digitally printed and slow food over fast food?

I ain't denyin' digital's good points, whether in engineering, research or virtually any creative endeavour - even if my preference is for analog, hands on and hands dirty.

But in this day in age where it seems we're always switched on, resonating with the electromagnetic vibes from computers, games, cell phones, hybrid car batteries etc... I think Miyazaki has a point - SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!

Sure, I prefer my tube amp, but if you ever hear me say something like "I haven't played a solid-state amp in the last two decades, but I know they're all shit," please feel free to call me a douche-nozzle.

If Miyazaki simply said something along the lines of "I prefer hand-drawn cell animation to digital, and will continue to produce my movies that way," I don't think anyone would have a problem. Most of us probably agree that there are aspects to hand-drawn animation that is attractive, but why completely dismiss another form of animation that's produced by some amazingly talented people?

As to whether or not we need to disconnect or slow down, the only reason I laugh at that argument is because it gets regurgitated by every passing generation. You don't think the old story tellers who sat on their ass all day spinning yarns said the same thing about commercial animation? It just seems silly to me to draw an arbitrary line in front of yourself and call it the point of equilibrium.

[6810]

As to whether or not we need to disconnect or slow down, the only reason I laugh at that argument is because it gets regurgitated by every passing generation. You don't think the old story tellers who sat on their ass all day spinning yarns said the same thing about commercial animation? It just seems silly to me to draw an arbitrary line in front of yourself and call it the point of equilibrium.

Just because they said it, and the next generation didn't do it, and then the next generation said it and the one following them didn't do it - Doesn't mean we don't have to slow down.

a. Modernism is over.
b. Postmodernism done got done and is now over.
c. Just because you make/see a pattern, doesn't always make it one.

People seem to think that saying "slow down, chill out" is equivalent to getting high on the fumes of the nostalgia rag while saying "Well, back in my day, everything was better"...

But really, sometimes they are just saying "slow down, chill out"...

Like sex really, some dudes just want to bust a nut. Some dudes want to roger with toys. Other dudes just want to take their time and watch their pardner quiver with ecstasy using hands, genitals, mouth and feet.

Whatever strikes your fancy.

But all I say is - sometimes, chillin' is better than spillin'.

When your 20s are over, you start to think - why was I in such a rush... if I only could tell the young'uns...

But the young'uns ain't listenin' cos they tossed the oldies in a home or forgot about them, or just don't give a shit cos they got their toys to play with and are lookin' to play with the next one.

Whatever.

Shiiiiyyyaaaat - why take Miyazaki's opinion as gospel anyway (even if he's been animating longer than you've (pejorative, not you literally sir) been alive) - who needs validation - if you like it you like it, if you don't you don't. And the beauty of it is:

you can always change mind...

[Midwinter]

Yada, yada, yada...

Back on topic, Miyazaki is talking shit.

[Takechanpoo]

Miyazaki's "Grave Of The Fireflies" is the 6th most depressing movie

Grave Of The Fireflies (1988)
A powerful, rickly symbolic anti-war film, this is the harrowing story of two orphaned children attempting to survive in the ruins of post-War Japan. The five year-old girl dies of starvation and is cremated by her big brother, who stows her ashes in a sweet tin. And cartoons are meant to be fun?

[Midwinter]

[Taro Toporific]

"Ponyo" is not breakout film. I watched 20 minutes for free by sneaking in at the multiplex, and walked out---Miyazaki's worst work so far. Just listen the theme.

Japanese director Miyazaki seeks breakout U.S. film
Reuters
Director Hayao Miyazaki is considered a master of animation in his native Japan, and when Disney releases his latest movie "Ponyo"...

[YT]soghXmUd9CM[/YT]

[Midwinter]

"Ponyo" is not breakout film. I watched 20 minutes for free by sneaking in at the multiplex, and walked out---Miyazaki's worst work so far. Just listen the theme.




[YT]soghXmUd9CM[/YT]

Pretty much agreed. I also noted how Miyazaki attempted to mirror Wall-E's opening 40 minutes by trying to convey everything through emotive animation. Wasn't a patch on Pixar's work either. Utter garbage then...

[Mulboyne]

"Ponyo" is not breakout film. I watched 20 minutes for free by sneaking in at the multiplex, and walked out---Miyazaki's worst work so far.

Bloody hell, I finally watched this the other day. Not only is it one his worst films, it is positively creepy.

[Adhesive]

Bloody hell, I finally watched this the other day. Not only is it one his worst films, it is positively creepy.

Horrible, horrible film.

[Midwinter]

Horrible, horrible film.

You're not Japanese, you wouldn't understand it

[6810]

Bloody hell, I finally watched this the other day. Not only is it one his worst films, it is positively creepy.

wowee! An opinion!

Care to say why?

[6810]

Horrible, horrible film.

ibid.

[Mulboyne]

Care to say why?

I've heard Miyazaki accused of having a suspicious fascination with young girls as his protagonists but none of his previous films raised any such concerns with me.

Ponyo seemed more worrying. The whole fate of the earth rested on whether two young children could declare undying love for each other and make an irreversible commitment to be together. This was something fully endorsed and celebrated by all the adults. In "The Little Mermaid", the protagonists were older than Romeo & Juliet but in Ponyo, Miyazaki makes them about 5 years old. It rang a jarring note.

There are plenty of imaginative sequences, as you would expect in a Ghibli film, but I don't think they served the story. Partly, that's because the plot was fairly thin in the first place. Having said that, I'd be surprised if many kids - the main target audience - could explain it in any detail because it was presented pretty obscurely. The film seemed to rely on its audience knowing roughly what direction the story was going in anyway. That's a great shame for a Miyazaki film because his stories are better when they are more baroque.

[Yokohammer]

That's a great shame for a Miyazaki film because his stories are better when they are more baroque.

As opposed to just "broke."
I agree. Ponyo was just insipid.