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Personally I didn't find Steamboy to be a very interesting story. Of course the animation techniques were very innovative and compelling but overall I feel like it fell short of all the hype. Obviously some of you disagree and I just want to know why you agree or disagree with me.

Last edited by Deltakiral on Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:29 am; edited 1 time in total

TranquilSlogan wrote:

Personally I didn't find Steamboy to be a very interesting story. Of course the animation techniques were very innovative and compelling but overall I feel like it fell short of all the hype. Obviously some of you disagree and I just want to know why you agree or disagree with me.

I don't know if I would say it was overrated, due to the fact (at least from my point of view) Steamboy wasn't hype as much as some other movies in recent memory. I think that overrated anime occur when someone prejudges the film by either thinking it will be amazing or not, this then is followed by the actual screening. Think about it more time I go into a movie expecting a crappy film its generally decent, if I am really excitied about a movie then it won't live up to my hype. The ideal of what we think a film should be are often greater than the film, there are a couple of movie that actually live up to the 'hype'

As for steamboy, I enjoyed it. Not my favorite of all time, but I thought the dub was very good, which really helps to bring the chracters to life. I thought the story was bearable, but I thought that the music was very fitting.
Till next time,

Delta Kiral

I heard a little bit of hype for it shortly before it came out and I really haven't heard anything about it since. So regardless of how good or bad it is, I don't think it could be considered "over-rated."

I couldn't finish Steamboy. It probably hurt that steam is my life. I am currently generating 48,000 pounds per hour of steam, making 1.685 megawatts of electricity, and sending it off to campus. So I know about steam. And that movie knows nada about steam. My willing suspension of disbelief wasn't willing.

1) To get steam to such high pressures as in the movie, would require a steel that was not created until midway through the 20th century, at least in commercially viable amounts.

2) Such pressures to be portable would probably be metallicised hydrogen and oxygen, and would let forth not steam but a Saturn V rockets exhaust. Portable but not hand held. That is if it didn't blow up at near nuke strength.

I could go on, but why? Are you going to become powerpant operators? Join the Navy and steam the world? Doubt it.

If I didn't know so much about steam, I could have enjoyed the movie much more. I also thought I should have been a 12 or 13 year old boy. So there I am only 30 years too late. Oh well.

I did appreciate the skill of the animation, and the level of detail presented. I thought it to be of the highest quality. The story was plausible to an ordinary person.

Personally, I like the movie, though I never really got into the hype that surrounded it. All I knew is that it was directed by Otomo and that the animation was supposed to be very sleek.

I had no real expectations and enjoyed the movie. Technicalities aside, I found it to be a good movie for younger viewers and that it had this sort of early to mid 90s Disney feel; something the family could watch with a simple story and excellent production values (Patrick Stewart is one of my favorite actors, I wish he'd dub more anime Anime hyper

).

I actually loved the movie, one of my favorites. Granted, it had a lot of subtle plot and character development but it is there none the less. Personally, I don't see how Howl's still manages to hold on to so much hype and such high ratings when Steamboy gets blasted so often as it really seemed to me Howl's suffered big time from the very same issues people point out as Steamboy's flaws.

Overrated though? Hardly, it's not rated very highly and didn't get all that much hype. If anything it's underrated, but it's very far from being overrated because it's just not rated all that high.

The point about suspension of disbelief is well made by jaybug39. One of the big problems with steampunk as a genre is that it relies on massive suspension of disbelief. It works well in written form as we don't actually see the impossibilities it creates, but on the screen it just looks stupid. Maybe Otomo never watched the debacle that was Wild Wild West.

Howl's Moving Castle (the film and the castle itself) relies on magic, not steam. It doesn't take the rational and make it irrational. Instead, like most Miyazaki films, it starts off with the irrational and by creating a compelling 'internal logic', makes it almost rational.

Except you're the first person I've ever heard complain about the steam punk side of the movie. I mean, if you dislike the steam punk genre then it seems logical to not bother watching one. Personally I love the steam punk genre, might be part of what I loved about Steamboy, but I also loved the underlying meaning behind the series and I thought the characters were great, and despite complaints about the dub by some I thought the dub cast did a much better job.

The complaints I've seen in nearly every instance are story related, from development to pacing. Howl's also had major story issues, far more significant than any problem Steamboy may have had if you asked me. The problems I see people address in Steamboy regarding its story flaws are pretty much the same type of issues that Howl's had in spades yet in that case they're largely ignored. So really, makes me wonder not if Steamboy is overrated but if Howl's is.

If you want to split hairs about Howls and steamboy then they are both under the categaory of good enough. Neither was exceptional in any way other than animation styles.

To me, I did enjoy to Steamboy to a certain extent. I did like the movie up until near the ending. I personally thought that the ending was dragged out and it lost my interest. Also, the plot was kind of predictable spoiler[with the father and the grandfather in the submarine at the end and other parts throughout the movie.]

Keonyn wrote:

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but I also loved the underlying meaning behind the series

And what would you believe that the underlying meanings are?

Keonyn wrote:

Except you're the first person I've ever heard complain about the steam punk side of the movie.

Strangely enough, the steampunk side is the first thing that the people I've spoken to about it said they didn't like.

Keonyn wrote:

I mean, if you dislike the steam punk genre then it seems logical to not bother watching one.

I only watched it because I was at a film festival with some friends who wanted to watch it. Like I said, steampunk is better imagined than realised.

Keonyn wrote:

I also loved the underlying meaning...

There were many possible underlying meanings, which one are you talking about? The futility of war? Man versus Technology? "Power" and "Flow"? I felt that all of these got crowded out by Otomo's increasing desperation to attempt to create a worthy successor to Akira. It's so ironic really, the film ends up just like the uncontrollably-mutating Tetsuo. One reel less wouldn't have hurt it at all.

And talking about one reel less...

Keonyn wrote:

Howl's also had major story issues, far more significant than any problem Steamboy may have had if you asked me.

My own experience of Howl's Moving Castle was completely skewed by watching it having read a review in a newspaper by someone who had evidently not seen the whole thing Sad

That just about ruined my perception of the pacing as it felt like someone had tacked a happy ending on to it.

My main problem with Steamboy was that it bored me. I like steampunk; I don't care if it's illogical (most steampunk is to some degree), just entertain me. Steamboy was pretty, but halfway through the movie, I had gotten used to the visuals and the lack of strong characters and an interesting plot made it seriously hard to stay awake for the second half.

I agree, I don't think Steamboy is overrated, because it really hasn't gotten much hype. Sure, it got some right before it came out, but after that it pretty much fell of the face of the planet. Howl's Moving Castle would be a better target for being overhyped (I liked Howl's Moving Castle somewhat, but it is one of my least favorite of the Ghibli films).

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Strangely enough, the steampunk side is the first thing that the people I've spoken to about it said they didn't like.

Very strange, of the reviews I've read and people I spoke to I never once heard anyone bring it up as an issue.

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I only watched it because I was at a film festival with some friends who wanted to watch it. Like I said, steampunk is better imagined than realised.

Well, to you I suppose, but it's honestly one of my favorite genre's. It shouldn't really matter much though as it's a genre with very few titles.

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There were many possible underlying meanings, which one are you talking about? The futility of war? Man versus Technology? "Power" and "Flow"? I felt that all of these got crowded out by Otomo's increasing desperation to attempt to create a worthy successor to Akira. It's so ironic really, the film ends up just like the uncontrollably-mutating Tetsuo. One reel less wouldn't have hurt it at all.

Those were some direct meanings, yes, especially the drive to use technology to find ways to dominate and destroy rather than help. But I think one of the best underlying meanings was when Eddie(Ray's Father) explains that although the steam castle will be destroyed it would not matter is it would live on now that it has been seen and people would continue to find a way to recreate it, rebuild it, once it was seen it would inspire more creations along its lines. Then, in the end as Ray is flying over the city and it shows the children watching him fly by after the catastrophe that just occurred, it seemd to me like a demonstration that the potential is there for the same aspect to work both ways.

The greedy businessmen and politicians got their inspiration in the steam castle, they got a taste of what kind of power was out there for them to obtain and they would strive to recreate it. But in another respect the children and innocents who suffered from this event in the city below saw Ray flying from the wreck and were possibly inspired themselves that even the most evil of creations can be brought down and that the potential to do good is more than just a storybook ideal.

I don't think Otomo was trying to recreate Akira though, if he was he went about it the wrong way. I think what it comes down to isn't that Otomo was trying to recreate Akira, but rather people went in to this film expecting that. I loved the movie, and ironically I think Akira is a highly overrated and weak film.

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My own experience of Howl's Moving Castle was completely skewed by watching it having read a review in a newspaper by someone who had evidently not seen the whole thing Sad That just about ruined my perception of the pacing as it felt like someone had tacked a happy ending on to it.

Not mine, I went in to Howl's Moving Castle without reading reviews or looking much in to the hype around it and I was very disappointed with what I saw. The Howl's story was one of the most poorly paced and poorly developed stories I've seen in a long time, while it still provided an interesting story for the first half it really just took a nose dive in the second half.

I was pretty much dissapointed by all of the major theatrical anime releases in the US last year-- I thought Steamboy was beautifully drawn, but the last 45 minutes were just never ending-- the plot ::ahem:: lost all its steam in the last half hour. The truth is that that movie was never more than a swashbuckling good time, a la Indiana Jones, and somehow, at the end of it, they tried to make it into a drama of sorts, and it wasn't built for that for the first 80 minutes. I would have enjoyed the movie much better if it had been 30 minutes shorter. Either way, it really seemed to be meant as very fun, very pleasant fluff-- Pirates of the Carribean type stuff-- and the ending didn't deliver on that for me.

I also thought Howl's Moving Castle was rather disjointed and lacked both a 1) coherent drive in the plot and 2) the alternative, which is the patented Miyazaki undefinable love of little details that make life beautiful. There was some great visuals here and there, but I never really connected with any of the characters. This sort of seems like a running problem in some of his more recent films though-- Mononoke, and Spirited Away included. I love Spirited Away, but that's mostly because the visuals are so amazing, and the sense of amazement and joy is so palpable, that they overcome a number of other deficiencies. These more recent films just don't don't really have the same heart as his earlier films-- Totoro or Nausicaa, or even Kiki or Porco Rosso-- all of which had protagonists that I really felt for and connected with.

I was probably most dissapointed by the 2nd GITS movie, which ended up being (to me) just a complete and utter bore-- a beautifully animated bore with a nice soundtrack-- but still a bore. I never connected to any characters, there was no real plot, and the endless philosophical mumbo-jumbo just didn't really relate to any of the characters on a personal level, and so it never had any real importance to me as a viewer.

Anyways, yeah, I was bummed out by Steamboy, because the first half was fun, and then it just petered out for me. I have no issue suspending disbelief, I like my Hollywood films too, but I still want the ride to finish out on an exciting , fun, tension-filled note, and, for me, Steamboy didn't deliver that.

I never did get to see Appleseed, but the reviews reminded me too much of the GITS 2 that I didn't think I'd have the patience for it.

First I am a huge fan of Otomo. I went to see Steamboy at the theatre. It was good for the first half to me and then the never ending climax bored me to death. The movie felt like 3 hours to me. I was dissapointed to say the least.

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