風の谷のナウシカ
Well, that was a good deal better than もののけ姫, but that is not much of a surprise. Princess Mononoke's animation was more sophisticated, although it's hard to find a lot of faults with the animation in this film. I watched it on Netflix where there's most likely some quality loss of a blu ray version, particularily sometimes the colors of our little protagonist's pants are severely off. They change from white to a pink tinge to sometimes looking a whole lot like the color of Nausicaä's face, which is a little weird.
Nausicaä is a figure of Greek myth, which I guess inspired parts of the film.
There's one particular part that meta knowledge ruined the impact of:
Anyway, much like Princess Mononoke, I feel as if this film could easily lose 15 or even 20 minutes and make for a tighter watching experience, there are a few sequences that are basically the animated equivalent of special effects for the sake of having special effects. I can't fault the artists for that, but I really wish they'd cut that out. Grave of the Fireflies and Whisper of the Heart don't have any scenes that seem to be as, well, let's call them filled with artistic self-indulgence, and are all the better for it.
However, that is also probably because neither of the films lend themselves to having sequences that are just there to show off impressive animation.
Anyway, the film was good. As usual, post apocalyptic settings, even if they're as interesting as this one, isn't what I usually look for in films, and Nausicaä herself is quite likeable and a better character than Ashitaka, but at times she has the same issues. What she does, though, is have a much, much better personal motivation and reason for being like that, and that integrates her a lot better into the world. Solid.
Also, not really related but still hilarious, when you might end up regretting a tattoo:
Dude, next time pick someone you can trust.
I generally don't have a problem with that, or protagonists or antagonists that are just metaphors instead of real characters, the problem for me with Princess Mononoke in particular is that the film is not overly interesting to begin with and, unlike with Nausicaä, none of the factions or characters really appealed to me. Hence that falls completely on its face, and it kind of ruins the setup which I thought was not a terrible idea, just badly executed - at least while rewatching the film. Now after having watched Nausicaä, it feels almost entirely redundant. Nausicaä is similar and better in every way. Except maybe the usage of colors, but that's subjective.
Then there's probably half an hour of runtime that could be cut without changing the impact of meaning of the film, some of these scenes drag on and on with no clear purpose. Meandering isn't a particularily desirable trait to have for a movie with a 130 minute runtime.
Aside from that, no, I have not played Half-Life 2 and I'm not very likely to ever do that. For a number of reasons, the strongest of which is a dislike for Valve, and the fact that it apparently ends on a stupid cliffhanger that's never going to be resolved. Screw that.