Official Synopsis
Pazu, an engineer’s apprentice, finds a young girl, Sheeta, floating down from the sky, and discovers they are both searching for a legendary floating castle, Laputa. Together, they embark on a daring quest and encounter greedy pirates, secret agents and astounding obstacles that keep them from the truth––and from each other.
Castle in the Sky is a wondrous adventure that Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki has created. It’s one of those movies that just does a ‘go-go-go’ sort of motion with the storyline. There isn’t much downtime for the main characters of Sheeta and Pazu. The film has an even balance of intrigue, daring rescues and escapes. It’s constantly going like a true action flick.
Unlike an action flick, though, the movie has a solid storyline of an evil group of men led by Mark Hamill’s Muska, a band of misfit pirates and our two main characters on the quest to discover an ancient floating castle named Laputa. The mixture of a quest for power (Muska’s group), weapons (pirates) and destiny (Pazu and Sheeta) make this more than just a movie built on action. On top of this, Miyazaki does his usual magic of building his characters into more than just animated cels. He breathes life into them and gives them reason and purpose. By the end of the film when you see Sheeta and Pazu standing tall against Muska, you’ll understand their love for each other, and more importantly who they are as individuals.
The ending of the film really pulls the characters and the storyline into one powerful moment that makes the entire adventure worth your viewing effort. This is why Castle in the Sky is probably in my top three Miyazaki films of all-time. It really does a great balancing act between characters/story/action.
The downside to this release is that there is a bit more graininess and film flicker (that’s new to me — it happens in the engineering town) on this Blu-ray. While there are very gorgeous moments of the film that make you say ‘wow’, such as the first time you see Laputa floating, the dark times out weigh the good ones. I think that the age of the film might have done something to this transfer to HD, as it was released in 1986. It’s still better looking than the DVD version, but it’s not as eye-popping as a Ponyo.
As for the audio, you get the English in 5.1 DTS-HD, but only the Japanese in 2.0 DTS-HD. This movie really needs great audio, so I’m not sure why the Japanese audio couldn’t have been in 5.1 DTS-HD. Anything less, for this film especially, is just bad. The aspect ratio for the movie is 1.85:1.
Finally, as for features, here is what you’re getting:
– Introduction by John Lasseter
– Original Japanese Storyboards
– Behind The Studio
While it doesn’t seem like much, the last featurette on that list is broken into several smaller pieces. You get all sorts of information about the world of Castle in the Sky, the voices, the music and several other perspectives on the creation process of the film. It’s a solid set of features. Good stuff that delivers interest and intrigue.