m128a3aw@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Sean "Yoda" Rouse) (02/27/86)
Warriors of the Wind
a review by Kathy Li
"Warriors of the Wind" is an animated movie, of a science fiction/fantasy
nature. The animation is Japanese...
In fact, the *movie* is Japanese. "Warriors" is really the American-
dubbed version of "Nausicaa". This gives rise to most of the problems that
the movie had for me, as a Japanese animation fan.
Scenes were cut, the heroine's voice seemed inappropriate, and much of
the more impassioned speeches sounded rather trite/corny. But this is only a
really annoying factor if you've seen the original, and fallen in love with
it in that form.
Overall, the movie seems to be rather faithful to the original. The only
scenes cut were rather inconsequential. They were interesting visually, and
sometimes characterization was advanced in them, but on the whole, the
subtracted scenes don't make very much difference.
The story has a extremely strong "Don't Mess With Mother Nature" theme,
and this shows in the dubbed version. The story follows the adventures of
a young princess named Zandra (Nausicaa) from the Valley of the Wind. Long ago
legendary monsters, fire demons, had engulfed the world in flame for seven days.
In the intervening years, civilization has rebuilt itself into a feudal state.
Warring factions now fight for land to support their peoples, as the earth
is being engulfed by an unstoppable "toxic jungle."
Within the toxic jungle, there are giant insects...majestic, fifty-foot
tall quasi-caterpillers that are very,very tough to kill. (one of the cut
scenes demonstrated how impenetrable their armor was.) [The animation on all
the creatures is magnificent. When one of those fifty-foot "gorgons" chases
someone, the earth shakes.]
The inhabitants of the Valley of the Wind are lucky in that the ocean
winds seem to relieve the effects of the gases from the jungle. Everybody still
walks around wearing gas masks, though, when not in the Valley.
One day, a large cargo plane crashes in the Valley of the Wind. It
turns out that the planes was one from a warring faction that had just captured
a princess and a "national treasure" from another kingdom. All were killed
in the crash. Unfortunately, the "national treasure" wasn't. It is a sleeping
fire demon.
Suddenly, the Valley of the Wind becomes a bone of contention between
the two warring factions. Both sides want the demon at any costs. One side
invades the valley and conquers it, while the other schemes to destroy the
valley before the demon can be awakened.
Zandra/Nausicaa is caught in the middle. But her empathy with the
jungle insects, her fighting prowess, and jet-propelled flyer see her through.
Yes, at times, the story descends to romantic slush, but this is mainly
due to the dialogue. The Japanese script was translated into English so that
the new soundtrack would lipsynch with the animation (much like Robotech).
As a result, the language is, shall we say, limited. But c'est la vie, and
them's the facts, that translations can never be wholly true to the originals.
A fantastic point in favor of this movie, other than the obvious one,
the quality of animation, is the fact that the sound-effects and musical
soundtracks are unchanged from the original. They add greatly to the overall
quality of the film. (Incidentally the romantic lead (Milo)'s voice is done
by the guy who did Max/Lancer for Robotech).
Also, the curious blend of B-52-like planes, tanks, swords, fifty-foot
bugs, castles, windmills plutonium and machine guns makes a fascinating
study. The supporting characters are all excellant additions to the story
and most of the American voices are well done. (Sorry, but Zandra just doesn't
scream as well as Nausicaa did.)
So, roughly judging, if you love Robotech, this is a must-see. The
mushroom cloud alone is worth the admission price. If you loved Nausicaa,
go see it to found out what the plot was all about, and to find the places
where they cut the scenes.
And if you like good animation, and you can live with corny dialogue...
don't be put off by the promotional poster. This is one of the best animated
movies I've seen, and a real good example as to why people go crazy over
Japanese animation. I highly recommend seeing this...
--Kathy Li
p.s. ...and then getting ahold of Nausicaa and seeing that.
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-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (03/05/86)
I saw WARRIORS at Boskone this year as well as two other Japanese animated films LENSMAN and GALAXY EXPRESS 999. WARRIORS was quite good I thought. It occurred to me as I saw it that if done in live action it would have been a film of the stature of STAR WARS. What is good about animation is that pretty much whatever the mind can picture can be brought to the screen relatively easily and cheaply. You just have to get imaginative artists. Ironically, that last commodity is very hard to get. Way back when the Star Trek animated cartoons were on I complained that the stories were very much the same as in the live-action stories. Without having to worry about a special effects budget the stories could have really taken off. They didn't and the animation was not very good. Japanimation is better, but has its own problems with imagination in odd ways. Look how often interstellar flight is treated illogically with traditional images. Interstellar craft look like B-52's, battleships, railroad trains (!), three-masted schooners (ok, that one was MESSAGE FROM SPACE in live action). GALAXY EXPRESS really had to bend over backwards to show the audience that they were really doing a Western set in space. They didn't need the train on top of that. In spite of falling back on the B-52s for craft, WARRIORS OF THE WIND (a.k.a. BUG WARS) had mostly brand new images. I felt when it was over that I had seen a substantial science fiction adventure. One quibble with Kathy Li's review. She said that the animation was very good. I would have said that the animation was not very good but that the artwork was. I don't know how many frames/cell were used but it was way too high, giving the animation a jerky feel. That is generally true of Japanimation. Another aspect of the animation, the movement of the background, I think was not up to the standards of Disney or Bluth, but I cannot say I really remember. But the imagination of the artwork was quite good and I think that that is what Kathy was saying she enjoyed. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper