Miyazaki Reviews: Castle In The Sky

A bit late with this one, I've been kinda busy this weekend watching movies and going to theme parks. Anyway enough blogging....wait...whatever Castle in the Sky:

Castle in the Sky is a 1987 film loosely based on that one floating island thingy place Laputa from the book, Gulliver's Travels. Ya know, the one nobody really seems to give a crap about, seeing as most gulliver's travels movies are about Lilliput and don't even mention the 5 other different islands Gulliver travels to. Anyways, when I say loosely, I mean it just has the city and nothing else. But so we start our journey with Ms. Protagonist in an airship where badass Air Pirates....well one badass Air Pirate voiced by Cloris Leachman and her bumbling sons. But so Ms. Protagonist escapes by litterally jumping out the blimp thinking "welp, might as well die"

Holy crap its my lucky day...

Meanwhile Mr. Protagonist is mining when out of nowhere Ms. Protagonist unconscious is floating down from the sky onto his hands. When he realizes freaking girls are falling from the sky, he takes her to his lovely abode...because he apparently has his own home. But anyways next morning she wakes up with lack of pants in his house, as he gets her some breakfast. Mr. Protagonist tells his story of how his dad saw this amazing floating castle but nobody believes him...even though he has pictures. Surely they coulda been Photoshopped. Ms. Protagonist explains her little necklace and how popular she is with evil organizations and pirates only to find out those pirates are back again looking for her.

So they go to the town to try to run away as a big chase ensues for her and her mystical necklace. They find out the crystal is magic (yeah no duh Sherlock) but then are both captured by what seems to be the military headed strangely by Jim Cummings and Mark Hamill. They let Mr. Protagonist go(yes I'm just gonna keep calling them that MYEH) and keep the girl for themselves. But Mr. Protagonist decides to save her from the likes of Pete and Luke Skywalker and teams up with the air pirates.

Superman....

Before they set off to save Ms. Protagonist, she tries a random spell she learned from her grandma which out of nowhere controls a giant robot that destroys the whole prison to protect her. Then as the pirates come to rescue her, in all the ruckus she loses the necklace anyways and The Joker finds it. Seeing that the kids are empty handed, the pirates let them stay anyways to help them find the flying castle island thing. They end up becoming apart of the crew and involve a scene with the pirates hitting on the underage girl which has barely anything to do with the plot but I wanted to mention it anyway. They get to the strangely deserted island only inhabited with more Iron Giants, but soon find out that Firelord Ozai and his army lead by Winnie the Pooh is here as well and has captured the pirates.

The Protagonists try to rescue the pirates and stop whatever Hobgoblin and Bonkers wants to do with this place. They find out that Dr. Stankfoot has betrayed ole' Psycrow and is actually an heir to the kingdom of the castle in the sky, as well as Ms. Protagonist herself. So, Snakebite Scruggs captures Princess Protagonist and tries to start the engine on this atom bomb in the sky. But Mr. Protagonist sets off to save her. They manage to escape from Buzz Buzzard's clutches and get with the pirates as they self destruct the whole place with Maximus still in it. So they fly off in the sunset as they see the explosion of their hopes and dreams and the fact that an entire military compound died. As they laugh it off, the Pirates reveal they got their treasures after all and promise to take them back as they go off on their caterpillar plane thing. and thus it ends with the now defunct Castle in the Sky going through the seasons of the earth.

And so that's Castle in the Sky. Personally one of my favorite Miyazaki movies actually, at least for the ones I've been revisiting so far anyway. It has beautiful animation and creativity, an interesting storyline, and great characters.....just like any other Miyazaki movie yes. Though this seems to me like almost a quintessential Miyazaki film having a lot of what other Miyazaki films have all in one. It isn't the best Miyazaki film, but like I said its personally one of my favorites for some reason. Though I'll probably go more in-depth as to what my favorites are once I finish this whole shenanigan. But for next time, we'll finally get to a movie I've actually seen recently, which is also coincidentally the mascot for Studio Ghibli ;)

Next Time, My Neighbor Totoro