Tales From Earthsea Review — A beautiful mess of dragons, darkness, and destiny.
Tales From Earthsea, which came out in 2006 from Studio Ghibli, was Gorō Miyazaki’s first movie as a director. He is the son of the famous Hayao Miyazaki. There has been talk about this project for a long time. It is based on Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series of fantasy books, which are known for their philosophical tone and detailed worldbuilding.
Hayao Miyazaki asked for the rights to make an animated version of the book as early as 1984, but Le Guin turned him down because she hadn’t read his work yet. That wasn’t until she saw My Neighbor Totoro 20 years later that she agreed, falling in love with Ghibli’s work. But by that time, Hayao was busy with Howl’s Moving Castle, and his son took over running Tales From Earthsea without warning.
This choice caused a split between the father and son. Hayao thought Gorō didn’t have enough experience to handle such a big job, and the two are said not to have talked while the movie was being made. Unfortunately, the movie that was made supports Hayao’s doubts in some ways. The graphics are perfect, but the story isn’t always strong. It’s based on a few of Le Guin’s books, mostly The Farthest Shore and Tehanu, but it has trouble finding a consistent tone or emotional center.
Still, Tales From Earthsea is both interesting and flawed, like many Ghibli movies. It’s a beautifully drawn fairy tale whose ambition sometimes gets in the way of telling a clear story.
At the start of the story, there is a stunning sight: two dragons fighting above a rough sea. This is a mythical sign that the world is out of balance. At the same time, the Kingdom of Enlad is falling apart, and its people are scared as darkness spreads across the land. The main violent act of the movie happens right away:
Prince Arren (voiced by Matt Levin) kills his father, the King, for no reason and then runs away with the royal sword. Arren meets Sparrowhawk (Timothy Dalton), a wise and patient archmage who takes the disturbed young man under his wing. He is haunted by guilt and strange forces.
They go on a trip together through Earthsea’s empty but beautiful landscapes. In the end, they stay with Tenar (Mariska Hargitay), an old friend of Sparrowhawk’s, and Therru (Blaire Restaneo), her adopted daughter. The quiet break doesn’t last long, though. If a bad witch named Cob (voiced by Willem Dafoe) wants to live forever, he has to hurt nature, and his dark magic starts to threaten Earthsea’s delicate balance.
The epic dream that starts out quickly turns inward. Instead of big myths about dragons and wizards, the story changes to Arren’s inner struggles as a boy who is dealing with his own darkness, guilt, and lack of purpose.
His connection with Sparrowhawk, like a father and son, gives him moral support and helps him change. Even though the movie has all the elements of an interesting character study, the story often feels like it doesn’t fit together. Scenes end quickly, characters show up and then disappear without a conclusion, and emotional moments end before they can hit home.
The story seems to happen in the beautiful landscapes and pauses between action scenes. The silence seems to say just as much as the words.
The slow, thoughtful pace and breaks between lines in Tales From Earthsea are beautiful, but they often feel less planned and more unfinished. There are hints of greater meaning in the script, but they are never put together to make a whole. For example, Arren’s killing of his father is a shocking beginning that sets the stage for a deep study, but ends with an explanation that is too vague: “an evil within” made him do it. That’s all there is to it.
As a result, the movie has a lot of interesting ideas on paper, but it doesn’t make you feel anything when you watch it. The characters are all very different in how strong they are. Our main character, Arren, is so calm that he’s hard to see. It’s easy to feel his guilt and deep pain, but he never fully understands them.
One of the most controversial Ghibli characters is Therru. She is cold, angry, and often mean to the people around her. In the last act, she literally and figuratively changes into a dragon. This is both beautiful to look at and hard to understand from a story point of view, since earlier stories said that dragons and people lived separate lives.
But Sparrowhawk stands out as a tower of kindness and grace, and Timothy Dalton’s warm and strong performance brings him to life beautifully. The few emotional high points of the movie are his scenes with Arren, and Tenar’s presence gives the middle part of the movie a sense of stability and humanity. The most interesting theme in Tales From Earthsea is Cob, a queer, creepy bad guy who is obsessed with living forever. He shows that true immortality is not in avoiding death, but in giving life meaning.
Willem Dafoe’s voice as Cob is hypnotically mesmerizing—it’s calm, scary, and almost too human to be safe.
It’s not that Tales From Earthsea is short on ideas. Actually, it’s packed full of them. The movie has a lot of different ideas about balance, death, identity, and redemption, but it never picks which one to focus on first. It doesn’t feel like a cohesive story; instead, it’s like a jumbled collection of important events.
Tales From Earthsea looks beautiful, and even its harshest reviewers agree. The animators at Studio Ghibli have made yet another work of hand-drawn beauty. The vast landscapes, soft sunsets, and rolling fields make you feel like you’re in an old, natural, and alive world. The opening dragon fight has nothing to do with the story, but it is one of the most beautiful, intense, and awe-inspiring scenes the studio has ever made.
The world of Earthsea is colored in earthy tones, soft greens, and golds that make the movie feel sad and longing. Each frame looks like a picture that could be put on the wall. When the story falls apart, the visuals are still there to make you feel what the writing often fails to do.
The fact that Gorō Miyazaki used to be a landscape artist shows in the way he puts together scenes. Earthsea’s landscape is grounded and believable, with wide deserts giving way to calm harbors, simple houses tucked into wheat fields, and the way light moves across the ocean’s surface. The story has a hard time making connections, but the images do it easily.
Great work by the visual department, but you should feel bad, Goro.
The soundscape of the movie goes well with its images. The music by Tamiya Terashima is soft and haunting, and often sounds like the folk music of a long-ago culture. Therru’s a acapella song is a standout moment. It’s a quiet, moving piece that cuts through the chaos and gives us a rare moment of emotional clarity. It’s one of those classic Ghibli moments where sound, image, and song all come together to make something timeless.
But the English version isn’t great either. Timothy Dalton’s performance as Sparrowhawk is almost perfect. His deep, steady voice gives every word weight. Willem Dafoe’s performance as Cob is truly terrifying, and his smooth delivery brings out the evil character’s creepy calm.
But Cheech Marin’s Hare seems shockingly out of place; his voice is easily recognizable and more cartoonish than the rest of the movie. It’s not a big deal, but it’s enough to take the focus off of Ghibli’s carefully crafted worlds.
A lot of people have strong opinions about Tales From Earthsea, which is a good thing. It’s a picture that dazzles the eyes but leaves the heart uncertain. It’s both beautiful to look at and hard to follow. At times, it seems like a bunch of separate dream pieces that have been expertly pieced together but don’t have any emotional connection.
Not that the movie doesn’t make sense, but that it could have been so much better. The story is full of interesting myths and characters, the animation is beautiful, and the music is disturbing. But Gorō Miyazaki’s inexperienced direction never makes those parts work together to make something truly strong. Instead, we have a movie that hints at being great but never really lives up to it.
