released 25 may 03 / last mod 01 jun 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* Hayao Miyazaki's CASTLE IN THE SKY was apparently his third full-length animated feature film and the item that put him on the map, and it's easy to see why. The story takes place in what appears to be the early 20th century in an alternate universe, where the skies are full of giant airships, ranging from luxury liners to flying battleships. In the beginning of the film, a mysterious girl, whose name is later revealed as "Sheeta", falls from the sky from an airship, only to be rescued by the strange jewel she wears around her neck. She floats down, unconscious, into the arms of a lad named Pazu who works at a mine.
From this start the two end up in a search for the long-lost flying city of Laputa, pursued by an evil government agent but aided by a gang of sky pirates who aren't as nasty as they first seem, leading up to an apocalyptic finale. Along the way the Sheeta and Pazu have many adventures and encounter many marvelous machines and places.
While I have little familiarity with the famous TINTIN series, from what little I saw of it when I was a youngster it seems that Miyazaki took Herge as a strong influence. In any case, CASTLE IN THE SKY shows a strong European flavor in its design, and also has a certain old-fashioned story line for kids, with Sheeta and Pazu jumping from one peril to the next.
The plot's not very plausible, but it does lend a great deal of charm to this movie, and Miyazaki's emphasis on clever machines and inventions makes the whole mix very entertaining. The opening credits are a particular exercise in invention. The artwork is very good and impressive, though it might be argued that by modern standards it fails to quite reach consistent perfection -- then again, it is probably not fair to compare it in this regard to later works like Miyazaki's SPIRITED AWAY.
In any case, the end result is a fine work of craftsmanship, though it is relatively lacking in the shrewd and subtle parables that characterize Miyazaki's more modern works. The only warning I can give, at the risk of sounding politically correct, is that the end is violent by modern standards, with the bad guys biting the dust in big numbers. This sort of thing was admittedly more common in the past, but I have to agree that it was good for it to go out of style -- this is a gentle movie targeted for kids that can still be thoroughly enjoyed by adults, where the violence seems pointless and out of place. Since the story is a charming fantasy, there is no particular use or purpose for brutal realism. That said, the bottom line is that this is an excellent movie and highly recommended.