Howl's Moving Castle

[beccaelizabeth]

I watched the animated version of Howl's Moving Castle.
The animation was sometimes very pretty. I especially liked the random magic things in Howl's bedroom, and the Moving Castle itself. It was somewhere between steampunk and Baba Yaga, with the feet. Very distinctive.
The story had a lot of changes. It did interesting things with the war, and with making a tangible visible threat to Howl.
I understand streamlining to fit a novel in a movie length, so I can see why it left several threads out, though leaving little bits of them in around the edges felt all dangly and a bit pointless.

I think it missed the point with Sophie. And missed it rather badly.
I started wondering what it was doing when she was making hats but didn't talk to them. Then she found the scarecrow and didn't seem to talk to it usefully either. She's supposed to talk the life into things both times, and then use the same talent in the Castle. She finds the good in things, what's good about them, and talks them into that being stronger and strongest. That's her power.
Her power is *words*.
It is an active and creative power.
Her power is also figuring things out. She starts out under a lot of illusions, like about how Howl literally eats hearts, and then she finds out what lies under the metaphors, and figures things out.
Her power is *thinking*.

This film didn't actually clear up the whole 'eats hearts' thing at all, so for all we know by the end of the film Howl actually did that!

Instead of riddles and finding things and piecing stuff together, she just gets shown and told the answers. No thinking in it.

But the main problem is Sophie's only power in the film is *feeling*, and not even so much of that - mostly the power is in what people feel about her.
It's a passive power.
And it seems to be mostly about people finding her beautiful.

The way the old lady spell wore off when she wasn't thinking about it was interesting, even though it could do with an explanation. But the biggest problem about it was it looked like Howl fell in love with a beautiful looking girl, rather than got a good talking to from an old woman. It's a massive difference.


And then there's the way she fixed the prince. She kisses him! But it avoids the classic fairytale because she stays with Howl and not the prince. It's so randomly tacked on though it doesn't even make sense. And it distorts the whole point of Sophie's power.

It took an active thinking talking word-power heroine and turned her into a passive inspiring beautiful loving girl.

I'm very disappointed.


I want to re-read the book now and see if the difference is as clear as I remember it.
I've loved that book since ages and ages though, so I think it probably is.

Now I want to write a better adaptation.
With the right voices.
(Howl is *Welsh*! I realise they took that whole thread out, but still, Welsh!)

Comments

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Word. When it started, I loved the look of it, and then I was like, "bzuh?" Where is Sophie and what have you done with her?

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*

according to the reading list for Children's Literature they did the same thing happens to most girls in kids books.
I'm now noticing the extent the books I kept just don't do that.

[versaphile.livejournal.com]

I knew nothing about the original book, and am a big fan of Miyazaki. And I was underwhelmed by HMC. It was just... lacking. Nothing connected; it was like a bunch of random and tenuously related plot bits. And I had no idea that the prince was missing until the very end. Granted, I watched a sub version, but still. Kinda a big plot point.

[beccaelizabeth]

Yeah, the plot was... there were parts that were taken from the book and squashed together from different characters and incidents. Sophie has two sisters, and they're squashed into one. Mrs Suliman is an amalgamation of characters, to a point. The missing Prince was a plot point in the book. But most of the film was innovation. Howl's transformations, the bombs, the flying machines, the whole war, they were new for the film. The Witch was almost completely different. It ended up following the parts it made up more closely, making those the arc, and then the parts from the book ended up feeling tacked on or like they're interrupting.
It wasn't well structured.

The book is. It sets up twisted together problems and then pays them all off at the end. It's great.