Granduncle tests the blocks to see if the world will last one more day.
I have mixed thoughts about OpenAI’s Studio Ghibli image generator.
On one hand, the ChatGPT Ghibli-fyer is a tremendous technological achievement. I remember playing with the original Stable Diffusion years ago and never getting anything close to this. As a piece of technology, it’s stunning.
Me with my friend’s kitten Louisa.
As someone who loves Studio Ghibli, though, and the work of Hayao Miyazaki… this does not capture what makes his movies special. Miyazaki films are not good because of the Ghibli aesthetic (beautiful as it is). They are good because they speak to the audience on a deep, emotional, even subconscious level.
Take this scene from Spirited Away. The protagonist, Chihiro, has just escaped from a bathhouse for spirits. She trudges through still ankle-deep water until she reaches a train platform. There, she boards a train car full of silent ghosts. The train flies through strange country leaving ripples in its wake.
The scene is haunting. Something about a silent train with ghostly passengers moving through shallow water just… speaks to me. Watching this feels like looking into someone’s dream. It’s beautiful and moving on a level I can’t even explain. Nothing makes literal sense, but everything makes perfect sense. 1
Miyazaki movies are so much more than an aesthetic. They are sweeping, powerful, emotional journeys. They cover life’s deepest questions, like when to grow up, how we should treat nature, the price of chasing your dreams and how to deal with grief. I believe when Guillermo Del Toro compares the last few decades of Miyazaki to being alive while Mozart is composing symphonies, he is not exaggerating.
Miyazaki is an artist capable of grappling with life’s hardest questions. That work can never be done by a GPU.
- (The Spirited Away experience™️)↩