LAPUTA of the sky castle is the Japanese original title. “Castle in the sky” is a good conversion in English. This story was based on the imaginary castle in the sky which was casted in 19th century of Wales, UK.
Miyazaki went to Wales England some years before this movies production started, so maybe the image of the trip influenced his basic idea of this story.
Story is filled with much romance and imagination. It’s not only a childish dream story but a fantasy for adults too. 2 main characters, Sita and Pazu, are very pure minded and brave enough to face hardship and evil. But again, this is not a war story but a fantasy of human.
This is not a simple animation. It has a lot of wisdom words and thoughts in the story. Human relationship between 2 main characters and sky pirates are finally touching, which tells more about humanism.
Sita says in the ending part to the evil person.
” I remember the words of my mother, “let’s live with our ground, hear the sound of wind, and let’s live in the nature ” ( I don’t know if this is the correct English expression ). After this word, Sita and Pazu said the word of destruction to the civilization controled by human evil.
Firstly, Laputa is drawn as a hope, dream, or fantasy. In the end, the Laputa dissapears with a stone of bright hope into the sky leaving behind all those evil of human. Laputa kept on being a symbol of dream and fantasy in the movie after all. Only the evil faded away by the power of Laputa or people’s wisdom.
In this explanation, maybe story becomes hard to comprehend, but it’s a very relaxing and charming animation. Please don’t worry. I reccommend all the family, if opssible, and the adults who sometimes remember your younger time of rich imagination and creative hope.
In closing, I believe the ending music is of this movie is the best music among his movie musics. And fans of Japan also selected this song as NO 1 music. Melody is great and I don’t want this story to end when I listen to this final song.
Laputa was originally imagined through the Gulliver story, but final story became totally different even the essence was taken from Gulliver. Laputa was not successful enough when it was released in Japanese theaters. As time goes by, this movies reputation went higher and higher. Both men and women can enjoy and theme is a kind of mind of human. Animation softens the strong message but the core spirit is lying through the movie. More than 20 years have past since the release of this movie, but the rerun was always successful both in movies and TV programs in Japan. This movie can stand the test of time.
It’s also true that many Miyazaki fans pick up this movie, Castle in the Sky, as the BEST of his works.
If I needed to chose one movie from his works, I also would give NO.1 to Laputa.
