Castle in the Sky

Rating:
Summary: 2nd movie for Mr.Miyazaki
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Castle in the sky - Laputa
Review: This is definetly the one of the best animation ever made. One of ealier classic that defined Miyazaki's crown as king of animation. It's so good that Disney had to copy designed, action scenes, and story from this movie. Guess what movie was that? Atlantis. Don't get me wrong. Atlantis is not a rip off of Laputa, because Disney can't even do a good job ripping people off. There is no way Disney can steal the spirit of Laputa, no one can. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Disney, this is not a political review, I am just disapointed seeing what Disney ls doing. Once you've seen the movie, you'll see what I mean.
The movie ages very well because it is still aa funny, and heart warming as I first saw it almost 10 years ago. It's got a beautiful story, great character design, beautiful Miyazaki style machinaries, amazine and funny action sequences, and definetly one of the best score ever written. Too bad that Disney bought the right of this movie so it can rip this movie and Nadia off to make the stupid Atlantis. It's heart brokening to see Disney don't respect a classic just because it is not from Dinsney. Heck, Disney haven't made a classic since Disney him self died. I hope all Miyazaki's movie gets what it deserve, and I hope Disney respect other's work when it decides to buy the right off them. I hope you guys gets to see this movie whenever it comes out. It's been in Disney's storrage room for how -ever long.

Rating:
Summary: THIS MOVIE SUCKS BIG TIME!!!
Review: THIS MOVIE IS NOT REALLY GOOD. THE ENG DUB SUCKS AND THE MOVIE IS JUST PLAIN OLD BORING. ITS CHILDISH SILLY AGGG I CAN'T STAND THIS MOVIE YOU WANT GOOD ANIME I'LL TELL YA THE GOOD ONES
1.SUPER GALS
2.WEDDING PEACH
3.CARDCAPTOR SAKURA
4.SAILOR MOON
5.SAKURA WARS
6.SAINT TAIL
THESE ARE GOOD ANIME TITALS go to animecollector.com for a great selection of anime.....

Rating:
Summary: Reach high for the Castle in the Sky
Review: What can I say? I love this film. It stretches the imagination, while telling the story of friendship, loyalty, and a great wanderlust. This film has a story concept that rates among the adventure story greats like Treasure Island. It's execution of that story concept, however, leaves all but the best films choking on its dust!

Rating:
Summary: Anime at its Best!
Review: "Castle in the Sky" is an epic tale featuring adventure, beautiful scenes, and unforgettable characters. One night, a young boy named Pazu comes across a mysterious glowing girl who is floating down from the sky. Together, Pazu and his newfound friend Sheeta embark on a terrific journey in which they encounter a family of crude pirates, giant robots, and an army led by the cruel and greedy Muska. Eventually, they make their way to the fabled land of Laputa, home to a once-great civilization. However, the two must still face Muska and reclaim the famouse castle in the sky.

This movie is filled with rich, decadent animations that are very pleasing to the eye. However, it also contains images that may be inappropriate for children (anime does not always equal kiddie cartoons!), such as violent killings, kidnappings, and the sexuality that is apparent between the older male pirates and Sheeta. All in all, though, this film is an artistic masterpiece that may be enjoyed by preteens and up.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT!
Review: This movie was one of my favorites. It looked great, especially for a movie done in 1986. The extras weren't that exciting, but who would buy a DVD just for the extars? It's the movie that really counts, and it's here that Castle in the Sky really shines. I especially liked watching it in Japanese (Pazu sounds really funny). Definately worth every penny.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing special compared to Miyazaki's other works
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Early masterpiece from Miyazaki
Review: Hayao Miyazaki's second feature film, and his first one to be widely acclaimed both commercially and critically (though his debut - Nausicaa AKA Warriors of the Wind is considered by many fans his best), 'Tenku no Shiro Rapyuta' AKA 'Castle in the Sky' may seem childish and simplistic when compared to his more recent masterpieces like 'Kiki's Delivery Service', 'Mononoke-hime' and 'Spirited Away', but in 1986 it was years ahead of its time and it was one of the milestones of modern anime. It's important to remember that 'Castle in the Sky' was made two years before the revolutionary 'Akira', and while it's not provocative and controversial like the aforementioned masterpiece, the lead characters are all mainly basic manga hero / heroine / villain type characters, and the story is quite predictable and obvious (at least in today's standards), Miyazaki's designs and animation work are of standards never seen before. While the story and humor are a bit silly and outdated at times, the movie is still very entertaining and very enjoyable - if not as breathtaking as 'Spirited Away'. And if you'll allow yourself to see the beauty of the frames themselves and ignore the low-budget coloring and animation and the identical twin faces - at this point Miyazaki is still faithful to his roots and to the agreed standards of Japanese cartooning - you'll see Miyazaki's genius shine through as well as it does on 'Spirited Away' and Mononoke. While 'Castle in the Sky', being a sci-fi adventure and very suitable for children, fits in more neatly with classic anime than anything else he had done since, his motifs and principles still show and play an important part. To say much more would be to ruin the movie, so I'll kindly shut up. Suffice to say that I'm giving it only four stars because if I gave it five I couldn't go any higher for 'Spirited Away' and 'Princess Mononoke'. And that would be a crime.

As in most anime movies, I recommend watching the Japanese version with the English subtitles, even if you don't speak a word of Japanese - the English overdubs just don't tend to be very good, and in this case it's just horrendous. You might want to watch it in the English version once, though, just for the laughs, and for the star-filled cast (the English dub was only recorded following the success of 'Spirited Away', as it was for 'Kiki's Delivery Service') - Anna Paquin and James Van Der Beek (Yeah, the Dawson guy!) fill the lead roles, Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker from 'Star Wars', in case you don't know!) plays the villain, and other roles are filled by Andy Dick, Tres MacNeille (The Simpsons, Rugrats, Animaniacs...), Michael McShane (Friar Tuck from Kevin Costner's Robin Hood travesty) and Mandy Patinkin (Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya...) Good for a laugh, or a few laughs really. But watch the Japanese one first.

Rating:
Summary: please watch the original version with English subtitle !!!!
Review: I'm a Japanese and have watched this film so many time over the last 18 years and remember all its details, since
this is my favorite film of Hayao Miyazakis'.
I have now a French DVD together with synclonization and subltitle in English and Japanese original voice.
I'm shocked and furious about English voiceover version because the BGM music is changed from original Japanese version and I found it the absolute disaster.
So far when I watced it in French I found no alterlation of BGM.
I don't have the same DVD which is sold in USA and haven't checked it but I guess this English version in French DVD comes from DVD in USA.
SO please be careful, please watch this film in Japanese with English subltitle.
I cannot believe why Miyazaki's prodction allowed the music to be
changed.

Rating:
Summary: Anything But Trivial
Review: Miyazaki Hayao's Castle in the Sky is perhaps the most difficult but rewarding movie to watch, to contemplate on and to share one's thoughts about. Castle in the Sky is really a manga movie and not just your garden-variety animation offering either. Castle in the Sky moves forward on many levels and yet it pulls back on others. Castle in the Sky in a sense is trapped in its own circularity. Moreover, Miyazaki is a master at playing with the aesthetic of weightlessness. He uses 'natural elements' like the wind in place of a more mechanical source. Miyazaki compels us to consider the plundering of nature. He, moreover, asks us to pause and to reconsider man's need to conquer nature as well as the misuse of technologies. Like Sheeta we grapple with our own weightlessness, our own significance.

Castle in the Sky provides a sustained and critical assessment of our attitudes toward technology. Effectively this generation has inherited what technology it currently uses and lacks discipline and appreciation of the impact of our use of it. In moves similar to those made in Princess Mononoke, it is not so much technology that is the issue but rather the use (or misuse) we subject it to. The enemy is not technology but rather our use of technology that calls us to question our ideas on progress. In a sense, it could be argued that Miyazaki is nostalgic for a bygone era - to return to that zero point when we did not have technology on this scale. As mentioned previously, although less pronounced than Princess Mononoke, both stories converge in their subtle but sustained critique of progress and technology without really being a 'Romantic' elegy of lost innocence. In this sense most anime can be seen to be exploring some postmodern themes -- but in my opinion only Princess Mononoke sustains a postmodern argument. Moreover, as a general rule 'anime' takes into account issues of 'movement' into its scenarios and players and the solutions are varied, of course, depending on specific anime sub-genre. However, there looks to be an overall tendency away from mechanical sources to sources of a more 'organic' genesis. Although the use is more pronounced in Miyazaki's work, it is evident in the Cyborg and Mecha anime such as Ghost in the Shell, Akira and Armitage (all available on Amazon.com).

It could also be argued that both Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind are in a sense 'post-apocalyptic.' In this sense most major anime offerings including: Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies calls to question the use of technology for destruction and ultimately domination. Miyazaki explores his Romantic notions by not only critiquing the use of advanced technology but by setting this movie in the early nineteenth century. The flying vessels all hearken back to a bygone era making the movie's signs almost 'period.' This back and forth between technology and the bygone era disrupts a linear narrative - making it, and I say this guardedly, postmodern.

Miyazaki's calling to the question the undisciplined use of technology elevates the movie beyond a good and evil bifurcation. Miyazaki calls to question the destructive force of unnatural creations and for domination by its users makes this (and all his other movies anything but trivial. The truth is, robots and similar technologies, are not in themselves the problem. It is rather to what use these implements are put. In anime we see moving scenes of robots protecting nests, befriending little animals as well as tending gardens as if we ascribe to these non-sentient beings the best of our qualities. Conversely, anime does not shy from the frightening scenes of the very same machines tearing up the countryside. With the juxtaposition, perhaps the mood is set to have us consider a back to nature approach.

Before I close, I wish to deal with the issue to the tragic and epic hero in Castle in the Sky. My sense of it is that Sheeta is, in a sense the epic heroine of the story in her reluctance and almost passive role in the movie. Castle in the Sky is steeped in an experience of floating, gliding and soaring -- hence weightlessness. Sheeta's flying stone is a passive tool in that it prevents her from falling. Sheeta does not fly. In Miyazaki's work - like My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service flying is a way to achieve weightlessness. Here, Pazu is the one who seeks to soar - making him seem somewhat of an active but tragic hero. Flying is a key element in Miyazaki's films and it is the flying machines that are less mechanical and more organic that are privileged. Optimizing the energy in nature is the desired configuration. Miyazaki is one that will survive the ages because his creations are very challenging but nonetheless accessible. Castle in the Sky is hinged on the prospect of a world prior to technology making the movie, at the risk of sounding condescending, anything but trivial.

Miguel Llora