Why Hayao Miyazaki hates Lord of the Rings and other Hollywood movies

Renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki states that he’s not the biggest fan of Lord of the Rings and other Hollywood franchises for a reason his many fans all over the world will be surprised to hear at first. However, you’ll most likely come to understand why this Academy Award-winning filmmaker feels this way.

Farout Magazine reports Miyazaki, at the time, reflected on the destructive messages he often found in Hollywood films. According to him, these films tend to push a narrative that believes wrongdoing can only be punished through bloodshed, and that the slaying of countless lives of innocent individuals is permissible so long as it brings retribution to evildoers.

“Americans shoot things and they blow up and the like, so as you’d expect, they make movies like that,” Miyazaki expressed at the time. “If someone is the enemy, it’s okay to kill endless numbers of them. Lord of the Rings is like that.”

Continuing on, Miyazaki stated, “The Lord of the Rings is a movie that has no problem doing that [not separating civilians from enemies, apparently]. If you read the original work, you’ll understand, but in reality, the ones who were being killed are Asians and Africans. Those who don’t know that, yet say they love fantasy are idiots.”

Hayao Miyazaki questions the violence in Hollywood’s iconic films

Adding on to his belief that Hollywood films often romanticize the horrors that come with war’s “collateral damage” for its audiences, Miyazaki notes the beloved Indiana Jones franchise is also another film that he grew to dislike to some extent for similar reasons.

“Even in the Indiana Jones movies, there is a white guy who, ‘bang,’ shoots people, right? Japanese people who go along and enjoy with that are unbelievably embarrassing,” Miyazaki reportedly stated in a resurfaced interview. “You are the ones that, ‘bang,’ get shot. Watching [those movies] without any self-awareness is unbelievable. There’s no pride, no historical perspective.”

Though his words are relatively recent, Hayao Miyazaki’s morals and values always rang true. Case in point, Grave of the Fireflies and Princess Mononoke, two of the many Studio Ghibli films that not only withheld from making a mockery of any culture or nationality but also made it a point to shed an unbiased light on the true complexities of war.

The critically acclaimed title The Wind Rises also exhibits Miyazaki’s sentiments. In the 2013 film, Miyazaki focused on highlighting the collateral damage that does, indeed, come with war. He did this by showing the tragedy of Jiro Horikoshi, the film’s protagonist, who saw his innovative creations meant to improve Japanese society become weapons of mass destruction.

What’s more, The Wind Rises avoided blaming any sole country for the cataclysm that was World War II, for doing so would, as Hayao Miyazaki stated, put innocent people, who had little to do with the start of the war, in the same group as the malicious leaders who desired to see bloodshed no matter how catastrophic.

As he steps into creating his final film inspired by the 1937 novel How Do You Live?, the forever-esteemed Hayao Miyazaki is sure to uphold his beliefs once more so that audiences can leave theaters with their hearts full of pride rather than their minds filled with violence.