Harry here... It is sad that we live in a world where Disney would need a John Lasseter to protect a work of animated genius into national release... To protect it from being bastardized by corporate ninkompoops... But heh... that's Disney right now. At least they knew when they were beat and gave it to the one super-genius associated with the studio. Thank the great animal spirit for large miracles I suppose....

Hi Harry,

Hope you can use this info.

John Lasseter says that he is the samurai guarding Miyazaki’s vision during Disney’s American release of SPIRITED AWAY.

Just had to write in and thank Moriarty and AICN for the heads up about the screenings of SPIRITED AWAY as a part of the San Francisco International Film Festival at the Castro Theater. Not only did we get to see a beautifully done movie with an enthusiastic, sold out audience(sold out a 1400 seat theater twice, wow), but had the pleasure of participating in a Q&A with John Lasseter and Toshio Suzuki (the producer of “Spirited Away” and many of the other Studio Ghibli features). A review of the movie follows but I picked up a few interesting tidbits about the American release of SPIRITED AWAY and Studio Ghibli in general I thought you might be interested in.

September 20th is the proposed North American release date.

John Lasseter is spearheading Disney’s effort to release the movie in the US which is very good news. He has known Miyazaki since a visit to Japan in 1987 during the production of My Neighbor Totoro and has deep respect for his work. He is extremely excited about how the effort is going so far and my headline is a paraphrase of one of his statements concerning how true he is attempting to be to Miyazaki’s original vision. The number of theaters it will be released to will be determined by public interest as the release date grows closer. Lasseter appears to be happy with the marketing plan so lets hope that is generates enough interest to warrant a wide release. There was also a mention that in addition to distibutiing it in English, there would be some American distribution of the original Japanese version.

No specific names were given, but it was stated that two more Studio Ghibli productions will be released later this year, and four more will be released next year. Those that have already been dubbed into English will be released with both language tracks included (Yeah!).

On an interesting side note, John Lasseter and Toshio Suzuki also gave some insight into the manner in which Miyazaki san develops his movies. Apparently, they do not start with a script, but Miyazaki san sits down and begins storyboarding. He places several drawings on each page and essentially creates the script in visual form from beginning to end. These pages become the blueprint for the movie and are eventually collected for publication in comic book/graphic novel form. Lasseter joked that when Miyazaki san was done there were very few pages in the trash can, but, like any self respecting fan he raided it.

Now for my review. The basic premise of the story is that a young girl wanders through a mysterious tunnel with her parents and into a strange world. She is separated from parents, winds up meeting strange creatures and having many adventures. Miyazaki’s trademark character design and beautifully detailed backgrounds are there and masterfully executed. The world in which Chichiro finds herself is colorful and lavishly drawn. Overall, it is visually stunning. The character Chichiro herself is very engaging and realistically portrayed. She meets the challenge of the situation she finds herself in with a believable combination of pluck and trepidation. I think the Alice in Wonderland aspect of this story may provide a hook to bring in the western audience that did not relate to the Japanese mythology of Princess Mononoke. Let’s just hope that Disney gives Lasseter the tools to market this and give it the wide release it deserves.

Call me,

Amnell