Howl's Moving Castle | Book Versus Movie

hi guys today we're going to be talking about howl's moving castle book versus movie [Music] [Music] okay that title is probably a little bit misleading i'm not here to explicitly proclaim that one version is better than the other i think both the book and the movie are excellent works of art in their own right i just thought it would be fun to kind of talk about my thoughts on them and what i think each version did well and just the the general differences between the two first off inevitably whenever you adapt a book into a movie changes are gonna be made some things don't work as well visually and we all know this i think more faithful adaptations have been really popular recently i think filmmakers have sort of learned the hard way that alienating your built-in audience from the book isn't the best idea for your movie's performance but things have to be cut for time and again some things just don't work as well visually or some things that would work really well visually didn't happen in the books and it still holds true to the spirit of the source material which all brings me to house moving castle the book house woman castle was first published in 1986 by diana wynne jones this is a newer cover from 2006 i think 2008 maybe 2008 that sort of borrows stylistically from the film the original sort of thought of for the castle was like literally a floating castle on a cloud diana when jones actually talks about that in an interview in the end of this book or at least this version of the book that she initially pictured it like a floating medieval castle she never even thought about giving it legs and that that was one of the changes miyazaki made when adapting it for studio ghibli that she actually really liked so i think this version of the castle just has so much character and i'm really actually glad that they went with that direction in the movie in 2004 hayao miyazaki's studio ghibli adapted it into a film obviously first came out in japan but then later came out in the u.s the setup for both the book and the movie is essentially the same we have a young woman named sophie hatter who works in a hat shop and she lives a really simple life and she kind of like wishes for more but she sort of resigns herself to this simple life that she leads in the book especially she's the eldest sister and eldest siblings are destined for anything great so she's learned to sort of settle one day her shop is visited by an evil sorceress known as the witch of the waist who for some reason casts a spell on sophie and curses her to be an old lady sophie doesn't know why the witch walked into her life and did this to her but she knows she can't stay in the hat shop so she sets out on her own to try to find a solution to this mess that she's sort of wound up in she ends up coming across wizard hell's moving castle in the countryside which is pretty much what it sounds like it's literally a moving castle hal himself does not have a great reputation he's actually widely feared for eating young women's hearts and being sort of a scary figure but where sophie is an old lady now she figures i'm probably safe from this and sort of invites herself in she figures hal can probably save her or help her with his spell but part of the curse is she can't even say she has a curse on her much less ask for help in ending it so yeah she invites herself in but before she even comes across wizard hell she meets his assistant michael and his fire demon calcifer calcifer recognizes that there is indeed a curse on sophie and basically strikes up a deal with her he's set in a contract with wizard hal and he can't get himself out of it but sophie could potentially end it so if sophie ends his contract he will help her out of her curse sophie agrees figuring why not and she's comfortable by the fire and she does not want to leave so she takes up residence as hell's new cleaning lady because his castle is filthy and she needs a cover basically to stay this is basically where the similarities between the two really end there are obviously other smaller details but these are like the major details that are the same in both perhaps obviously the book is quite a deal more complicated than that while the central plot still revolves around sophie and hell it also juggles some plots involving sophie's two sisters how's playboy ways his extra dimensional doorway to his homeland of wales sophie's own magical abilities a missing prince and a missing royal wizard now if you've seen the movie some of these plot points probably sound at least a little bit familiar sophie does indeed have a sister in the movie though just one named letty and she only has a single scene with her in the entire movie in the book sophie has two sisters letty who's a baker and martha who is a witch's apprentice and there's a really amusing storyline in which the two switch places because they'd prefer the other's job so martha ends up becoming the baker and letty ends up becoming the witch's apprentice and they even cast a spell that makes them look like the other and they truly take each other's place so martha goes by letty at the bakers and lenny goes by martha at the witch's place it's a little confusing not gonna lie i see why they simplified it for the movie but it is a really fun subplot and like really actually adds character to sophie's sisters like they're not just there they have their own things and their own desires and hopes and wishes and it also leads to a really funny turn of events in which hal is courting letty like truly letty and his assistant michael is courting who he thinks is letty but is truly martha and at one point michael is concerned that hal is gonna steal basically his girlfriend away but they're not even courting the same sister again a little confusing but really fun and charming so sort of following that hal is also kind of a heartbreaker in the book in the movie it's mentioned that he pursued the witch of the waste at one point because she was beautiful at some point in time and then he later realized that like she wasn't and her nature was truly evil so he ran away like he runs away from everything else in his life and this is true in the book as well and it's actually like this central problem that truly plagues hal throughout the book the wish of the waist is set up as the actual antagonist through the entire book where the movie sort of starts off that way but then they kind of nerf her and she becomes a secondary villain in the book sophie even has like a showdown with her at the climax of the novel and it's really so fun to see sophie like truly take charge for herself and try to save howell on her own i also don't love that they sort of neutralized her in the movie because it felt like after that point they didn't really know what to do with her she was sort of just there for 45 minutes until the end it just sort of like feels a little distracting from the main action of the movie so that was a weird choice in my opinion but yeah anyways all that is to say hal does spend a lot of his time in the book courting women and it actually makes sophie kind of jealous at one point because she starts having feelings for howl and she's mad about it he's basically kind of a boy in the books and that's where his reputation as a person who or a wizard who eats young girls hearts comes from it's really just that he goes around breaking them and movie hell is so much more noble than that he does mention several times that he is a coward who runs away from things but we never see him act as anything other than totally gentlemanly in the bar in the movie his first interaction with sophie even is to save her from these creepy soldiers who are hitting on her and it's such a charming scene there are several points in the movie where i may or may not have swooned at things he says when he calls sophie that's my girl or when he like goes out of his way to try to make her happy or give her gifts or make these just grand gestures for her i'm just like how and in the book he is not like that at all and it's so funny he's honestly such a brat in the book and i mean that in the best way because it is so hilarious the dynamic and the banter between sophie and hal in the book is so funny and i would find myself like chuckling out loud which is like i never do that with books so it was truly amusing and the fact that it could make me laugh out loud is a feat he often throws tantrums acts super mellow dramatic acts like a total baby when he has a cold at one point he tells sophie that she's dreadfully nosy horribly bossy and appallingly clean old woman and that she's victimizing us all and like can you even imagine movie house saying any of those things you can't cause it would be super out of character and in fact the one scene in the movie in which he acts most like his book self the infamous hair meltdown scene in which he goes to do his hair in the bathroom and it comes out ginger because sophie messed with the potions and where they all were and he has this total meltdown in which he literally starts turning into slime feels out of place in the movie in my opinion it's unlike anything we see him do in the movie and the fact that he'd throw a tantrum over that and saying that he doesn't see the point of living if he can't be beautiful is just like what because everything else he does again in the movie is so noble and like gentlemanly it's weird to see him freak out over his hair of all things and again it's the most like his book self that we see him be in the movie but it feels out of place because of the way that they chose to adapt his character for the film also in the book house is actually from our world in the movie we see this sort of portal doorway that they have and whenever you turn the door to a certain color the door will then open to one of several places in the kingdom in the movie there's a black door that leads to sort of like this other dimension almost it's sort of like this weird black thing space and time and sophie goes through it at one point and ends up going into the past and witnessing him first meeting calcifer but in the book that doorway leads to wales like the country of wales uh that is where hal is from and his name is actually howell jenkins i think it's such a delightful scene because he brings sophie and michael with him and they end up meeting both his sister and his niece and nephew and i feel like you learn a lot about howl as a character in this scene i've seen some criticism about this scene saying that it sort of takes the magic away from hal as a character but i actually think it explains his psyche a little bit like he's constantly just running away from things including his real life to go be a wizard in this other dimension like if that's not running away from responsibility i don't know what is it also involves sophie sort of coming across modern things like computers and video games and cars and totally not understanding what they are and that is one of my favorite tropes it is so funny how much she freaks out over being in a car i love that and in the movie they do sort of have carbs they have like steam engines and stuff so like it wouldn't work quite as well in the movie and i can see why they cut this because again i do think it sort of destroys the illusion of of hal a little bit as this very magical character but it is very charming and it fits in very well in the book and i do really enjoy that scene sophie has also explicitly stated to be magical in the book even before her real adventure starts while she's working in the hat shop she's accidentally enchanting hats by talking to them and saying like oh you're a real beauty or oh you're gonna attract a wealthy man and it ends up casting spells on the hats that come to life when someone wears them and i think that's so charming and fun especially where she doesn't know she's doing it she literally has the ability to speak life into things the movie kind of hints at this there's a part where when she comes across turnip head the scarecrow she tells him to go find someplace for her to live and he comes back with the moving castle and she's like that's not what i meant but fine um but that could literally just be turniped being nice he does have a fondness for sophie uh there is also later a scene in which she crashes a plane into the moving castle and when they're trying to clean up she's pushing it out but she can't she tells it to move and then it suddenly comes to life and then yeets out of the hole in the wall but again that could just be coincidence it's not really like it doesn't come across as very magical in in of itself and these abilities are actually why she stays in old lady as long as she does at the end of the book hell reveals that he's known about her curse all along and even tried to dispel it a couple of times while she wasn't looking but the fact that she leaned so hard into being this old lady character like manifested it onto herself like she told herself she was an old lady so therefore she was an old lady because being this old woman sort of helped embolden sophie to do things that she wouldn't have otherwise done or that she had been too reserved to do as a young woman so i don't know again i think that just adds so much to sophie's character that you don't really quite get in the movie and in the movie she does become young again several times and she doesn't notice like when she's sleeping she's young and hal sees her so he's obviously aware of her curse or when she's expressing for her feelings for hell she becomes young again and and by the end of the movie she is once again young but i don't know it's just not as fun i liked that sophie in the book kind of had this power that wasn't the same as howl's but like made her capable you know she wasn't a damsel in distress and how in the movie is very protective of her and she does show herself to be like capable but i do miss the fact that she is magical in her own right i haven't read any of the sequels for this book but i believe the summary for the third book house of many ways does describe sophie as a powerful sorceress so i don't know the movie just kind of loses that a little bit for me and and i liked the fact that sophie was magical in the book also like i mentioned earlier the book involves a missing prince and a missing royal wizard sullivan if you've seen the movie you probably remember that there is a missing prince but he is for a neighboring country the fact that he is missing sort of starts the war that unfold later in the film uh because that country blames their country for him missing and this is a huge plot point in the movie in fact the movie version of house moving castle honestly feels like a bit of a commentary on how dumb and pointless war is because it just makes both sides suffer nothing even remotely like this happens in the book there is no war again the central conflict is sort of between hal and himself but again the witch of the waste is sort of the main antagonist of the story there again there is no war whatsoever this is probably the largest change between the book and the film in fact book hal is summoned to the castle by the king in order to find the missing prince not to participate in a war effort but even finding the prince and the royal wizard proves too much for how to handle he doesn't want anything to do with it and later has to sort of trick himself into doing it because he's cowardly in his first inclination is to run away from things he truly comes across as the coward that the movie says he is but he never really acts like sophie mentioned several times in the book that hal is just a big ol slitherer outerer of things and there's this whole complicated bit where the turnip head scarecrow guy and the stray dog that sophie finds are both parts of the missing prince and the missing wizard and by breaking both of their curses they are allowed to become two separate people again it's a little complicated again i totally understand why they simplified this for the movie it's a bit convoluted even like within the book itself but i do think it was handled well and it was sort of fun that there were that many layers to it i guess it wasn't as straightforward as the movie is in that regard i also thought it was interesting that wizard solomon was a woman in the movie that's really like one of the only gender differences we see between the film and the in the book and she was also set up as like the villain kind of she's trying to recruit hal one for this war and two she's trying to break his sort of contract with calcifer which isn't necessarily an evil thing but she threatens to strip howl of his powers which neither hal nor sophie want ultimately she wants what's best for hal in the end but her means of doing it aren't like super kind so i wouldn't necessarily call her like a straight up villain but she's not very likable which is interesting i also want to take a quick second to talk about how turning into a bird monster thing in the movie because again that never happens in the book that part creeped me out so much as a kid and honestly in re-watching it for this video it still creeped me out i don't necessarily get why they went this route with it i think it's probably my biggest not like complaint but sort of question mark about the movie ultimately i think it was probably a way to more visually represent hal's heartlessness and the cost of his contract with calcifer but it was harder for me to buy because he acts so much less heartless in the movie than he does in the book because everything he does is to protect or save sophie or to try to stop this war from destroying these two countries so obviously his contract with kelsifer will ruin him in the long run it's stated both in the movie and in the book and i don't think in the movie they explicitly say that the witch of the waste has a fire demon like hal but in the book she does the witch of the waste is supposed to be this example of like what hal could turn out to be if his contract with calcifer goes on but i don't know just like the bird thing was weird to me it's not out of place for studio ghibli film i think stylistically it is very in line with other studio ghibli movies it was just weird to me because again we we never see howl act as other than the hair meltdown scene which was mostly for comedic effect we never see him act as anything other than noble really and even even in the book hal enters his contract with kelsifer to save calcifer's life it's sort of hinted at in the movie that calcifer is in fact a falling star and when stars fall in the book they fizzle out and die and calcifer was scared and he didn't want to die and hal offered to save him and the only way to do that was by giving him his heart so that's not an evil or heartless thing to do in my opinion but that's just me anyways i think diana wynne jones does a lovely job kind of juggling all these various plot points and just the way they all collide and resolve in the end is so satisfying it's hard to even summarize the books like sort of major plot points and differences with the movie because there's just so much happening it's a lot of layers so if any of this sounds remotely fun or interesting to you i definitely recommend picking up the book it is so fun the studio ghibli adaptation is a classic for a reason even though it is super different from the book i don't think it's a great adaptation in that regard but i think it's still an excellent film arguably one of the most iconic ghibli scenes is the scene of hal and sophie walking through the air over the crowd and that never happens in the book but like how could you be mad at that it's so cute and charming and the atmosphere is just so beautiful and whimsical and lovely i i can't complain about that you know so yeah i think even though the elements later in the movie and the film are so drastically different from one another they both still capture the same feeling and i think that makes both the book and the movie extremely successful i'm trying to keep this relatively short and sweet so i'll stop there even though i could go on talking about both the movie and book version of house movie castle for probably over an hour but i don't think any of you want to sit here long enough for that so i'm going to wrap it up here please let me know in the comments have you seen or read hell's moving castle if so which was your favorite version do you have a favorite do you like both for what they are do you like the changes that hayao miyazaki made in his film please let me know down in the comments i'd love to hear your thoughts thank you guys so much for watching please feel free to like subscribe follow my socials down below leave a comment down below just to let me know you're here and have a great day bye [Music] you

Channel: Lexie's Library

Views: 37,946

Keywords: howls moving castle, review, movie review, book review, diana wynne jones, booktube

Id: wlqx4gvADJY

Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 21 2021