Castle in the Sky [2 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Hayao Miyazaki's fantasy adventure Castle in the Sky begins with a chase scene through a flying ship, where all the passengers are after the young girl, Sheeta (voice of Anna Paquin). Going overboard to avoid capture, Sheeta is rescued by her powerful crystal necklace which floats her down to safety. She's recovered by Pazu (voice of James Van Der Beek), a young resourceful boy who works in a small mining town. Sharing a common desire to see Laputa, the castle in the sky, Pazu and Sheeta team up to outrun the pirates and the military. Led by hard-bitten matriarch Dola (voice of Cloris Leachman), the pirates are a rowdy yet dimwitted group of brothers who are after Laputa's treasure. Led by the greedy yet civilized Muska (voice of Mark Hamill), the military is after Laputa's secret powers. Everyone races to get to the abandoned castle of Laputa, which has been overgrown with vines and plant life. Its only inhabitants are the animals and robots who protect a magical garden. As the different parties fight over who gets to control Laputa, it's up to Sheeta to use her ancient knowledge to save it from ultimate destruction. The English-language version also includes the voices of Mandy Patinkin and Andy Dick. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 2
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: English
• Features:
  • • cc "Castle in the Sky" introduction by John Lasseter
    • Complete storyboards
    • Behind the Microphone with James Van Der Beek and Cloris Leachman
    • Original Japanese trailers
    • English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
    • Original Japanese-language track
    • Widescreen (1.85:1) enhanced for 16 x 9 televisions
    • French-language track

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Hayao Miyazaki

• Producer:

  Isao Takahata, Tatsumi Yamashita

• Screenwriter:

  Hayao Miyazaki

• Screen Story:

  Hayao Miyazaki

• Composer (Music Score):

  Joe Hisaishi

• Executive Producer:

  Yasuyoshi Tokuma

• Voice Director:

  Jack Fletcher

REVIEW:

• Inspired by a passage in Gulliver's Travels about a floating castle, Hayao Miyazaki created the myth of Laputa for Castle in the Sky. Well-suited to younger audiences, it's a fast-paced adventure story filled with many daring chases, captures, and escapes. One of the first feature-length animé films from Japan to receive international distribution, the setting has a strange Western feel to it with Industrial Revolution-style machinery and Caucasian-looking main characters. Being an aviation adventure, a lot of the action takes place in the air, with wildly contrasting flying machines and thousands of propellers. The design is especially notable when they all get to Laputa, which has a futuristic structure amazingly in tune with the natural surroundings. In this film, it seems that Miyazaki is developing the ecological themes, morally complex characters, and fantastic settings that he often returns to. For instance, the lovingly grotesque pirate mom Dora (excellently voiced by Cloris Leachman in the English-language version) manages to stride the line between good and evil like the characters in his subsequent works. Even the robots of Laputa are simultaneously creepy, destructive, and amazingly gentle beings. Though it's visually proficient and contains an expertly re-recorded musical score by Joe Hisaishi, some of the dialogue in the English version is corny and inconsistent with the original images. The story still delivers a standard fantasy adventure with glimpses of the director's trademark humanism and whimsy. Assembling the production team for Castle in the Sky led to the formation of the successful animation company Studio Ghibli. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi