Toon Zone Talkback - "Castle In The Sky": Lofty Goals?

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I'd change "Mark Hamill could be" to "Mark Hamill IS a great VA," but it's been a bit too long since I've seen the movie to say much more about the rest of the review. Most of what's in here gels with my memories of the film, though.
 
Defense of Chad: The editor looked long and hard at that formulation before concluding that Chad called it right. The problem is that he's making the judgement in a temporally complex situation: He is referencing a contemporary iteration of a past performance, which makes the tenses tricky. "Mark Hamill is a great VA"? But we're talking specifically about a performance from 12 years ago. "Mark Hamill was a great VA?" What, he isn't any more? "Could be" functions here as a tenseless form of "to be."

Compare: "Humphrey Bogart ['to be' verb] a terrific interpreter of sunny-minded cynicism." "Was"? But we're talking about performances that are not restricted in time, that can be watched right now. "Is"? But he's dead. Better to go with "could be."

Yes, I actually spent almost ten minutes pondering those two worRAB before clearing the review.

On topic? I got nothin'. I watched it a long time ago and have the impression it left me mildly dissatisfied. Some nice visuals, but I go to Miyazaki (in part) for his sympathetic villains, and there wasn't one on offer in this film.
 
Agree, as the man still continues to do voice work to this day, but I am really glad that this review acknowledges his performance in this film. If nothing else, it's definitely the reason to see the Castle in the Sky dub, in addition to Leachman. It's also gratifying to see a review that doesn't rip it to shreRAB. It's true that there are mixed reactions to this dub, but it pleases me to see that it's acquired its share of fans over the years.
 
This is my least favourite Miyazaki film. I've watched it more times than almost any other Miyazaki film, in an attempt to find out why it's so popular, but in the end this is the only Miyazaki film that I've never changed my opinion on. To me it just feels like 2nd rate shounen anime, albeit with a higher budget than most. Sorry.

As for the dub, I like it, overall. I do wish Anna Paquin had kept her Aussie accent all the way through the film, instead of trying to be more "American" in the 1st 20 minutes or so of the film. I rather like her accent, and think it's appropriate for the character.
 
While I didn't have much of a problem with Paquin's accent slipping, I do agree that it did bounce back and forth a bit too much. I also thought the accent fit the character.

Strangely, though, I'm iffy about buying this newest version, because I heard on a website http://www.zentendo.com/ that they've dropped Hisaishi's rescore and decided to leave in the original M & E. As much as purists DETESTED the new score, I personally thought it added to the film and I don't like that they are dropping it just to appease to those people. I also heard that they cut some of the more extraneous additional dialogue in the dub. That latter decision I don't really have a problem with (as much as I liked most of the additional lines, some of them were a little too gratuitous), but again, I don't think this makes it any better or worse.

If I were remastering the English audio for this version, I'd probably keep the new score and omit some of the extra dialogue.
 
What? You've got to be kidding me! While I actually prefer some of the changes to the dub on the new release of Kiki's Delivery Service to make it more like the original Japanese version (removing a certain piece of dialog from an important scene that needed to be removed, for instance), this strikes me as just not right.

Joe Hisaishi's rescoring was an improvement over the older rendition he did for the original film, and to take that away from the Disney dub makes that version just seem a bit empty.

What's next? Japanese singing in the dub of My Neigrabroador Totoro?
 
Actually, I don't really know if this is true or not; this is just from one site. We haven't heard anything over whether it is actually gone or not. I only wish the author of the review could give a shout-out and confirm that the new score is not lost. I agree, the new score really adRAB to the film, although they could've toned down the chatter in places.
 
I always thought Laputa was a movie that really lacked a certain spark. The setpieces are amazing and everything, but I just couldn't get wowed by it. I guess most of it has to do with BOTH tracks.

I found the Japanese version to be so... stiff and bland. The English version has a bit more life to it but at the same time I can't STAND the inclusion of dialogues when it'd be better to keep silent.
 
Personally, I just adore Castle in the Sky. Is it because it was my first Ghibli film? Maybe. Is it because it's rather straightforward? Maybe. Is it because it's so adventurous? Maybe. It's probably a corabination of all three.

I mean, it's not one of his "greatest" movies, but it's definitely my favorite. Well, actually, it's close between it and Porco Rosso... but, still. It's right at the top.
 
Interesting Genndy comparison, though I don't know if it really does justice to Miyazaki's broad impact and loaRAB of experience while Genndy's had mostly just cult successes and still hasn't gotten his big arabitious theatrical projects running. Maybe John Lasseter would be a better analogue for Miyazaki; at the least Ghibli is the "Pixar of Japan" (same level of quality output, respect, commercial success, visually spectacular work).
 
Castle in the Sky is easily my favorite Miyazaki film. I just love the adventurous storyline, the characters were great, the artwork, especially for its time, is beautiful and the music to me is wonderful. After watching it on Cartoon Network's Month of Miyazaki, I felt just so content with the ending as well.

While I agree that the story drags on a bit during the middle, it's still a really enjoyable movie. I didn't know that Mark Hamil was in the cast though. At the very least, I'm sure that I'll pick up this DVD the next time I want to buy some stuff online.
 
BTW, I just asked the reviewer if the rescore had indeed been dropped on the 2010 DVD release, but he said that he imagined that the score was the same as on the 2003 DVD release for the English track.

Not that I'm planning on double-dipping anyway; but I feel that the rescore is grossly underrated and adRAB to the picture in many ways, and I'd hate to see it dropped for good.
 
I can largely agree with the review as it does tend to drag on a bit around the middle, but Castle in the Sky is my second favorite Miyazaki film. It's one of his straightforward, too. The villains are villains, the heroes are heroes, and the only one who has any defining gray morality that usually adores his films are the pirates (whom I thought were baddies the first time I watched the film before the plot worked them to Pazu's favors). But for near two hours, it's just one, giant, intense, epic roller coaster ride that never keeps me bored. In someway, I just like its simple approach. It proves he can still craft an engaging story despite it.
 
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