:: Introduction :: Story :: Gackt as Maltazard :: DVD :: Charity Auction ::

Inside of DTS Special Edition DVD cover.

Introduction:

Gackt added yet another role to his voice acting resume when he dubbed the voice of Maltazard in the movie Arthur and the Minimoys. Directed by Luc Besson, the movie follows the adventures of Arthur, a ten year old boy, whose busy parents leave him home alone with his grandmother and his imagination. That imagination turns into much more as he falls into the land of the Minimoys, tiny creatures who live in the garden thanks to Arthur's long-missing grandfather. Gackt voices the role of the "Evil M", Maltazard. The movie is part live action and part animation, and is based on Besson's children's book of the same name.

Story:

[This synopsis is based on the original version of the film; the American and U.K. releases of the film were edited.]
Arthur is a ten year old boy who lives with his grandmother in a house out in the country. As the movie opens, it is his birthday, and only his grandmother is there to celebrate with him. She gives him a toy car and a baseball. Arthur's parents are away traveling, leaving Arthur's grandmother to do her best to take care of Arthur and the house they live in. Arthur's grandfather, Archibald, went missing some time ago, and Arthur and his grandmother are faced with the possibility of losing their house and land to a local developer. Arthur decides to take matters into his own hands, and begins a quest to find a way to pay the bills that will save their house from being sold. From stories told by his grandmother, he knows that his grandfather had hidden a treasure somewhere on the property. The treasure was a pile of rubies which the grandfather had gotten in the land of the Minimoys. Arthur wants to get this treasures in order to save the house and land.

As described in the storybook that his grandmother reads to him, the Minimoys are tiny creatures, smaller than a tooth, who have big ears and who live harmoniously with nature in Arthur's grandparents' garden. Arthur is especially taken by the beautiful Princess Selenia. The Minimoys are a friend of the Bogomatassalai, a group of very tall, tribal type people. It is from the Bogomatassalai that Archibald received the treasure of rubies, a thank you gift for his help. Arthur searches through his grandfather's collections to find some clue as to the whereabouts of the Minimoys and the treasure. With the help of the Bogomatassalai, he is shrunken down to the size of a Minimoy using a telescope and the light of a full moon. When he arrives in the land of the Minimoys, he is transformed into a Minimoy himself!

When Arthur arrives, the Minimoys are in the middle of a ceremony wherein Princess Selenia is supposed to pull a sword embedded in stone. The ceremony is interrupted by an attack by the Seides, who are the minions of the evil warlord Maltazard. It is Maltazard who has Arthur's grandfather held hostage, is using the rubies as a throne, and has planned to flood the Minimoys' land. The Seides come riding in on mosquitoes, and chaos ensues. Arthur pulls the sword out of the stone and uses it to defend the Minimoys. After fighting off the Seides, Selenia's father, the king, allows Arthur to join Selenia and her brother Betameche on a quest to free Archibald. This requires the three to travel to Necropolis, where Maltazard reigns.

The three make their way to Necropolis, during which time Arthur grows extremely fond of Selenia. She reveals her age to be a thousand (though they count differently in their world, making her about the same age as Arthur), and she has two days to find a husband. As they travel to Necropolis, we learn that Maltazard's minions have been gathering up straws that Arthur had placed in the garden as a watering system. The Seides were bringing the straws to Necropolis in order to form a system that would flood the Minimoys' land.

When they arrive at Necropolis, Selenia decides that she will face Maltazard alone, and takes the sword from Arthur. Before leaving, she kisses Arthur, after which Betameche congratulates him on the wedding! Apparently, the first kiss of a princess counts as a marriage. Also, a kiss passes on the powers of one to the other.

As Selenia enters Maltazard's lair, she is disgusted to see him picking up an insect that very much resembles a cockroach, and feasting on it [a scene which is quite hilarious to us Gackt fans!]. When Selenia confronts Maltazard, we learn why he has become who he is. He was formerly a brave Minimoy champion, but he eventually lost control himself, got drunk, and was seduced by a weevil. The weevil kissed him, thus becoming his wife and transforming him into an ugly creature (this is according to Selenia; see the section below on Maltazard to hear his side of the story…). He wishes to regain his former appearance by stealing the first kiss of a princess, which would give him her powers. He has chosen Selenia for that task. Selenia tells him that he is too late, and that she has already kissed Arthur. This angers Maltazard, and he locks her up with Arthur, Betameche, and Archibald.

Maltazard goes forward with his plan to flood the Minimoys out of their land. He releases his captives, giving them a three minute head start before unleashing the flood. The four race through the tunnels, eventually coming upon Arthur's toy car, the one that his grandmother had given to him as a birthday gift, and which was kicked into the drain earlier. They race through the tunnels in the car and eventually make it out, and back to the Minimoys' land.

The Minimoys close the doors and brace for the impact of the flood. Arthur and Archibald leave the land of the Minimoys, and return to their regular size. Before leaving Necropolis, Arthur had asked Miro, a Minimoy that had been captured by the Seides, for a favor. Miro was in charge of shining a spotlight on Maltazard, using mirrors, and Arthur told him to reverse the mirrors at a certain time. Miro kept his promise, switching the mirrors and making a beam of light shine straight up into the sky, where Arthur was able to find it and track down the location of Necropolis in the garden. Dropping the baseball that he had received as a birthday gift into a pipe, he plugs the opening through which the water was flowing out of Necropolis, and causes the inside of Maltazard's lair to flood instead! The throne of rubies floats up through the pipe, where Arthur is waiting to grab it. Maltazard abandons his lair, and everyone in it including his son, and rides away on a mosquito.

Arthur is just in time; he brings the rubies to his grandfather, who gives one ruby to the developer to pay him off and to keep his house and property. The developer attempts to snag the entire pile of rubies, but is thwarted by the Bogomatassalai, who suddenly appear inside the home. The movie closes with Arthur promising Selenia that he will wait until the time they can meet again.

Gackt as Maltazard:


Maltazard sitting on his throne of rubies.


He has been deformed into a hideous creature.

Enjoying a plate of his favorite snack.

Gackt voices the role of Maltazard in the Japanese language dub of the movie. The English language voice of Maltazard was dubbed by musician David Bowie. This is what Gackt had to say about his take on Maltazard’s character, and some of the challenges he faced when doing the dub for the movie:

“If there’s a choice between playing a hero and a villain, I have much more of an interest in playing the villain. But it’s not that difficult to play a character that is completely evil. So I’ve always wanted to play an evil character that had some part of him that you just couldn’t hate, or a part that was laughable or cute. When the offer for this dubbing work came in and I discussed the image I had of the villain, it turned out that the production staff thought that image fit Maltazard’s character perfectly, and I accepted the offer.”

“The Maltazard played by David Bowie came across as straightforward, with no range of emotions. I thought that if I played him the same way, then Maltazard would really become villainous, so I tried to create a character that kids would find amusing; one that is evil, and yet has a part that you can’t hate. I was conscious of that as I played Maltazard.”

“I’ve always watched movies twice. I watch the dubbed version first, but there are times where the dub is done by the actor himself and not a voice actor, and sometimes it doesn't feel quite right. There’s a big difference in a person’s voice and way of speaking depending on whether they play a character using just their voice, or if they actually act with their voice. That’s something that even children are attuned to, and I’ve also experienced that (feeling that it’s not quite right) as a child. So in order to prevent those feelings from arising in the children who watch this movie, I consciously tried to act as naturally as possible. The part that was the most difficult was the fact that there was a mix of voice actors and actors. It’s easy to get a handle on the tone of voice when everyone is a voice actor, but when you mix voice actors and actors, the tone of voice changes within each part. It was hard to get that balance right. The characters that Maltazard speaks to were mostly dubbed by actors, so if there was too much characterization or if he was played too much as a voice actor, then it was hard to have a smooth conversation, so I tried to create a feeling that was somewhere between an actor and voice actor.”
(source: cinemecafe.net)

Indeed, the character of Maltazard is not purely evil for the sake of being evil. When Selenia meets him, he tells his side of the story first, casting some doubt as to whether or not he really deserves to be called ‘evil’. As Selenia walks in and draws her sword, he says that he recognizes the sound of the sword because he spent days polishing it. He also says that she is the only one who could have released the sword. Perhaps the sword once belonged to Maltazard, and he sealed it using his own powers after returning from his journey.

From his version of the story, he was once known as Maltazard the Good. He watched over and protected the Minimoys. Then there was a drought that lasted for 1000 years, and he was chosen to bring back water and riches for the Minimoys, and was known as Maltazard the Conqueror. Alone, he passed through hostile and contaminated lands, fought against beasts, and eventually returned to the village, where they deemed him Maltazard the Hero. However, due to diseases and bewitchments he encountered on his quest, his body became disfigured, and people began to fear him. They stopped talking to him because of their fear of contamination. It was then that he became known as Maltazard the Evil.

When hearing his account of the story, you feel some sympathy for him, and realize that he is not just some monster, as Selenia calls him. It’s not surprising then that Gackt wanted to bring something more to the character than just evilness. And he succeeds in doing this, by putting some playfulness into the character of Maltazard. By listening to his version and Bowie’s version, you can see that Gackt’s take really is more lively and three dimensional.

DVD:

Front cover of DTS Special Edition DVD.

Back cover.

The DTS special edition DVD released in Japan has both the English and Japanese language versions, and both English and Japanese subtitles. The DVD also includes a making-of featurette, and short interviews with the Japanese voice cast (not subtitled). The interview with Gackt was very short. He talked about how he has liked the director, Luc Besson, from seeing the movies Leon and Nikita (La Femme Nikita). He says that seven years ago, he was eating at a restaurant in America, and Besson happened to be eating at a table next to him. He wondered if he would meet him again some day, and when talk of this movie came about, he did get to finally meet him and work with him. He says that the characters in the movie are very cute, and that the balance achieved between the animation and the real world is really interesting. He also says it’d be fun if there really was a world like the Minimoy’s world in his own backyard.

Recording his lines for Maltazard.


Interview with Gackt.

Charity Auction:
From September 28 through October 12, 2007, Gackt and the other cast members participated in a charity auction for Lawson’s tree planting campaign. Gackt donated a signed pair of Darts sunglasses to the auction. Proceeds went to Lawson’s tree planting campaign to halt global warming. (http://www.lawson.co.jp/company/activity/public/midorinobokin.html)

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