Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Ponyo's Out This Friday!!

Here's a little exercise in comparative trailer study. First, a Japanese trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo:



Now, an American one:



Observations? Conclusions? Daniel Thomas has the link to finding show times and places!

2 comments:

Bill Benzon said...

Hmmm . . . . As I don't read or speak Japanese, I don't know what's being said in the Japanese trailer, but is sounds mostly like dialog from the film itself, plus the words of the theme song. There's an announcer-style voice at the beginning, but I don't know what he was saying, but I didn't catch any sound of super-terrific Miyizakisan. The imagery in the trailer seems strong on relationships between the characters, particularly the two principals.

The Disney trailer is selling Miyazaki's reputation and the stellar voice cast. The visuals emphasie spectacle. The single longest bit of dialog from the film is of an adult saying how the fate of the world depends on what the kids do. & the music on the trailer is of the movie-spectacular type, not the simple theme song that dominates the Japanese trailer.

The Constructivist said...

Yeah, the Japanese trailer definitely played on the popularity of the super-kawaii closing song that was released in advance of the film and relied much less on the "fate of the world" theme of the short U.S. one. (The long U.S. one, by the way, explicitly asks the viewer to identify with Sosuke.)

Going to see if we can be completely irresponsible today and drive up to Amherst to see it on the big screen!