History and Power

Miyazaki's Film History

Nausica

Manson International: "The result was a heavily-edited English dub version that shaved 22 minutes off Nausicaä’s nearly two-hour runtime"Nausicaä may have seemed a bit too radical for some audiences at the time, if Roger Corman’s 1985 English dub of the film, titled Warriors of the Wind, is any indication. The film was heavily edited to suggest a simple good-versus-evil narrative, and its American VHS cover bizarrely placed gun-toting male soldiers, rather than Nausicaä (renamed Zandra), at its center. (After this revealing incident, Studio Ghibli, the animation film studio cofounded by Miyazaki, instituted a no-edits policy.) From <https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/10/hayao-miyazaki-and-the-art-of-being-a-woman/503978/>

My Neighbor Totoro

TotoroIn 1989, just a year after its original debut, Totoro was adapted for English audiences by Streamline Pictures. The movie was exclusive to transatlantic passengers flying with Japan Airlines, and for four long years this was the one and only way to watch Totoro in English. Eventually Fox Studios acquired the rights to this exclusive dub and in 1993 they distributed it as a straight-to-video film. While Totoro didn’t fair as well in America for cultural reasons and a lack of advertising, it still found an audience. Unsurprisingly, most of these viewers (myself included) were children. Totoro was always a movie I would show friends when they spent the night. Sort of a “You gotta see this!” attraction. Little girls yelling at dust sprites, a tubby monster screaming at the rain, an enormous multi-legged cat that also functioned as a bus — what’s not to like? And so Totoro became a classic in its own right, in my household and in many others. The character of Totoro was also made to be quite a bit more human, with his breathing and grumbling more akin to that of an overweight man and not a mythical forest beast. As I sat through the Disney version for the first time, it was hard not to pin point certain scenes or characters that felt a little too underwhelming when compared to the original. The real travesty regarding the two version of Totoro released to the English speaking world is that one of them is utterly unavailable. I bet you can guess which one. Anyone attempting to buy a new copy of the Fox DVD will find that it goes for upwards of $200 on sites like Amazon and eBay-Tale of Two Totoro

Kiki's Delivery Service

Manson International: "The result was a heavily-edited English dub version that shaved 22 minutes off Nausicaä’s nearly two-hour runtime" "Disney also allegedly made edits to films like Kiki’s Delivery Service regarding music, sound effects and dialogue, despite its contract clearly stating against this" 1996: "Disney was made for it to be the sole international distributor for the studio in the theatrical and home release markets around the world"-History 2

Princess Mononoke

After two of Miyazaki's films (Porco Rosso and Whisper of the Heart) did not do well in the United States, Princess Mononoke seemed very promising."There is a rumour that when Harvey Weinstein was charged with handling the US release of Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki sent him a samurai sword in the post. Attached to the blade was a stark message: 'No cuts.'The director chortles. 'Actually, my producer did that. Although I did go to New York to meet this man, this Harvey Weinstein, and I was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts.' He smiles. 'I defeated him.'" "In the opinion of Pixar's John Lasseter, Miyazaki is 'the world's greatest living animator'. According to the numbers, he is Japan's most successful film-maker, with his 2001 fable Spirited Away breaking the domestic box-office record set by Titanic."-The Guardian History -no cut origin

Harvey Weinstein and Power
Weinstein’s Miramax, then a Disney subsidiary, was the film’s U.S. distributor. At the premiere, Weinstein told Alpert that he wanted to cut the film from 135 to 90 minutes, despite having promised not to do so. When Alpert said that Miyazaki wouldn’t agree, Weinstein flew into a rage: “If you don’t get him to cut the fucking film you will NEVER WORK IN THIS FUCKING INDUSTRY AGAIN! DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME?!! NEVER!!” Ghibli resisted and the film was released uncut. For example, they released the English-language version of Kiki’s Delivery Service with added music, sound effects, and dialogue, despite a contractual agreement not to make substantial changes. Alpert pointed this out to a dismayed Disney executive, who hadn’t been aware of the changes. He promptly gave the producer in charge of the English version “the kind of verbal lashing that makes grown men cry.”-Six Things We Learned From Steve Alpert’s New Tell-All Studio Ghibli Memoir

the phrase “Harvey Scissorhands,” the shorthand for Miramax cofounder and current Weinstein Company boss Harvey Weinstein that stems from his notorious tendency to require movies he’s produced or acquired to be shortened, re-scored, and/or fundamentally restructured to his liking for theatrical release From <https://grantland.com/features/does-harvey-weinstein-help-hurt-movies/> The very next day, feeling a wave of overspender’s panic if not flat-out buyer’s remorse, Harvey tried to rescind this untested director’s final cut and asked Thornton to cut 20 minutes. Thornton refused, so Weinstein refused to accept delivery of the film — and thus refused to pay for it — until the running time was truncated. According to Elwes, at one point Weinstein called Thornton at home in the middle of the night,HARVEY: I’m a big, fat, hairy Jew worth $180 million and I can do whatever I want! I’m gonna sell the picture to HBO. You’re not gonna get a Best Picture. From <https://grantland.com/features/does-harvey-weinstein-help-hurt-movies/>
In May 2018, Weinstein was arrested in New York and charged with rape and other offenses.^[1] In February 2020, he was found guilty of rape in the third degree and a criminal sexual act.^[2] In March 2020, he was sentenced to 23 years of imprisonment.^[3] From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein_sexual_abuse_cases>

A New Partnership with Pixar's John Lasseter

Spirited Away

EVERYTHING WAS SO MUCH BETTER!

Others and more to come in 2020

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