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Castle in the Sky Director: Hayao Miyazaki Number of Items: 2 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Format: Animated, Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 125 minutes Studio: Walt Disney Home Video Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 168 Average rating: 4.5 "Nothing special compared to Miyazaki's other works" After watching Spirited Away and Kiki's Delivery Service, Maleficent decided she had finally found anime she enjoyed. Miyazaki's style is not too gross, not too chauvinistic, not too pedohpilic, not too violent...good stuff. So it was that we came upon Castle in the Sky. Castle in the Sky has a lot of familiar elements that the other movies drew from. The girls are the protagonists and they're always orphans. There's usually a cutesy male romantic interest, but there's no kissing. Indeed, beyond the occasional hug, that's about as hot and heavy as it gets. The movie starts out on a zeppelin and then spirals out of control there. A young girl named Sheeta, who owns a very special amulet, is the secret to a floating military power. Actually, it's the secret to Laputa. For those of you wondering why Laputa sounds familiar, that's because it's from Gulliver's Travels. In Gulliver's Travels, Laputa is indeed a floating city that has a tyrannical stranglehold on the world below. It's also a parody on government -- Laputans have to be whacked up side the head with sticks to get their attention. It's rather silly -- but in Miyazaki's version, they may as well have been Atlanteans. Our protagonist, the princess (oops, did I give that away?) Sheeta, is the secret to finding Laputa and harnessing its destructive powers. She meets another orphan, Pazu, who sounds like...well, James Van Der Beek. But James, who was around 12 at the time, sounds much older. He sounds like one of those kids whose voice changed early, but he's still trying to fake having a high-pitched voice. It doesn't work. There's also some neat technology at work. Everybody has flying technology, including a pirate mom (Dola) and her brood of bumbling idiots. There's also the evil government, with a special secret agent who always wears sunglasses no matter where he is. This is definitely a Miyazaki flim. You can tell, because some of the characters actually look similar. Dola is a thinner version of Buyaga from Spirited Away, and the engineer is...well quite similar to the husband/engineer in this movie, right down to the dark glasses and bushy moustache. There's lots of violence in this movie, although it's not on screen. Many soldiers fall to their deaths off of Laputa. The military fires everything it has at just about every character. Miraculously, they all manage to dodge every bullet except Pazu, who gets a scrape on his cheek. The problem, unfortunately, is that this is very much a traditional anime. While it's considerably mild compared to many other action anime, Castle in the Sky still has all the plot elements that bore people who aren't normally interested in anime. Heck, there's even a creepy scene where all the pirates (all males) sneak into the kitchen to "help" Sheeta cook -- I half expected an attempted gang rape. But it's all harmless of course -- the men are so enamored with Sheeta that they end up doing all the chores that Dola assigned to her. What's creepy is that we're not quite clear on how old Sheeta is supposed to be. The voices are definitely younger. If Van Der Beek's age is any indication, she's supposed to be 12. A bunch of grown pirates leering over a 12-year-old cooking for them is uh...well, you get my point. There also seems to have been some attempts to make Castle in the Sky more comedic. There's a suspiciously frequent number of comments from voice actors when their characters aren't talking -- presumably, off screen. In other words, people make jokes when they're not talking. It's supposed to be clever, but it goes over as well as a laugh track on a bad sitcom. They're not hard to spot either: the actors are forced to talk at high speeds to ram the jokes in before the scene moves on. The world itself is neat. It's a combination of 1920's technology, the kind used in the Batman animated series, when everyone thought that zeppelins would be the new era of flight (before the Hindenberg crash). And of course, Miyazaki takes a traditional myth and turns it on its ear. But this is no Spirited Away. It certainly doesn't compare to Kiki's Delivery Service, superficial similarities notwithstanding. And it's about a half hour too long. Castle in the Sky is fun. It's anime. But it's nothing special compared to Miyazaki's other unique and charming works. "2nd movie for Mr.Miyazaki" The movie is 2nd movie for Miyazaki actually. In the previous days of first movie[kazeno tanino nausika], he had made many movies. But as the chief directer, from [nausika]. Castle in the Sky[japanese title is Tenkuuno Siro Rapyuta] and Nasusika is the most favorite movies for me. Because they include fantasie inspiration and is simply adventure movies. After that, he have made a lot of movies but I think that recently the movies is difficult that I understand the story. Mr. Miyazaki think that want to express many meanings and messages through the movie? For instance, war and peace, poor and rich, environmental problem... It is no doubt and important to make the movie with the awareness of the problems. But when movies is very difficult, the animation movie is not. I think that is wonderful thing that there is the movie like Castle in the Sky. I'm sorry for poor English. "Anyone who love Japanese anime, must see!" Laputa is great for both Children and Adult. Miyazaki tells "a story that involves discoveries and wonderful encounters...a story that carries a message of hope." The production of Laputa also led to the establishment of Studio Ghibli in 1985. I highly recommend everyone to see this movie. My favorite scene is when Sheeta said to Muska "people can't live away from the ground." But my favorite Miyazaki movie is "Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind". Many people are saying that Nausicaa is similer to "The Lord of the Rings". I don't agree at all (Hey, I love The Lord of the Rings too by the way! Did everyone like Return of the King? I thought that was the best out of 3 movies). Nausicaa has storonger message for environmental disruption more than fellowship. For this movie, Nausicaa, I recommend you to see movie first. Then you should read books because books go much deeper than movie. Nausicaa tries to stop other warring nations from destroying themselves and from destroying the only means by which their world can be saved from the spread of polluted wastelands. Plus please read books over and over again. You won't get message right away. It's pretty complecated. As an additional info., "My Neighbor Totoro", "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "Princess Mononoke" are something which you should consider to just enjoy adventure action and fantasy world. "Princess Mononoke" is similer to Nausicaa and Laputa but this movie is based on Japan land. And remember, this movie is pretty violent for children. I heard from many people didn't like "Spirited Away". I love Miyazaki movie and normaly, I can get Miyazaki message from the movie easily but for this one, I couldn't get much message right away. So! I personally suggest to watch more than once. I realized later, it had meaning everywhere how much we pollute our planet and make us think there is something we can do for it. You won't realize that if you don't pay attention enough (just like what I did ^_^). At last, Miyazaki says the following, "We are not trying to solve the global problems. There can not be a happy ending to the fight between the Raging Gods and humans. However, even in the middle of hatred and killings, there are things worth living for. A wonderful meeting, or a beautiful thing can exist." "Another charming story" More than anything else, this is a delightful, gentle story, beautifully animated. It's exciting, but without [much] violence or dark edge that might upset younger viewers. Also, like at least two of Miyazaki's other animations, it centers on a resolute little girl separated from her family. That recurring character must have some personal meaning for Miyazaki, but I'm not sure what. Even though the girl appears in several of his films, she doesn't really repeat herself; she really is new each time. Miyazaki also has some fascination with flight in general and airships in particular. They appeared in "Kiki's Delivery Service" and have a central place in this movie. I admit, they're quite amazing: majestic, wallowing dinosaurs from the early age of human flight. Maybe that's enough. The only thing that left me puzzled was the floating island of Laputa itself. The sky-city with that name appears in "Gulliver's Travels." The former lords of Miyazaki's Laputa risked becoming tyrants by strength of their weaponry. Gulliver's Laputa was also known to crush, literally crush rebellion among its vassal territories. Any other connection between the two Laputas escaped me, though. This is another cute movie from Miyazaki. It doesn't get by on just cuteness, though. It's not especially deep, but adults shouldn't be bored watching it with their kids. Or, like me, watching it without them. "THIS MOVIE [...] BIG TIME!!!" THIS MOVIE IS NOT REALLY GOOD. THE ENG DUB [...] AND THE MOVIE IS JUST PLAIN OLD BORING. ITS CHILDISH SILLY AGGG I CAN'T STAND THIS MOVIE.