Ponyo US Trailer

Here is Disney's US trailer for Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea. Enjoy.

My thoughts? Loud and stupid, typical of most American movie trailers. I come away feeling agitated and frustrated. But that was to be expected. Hollywood has an extremely low opinion of the public's intelligence. It doesn't matter. The important thing is that Hayao Miyazaki's lastest feature film will soon be available on US screens.

But this trailer does speak volumes about what is considered "acceptable" for animation in this country, and what the studios are afraid to portray. This trailer makes Ponyo seem like another series of Star Wars chase scenes. Audiences may be surprised to discover it's a far quieter film than they were sold.

Hopefully, Ghibli's charm will shine through to even the most stubbornly repressive suburbanite parents. Hopefully, I'll see people of all ages in the theater. At one viewing of Howl's Moving Castle (I saw it four times at the Uptown Theater), I sat next to a young girl and her grandmother. That's when you know you're seeing a great movie.

I'm really hoping the voices won't be too cloying or syrupy. That's always a weakness in Western animation (Maybe it's a California accent thing? I can't say.). My only serious beef is with script tampering. Disney has a nasty habit of hacking and flattening Ghibli scripts, or adding dialog, or just making stuff up. LEt's all cross our fingers and hope someone from Pixar was in charge of this dub.

I should also say that I'd love to see Ponyo subtitled, and there usually are a few subtitled prints available for the art-house circuit, but those prints never make their way to Minneapolis. Ah, well, I'll be watching this movie as many times as possible, anyway, and I'll have the DVD in my library soon enough. And then, it's the long countdown to December's Japanese Blu-Ray release. Wheee!