Portal:Studio Ghibli/Selected works/14

Tales from Earthsea (ゲド戦記, Gedo Senki, literally Ged's War Chronicles) is a 2006 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Gorō Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film is based on a combination of plots and characters from the first four books of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series: A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore and Tehanu; however, the film's title is named from the collection of short stories, Tales from Earthsea, made in 2001. The plot was "entirely different" according to Le Guin, who told director Gorō Miyazaki, "It is not my book. It is your movie. It is a good movie", although she later expressed her disappointment with the end result.

The story starts with a war galley caught in a storm at sea. The ship's weatherworker is distressed to realize he has lost the power to control the wind and waves, but is more so when he sees two dragons fighting above the clouds, during which one is killed by the other—an unprecedented and impossible occurrence.

The King of Enlad, already troubled by tales of drought and pestilence in the land, as well as the news about people going insane, receives news both of the strange omen at sea and of the disappearance of his son, Prince Arren. The King's wizard Root tells the tale of how dragons and men were once "one", until people who cherished freedom became dragons, and men chose possessions; and of his fears of how the land's plight is because of the weakening of the world's "Balance". The King has little time to ponder on this before he is killed in a dark corridor by a young boy who is revealed to be his son Arren. The young prince steals his father's sword and flees the palace.