Castle in the Sky
Encyclopedia
All compositions by Joe Hisaishi
.
, Gulliver's Travels
. In this story, Swift's Laputa
is also a flying island that may be controlled by its citizens. Anthony Lioi feels that Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky is similar to themes from Swift's Laputa, where the technological superiority of the castle in the sky is used for political ends.
Laputa is credited by Colonel Muska with having been behind Biblical
events and sacred Hindu legends
— thus tying the world of Laputa to our Earth (and to western European civilization
) — as do the medieval castle architecture
of parts of the fort on the ground; the Gothic
and half-timbered buildings in the village near the fort; the Welsh mining-town architecture, clothing, and even ground vehicles of Pazu's homeland; and the Victorian ambiance of the pirate ship. The anime also makes references to the Hindu epic
Ramayana
, including "Indra
's arrow", while the name Sheeta may possibly be a reference to Sita
, the female lead in the Ramayana.
Some of the architecture
seen in the film was inspired by a Welsh
mining town. Miyazaki first visited Wales in 1984 and witnessed the miners' strike
firsthand. He returned to the country in 1986 to prepare for Laputa, which he said reflected his Welsh experience: "I was in Wales just after the miners' strike. I really admired the way the miners' unions fought to the very end for their jobs and communities, and I wanted to reflect the strength of those communities in my film." Miyazaki told The Guardian
, "I admired those men, I admired the way they battled to save their way of life, just as the coal miners in Japan did. Many people of my generation see the miners as a symbol; a dying breed of fighting men. Now they are gone."
. This dub, produced for showing on international flights to Japan, was not produced by Streamline. According to Fred Patten of Streamline, "Streamline Pictures theatrically distributed an English-dubbed print of Laputa from March 24, 1989 for the next year, but Streamline never dubbed it. Streamline licensed Laputa from Tokuma Shoten in late 1988 or early 1989, and was sent a print from Japan that had already been dubbed into English for use as an in-flight film by Japan Air Lines on its trans-Pacific flights. "We have no idea who actually dubbed it." Reportedly, Carl Macek
was disappointed with this early dub, which is available only on the Japanese DVD release.
The Disney-produced English dub was recorded in 1998 and planned for release on video in 1999, but Disney eventually decided to release it to theaters instead.
After Princess Mononoke
flopped financially in the US, Laputa's release date was pushed back yet again; on occasion the completed dub was screened at select children's festivals. The film was finally released on DVD
and video in the US on April 15, 2003, alongside Kiki's Delivery Service
and Spirited Away
. As with Mononoke and Kiki, critical opinion was mixed about the new dub, but Cloris Leachman
and Mark Hamill
's performances as Dola and Muska drew praise. Laputa was the second-best selling DVD from Studio Ghibli distributed by Disney in the year of its release (after Spirited Away and ahead of Kiki's Delivery Service). Laputa was reissued on American home video in March 2010 as a tribute accompanying the home video release of Ponyo.
The film currently holds a 94% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes
. In an audience poll (with 80,402 voters) of 100 best animations of all time, conducted by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs
in 2007, Castle in the Sky was the second highest-ranked animated film, and third highest-ranked animation overall on the list.
The film received a re-screening on May 22, 2011 in Aberystwyth
as part of a charity fund for Japan
. The print shown was the original theatrical Japanese print with English subtitles.
Although meaningless in Japanese, "Laputa" comes from Gulliver's Travels. In 2003, the film's title was shortened from Laputa: Castle in the Sky to Castle in the Sky in several countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Spain. In Spain they named the castle: Lapuntu. This change was carried to a number of non-Spanish speaking countries, including Britain
and France, under Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment label. Although "Laputa" was removed from the title, it appeared on the rear cover of the DVD, and was used throughout the film, without modification.
The film's full name was later restored in Britain, in February 2006, when Optimum Asia – a division of London-based Optimum Releasing
– acquired the UK distribution rights to the Studio Ghibli collection.
Additionally, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the original English dub (the older, non-Streamline dub, or the pre-Disney dub) was screened in the UK, as an art house film, under the alternative title Laputa: The Flying Island. It was shown at least twice on British television, but some scenes were cut.
Although all these alterations were approved by Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki, there have been a number of critics who called them into question. On the other hand, Miyazaki himself is said to have approved of Hisaishi's reworking; his compliments were echoed by several reviewers. The 2010 DVD re-release omits most of these changes. The new score has been removed, having been replaced by Hisaishi's original synthesizer score, and a lot of the added dialogue has been eliminated, making the dub closer to the original Japanese. Additionally, the subtitles on the newer release are mostly dubtitles.
HOT-B began work on a video game adaptation
of Laputa. The final product, released in Japan as Koutetsu Teikoku for the Sega Mega Drive
video game console
as a shoot 'em up
, is very different to the source material. The game was subsequently brought to western market in 1992 by Acclaim Entertainment
's label Flying Edge
under the title Empire of Steel in Europe and Steel Empire
in the United States.
Joe Hisaishi
, known professionally as , is a composer and director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981.While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic,...
.
- "The Girl Who Fell from the Sky" – 2:27
- "Morning in Slag Ravine" – 3:04
- "A Fun Brawl (Pursuit)" – 4:27
- "Memories of Gondoa" – 2:46
- "Discouraged Pazu" – 1:46
- "Robot Soldier (Resurrection/Rescue)" – 2:34
- "Carrying You" – 2:02 (Chorus: Suginami Children's Choir)
- "Sheeta's Decision" – 2:05
- "On the Tiger Moth" – 2:32
- "An Omen to Ruin" – 2:18
- "The Sea of Cloud Under the Moonlight" – 2:33
- "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" – 4:36
- "The Collapse of Laputa" – 2:00 (Chorus: Suginami Children's Choir)
- "Carrying You" – 4:07 (sung by Azumi InoueAzumi Inoueis a Japanese singer. She graduated from Yugakkan High School in Kanazawa. She is best known for singing the opening and ending theme songs for the Hayao Miyazaki film My Neighbor Totoro: "Sanpo" and "My Neighbor Totoro". She is known for having a clear, light voice.Inoue is managed by the talent...
)
Influences
The name Laputa itself comes from a novel written by Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
, Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
. In this story, Swift's Laputa
Laputa
Laputa is a fictional place from the book Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.Laputa is a fictional flying island or rock, about 4.5 miles in diameter, with an adamantine base, which its inhabitants can maneuver in any direction using magnetic levitation...
is also a flying island that may be controlled by its citizens. Anthony Lioi feels that Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky is similar to themes from Swift's Laputa, where the technological superiority of the castle in the sky is used for political ends.
Laputa is credited by Colonel Muska with having been behind Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
events and sacred Hindu legends
Hindu mythology
Hindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...
— thus tying the world of Laputa to our Earth (and to western European civilization
Culture of Europe
The culture of Europe might better be described as a series of overlapping cultures. Whether it is a question of North as opposed to South; West as opposed to East; Orthodoxism as opposed to Protestantism as opposed to Catholicism as opposed to Secularism; many have claimed to identify cultural...
) — as do the medieval castle architecture
Medieval architecture
Medieval architecture is a term used to represent various forms of architecture common in Medieval Europe.-Characteristics:-Religious architecture:...
of parts of the fort on the ground; the Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and half-timbered buildings in the village near the fort; the Welsh mining-town architecture, clothing, and even ground vehicles of Pazu's homeland; and the Victorian ambiance of the pirate ship. The anime also makes references to the Hindu epic
Indian epic poetry
Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called Kavya . The Ramayana and Mahabharata, originally composed in Sanskrit and translated thereafter into many other Indian languages, are some of the oldest surviving epic poems on earth and form part of...
Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
, including "Indra
Indra
' or is the King of the demi-gods or Devas and Lord of Heaven or Svargaloka in Hindu mythology. He is also the God of War, Storms, and Rainfall.Indra is one of the chief deities in the Rigveda...
's arrow", while the name Sheeta may possibly be a reference to Sita
SITA
SITA is a multinational information technology company specialising in providing IT and telecommunication services to the air transport industry...
, the female lead in the Ramayana.
Some of the architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
seen in the film was inspired by a Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
mining town. Miyazaki first visited Wales in 1984 and witnessed the miners' strike
UK miners' strike (1984–1985)
The UK miners' strike was a major industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the British trades union movement...
firsthand. He returned to the country in 1986 to prepare for Laputa, which he said reflected his Welsh experience: "I was in Wales just after the miners' strike. I really admired the way the miners' unions fought to the very end for their jobs and communities, and I wanted to reflect the strength of those communities in my film." Miyazaki told The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, "I admired those men, I admired the way they battled to save their way of life, just as the coal miners in Japan did. Many people of my generation see the miners as a symbol; a dying breed of fighting men. Now they are gone."
Distribution and reception
In the late 1980s, an English version of Laputa was briefly shown in the US by Streamline PicturesStreamline Pictures
Streamline Pictures was an American media company that was best known for its distribution of English dubbed Japanese animation. -Founding:Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1988, Streamline Pictures was one of the first North American companies that was created primarily for the intention of...
. This dub, produced for showing on international flights to Japan, was not produced by Streamline. According to Fred Patten of Streamline, "Streamline Pictures theatrically distributed an English-dubbed print of Laputa from March 24, 1989 for the next year, but Streamline never dubbed it. Streamline licensed Laputa from Tokuma Shoten in late 1988 or early 1989, and was sent a print from Japan that had already been dubbed into English for use as an in-flight film by Japan Air Lines on its trans-Pacific flights. "We have no idea who actually dubbed it." Reportedly, Carl Macek
Carl Macek
Carl F. Macek was an American writer and controversial anime pioneer and producer of the 1980s and 1990s.-Robotech and Harmony Gold USA:...
was disappointed with this early dub, which is available only on the Japanese DVD release.
The Disney-produced English dub was recorded in 1998 and planned for release on video in 1999, but Disney eventually decided to release it to theaters instead.
After Princess Mononoke
Princess Mononoke
is a 1997 epic Japanese animated historical fantasy feature film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. is not a name, but a general term in the Japanese language for a spirit or monster...
flopped financially in the US, Laputa's release date was pushed back yet again; on occasion the completed dub was screened at select children's festivals. The film was finally released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and video in the US on April 15, 2003, alongside Kiki's Delivery Service
Kiki's Delivery Service
is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli film.The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989...
and Spirited Away
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
. As with Mononoke and Kiki, critical opinion was mixed about the new dub, but Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman is an American actress of stage, film and television. She has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards—more than any other performer—and one Daytime Emmy Award...
and Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
's performances as Dola and Muska drew praise. Laputa was the second-best selling DVD from Studio Ghibli distributed by Disney in the year of its release (after Spirited Away and ahead of Kiki's Delivery Service). Laputa was reissued on American home video in March 2010 as a tribute accompanying the home video release of Ponyo.
The film currently holds a 94% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. In an audience poll (with 80,402 voters) of 100 best animations of all time, conducted by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs
Agency for Cultural Affairs
The is a special body of the Japanese Ministry of Education . It was set up in 1968 to promote Japanese arts and culture. As of April 2007, it is led by the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs, Tamotsu Aoki....
in 2007, Castle in the Sky was the second highest-ranked animated film, and third highest-ranked animation overall on the list.
The film received a re-screening on May 22, 2011 in Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....
as part of a charity fund for Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. The print shown was the original theatrical Japanese print with English subtitles.
Awards
- Noburō ŌfujiNoburō Ōfujiwas a Japanese film director and animator. One of the most notable auteurs of anime of the first half of the 20th century , he worked primarily with cutout and silhouette animation...
Award; Mainichi Film Award - First Place; Pia Ten (Best Films of the Year)
- First Place; Japanese Movies; City Road
- First Place; Japanese Movies; Eiga Geijutsu (Movie Art)
- First Place; Japanese Films Best 10; Osaka Film Festival
- Eighth Place; Japanese Films; Kinema JunpoKinema Junpo, commonly called , is a Japanese film magazine which began publication in July 1919. The magazine was founded by a group of four students, including Saburō Tanaka, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology . In that first month, it was published three times on days with a "1" in them. These first three...
Best 10 - Second Place; Readers' Choice; Kinema Junpo Best 10
- Best Anime; 9th Anime Grand Prix
- Special Recommendation; The Central Committee for Children's Welfare
- Special Award (to Miyazaki & Takahata); Revival of Japanese Movies
- Best Design Award; Anime
Title
English language dubs of Laputa have been released under three different titles by three separate distributors. This is largely due to an unintended similarity to the Spanish phrase "la puta" (meaning "the whore") which would be offensive to many.Although meaningless in Japanese, "Laputa" comes from Gulliver's Travels. In 2003, the film's title was shortened from Laputa: Castle in the Sky to Castle in the Sky in several countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Spain. In Spain they named the castle: Lapuntu. This change was carried to a number of non-Spanish speaking countries, including Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and France, under Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment label. Although "Laputa" was removed from the title, it appeared on the rear cover of the DVD, and was used throughout the film, without modification.
The film's full name was later restored in Britain, in February 2006, when Optimum Asia – a division of London-based Optimum Releasing
Optimum Releasing
StudioCanal UK is a film distributor company working in the UK and Ireland. The company releases many films, including foreign language films, anime releases such as Studio Ghibli's films and independent British, Irish and American films in the UK and sometimes Ireland.Optimum was acquired by...
– acquired the UK distribution rights to the Studio Ghibli collection.
Additionally, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the original English dub (the older, non-Streamline dub, or the pre-Disney dub) was screened in the UK, as an art house film, under the alternative title Laputa: The Flying Island. It was shown at least twice on British television, but some scenes were cut.
Differences between versions
Although the plot and much of the script was left intact, Disney's English dub of Laputa: Castle in the Sky contains some changes. These differences do not appear in the original dub.- A significant quantity of background chatter and one-liners were added (even more so than in Disney's dub of Kiki's Delivery Service), filling in moments of silence and increasing the frenetic effect of certain scenes.
- Composer Joe HisaishiJoe Hisaishi, known professionally as , is a composer and director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981.While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic,...
was commissioned to rework and extend his original synthesizer-composed 39-minute soundtrack into a 90-minute piece for symphony orchestra in an effort to make the film more accessible to US audiences who are accustomed to a more substantial musical accompaniment. - Pazu and Sheeta, as portrayed by James Van Der BeekJames Van Der BeekJames William Van Der Beek, Jr. is an American television, film, and stage actor, known for his portrayal of Dawson Leery in The WB series Dawson's Creek...
and Anna PaquinAnna PaquinAnna Helene Paquin is a Canadian-born New Zealand actress. Paquin's first critically successful film was The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994 at the age of 11 – the second youngest winner in history...
, are made to sound as several years older, placing them in their mid-teens, rather than their pre-teens. - Several modifications were made to dialogue spoken to/about Sheeta by members of the Dola gang, including a declaration of love from one of the pirates. In the original Japanese version, the dialogue presented Sheeta as a potential mother figure for the pirates, instead of a potential romantic interest.
- References to Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis StevensonRobert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
's Treasure IslandTreasure IslandTreasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...
were removed, as was the reference to Jonathan SwiftJonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's Gulliver's TravelsGulliver's TravelsTravels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
.
Although all these alterations were approved by Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki, there have been a number of critics who called them into question. On the other hand, Miyazaki himself is said to have approved of Hisaishi's reworking; his compliments were echoed by several reviewers. The 2010 DVD re-release omits most of these changes. The new score has been removed, having been replaced by Hisaishi's original synthesizer score, and a lot of the added dialogue has been eliminated, making the dub closer to the original Japanese. Additionally, the subtitles on the newer release are mostly dubtitles.
Video game adaptation
Japanese video game developerVideo game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
HOT-B began work on a video game adaptation
Adaptation
An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....
of Laputa. The final product, released in Japan as Koutetsu Teikoku for the Sega Mega Drive
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
as a shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
, is very different to the source material. The game was subsequently brought to western market in 1992 by Acclaim Entertainment
Acclaim Entertainment
Acclaim Entertainment was an American video game developer and publisher. It developed, published, marketed and distributed interactive entertainment software for a variety of hardware platforms, including Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, and Game Gear, Nintendo's NES, SNES, Nintendo...
's label Flying Edge
Flying Edge
Flying Edge, Inc. was one of Acclaim Entertainment's brands used during the peak period of the Super NES and Mega Drive/Genesis dominated era during the early to mid 1990s....
under the title Empire of Steel in Europe and Steel Empire
Steel Empire
Steel Empire , and originally released as in Japan, is a 1992 side-scrolling shoot 'em up video game for the Sega Mega Drive home console, and was ported to the Nintendo Game Boy Advance in 2004.Steel Empire is notable amongst shoot 'em up games for its unique aesthetic...
in the United States.
External links
- 天空の城ラピュタ (Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta) at the Japanese Movie DatabaseJapanese Movie DatabaseThe , commonly referred to as JMDB, is an online database of information about Japanese movies, actors, and production crew personnel. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database, but lists only those films originally released in Japan. The site was started in 1997, and contains movies from Meiji...
(Japanese) - Detailed Laputa information on Nausicaa.net
- Links from Miyazaki’s Laputa to the works of Jules Verne.