I enjoy Studio Ghibli's animated movies, and while Tales from Earthsea won't hit the United States until 2009 (thanks to Earthsea exclusivity rights in releases being given to Sci-Fi channel), the film has already been dubbed into English and has been released overseas in many countries.
Ursula Le Guin, the author of the Earthsea books, had the following to say about her private viewing of the animated Tales from Earthsea:
Much of it was beautiful. Many corners were cut, however, in the animation of this quickly made film. It does not have the delicate accuracy of "Totoro" or the powerful and splendid richness of detail of "Spirited Away." The imagery is effective but often conventional.
Much of it was exciting. The excitement was maintained by violence, to a degree that I find deeply untrue to the spirit of the books.
Much of it was, I thought, incoherent. This may be because I kept trying to find and follow the story of my books while watching an entirely different story, confusingly enacted by people with the same names as in my story, but with entirely different temperaments, histories, and destinies.
In looking at the trailers, the hardest part for me to accept as Earthsea is the color of the people; Earthsea is a series in which the majority of the people have a red-brown complexion, and the whites are a minority. Sci-Fi channel's adaptation of Earthsea was publicly blasted by LeGuin a few years ago, because Sci-Fi Channel's adaptation whitewashed the characters. I don't think Studio Ghibli did any better, and gave most characters a fairly light complexion, and the English voice cast of course is made up of mostly white actors.
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