| A Miyazaki collaboration... |       |
I'll have to look it up, but I just read it Thursday about a movie that took over 10 years to produce and it had a number of collobrators, directors, etc involved in its production. I'll go look it up now and get back to you today...
===========================
Ok, found it...
"Little Nemo in Slumberland"
I will be quoting from Otaku USA....
"What happens when a film production takes over 10 years to reach completion and passes through the desks of incredibily talented creators from japan, the United States and Europe? You get a bizarre little film like "Little nemo in Slumberland", a visually arresting, if slightly dull, film that has a production history far more fascinating than the film itself.
The Japanese-American production began in 1977, the pet project of Japanese producer Yutaka Fujioka, who wouldn't see his film actually released until 1989 (the US release didn't come until 1992). Throughout those 12 years, a string of writers would take a shot at scripting the film, including legendary American sci-fi author Ray Bradbury and the influential French comic Jean "Moebius" Giraud. At varying points throughout the 1980's, the film has some incredibly well respected Japanese directors attached to it including Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Osamu Dezaki. The fact that none of them stuck around for the final production is perhaps the strongest evidence that something was very wrong. Three different pilot films would be produced before starting the actual production, and the final film would have some notable Disney animators lending a hand with the animation. The films final animation was handled by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, a studio that had just ganied some notoriety for working on a little known film called "Akira"
If Steven Speilberg's Kubrick-inspired catastrophe "A.I." is any indication, a film that takes over a decade to finish might just not be worthwhile, and "Little Nemo" isn't any different. Not that "Little nemo" is a bad film, but there's little in it to make you feel that the long production paid off, never living up to the respectable names involved. The animation is impressively fluid--There's no question that this was made during the Japanese Bubble Era--and it creates its own Eadt-Meets-West visual style that sits on the precipice of looking "American", but not quite. The problem, really, is that it is just boring. Not quite as charming as Toei's older foriegn-inspired films like "Puss in Boots" or "Alibaba and the Forty Theives", and not as competent as contemporary late 1980's Ghibli fare like "My Neighbor Totoro" or "Kiki's Delivery Service".
That Discotek is willing to re-release it is slightly confusing, as it stands in stark contrast to their other releases like "Fist of the North Star" or "Project A-ko, two films that are built upon classic 1980s anime-isms the "Little Nemo" is largely devoid of, not to mention violence and fan-service. Despite this, in a time when a large swath of anime's history is entirely unavailble on DVD in the US, it's difficult to fault Discotek for making some obscure titles available, even if they aren't what would be considered "Classic".
Anime fans looking for a weird peice of animation history or those longing for the days when it wasn't such a rarity to see a proper, well-animated film come out of Japan might be recommended to give it a shot. There are too many other films that do what "Little Nemo" does, but better, to recommend it to anyone on its own merits."
Sean O'mara
Otaku USA
__________________
    
Post last edited by husky51 on 08.27.2011, 08:06 PM.
|
08.27.2011, 07:14 PM
